The white and I - 1

But the other men, they can get really embarassed by her admiring staring. They avoid her eyes and look away, so I have to explain that she is so interested, that she has been watching from day one and that she loves the house. They answers yes, they understand, looking worried at each other and not at her, but at me! And I smile back and feel that I get completely Donald Duck in my face and say "sweet Steffi, we must make a move otherwise we might be too late for the post office. And I say it even if the time is half past eight and the post office doesn´t close until five and we are as close as 100 yards away from the post office, because I know that the white likes to use the time she in her opinion needs.

But it is nice in the post office as well, because sometimes we arrive at the same time as the men with the large post boxes located at the bottom, and they get so much post that they bring with them large sacks that they fill with their mail. And she is quick offering her assistance, and without waiting for an answer she puts her head into the postbox and start sorting. Then the men starts smiling and say yes, yes, these puppies does a lot of strange things, she will certainly improve when she grows up, but now she as to move because the boss don´t like letters with bite marks. How old is she, by the way? And I say two years, almost three in fact, and the men wrinkle their eyebrows, but I explain that it is important to keep the child in you, the ability to play and be curious. And then the men smile again, because this is something many men understands.

On the way home, the white demand to pass her house once more, because now we have got more time. The white stares and stares and I have stopped trying to find out what she stares at. One day she put her head under the fence, under the plate, and stared downwards. I stared too, out in the air and up in the sky, and we stood like this for a long time, until I started to wonder why she was staring for such a long time in the same direction.

But she wasn´t staring. She had got hold of an enormous mane of big, black curls that she was licking and nursing and snatching at and dressing with the best and most considerate way. Under the curls was a white face with mouth and eyes wide open with looking deadly scared, and under the head was a stiff body glued to the wall, with both arms pointing straight out in the air. I made the white pull back while I was regretting, excusing and regretting again, she is so kind, she only means to be friendly, she only pulls by the hair the ones she likes, and in the meantime I was dying with shame, while the white shook her head to get rid of some hair stuck between her teeth.

The white and I waited until the man had got his blood more evenly distributed and assembled his body again, and ensured us that no, he didn´t get scared, he had not been afraid at all. What on earth had made me believe that?

Sometimes we are lazy, the white and I. We go for an evening walk, but we don´t walk far, we just walk over to the park, where the highway department has stationed one of their huge tractors for the night. It is absolutely quiet, no one sees us in the dusk and I let the white go close to the tractor for a closer inspection. Then we are standing there, the white and I, and the white sniffs and sniffs, she becomes like a tiny, white ghost besides the enormous wheels and I let her examine the tractor as much as she wants until my feet gets cold and I have to persuade her to follow me home again. When we come home the man in the house says good grief you have been away for a long time, you must be exhausted after such a long walk! And I answer yes indeed and gives the white some pear yoghurt on a dish which she licks with joy before going to bed. The white sleeps well, dreaming about excavators and tractors and irresistable, black curls that need just a little bit tidying...