Chasing Flies and Laughing Dogs

by Deborah Parkhill Mullis

I rarely need a fly swatter in the summer because my dog, Blanco, will relentlessly pursue any fly that dares to invade our house, corner it and fight the unlucky insect to its inevitable death. What can I say? He’s part terrier and it saves me time. I just have to sweep up the remains. I’m even guilty of sicing my dog on any suicidal flies that I see first. All I have to do is point and go “BZZZZZ” and he’s on the hunt. (Writing can be very lonely so I have to stop and entertain myself somehow from time to time.)

My other dog, Okami, usually watches this spectacle without emotion. Today, however, was different. While chasing a buzzing kamikaze, Blanco ran underneath my desk and banged his head on the keyboard tray, jarring it and startling us both. I stopped typing and Blanco stopped stalking. Then came the victory buzz of the fly that got away from my entomologic hell hound. Blanco hung his tail down in defeat.

The most amusing thing to me, however, was Okami’s reaction to this slapstick scenario. Watching from her bed beside my desk, she was wearing a canine grin from one prick ear to the other, her tail wagging furiously. Now Okami is a quiet, shy, serious-natured dog that is not given to much fast and furious tail wagging. Even when she’s getting her favorite food or treat, it’s more of a slow and steady sway.

So please forgive me for my anthropomorphic tendencies (occupational hazard) but I do believe Okami thought the sight of her brother being outwitted by a fly and banging his head in the process was pretty dog-gone funny. And poor Blanco just looked embarrassed by it all. Which raises a couple questions in my mind: Do canines have a sense of comedy? Do other people use their dog as a green solution for household pests?

(Deborah's essay was originally published in the 2009 launch of South Charlotte Weekly's "Animal House" section)

doggie door not exactly heaven s(c)ent

by Deborah Parkhill Mullis

Of all the home improvements we’ve made so far this year, the storm door with a doggie door in it was my favorite. It made my life so much easier after we adopted a second dog that I ranked it above the smooth cook top stove and the self-cleaning oven.

Adopting a second dog made perfect sense as the first dog had finally calmed down after four years and I feared a normal life. If that wasn’t self-defeating enough, I was getting bored being a doorkeeper for a single dog. By adding a second dog, I could see if two dogs running in and out all day suited me better. Remarkably, I did not find facilitating twice the number of border patrols and boundary markings more rewarding. So to safeguard my sanity, my husband installed a doggie door.

The puppy, Okami, had no problem adjusting to the doggie door. My smart little girl was pushing her way past the vinyl flap and into the backyard with only a day of training - she’s part border collie. Big brother, Blanco, comfortable with my role as a concierge for canines, took more convincing. His refusals to come out the door when I called sent an unmistakable message: “You don’t call me, I call you … remember?”

Begging sometimes worked. Kneeling outside the doggie door, holding the vinyl flap high so his white fur would not be sullied, I waved a piece of cheese and pleaded. Every now and then, ‘His Highness’ would reluctantly pass through the undignified little hole to survey his backyard kingdom.

Obviously, this was more work than my old doorkeeper job. Yet, I had faith that my stubborn boy (he’s part Siberian husky) would eventually see the advantages of a doggie door. Sure enough, my services were soon limited to lifting only a corner of the flap. One happy day, Blanco discovered the puppy’s canine sensibilities and started slipping through the doggie door with his intuitive little sister. Eventually, he lowered himself to going in and out on his own.

With both dogs trained, I saw no negatives to the doggie door. I could now do any number of things without canine interference. I burned less food, made fewer mistakes in the checkbook register and read past the introductory pages of my library books. As far as I was concerned, the doggie door was a sweet deal!

One should never get too cocky about one’s home improvements

Late one night, I was watching television with my two children when Blanco came barreling through the doggie door in a panic.

“Eeewww!” screamed my daughter.

“What is that smell?” shouted my son.

Blanco looked like he’d been attacked by a fire extinguisher and smelled like burning rubber smothered in onions.

“Help me open the windows!” I exclaimed. Immediately, my children jumped up and ran away, slamming their bedroom doors behind them. I stood alone with a very bewildered dog that was vigorously slinging foul-smelling slobber in every direction.

Blanco had been on backyard border patrol at 11:30 p.m. when he discovered an uninvited guest in our vegetable garden. Intending to chase the intruder over the fence before it got a taste of our tomatoes; he got a taste of its secret weapon. After he recovered from his shock, I imagine poor Blanco was impressed by a ‘cat’ that could mace in his face like that!

I called the 24-hour emergency veterinary clinic and hastily explained why I needed to bring in my dog. The veterinary technician who answered wasted no time explaining why I did not need to bring in my dog. Rather, she gave me a recipe (using household items I did not have in my household) for dog shampoo that removes skunk spray odor from dog fur. “And call your regular vet in the morning,” she said.

My next move was to call my husband home from his night shift job due to the family emergency of needing dog shampoo ingredients. He made a midnight run to Wal-Mart and came home with enough hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish soap to give all 50 dogs in our neighborhood a bath.

Bathing a dog by moonlight was a new experience for us - and judging from the lights that flicked on and off at 1 a.m. - for a few of our neighbors, too.

After more baths than he’d had since birth, Blanco’s white fur sparkled and he smelled like a dog again. In the meantime, Okami had thoroughly investigated (read: rolled around in) her big brother’s drool. Having forgotten my teenage experiments with hydrogen peroxide and shampoo, we bathed Okami, too. Her black and brown fur sports blonde highlights now.

Leaving the clean dogs outdoors in the clean air, we braved the noxious fumes indoors. Thankfully, the stench was still extremely strong and had drifted throughout the entire house, thus we had no problem staying awake to clean. While washing walls, mopping floors and gagging at 3 a.m., I made a mental note: move doggie door off favorite’s list.

(This essay was published on Metrolina Dog Reporter)

ALERT TEEN HELPS NIP HOUSE FIRE IN THE BUD

Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
1995-07-13
Section: METRO
Edition: ONE - FOUR
Page: 2C

   DEBORAH PARKHILL MULLIS, Staff Writer

Pamela Prince still gets chills thinking about what could have happened if Stephanie Davis had not knocked on her door and told her the house was on fire.

``She delivered a message. It was a godsend - an absolute blessing,'' said Prince, who lives at 5401 Woodcreek Dr. in south Charlotte's Five Knolls neighborhood. She said Wednesday she debated whether to answer her door at 2 p.m. Tuesday. ``I'd never seen her before,'' she said. ``When she showed up I thought, Who is this person?' ``

Stephanie, 16, said Wednesday: ``I'm glad I could help. I hope somebody would do it for me. It wasn't anything special.''

Prince was in her art studio on the second floor when Stephanie rang the bell and told her the cedar siding at the rear of the house was on fire. Prince said a maid was in the house, too, cleaning an upstairs bathroom.

``The flames were about 5 feet high when I went through the back door,'' said Prince. ``All I could think was to grab the garden hose. Thank God it was hooked up.''

Prince sprayed water on the fire until the flames disappeared. Then she called 911. Firefighters at Station 24 on N.C. 51 responded. They checked the exterior siding and the interior walls to make certain the fire was out.

It was ``extremely lucky'' Stephanie happened by, said Capt. Dennis Blanton, because it was an outside fire and smoke detectors inside the house would not have activated until the attic was in flames. ``They would have had no warning,'' he said.

Blanton commended Stephanie for first notifying the occupants that they were in danger. ``That's the most important thing,'' he said.

``A few more minutes and the whole exterior of the back porch area of the house would have been on fire,'' he said, ``So much heat had gotten to the (kitchen) windows . . . they had broken.''

Prince said hot cigarette ashes inadvertently dumped into a plastic trash bag on her deck started the fire. The trash bag was filled with paper products. Damage included charred cedar siding and broken windows. There was no interior damage.

People just don't think about hot ashes from cigarettes, fireplaces or grills starting fires, explained Blanton. Any kind of cinders are likely to start fires, he said, especially if they drop onto wooden decks.

Stephanie was walking down Summergate Street on her way to feed a neighbor's cat when she saw the fire.

A rising senior at Charlotte Country Day, Stephanie works for Kerr Drug Store. Because she was working the 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. shift Tuesday, she was on her way to feed the cat at 2 p.m.

``Last week I fed the cat around 5 p.m.'' she said. 

Staff photo by DEBORAH PARKHILL MULLIS: Stephanie Davis, 16, holds a screen from the back window. That's as far as the fire got. 

Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
1995-07-05
Section: METRO
Edition: ONE - FOUR
Page: 1C

PROPRIETOR OF THE PUMP HOUSE PUTS CLOSED' SIGN ON EATERY FOR GOOD

   DEBORAH PARKHILL MULLIS, Staff Writer

Folks who frequented north Charlotte's Pump House Restaurant for ``country cookin' the way it was meant to be'' will have to find another place to eat.

The owner and operator, Edith Howell, 77, retired last week after serving food from the plain, concrete-block building on the corner of Statesville Road and Lake Road for more than 30 years. A catering company has leased the building but does not plan now to open a restaurant. 

``I hope I have a happy retirement but I love working,'' Howell said Friday morning.  She had already fried country-style steaks, soaked pinto beans and boiled tea bags; it was business as usual, except for a lack of corn bread.

``I didn't make corn bread today. I buggered out. . . . Too excited, I guess,'' said Howell, plunging her hands into the deep pockets of her red gingham apron.

Flowers from family members and friends filled one end of the soda fountain counter - a tribute to the woman who's nourished north Charlotte's Nevins Community in many ways for many years.

``This neighborhood is going to miss her,'' said Teena Hunt, who was the only other employee at the restaurant in recent years. ``She went out her way to do things for people.''

Some of those things, said Howell's daughter Elaine Bailes, included sending hot meals to homebound neighbors, feeding folks who couldn't afford to pay and providing a gathering place for neighborhood teenagers.

In the mid-1960s - about the time her business began to boom - Howell decided to do something to entertain teenagers in the community. On Saturday nights, tables and chairs were pushed aside and local bands played at the Pump House.

``When (teenagers) came into mother's restaurant they were very respectful or mother would not let them come back,'' said Bailes. ``No cursing, no drinking. She had a very well behaved crowd for a 5-foot-5-inch petite female.''

``I've always talked to my customers just like they were my children or my brothers and sisters. It's been such a joy,'' said Howell. ``Lots of them call me Granny now but they used to call me Mama.''

Howell served three meals a day, six days a week for years to customers she says ranged ``from muddy boots to three-piece suits.'' Before I-77 opened, truckers traveling Statesville Road were a big part of her business. ``I fixed 40 to 50 go boxes' a night for the freight-liners,'' she said.

``It's like Mom's second kitchen,'' said Melvin Sanders of Fontaine Transport Equipment Co., a patron of the Pump House for 22 years. ``Even when we had a 30-minute lunch we would run up here, grab some good food and eat it on the way back. It made our day.''

Howell was raised on a 70-acre farm off Idlewild Road. She first baked bread at the age of 5. ``Daddy made a stool because I wasn't tall enough to reach the top of the work table,'' she said.

In 1939, she married Dewey McDonald Howell and they had three children. When her husband was disabled, she went into the restaurant business.

She started humbly enough. She sold snacks from 300 square feet of rented space in the back of the building that became the Pump House Restaurant. Eventually, the restaurant grew to seat 70 people.

She shared that space with Howard Stewart, owner of A&A Pump Service. Howell took phone messages for Stewart's well-drilling business. Hence, the restaurant's name.

``She sold candy out the back door,'' joked Stewart. The Pump House Restaurant was never listed in the phone book. Folks had to call A&A Pump Service to place an order.

The only advertising ever needed was Howell's home cooking, community mindedness and sense of humor. 

Photo by the Associated Press: Calling it quits: Edith Howell (standing, left), 77, talks with some of her last customers on the eve of closing her Pump House Restaurant for retirement. Howell has operated the Charlotte restaurant on Statesville Road for more than 30 years. 

Love or Death - What Are Angels Up To?

Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
1995-06-15
Section: METRO
Edition: ONE - FOUR
Page: 1C

LOVE OR DEATH - WHAT ARE ANGELS UP TO?

DEBORAH PARKHILL MULLIS, Staff Writer

Those chubby ``cherubs'' on this year's Love stamps may not be the little darlings they appear to be.

The angelic creatures are the creation of Renaissance painter Raphael. The U.S. Postal Service issued a 32-cent angel stamp in February and another for 55 cents in May. The idea was to add a little romance to wedding invitations and Valentine's Day cards, said Dick Rosenbeck, manager at the Independence Contract Station. But at least one lover of Renaissance art doesn't believe the angels are the appropriate adornment for the Love stamps.

``They are not cherubs,' but . . . guardian death angels,'' wrote Joseph Scafetta Jr. in a February letter to the editor of The Washington Post. According to Scafetta guardian death angels or ``putti'' escort the dead to heaven or hell.

He claims the two angels in the painting known as ``The Sistine Madonna'' are ``resting their elbows on top of the coffin bearing the body of Pope Julius II.''

Death angels delivering love letters and wedding invitations does seem inappropriate. But whether those angels are death angels is debatable.

``Putti are just little winged guys,'' said David Steel, curator of European art at the N.C. Museum of Art. ``I'm sure the reason the Postal Service picked them is because they are among the most beautiful angels ever painted.''

Steel doesn't believe these angels are leaning on a coffin waiting for the deceased pope's final destination to be determined. ``To say that that's the coffin of Julius II is stretching it a bit,'' he said.

Steele points out that Pope Julius II was a patron of Raphael and probably commissioned the painting before he died. ``You don't commission a painting like this and leave that issue in doubt,'' he said.

Whatever the case, Charlotteans like the stamp, said Rosenbeck. He said people aren't necessarily asking for the stamps. They're asking for something cute, something different, and something other than a flag stamp.

On that cue, postal clerks make angels appear. 

Photo Reprinted from ``Illustrated Dictionary of Art & Artists'' / The controversial cherubs are from a Raphael painting known as ``The Sistine Madonna.'' 

Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
1995-06-13
Section: METRO
Edition: ONE - FOUR
Page: 1C

MAKING WAY FOR DUCKLINGS

DEBORAH PARKHILL MULLIS, Staff Writer

Mama mallard and her newly hatched family of ducklings cruised the pond at Marshall Park under cloudy skies Monday.

They spent the weekend settling in after their self-appointed caretaker, Amos Hucks, helped mama and her nine ducklings make the move Friday afternoon. 

A few weeks ago, Hucks, a security supervisor at Old City Hall, discovered the mallard nest under a holly bush near the building and decided to keep an eye on the mama and her 10 eggs. Several times, he saw the mallard wing her way over to the pond at Marshall Park, tucking in her precious eggs with a layer of duck down so they'd stay warm.

When Hucks got to work at 8 a.m. Friday, five ducklings had broken free of their eggshells. By lunchtime, four more had emerged. The tenth never hatched.

From the moment he began his duck watch, Hucks began to worry about how the babies would safely cross 4th Street, then 3rd, to get to the Marshall Park pond. He'd entertained the idea of relocating theducks to a lake outside the city, but when he saw the ducks Friday, he knew mama mallard was ready to move.

``She'd taken them out of the nest and on to the concrete walk . . . they were heading toward 4th Street,'' said Hucks.

He decided not to let the ducklings risk uptown Charlotte traffic. He gathered them into a cardboard box and carried them to Marshall Park. As Hucks walked across 4th and 3rd, mama mallard waddled behind him.

At the park, Hucks tilted the box and let the ducklings slip into the water. ``Away they went,'' he said. 

Gulp! A wad of gum takes me back to my childhood

by Deborah Parkhill Mullis

I was having a pretty good Monday until I swallowed my chewing gum shortly after lunch.

Here I am, a 37-year-old mother of two, and I've committed one of the biggest no-no's of childhood. Don't talk to strangers. Don't play with matches. And for goodness sake, don't swallow your gum.

How could I swallow my gum? Obviously, I haven't done that in a while - if ever. Surely, I swallowed my gum a few times as a child. Why else would the words "your insides will get stopped up" have popped into my brain?

Such a comforting thought. Why do parents say things like that?

It sure felt funny, like half of my gum agreed to hang on to the back of my throat while the other half bungee-jumped down my esophagus and into my stomach. Should I call a doctor? Nah, little children survive this every day, don't they?

Yes, according to Chris Fitch, a pediatric nurse at Matthews Children's Clinic, they do. "As far as I know, I've never heard of any medical problems from children swallowing gum," said Fitch. "It really doesn't get digested very well but it really doesn't do any harm."

Why, then, do parents perpetuate these terrible tales of intestinal trauma?

"I think parents say those things to kids because they don't want them swallowing their gum," said Steve Deal, a gastroenterologist at Charlotte Clinic for Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease.

Deal's professional opinion regarding the occasional ingestion of one's chewing gum is, "This, too, will pass."

Gum is a nondigestible solid and unless you have a substantial abnormality it should pass without event, he said. "Your intestinal tract is a remarkable organ. It has the ability to digest those things with nutritional value and discard the rest."

"I certainly wouldn't advocate swallowing gum or other indigestible substances," said Deal, but "it doesn't pile up in your colon and turn into a big gum ball." Good. That's just a rumor.

My own children, to my knowledge, have never swallowed their gum. That would be too simple. Instead, when the oldest one was between 3 and 4, he stuffed a well-chewed piece of chewing gum into his belly button. After a few failed attempts at removing it, he came to me fearing the only way to free his "innie" from the sticky filling was an operation. Dabbing at the gum with a cotton swab I'd soaked in alcohol, it was all I could do to keep a straight face as I did my motherly duty: extracting chewing gum from a child-sized navel. Incidentally, he never did that again.

All in all, swallowing my gum was more of psychological upset than a stomach upset. I did have a little indigestion, which I attribute to one of two things: Either the gum didn't agree with the tuna and crackers I'd eaten earlier or no matter your age, swallowing your gum is a major taboo.

(This article was published in the Charlotte Observer Family Section)