I Always Liked That Bowl

I only have a few bowls that I really treasure, and this one wasn’t one of those. Mostly I cherish the ones I made in the few years I was a not so very good potter, but this was one that was a gift from the mother of a sometime boyfriend, well, actually a man who broke my heart once.

But I still liked the bowl quite a lot.

It was an old stoneware bowl, creamy white with an unglazed rim where it rested in the kiln. It had a thick rim and a molded design of arrows and spikes. It wasn’t big enough for bread, but it had that old-kitchen happy-baker appeal.

There was an amaryllis in a molded paper pot resting inside. I never even heard the crash. I was on the phone with my mother in the next room, prattling happily about how puppy timeouts actually work, when it occurred to me to wonder what the puppy was doing. I cracked the door and peered around its edge to spy Miss Cassandra. Prancing, one foot after another in four by four time. Tossing the molded paper pot up and down, potting soil and pottery shards all around.

“Ain’t it great, Mom?”

Puppy timeout. Broom. Find the amaryllis (are they poisonous to puppies?). Repot it. Let the puppy out of timeout.

And now we see the real lesson. My puppy, who has many talents—fortunate and unfortunate—just learned to jump up on the sofa. All by herself. Okay, so maybe it is not a joy I would have wished her to learn, maybe I don’t have the same view as she does, but she is jubilant..

"Look, Mom! Look at me!"

Good girl, Cassie, good girl.

We will talk about behavior later, but tonight I have a happy puppy. It was only a bowl.