HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

Woke up to a storm this Wednesday morning with wind surging in nor’easterly gusts, rain pounding the roof, and thunder booming like one of those Civil War reenactments taking place right over in Niantic Park. As I look out my front window, a surge of water is rolling southward along the street, enough to hold at least one ark with pairs of giraffes, hippos and zebras at the prow.

This is the kind of storm you can’t help feeling in your gut — no matter how irrational it is — that you should have been warned about. I’m not talking about checking online to see cute graphics of clouds and smiling suns. I’m talking about a knock on your door the night before, where an old-fashioned guy in a Western Union cap hands you a telegram reading: Big storm coming. Take every precaution.

Now, a lot of people can just stay indoors and appreciate the very thought of the bean and macaroni soup they were clever enough to prepare in their slow cooker the day before. They can put on their slippers, a polar-fleece bathrobe, and, if the storm keeps up, fantasize the perfectly worded call to work to get them off the hook for the rest of the day. If the electricity is still operational, they can brew coffee, make toast, and settle in with the new Jeff Deavers mystery.

And then there are those who have dogs.

Now my dog is so smart, he’s lying unnaturally still under the covers. He knows what all those storm sounds betoken: A miserable half-crouch, half-drag through walls of wind and water where he’s expected to do — he forgets what — suffer? Search for sodden tennis balls? Oh yeah, nature calls, and he gets about his business, usually, mercifully, much quicker than he does on sunny days, when he’s cagey enough to know that if he delays doing that thing that causes his mom to slide a plastic bag out of her pocket, then he gets to snuffle down this lane and this alley, across this park and another one, maybe even over to the beach — oh boy! A dog’s life is the bomb! And then at the end of this madcap adventure, there’s breakfast!

Meanwhile, on a morning such as this one, half an hour ago when I lay in bed with my pooch’s warm furry body snuggled against my legs, I tried, as I always do in this situation, to figure out if there’s any way to avoid the morning excursion into the storm to meet my dog’s elimination needs. I know that owners of tiny dogs can work something out with newspapers or even these doggy-type diapers on the floor. That wouldn’t fly with any animal over, say, 10 pounds or, indeed, any dog who hadn’t been trained to stand by the door and wait for an outward bound experience.

There are also lucky dog owners who have large acreage or fenced yards. These happy humans can just open the back door, wave — or on a day like this, push — the hounds out, then shut the door with a sense of guilty relief that they have no need to bundle up in rain slickers and umbrellas, which the wind will turn inside out in the first two minutes, to oversee the project. On the other hand, a townie dog like mine requires a leash and a storm-battered owner who jumps a foot in the air every time there’s a drumroll of thunder.

All right, time to haul Huxley out from under the comforter. If I get struck by lightning, I appoint Tom Dresser to continue this week’s town column . . .

Tom: You can go back to writing your next book.

Hux and I made it home, not only alive and, admittedly, drenched, but in record time. Within the first 30 seconds, thunder exploded practically under my feet, and I did jump and shriek, which didn’t do Huxley’s nerves any good. He flopped down in what antiwar activists call passive resistance, and then he kept trying to make a break for home. At first his attempts to pee were blocked by profound anxiety; he repeatedly raised a leg alongside a bush, then began to quiver. The leg grew flimsy and dropped. Finally his leg-hoists grew more productive, but then there was still the question of the main event of every dog walk. Only a few doors from home, he led me down a manicured garden between two cottages. Normally I would never invade this kind of private territory, but drastic times call for drastic measures. Sure enough, halfway down the grassy center, he scored his goal. I bagged the goods and we literally ran for home.

Put this in your calendars, so you can take part in the One Book One Island 2011 event: On Wednesday, April 27, 11 a.m. at the Oak Bluffs library, a discussion will be held about Barbara Kingsolver’s magnificent book, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. At 12:30 p.m. the club will hold a “local” lunch.

Then, as if that weren’t enough, on the very next night, Thursday, April 28, 6:30 p.m., also at our library, a panel discussion will be held, inspired by Kingsolver’s book. The topic: Local and sustainable. The participants will be gathered from the Farm Institute, Morning Glory Farm, Island Grown Institute, Whipporwill Farm CSA, Native Earth Teaching Farm, Edible Vineyard Magazine; the program to be moderated by Nis Kildegaard. This is major!