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Tammy Grimes, DDB Founder

Chained in Chicago, 24 Hours, June 27-28

 

7:00 a.m. June 26, 2008. I get up and try to finish packing for Chicago, take care of the animals, and get ready. We had a change of plans yesterday because we need to transport China, a tiny puppy, with us to Chicago for her new mom to pick up there. So Gordon had to wait for someone to bring her to him before driving up from Mechanicsburg. He always brings a cart full of supplies, both dog food and cleaning supplies, he gets donated for us, and we're very grateful!

8:30 a.m. China and Gordon get here early, and of course I'm not ready yet, still in my jammies. Gordon's like, What the heck you doin'? 

9:00 a.m. We're jammed to the gills with booth stuff, 3 people, 1 puppy and her crate and supplies, and our personal suitcases. I  had wanted to bring Molly with me to try to get her a home, but there's not enough room, so she has to stay behind. (Turns out that was a very lucky stroke for me, since she would have wanted to get in my doghouse with me in Chicago, and there was barely room for me!)

The three of us, Gordon Bakalar, Rocky Shepheard, and I take turns driving on the way to Chicago. Gordon and I alternate sitting in the back with the puppy, fighting over her...she's so cute we can't help ourselves! He says if her mom doesn't show up he's keeping her, and he's not the last one to say that...

As I can, I work on my Breakthrough Parenting homework on the way out. Custody issues have made my life hell in the past year, on top of the Doogie hearings from hell. No one can be expected to fight two legal battles at once and survive emotionally; I ended up the loser in both...but now I'm back up and fighting again. I'm a good mother, and I'm tired of being pushed around by the bullies that be.

8:00 p.m. We get to our hotel, the Red Roof Inn in Naperville, and make an early night of it. China bunks with me, and she sleeps like a baby in her crate all night, even holding her poo until I get her outside in the morning. What a little trooper!

Friday, June 27, a.m. We go over to the Fairgrounds early to meet up with Susan and Cara, and of course everyone is fawning over Puppy! Who can resist her? Susan hands out our assignments, and we take off to do our part. Luckily for me, we pass a Mexican restaurant, my favorite, so we get to stop and have a nice lunch too! Gordon smuggles China in and puts her crate under the bench.

We spend a rough day doing all that work that no one really wants to do...setting up tents, picking up supplies, marking exhibit areas, etc...then a rough evening stuffing 200 goody bags! But, a major thanks to everyone who participated without complaint: Susan Hartland, Chain Off committee chair, Cynthia Drobitsch, Chain Off committee co-chair, Cara Wilson, me (OK, I did whine inside my head, but I think everyone did), Rocky Shepheard, Dawn Ashby, Brittany Ashby, Gordon Bakalar, and Jenny Lawson. 

Susan tells us to be at the field by 6:30 the next morning...Ugh. 

6:00 a.m. June 28, Chain Off Day. The weather is supposed to be good today, knock on wood, and we make it to the field by 7:00 a.m. The wind is proving to be a problem, and remains a problem all day long...it's a nightmare trying to keep the merchandise on the tables, and we end up breaking the beautiful new DDB pull up sign rod in the back...I knew I shouldn't have used it with that wind, but I couldn't resist!

9:00 a.m. Exhibitors are showing up, and Cynthia and Susan do a great job of running the event. I get the DDB booth set up, and then go change my clothes and get ready for 'the show'. If we were actors we'd probably all be fired, because it's so long and boring; but in a way it is a performance piece, just the most uneventful one you could ever imagine!

Cory, Julie, and Sammy show up. Sammy is a ten year old girl, who painted her own doghouse and planned to spend the 24 hours chained with her aunt and uncle. I can't help but cry when I see her, because I think of Brynnan with me last year. We bonded so much during that trip, and I miss her being here with me. Her father wouldn't 'allow' her to come with me this year, for no good reason. She kept asking me why she couldn't come, and I told her she'd have to ask him. I feel bad for both her and I, caught in a web not of our making, but one which we must somehow struggle to get through.

11:00 a.m. Susan MC's, and introduces me. I speak very briefly about why we're here today, but my words couldn't touch as well as Gordon's poem does, so I read that to the audience. I try to get Gordon to come up on stage with me, but he's studiously pretending he doesn't here me. I am so embarrassed that I totally choke up during the reading at one point, and I have a hard time finishing it! I was teasing Gordon cause he cried when he was telling me about reading it to his wife, and then I cried reading it to the audience! It's that good...meaning that sad. Well done, Gordon!

I also have all the chainee's introduce themselves and tell where they're from. We end up with 13 of the 17 people who said they'd be there. 

11:15 a.m. Commence chaining!  I have to say this was the busiest Chain Off for me in the first few hours. We never had all these exhibitors before, so much to watch, so many people to interact with! I spoke to a couple reporters, as did so many of the others, and got to meet many people I knew via online, etc. Sharon Pearce and Stacie Masters even flew in from Ohio just for our event, and they weren't even chaining! They both have my rescue angel tattoo's, so we had a little 'tattoo reunion'. I don't have a pic of that yet, but when I get one I'll add it!

2:00 p.m. I have a photo shoot with a professional photographer, believe it or not! She's a dog-lover, and she's doing a booth at the event and volunteered to take some professional shots of me pro-bono. I'm really excited, because I've always said I needed some, but am always reluctant to pay, and am of course waiting to lose that 10 or 20 pounds, you know how it goes...but with her volunteering, I figure I'll just do my best and hopefully come out with a couple of good shots to use in my work with DDB for speaking, etc...

(BTW, I did discover ONE thing the wind was good for that day...blowing my hair back! lol) Well, color me blessed! Christine Jaksy is SUCH a pro! She's a model and an actress amongst many other things, and she knows how to make the most of a person's looks in photos. She really works with me, and although I'm embarrassed to do all this while still chained to my doghouse and in front of everyone, I don't want to blow my one shot at a professional with my self-consciousness, so I try to pull off everything she asks of me to the best of my amateur ability. I must say, I now understand why people pay the professionals! She did such an excellent job, and she's SO gung-ho and so amazing at what she does, that I highly recommend using her services. Her website is at http://www.dogdayart.com. Here are a couple of the shots she took of me. Thank you, Christine!

3:00 p.m. The local sheriff comes by for the second time (darn, I should have taped him) to tell us there's a thunder storm warning...the sky is blue, so we don't worry about it that much, but shortly thereafter the wind picks up even more, and the sky is truly ominous looking. All the booths shut down early, and everyone ske-daddles out of there, except for the poor chained 'dogs' who are stuck looking at the sky to determine just how bad it will get for them. 

I imagine this goes through the mind of every chained dog on a daily basis. How bad is it going to be for me today? I sense bad weather coming...how bad will it get? Will I survive it? How long will it last and how uncomfortable will I be? Will I die of thirst today...hunger...cold...heat...storms? Just how much will I have to endure today to get to tomorrow when I go through it all again, and again, and again?

For what? FOR WHAT?

4:00 p.m. The first of the bad weather hits, and it's a typical rain storm...I look around frantically, it seriously never crossed my mind that I may have to crawl in my doghouse...but this year I have no umbrella, no nothing except a jacket. I think "I'll be tough, I can tough it out no matter what." I quickly figure out that I'm a big old wimp, and I look inside the doghouse...I'M GOIN' IN! Somehow the inside of that doghouse seems better to me than being soaking wet outside. It's just water, it shouldn't kill me, but still...

Inside the house is all straw and cobwebs, and dirt, and EEWW. I can barely squeeze in through the hole, I swear one more pound badly placed would have knocked out the possibility of even getting in the house. I stay until the rain ends, then crawl back out to survey the damage. Many of the chainees have umbrellas, small ones, or tarps, and since it was pretty short-lived no one seems the worse for wear.

5:00 p.m. Suddenly these REALLY scary clouds are coming our way, and the chainees seem so fragile in comparison to the ominous clouds that Mother Nature is sending our way. This is when we actually get hailed upon, believe it or not! It makes for a good story, but I still can't believe it really happened...how often in a summer do you get hail? I know in PA we might get it one-two times tops in a whole summer...just seems so funny we got it that day while we were sitting in a field like a bunch of trapped dogs.  What're the odds?

8:00 p.m. We get Susan and Kim's sister to go buy us all sandwiches for supper...not that I really needed it, I just ate because I was bored and had nothing better to do. Cory and Julie were fasting for the 24 hours, which I can't imagine doing when it's so darn boring! But they figured many dogs don't get to eat, so why should they? Susan leaves, and we're on our own for the night. The bathroom is a good quarter mile walk away, behind the grandstand, and normally that would be very annoying...but when you're chained, the only reason you're allowed off the chain is to use the restroom...so if the restroom is far away, that's all the better!

9:30 p.m. A guy named Dave I just met today brings us back some sleeping bags and blankets for those of us like me who didn't bring any. I'm incredibly grateful, and make a mental note to actually bring my own next year...and stop thinking I'm tough enough to go without! 

10:00 p.m. I snuggle down in the sleeping bag, and go to sleep. I hear Dawn talking to our overnight security guard and explaining to him what we're doing here.

1:00 a.m. It starts to sprinkle, but I remember that the weather forecast said there would be no rain. So I ignore it, snuggle down further, and just 'know' it will go away. It doesn't. 

I spend an hour in my denial, drifting in and out of sleep, all the while the steady rain gets a little harder and a little harder. Finally it soaks through my sleeping bag, and my clothes start to get wet. I know I'm screwed if that happens, and I have to get out of denial land and make a new plan. I go to the bathroom, ostensibly to use the facilities, but really to ponder running away, sleeping on the bench in there, or finding a hotel bed just waiting for me anywhere but here! If only I weren't the leader, I reason...I could run like a little pansy and no one would be the wiser...or really even care! But alas, my butt is on the line here, so I have to go back out there and suck it up somehow. I figure it's probably 4:30 or so anyway, right, so there's not that much longer that I have to make it. 

I'm massively pitying both myself and all the other people trapped in that field with me. I worry about them, especially Marla, who is 4 months pregnant, and I don't want anything to happen to her. When I go back out, I see that Kim and her sister are just sitting out in the rain, and I think, man, there's no way they can survive the whole night like that!

2:30 a.m. Crap, it's not 4:30 at all, but only 2:30 a.m.! I want to cry...but that will only make things worse. I crawl inside my doghouse, which I so didn't want to do, and frantically search for spiders. Thank God I don't see any, but I have nothing to cover with, no blankets anymore, and the rain and wind are blowing in the doghouse door. It is reasonably dry in much of the house, but I sit there shivering and don't think there's any way I can go through the next 4 hours like that.

I think there's probably clean plastic bags in the garbage cans, because I saw them changing them earlier, and I can probably do something with one of those over the door. I get out and go back to the bathroom, seeking something to cover myself with. I find only a roll of brown paper towels, so I figure that has to be better than nothing. I get three garbage bags out of cans, and give two of them to Kim and her sister. I cover my doghouse door with the other one, and cover myself with the paper towels and my towel that was only half wet. I curl up, grateful that Molly and Brynnan aren't here with me...we could never have squeezed in there together! I manage to sleep off and on until about 5:30 a.m.

5:30 a.m. I have to 'cheat' and go back to my hotel room, because my camera battery is dying, and I need it to take video of the chainees. I go back, but I don't allow myself to change clothes, lay down for even a second, or get a cup of hot chocolate, which I am dying to do. I figure if no one else can, I can't either. 

8:00 a.m. The weather has gotten better, and the sun is coming out. Most of us are laying out on the ground, drying our blankets over the fence, and trying to catch a little shut eye. Rhonda is so excited, waiting for Susan to come and bring coffee. I tell her I don't think Susan is really the motherly-type, and not to hold her breathe for her coffee...when you're a 'chained dog' and at the mercy of others for food and sustenance, you would be surprised at how little people cater to you, even when you're a person! It just doesn't occur to them that you're sitting there 'helplessly' waiting for them to bring you something...

So we sit there, listlessly, sleeping off and on, and doing our interviews for the DDB website until 11:00 a.m., the end of chaining. We are very blessed that a reporter and a photographer show up at 10:30 for interviews, which somehow validates the night of hell we all just went through. However, with or without the reporters, we know what we lived through, and we will always remember last night, for better or worse.

Now we truly know what it's like to be a dog, helpless, chained, surviving a night of wind, rain, and hail. We did one, and they do thousands. Let me tell you, it's truly as bad as you can imagine.