Silver Linings

I’ve been trying to get the dogs to more than one obedience class per week, so the school’s Tuesday schedule of one morning and one evening class seemed ideal. I’d take each dog separately to one class on Tuesday, and then Ross & I would take them both to the Saturday class. This is the first week I’ve put this plan into operation. My problem child, Zeus, takes more of my energy, so I decided I’d take him to the morning class when I’m fresher, and Hera to the evening class. So I loaded Zeus into the minivan this morning and off we went.

Halfway to the class, I realized I wasn’t wearing the right shoes, but I decided I’d tough it out. Shoes might not sound like a big deal, but when you’re dealing with a 140 pound dog, digging in your heels requires the right footwear.

When we arrived at the church in Southlake, where the school’s website said the class would be held, no one was there. I managed to dig up the instructor’s phone number and was about to call him when another student and dog arrived. As we were unloading, someone else came and told us the class was at the town center. I heard the words, but my brain registered Keller, since that’s where the Saturday classes are often held. Great, I thought, I can swing by the house, pick up my shoes, and head to class.

I began to think something might be wrong when the car in front of me headed straight on Carroll Avenue rather than getting on the highway. Had I misunderstood the new location? I wanted my shoes, though, so I stuck to my plan. Arriving at Keller Town Center, you guessed it, no one was there. I called the instructor to find out where exactly they were in Southlake Town Center and whether I could still get there before it was too late.

There’s another reason I misunderstood the change in location. In Keller, classes are held in a big, open field. Southlake Town Center is a shopping center disguised as a small town downtown. That’s the last place I wanted to go with scaredy boy, so I think I heard what I wanted to hear. Despite that, I decided to take him over to Southlake. We were going to be so late I figured his exposure would be short and it might actually do him some good.

We managed to catch up for about the last third of the class. Zeus did reasonably well considering the situation. He was willing to heel politely for the most part, although his tail stayed tucked. The hardest part for him was waiting outside while the rest of the dogs took a tour of the Apple Store. No, he wasn’t pining for an iPhone 4. People are more likely to scare him if he’s sitting still. And he did become frightened, and I did have to perform a bit of a cleanup, but it wasn’t awful. More important, while he was very anxious, he never panicked or shut down.

After the Apple Store adventure, we walked back to the class rendezvous, had a little water, and dispersed. I’d unknowingly parked about as far from there as I could have. Zeus did quite well walking back to the minivan, even without the security of the larger pack. I think we might be making progress again.

It all worked out for the best. Had I known where class was going to be in the first place, I’d have taken Hera, not Zeus. Had I not forgotten my shoes and gone to the wrong location a second time, the experience might have been overwhelming for Zeus. Sometimes life’s little speed bumps aren’t a bad thing.

A Watchful Buddha

This imposing Buddha keeps watch over the remains of the deceased in the Memorial Shrine at the Land of Medicine Buddha, set deep amongst the redwoods in the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains of California. A small group of friends and I had gone there for an overnight retreat and found tremendous refreshment in the peace and tranquility of this center for Mahayana Buddhism. The centerpiece of our stay was a walk along the 8 Verses Pilgrimage Trail. At each stop, we read the verse and corresponding commentary aloud, spent a few minutes in silent contemplation, then shared the meaning we had found. Some of the messages were hard to take, calling for transformation on our parts, but the journey was made easier by our companionship. Perhaps that's the overarching lesson I learned, for the thousandth time, that day: I need not walk through life's struggles alone, nor will I ever lack a friend with whom to share life's many joys.

http://tinyurl.com/ykqhhk8

Woodland Ferns

During the summer of 1997, I had the good fortune to attend a 3-day photography workshop given by Galen Rowell in Glacier National Park. The weather was terrible- overcast at best, rainy most of the time. Our rolls of film were driven down to Kalispell each night to be processed and returned for the next day's critique. I must have spent more than an hour in the rainy woods, staring at the ferns, composing, recomposing, waiting, when a bit of light broke through and I snapped this picture. Feedback from Galen on our photos was gentle but tough and I dreaded what he'd say when my shots came up for review. I was shocked when, except for suggesting some different framing, he actually seemed to like my ferns. It was then I thought, maybe I can do this photography thing.

http://tinyurl.com/yazcng5

Antisocial (Warning: RANT)

Ever since Google Buzz was released last week, my frustration with the social networking landscape has had me sketching on the shower walls and scribbling on scraps of paper trying to make sense of my online world. This morning’s shower insight calmed me a bit. Just as I don’t hang out in every physical venue that I might, or go to every networking event that I could, perhaps I shouldn’t be so bothered by the multiple, disjoint conversations that spring up on the same online article or post. Just because I have a conversation with some friends on Monday about the rogue wave that hit spectators during Mavericks doesn’t mean my colleagues need to become part of that same stream on Tuesday when we discuss the same topic. Similarly, if I comment on someone’s blog but I miss the insightful commentary taking place about it on Buzz, who cares? And if my brilliant observation on Facebook is invisible to my followers on Twitter, who cares?

Clearly I care, otherwise I wouldn’t be ranting. I care because we have the potential to facilitate broader conversations, increase understanding, and ease discovery. I care because I’d like to have one coherent online presence from where anyone could subscribe to any public feed that I generate – feeds that would include not only content I generate, but commentary I make. I’d like the industry to stop building over-featured gated communities, lean into the issues of identity, trust, and interaction, and foster an ecosystem of tools that set us free instead of tying us in knots. I think anything short of that is antisocial.

Update: Join the conversation over on Buzz. See, you'd never have known it was there if I hadn't told you! Argh!

Photo Friday: Romeo's Pier, near Pillar Point

I love the marsh inside the breakwater near Pillar Point. There's a peacefulness on foggy days that seeps into my soul. The aging structure of the pier seems to be returning to the source of all things, as moss covers the roof, paint flakes and fades away, and the gulls claim it as their own.

http://tinyurl.com/ycwek73

Blue Light Special

He was laying in a grassy strip between the road and a KMart parking lot in Trenton, New Jersey. At first glance, he looked like a big black trash bag flapping in the breeze. Hubby said, "Hey, that's a dog!" and made a quick u-turn on busy Kuser Rd. By the time we reached him, another passerby was offering him a plate of kibble, but keeping her distance in case he wasn't friendly. Hubby never has had much sense about approaching strange dogs and took the kibble right up to the pooch. He was hungry, friendly, and just plain tired. We lured him away from the busy street back to our car and awaited animal control.

He was a sweet dog of unknown breed, furry but well-groomed, clearly someone's special friend. I patted the backseat and he joyfully jumped right in. What was he doing out here by himself? He wore a chain collar without tags, so no help there. Surely his people were looking for him, and the best thing was to park him at the local pound where he'd be quickly and easily found.

Another side of this dog emerged when the animal control officer arrived. No dummy, the dog knew he had it good in the backseat of our car and had no intention of leaving. The animal control officer had no intention of risking a bite and no desire to spend any more time than necessary coralling this dog. When the loop of the officer's catch pole tightened around his neck, the dog turned into a snarling beast, to no avail. Into the truck he went. The officer informed us that he'd be kept for 8 days. If he wasn't claimed by then, he'd be killed.

At that moment, I wasn't concerned about the dog's fate. He was well cared for and well behaved. Surely, even now, his person was beating the bushes to find him. We helped the process along by putting an ad in the local paper and by posting flyers everywhere possible within about a 2 mile radius of the KMart where we found him. He'd be claimed in short order, I was certain.

Hubby called the pound every day, expecting to hear that the pooch had been reunited with his happy family. It was not to be. On the eighth day, Hubby took the drive back to New Jersey and brought this strange dog to his new home with us in Pennsylvania, taking his place in our furry family with new sister Fred, our husky-lab, and three cats. He was thrilled. Fred and the cats were not. Everyone adjusted- eventually.

Adopting an unknown stray presents an interesting challenge. What was the dog's name? We tried many of the obvious- Bear, Buddy, Rex, Fido -without a glimmer of recognition. Calling a dog without a name is problematic, so we had to choose a new name for him.

We named him 'Blue'.

When you meet the Buddha...

Recognizing when I've idolized something is half the battle. Letting go is the other two thirds.

Zeus in repose

Zeus, our boy Mastiff, is taking it easy after class at San Bruno Dog Obedience School.

To boldly go...

Just signed up for ping.fm as part of my ongoing exploration of social media.

#amazonfail

Made aware via the twitterverse of an apparently ill-conceived action by Amazon.com, I sent the following to their customer service folk:

I am concerned about your policy of removing the sales ranking from books on GLBT topics. Although you have claimed to be applying this policy to adult material, I observed several books that are decidedly not adult do not have their sales rankings listed. These include "The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government," "Why Marriage: The History Shaping Today's Debate Over Gay Equality." and "Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940." I can only conclude that you have decided to arbitrarily categorize any book on GLBT topic as "adult". Therefore, although I have been a loyal customer for over ten years and have spent thousands of dollars at amazon.com, I am suspending my purchases from you until you change this policy and publicly apologize.

Thanks and regards,

This afternoon, I received this reply:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Amazon.com.

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

Thanks for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.


Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.com

Note: this e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

I'm awaiting the public apology.

Elephant

We called her “Elephant” because she’d trumpet every time she walked into the room. Her real name was Jessie, loosely named after Jesse Owens. As kittens, she and her sister would race after one another like runners at a track meet. We named her sister, Wilma, for Ms. Rudolph. The two kittens became the second and third members of the Apuss sisters. Hubby never liked the name of my older cat, Baby, and, for reasons unknown, started calling her Catapuss. A feisty little kitten, Jessie soon earned the nickname, Batapuss. Not wanting to leave Wilma out of the sisterhood, we started calling her Patapuss, because she was the cuddly one. Move over Andrews Sisters, the Apuss Sisters have arrived.

Jessie owed her life to Wilma. When we visited the local branch of the Massachusetts SPCA in search of another feline companion, a lanky and gregarious white kitten with a punk-looking tabby patch on her head drew us to her cage with her engaging ways. Skulking in the shadows behind her was her sister, a stocky, brooding tabby, who looked at us with daggers. The white kitten, soon to be named Wilma, was irresistible. Her sister was, well, her sister. Kind-hearted souls that we are, we couldn’t leave her sister behind, and the aloof little tabby soon to be named Jessie came home, nearly 18 years ago.

Besides her trumpeting and batting at everything that moved, Jessie had two other claims to fame. If there was a box, Jessie would find a way into it, no matter how big or how small. One afternoon last summer, I was drawn to our front hallway by an odd scratching sound. There was Jessie, a bundle of feline annoyance, searching for a way into the box containing the new bathtub. She never found a way into the box, but later that day I found her sprawled atop it sunning herself. I think that counted as a win inside her tiny catbrain.

Her other claim to fame concerned little furry people of the canine persuasion. As aloof as Jessie was toward us hairless beach apes, she loved dogs. She was never happier than when she could flop on the floor and groom a dog. I used to joke that I had the only cat in the world who coughed up dog-fur furballs.

We lost Jessie’s sister, Wilma, in 2003 to a fast and invasive cancer at the age of 14. Nearing the end, she took matters into her own paws one night, leaving the house never to return. While I was glad she relieved me of the responsibility of making the decision to end her life, I’ve always felt bad that she died alone in uncertain circumstances. I hope her end was peaceful.

I expected Jessie to mourn her sister, but we saw no outward signs that she was even aware that her sister had vanished. Several months later, however, Jessie developed some strange symptoms that our regular vet could not diagnose. With our vet coming up empty, I requested a referral to Dr. Alan Stewart at San Francisco Veterinary Specialists. After bringing to bear all of the high-tech techniques and equipment that money could buy, we had a diagnosis: irritable bowel disease and low grade lymphosarcoma. With some diet changes and a regimen of prednisolone and lukeran, Jessie’s symptoms abated and the Elephant was back to her old trumpeting self. I’ve always wondered if the stress of losing her sister was a factor in Jessie’s illnesses.

Long story short, Jessie the Elephant, a.k.a. Batapuss, Box-Cat, J.P. and Groomer of Dogs, reached the end of her road today. We had three good years more together thanks to Dr. Stewart and the wonderful folks at SFVS. I’ve had to make this decision for my little furry companions more than a couple of times in the past twenty-odd years. It seems to be getting harder. Perhaps it’s my own increasing sense of mortality —I don’t really know. I know I’ll miss that little puddy for the rest of my life and I hope, when my time comes, that someone will love me enough to help me go. Rest in peace, little elephant.

Holiday Traditions

Yorkshire pudding is the bane of my existence. Every year for dinner on Christmas, accompanied by the traditional standing rib roast, I attempt to recreate the memory of hubby's grandmother's special dinner. Every year is a disaster, more or less. Sometimes part of it puffs. I think all of it puffed slightly once, then fell before I got it to the table. I consider myself a damn good cook, and I take this very personally. It doesn't help that the best Yorkshire pudding I've had was made by hubby's late father, a man who could barely boil water.

A good Canadian friend of Scots descent helped me out last year with a really great recipe. I tried to follow the instructions, really I did. As hubby often says when the food presentation fails, "It tasted good!" Fortunately, my gravy making skill overcomes my complete ineptitude when it comes to Yorkshire pudding.

Then my English neighbor invited me for tea on Friday, and I found myself surrounded by ladies who hail from the other side of the pond. I figured I had it made. I solicited their advice. Oven and pan hot, batter cold, rest it for at least an hour -- I am prepared! This year I shall prevail! Wait, did I just ask for cooking advice from a bunch of Brits, people from a land where the only edible food is Indian? How low have I sunk?!

As I began my preparations, I discovered that I'd neglected to buy milk and had to send hubby out into the snowy night... um... scratch that snowy night crap... into the sunny afternoon for a short walk to the convenience store. But I'm sure he'd have gladly braved a nor'easter for his damned Yorkshire pudding. How could I have forgotten to get milk? You don't think I did it unconsciously on purpose, do you?

Perhaps it was the pinch of additional angst, perhaps it was guilt for making hubby go out for the milk, perhaps we'll never know, but this year's pudding was, dare I say it, PERFECT! It puffed and browned and was absolutely loverly! Hallelujah!

Maybe next year we'll go out for Chinese.

Of Crabs & Cats

I never kept a diary when I was a kid, so I don't know what makes me think I'll keep a blog now, but here goes...


The sad sack in the photo is a Dungeness crab on its way to dinner -- to be dinner, that is. A couple of crab boats were docked near the fisheries at the end of the pier at Pillar Point Harbor, and we spent a few minutes watching them hoist trash cans full of the critters off the boats. It's surely a tough life, for both man and beast.


From the feline front: Both of our geriatric kitties, Doc and Jessie, are still hanging in there. Jessie has had a tough day or so. She decided to make a rare foray outdoors yesterday while I was next door having tea with my neighbor. I turned the house upside down looking for her before I started searching outside. Luckily, she likes to yell when I call her name so I found her fairly quickly and she seemed to be fine. Later in the evening, though, she started having seizures and had them fairly continously for over an hour. This is the first time in over a week that she's had any whatsoever. She settled down finally, spending most of the night wrapped up in a sheepskin in the middle of our bed. As I type, she's curled up asleep next to my elbow on the dining room table. I think she's exhausted -- that was an awful lot for a 17 year old puddy to endure. Given her age, there's not much we're going to do about this except keep her safe and as comfortable as we can. Needless to say after her adventure yesterday, I've blocked off the doggie door so no one can get outside. Since we're dogless at the moment, this isn't a big deal. Doc will just have to adjust. With his age and health, he shouldn't be wandering about either.

Okay, so there's my very first blog entry. Woohoo. I think I might like this Blogger thing better than Yahoo! Now there's a surprise!