Bad Car-ma

My second car, a Honda Passport, was stolen without a trace in 1998. My next car, a Honda CR-V, was with me for 9 years without any incidents I can recall. (Oh wait, I’m such a liar. A tire blew out once on I-5 and it was broken into on Feb 2, 2005. Second worst Groundhog Day ever.)

My current car, a 2007 Honda Fit has suffered an awful lot of abuse since I first brought it home. Within a month of getting it, I swiped a post at a gas station, leaving paint across the driver side door. I was able to get the paint off, but a slight dent in the door remained. At some point within the next year, someone apparently keyed the passenger side. And let’s not forget the city of Vancouver, which erroneously towed me, damaging the bumper on both sides. It still pops out a few times a week, and I have to kind of pound it back in.

Then there’s the dog factor. When I got the car, I didn’t realize how much Isis’ tan fur would show up on the black upholstery. So far, Leo’s shed is mostly black, but he has done the most damage to my car of anyone or thing.  He’s chewed on the gear shift, turn signal and windshield wiper levers. There are even teeth marks on the driver side sun visor. And he’s torn up the upholstery in back.

But today he did the cutest thing ever.  A few times before, he had changed the radio station, leading me to joke that he is a classic rock fan. We were listening to his favorite station today and while Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was playing, he moved between our seats and put his paw on the volume knob — TURNING UP THE VOLUME. Moments like that make all his damage to my car totally worth it.

Later, I was driving across the Bed, Bath and Beyond parking lot, a straight shot, headed toward my bank’s ATM machine. Rob said, “Look out look out look out,” and then there was a Subaru’s rear end visible through the passenger side window and a crunching sound as the car hit mine. So, that was awesome.

Note Leo in the passenger seat

As we exchanged information, the offending driver pointed to the chipped paint near where the door meets the window and said, “I didn’t do that.”

Uh, dude, I don’t see how you couldn’t have. I’m pretty confident his insurance co. will pay my deductible, and we have these photos as evidence. I’ve already reported it. I sort of wish he’d hit my bumper too. I think I’ll see how much it will cost to have that repaired too.

A revised fable

Apparently Aesop’s got a fable about an ant and a grasshopper.

In my writing class, we were asked to rewrite the fable so the grasshopper looks good, is triumphant, even. As far as I was concerned, there was only one way to do that.

My fable:

The bugs emerged from the long winter in a state of depression. The butterflies didn’t want to leave the safety of their cocoons. The aroma of thawing feces failed to stimulate the appetites of the dung beetles. Worker bees snuggled up against their queen, having lost all interest in making honey. Even the ants, renowned for their work ethic, were slow to exit their colony.

Grasshopper and Cricket, the most gregarious members of the bug community, worried about their friends over sips of dew one morning in mid-April.

“I don’t understand it,” Cricket said. “Usually everyone is out and about by now. I expected the fleas at least would be in the grass, affixing themselves to the legs of dogs running though the park.”

“We have to do something to cheer everyone up,” Grasshopper said. “Otherwise, they’ll all waste the summer away. Let’s do what we do best.”

“Yes,” Cricket squeaked. “We’ll put on a show!”

The next morning at dawn, Cricket and Grasshopper made the rounds. They sang outside the cocoons, the beetle nests and the beehives. They harmonized atop the anthill.

The butterflies pulled their cocoons over their heads, the dung beetles rolled to their backs and the bees said, “Buzz off!”

For as everyone knows, pulling someone out of a funk takes more than one joyful song.

“We’re too depressed to gather food,” the ants wailed.

But Grasshopper and Cricket did not give up. They woke up every morning and sang to their fellow bugs.

One morning in June, a butterfly finally felt like herself again. She spread her wings and fled the cocoon. The streak of red and yellow across the sky inspired the dung beetles to inhale deeply. The uneaten poop had ripened quite nicely in the summer sun and the beetles got their appetites back.

The hum of activity inspired the bees, the fleas and the ants to resume their neglected duties making honey, bleeding dogs dry and gathering grain for winter.

“We did it!” Cricket said. “We’re heroes.”

“Let’s not get too cocky,” Grasshopper said. “We can’t stop now. You never know when they might get depressed again. We have to sing for them every morning and every night to make sure no one slips back into depression.”

The bugs had to make up for lost time, but Grasshopper and Cricket’s songs kept them active until the first frost that fall. Thanks to Grasshopper’s plan, everyone had gathered enough food to last the winter.

Everyone except Grasshopper and Cricket, that is.

“Surely everyone will share their food with us,” said Cricket. “After all, if it weren’t for us, they’d all have starved to death by May!”

The beetles were happy to share their dung, but neither Grasshopper nor Cricket had a taste for the stuff. They snacked for a while on the bees’ honey, but after weeks of nothing but sugar, Grasshopper craved something a little more substantial.

He saw Ant drying some of the grain he’d collected during the summer.

“That looks really good,” Grasshopper said. “I don’t suppose you’d mind sharing with me and Cricket.”

Ant rolled his eyes. “Really? You guys sang and danced and did your little Vaudeville act all summer, instead of working hard and gathering food like the rest of us, and now you want some of my grain?”

“Forget it, Ant. After all we did for you, if you can’t find it in your heart to share with us, I’m not going to beg. We’ll eat honey all winter, if that’s how you’re going to be. But don’t expect us to sing you out of hibernation again next spring.”

The Spot

When Rob got home from work, Isis used to run over to the couch excitedly, jump up on it and wait for him to fawn over her. He called it “The Spot,” as in “Go to your spot.” It was supercute.

Leo is learning to make himself at home on the furniture. Some dog trainers discourage this. A while back, I mentioned to the guys at doggie daycare that Leo got crumbs in bed when I gave him cookies, and they frowned at me in a big way.

“You need to make him work for the treat.”

I did, I was rewarding him for getting on the bed! We want him on the furniture with us so we can snuggle him until he likes it.

Anyway, he was curled up in The Spot when I started writing this, but then he hopped off and lay down on the floor next to my chair.

Sometimes when we catch him on the furniture, we join him and try to smother him with love, but he just gets up and moves off the couch. Last night before bed, however, he let me.

 

I am going to hold you here, kissing your head, until you like it.

The Guard Dog

Among many things we miss about Isis is the complete security we felt that no one would ever break into our house. Sure it was irritating to have her go bonkers every time the UPS guy dropped something on our porch, but no one was coming into this house uninvited.

Leo already has gotten a lot better about being loose in the house, and we moved his crate to the TV room, so when he acts up, we put him in there until he decides to stop chewing on us or the furniture. We also crate him when we leave the house, so he’s not free to devour any home intruders.

A kind friend who dropped off food for us last week said he heard Leo’s voice and that he sounded so grown up. I took some comfort that Leo attempted to ward off the guy on the porch.

I also was strangely delighted last night to hear Leo unleash his big boy voice at the pizza delivery guy. While our Isis alarm was frantic and terrifying, and rest assured, she would bite first and ask questions later, Leo’s bark is low and masculine. If you didn’t know he was confined by bars, you wouldn’t want to mess with our house.

Pet therapy

I’m lucky to live in a region where it is socially acceptable to bring your dogs everywhere. Even if you can’t take them into a store or restaurant, no one looks at you funny if you leave them in the car.

My workplace also is a fairly dog friendly place. I’ve been on salmon spawning surveys with dogs that tromped through the creeks, and didn’t necessarily come when called. One natural resources department has a dog as an unofficial staffer; He even has his own reflective construction vest to wear on habitat projects.

Last Wednesday, the day Isis died, I had Leo with me. We went to a couple of restored estuaries to take pictures. While officially, perhaps I’m not “supposed” to take my dog to work, I couldn’t help thinking that no one would blame me for taking Leo along. We had a wonderful day taking long scenic walks, but boy, would it have been boring without him.

Three different times during the day, I had flashes of something terrible happening to Leo. What if the tailgate of the SUV opened and he went flying out the back of the car on the freeway? What if a hunter accidentally shot us? What if one of those barking dogs broke through its wooden fence and attacked us?

 

Anyway, I have a feeling no one would blame me for bringing Leo to the office now, either.

Almost made it

I got through the work day and a three-hour writing class without melting down. I cried on the way home from class. It was a long day.

Saturday, I went to the dog park with Leo, dog class with Leo and a family birthday dinner and each made me miss Isis and I cried on the way home from each.

So today was better.

Work was good because I had an hour-long interview to transcribe. It kept me busy the whole day with something that didn’t require me to generate thoughts of my own. I also had planned ahead a few errands to run during lunch. I was busy. I had Leo with me.

At the beginning of writing class, I felt sort of liberated by having no one know about my personal tragedy, but by the end of it, I wanted to blurt out, “My dog died!” My dog died.

The saddest day

Last night, Rob left me a message while I was at writing class. He was thinking of going to pick up some dinner, but he had Leo out and was going to play with him for a bit longer.

We were still keeping our dogs separated. Leo gets to go lots of places with me outside the house, but inside the house, he was mostly confined to his play pen in the laundry room, except when we put Isis in her “quiet room” (the library). But Leo still gets into stuff and chews on things, so he can’t be unattended for any length of time.

Rob’s car was not in the driveway when I got home, so I knew probably Isis was loose in the house and Leo was back in the playpen. I could see Isis through the living room window and when I opened the front door, I had a vision of what it would be like to have two dogs greet me. What if Leo came running out to greet me from one side, while Isis came from the other? How wonderful that would be.

The dogs couldn’t be in the same room together, after 7 months. Isis had been treated with acupuncture and a new diet for allergies, which may have been part of the cause of her anxiety. I’ve been feeling for months that something was wrong with Isis. She’s only four and a half, but she moved around sometimes like an old lady, a little bit slow and creaky. Maybe that was from the prozac. But she was still so anxious. We had an appointment Monday to start her on some Chinese herbs. She was scheduled to go see the trainer, by herself, without Leo, on Sunday, to help build confidence and interact with another teacher dog. Last time we did this, she was so proud of herself, it was plain on her face and it made us so happy.

I was feeling so hopeful. I knew all I had to do was believe these dogs could coexist. It was going to be fine. Isis could be calm around Leo, but the problem now was that Leo is an adolescent and talks back to Isis, so first we had to work on making Leo a better teacher dog before we could bring them together.

Rob bought me a screaming flying monkey a few years ago. I kept it at my office and sometimes flung it across the whole place, when I was there alone. A few times I let Isis chase it. Once I let Leo chase it and he crunched the battery and the monkey wouldn’t scream anymore. I bought a replacement monkey last week and had it in my purse on the floor over the weekend. Isis discovered it and kept pulling it out of my purse, making it scream. She never took things out of my purse. We laughed and called her the “monkey stealer.” I brought the broken one home from work and last night I flung him across the room over and over and Isis raced after it, so happy. She held the monkey in her mouth with the legs hanging out like a dead bug. I wished I’d taken a photo.

One of the last things I said to her before bed last night, while she was lying down with her head resting on the monkey was that she was such a monkey stealer. I also said to her, as I do all the time, that I love her so much. So much. More than she can ever understand and that I will always love her the most and she is my most special little girl.

I said this a lot because I worried that she thought we got Leo to replace her, or that she wasn’t enough, even though we so wanted him to be a buddy for her, or at least “therapeutic.” When I said it last night, I knew I would feel that way about her years after she was gone.

Isis died today. Suddenly. We don’t know why. Rob is happy he remembered to kiss her beak before he left for work. I’m glad I remembered to say, “I love you and I’ll see you when I get home.” I’m glad that Grandma was here this afternoon to play with Isis in the backyard. It was her favoritest thing in the world, and Grandma is one of her favoritest people.

When Grandma was inside the house, Isis wandered up to the back of the yard and collapsed. Grandma called for her and found her there when she didn’t come running back with the soccer ball in her mouth. She called me and Rob and we sat with Isis for a while before taking her to the vet. She still felt like Isis. And looked like Isis, but her open mouth upset Rob. He kept saying “Her tongue isn’t supposed to do that.”

The vet thinks there might have been a clot or even a growth on her heart, but that it was hard to tell, because Isis has such a big heart. (Because she’s such a big dog, but I like to think its because she loved us so much.)

We’re totally heartbroken. We have Leo to help us get through this, but Isis was our first love.

I said, “Next year we’ll be able to have both dogs in the same picture with our Christmas tree.”

Oops I did it again

Thursday night, I sliced my middle finger while trying to separate two frozen salmon burgers. When I picked up the sharp knife, I knew it was a stupid move. And a second later, I was calling across the house, “Rob, I cut my finger again. Bad. It’s going to need stitches this time.” I don’t know if it’s worse than last time…in fact, I think it will heal better because I left behind some skin to stitch. Actually, I think it healed pretty quickly last time.

But that doesn’t make me any less of an idiot.

One hour after the incident, finger poses above the rinse bucket at the ER
All stitched up

Last year, when I had the benefit of visiting my favorite hand surgeon in LA, he advised against Neosporin. Gave me a surgical handwash and told me to wash it twice a day and keep it loosely bandaged. Air is good.

At the ER here, they gave me Bacitracin (basically same as Neosporin). But I’m going to follow my favorite hand surgeon’s protocol. Since I still have plenty of that handwash.

Honing the craft

I’m so happy my writing class is back in session. I volunteered to turn in pages at the first class last week, so last night I got to hear great feedback and advice from my teacher and classmates. I already was inspired deeply by last week’s class and the suggestions I got for rewriting a short scene I read aloud. I rewrote it the next day, even before I got an email from the teacher asking me if I’d like to rewrite it and read the revised scene at last night’s class. So I got feedback on that scene as well as the 13 pages I handed in last week.

What’s so rewarding is the feeling that I’m hearing things that will actually make me a better writer. For a long time, I’ve felt like that’s what I’m missing. I get lots of positive feedback at work, but nothing that will help me grow.

I can see that other students take criticism hard, like what they’re hearing is that their story sucks or they don’t know how to write. I don’t hear that, though. I hear, “This is an interesting story, but it bothers me that the character does this,” and “What would make this scene better would be this.”

I think my dialogue is pretty good, but have discovered a weakness in scenic depiction. So after I rewrote my scene, I went through and noted a few places where I could add more visual description. One of my classmates noted that I do have good scenic description but it’s mutually exclusive from the great dialogue. “Often when the characters are speaking, I have a difficult time imagining the scene because I’m not sure what they’re doing.” Astute.

The chapter I turned in was about mixed martial artists who infiltrate a dog fighting ring and rescue four of the losing pit bulls. A classmate who is new this quarter noted, “I like what you are doing even though I detest dog fighting and am opposed to martial arts. Try to win me over!” Uh, no. First of all, this is not a pro-dog-fighting story. Second of all, who’s opposed to martial arts?? Sorry, sir, you’re not my target audience.

Another new student, a older fellow, told me he though the dog fighting stuff was “just fantastic,” and that he thought the people in the audience were probably a lot of crumb bums. The villain in the piece, the guy who brings my heroes to the fights, “he seems like a real crumb bum.” Love it.

Like a virgo

Being a Libra is as much a part of my identity as being born in October. It doesn’t mean anything, just part of the facts of my existence, like I have blue eyes and brown hair.

So I’m amused to learn that I might actually be a Virgo.

Rob, whose birthday is in January, thought he was born in the year of the boar, going by the years on Chinese restaurant placemats. But because his birthday is in January, he actually was born before the Lunar New Year and was surprised a few years ago when I told him he is actually a dog.