Ethics test

I just completely forgot what side of the car my gas tank was on. I know this happens to a lot of people. You pull in, get out of the car, and whoops, you’re on the wrong side.

I guess my excuse is that I drive another car for work sometimes and its gas tank is on the opposite side from mine. Last Saturday, I filled up the gas tank in the work car twice – in Portland and near the office – and then switched back to my own car and had to fill it up too before driving home.

But today’s gaffe wasn’t the whoops, silly me, variety. This was, I got out of the car, swiped my Safeway rewards card and credit card, put my hand on the pump and turned around, completely astonished not to see the gas tank door. I had been certain it was on that side.

I hit cancel and drove my car around to the other side, where the gas pump told me, “Steven Wilson, your gas discount is 10 cents a gallon!” I was about to, with a clear conscience, mooch Steven Wilson’s gas reward (mine is only 3 cents a gallon. I don’t actually shop at Safeway, just buy gas there) but the pump was insisting I lift the lever and pump without swiping my own credit card. I hit the cancel, clear and stop buttons, but it wouldn’t clear. Kept telling my to lift the lever and pump my gas. There was just a hair of an instant when I thought, “Well, if the gas pump is telling me to steal from Steven Wilson, I guess I’m meant to do it.”

But of course I got back in my car, drove around again, and pumped gas with my sad, little 3 cent discount.

Vietnam, you don’t give answers do you, friend

It was an entire year after India before I even felt like traveling. I also felt guilty about taking that much time off, so I didn’t take a single vacation day for an entire year. (I get plenty of holidays, and my schedule is pretty relaxed, so this wasn’t a huge hardship.)

When I heard that a friend of mine was going to be in Saigon for three months, at first I was insanely jealous. Then I bought a Rough Guide Southeast Asia for $5 at Half-Price Books and decided that I should go meet her there. Rob didn’t have much interest in Vietnam, so this was a perfect opportunity… when else would I say to myself, “Gee, I’d like to go to Vietnam alone”?

I also wanted to see Cambodia and Laos, but that proved too much for me to do in the two weeks I planned to be gone. So I settled for Cambodia, and joined a 10-day tour that started in Bangkok and ended in Saigon, where I stayed for a week with my friend.

I love to travel. I love riding on buses and tuk-tuks and boats and seeing a world so, for lack of another word, foreign to me. In southeast Asia, it’s rice paddies and thatched roofs, Buddhist shrines and motorbikes.

It was a great trip. Despite having enjoyed my time there, I wouldn’t say that I loved Vietnam or Cambodia…or India last year. I did really like Nepal. On the other hand, I can’t even hear the words Bangkok, Thailand, Japan or Tokyo without gushing, “I looooove” Bangkok, Thailand, Japan or Tokyo.


Cambodia was cool because of all the temples. I realized that temples weren’t the priority of my tour group when, after a daredevil sunset motorbike ride to Sam Mountain in Chau Doc, Vietnam, our motorbike drivers took us to a Buddhist temple with Las Vegas lights. One of my travel mates said, “What the heck are we doing here?”

This was the same guy who overslept and caused us to miss sunrise over Angkor Wat in Cambodia.


Even without the money shot, Angkor Wat was incredible. The must-see of Cambodia. Ancient Hindu-Buddhist temples, too hot and massive to visit all at once or on foot. Tour books advise you to take three days. We only had one, but we had an air-conditioned bus to take us to a temple or two, then back to the hotel for a rest and a shower before bringing us back to the temple complex. And a really amusing tour guide who told jokes like, “what is the difference between a woman and a pony? A woman wears her in a pony tail, but a pony doesn’t wear its hair in a woman tail.”

From the bus between cities in Cambodia, I saw long dirt pathways leading to narrow homes that were taller than they were wide. Freestanding ornate temple gates framed the entrance to the “driveways.”


I thought the Mekong Delta would be more picturesque, like the backwaters of Kerala in India. Still, it was fun to see floating fish farms and floating markets and visit villages of Vietnamese Muslims and people who make coconut candy and rice paper (for tourists).


I spent the longest time in Saigon, because that’s where my friend was staying. It was a pleasant enough city, and I leisurely visited museums and pagodas. (Temples also were not the priority for my friend, who had to wait outside the Jade Emperor Pagoda, pictured below, because it gave her bad spiritual vibes.)


One of the reasons I prefer Bangkok to Saigon is that you have various shrines and temples in the middle of the streets in Bangkok. It is very obviously a Buddhist country. I didn’t see nearly as many monks in Vietnam, and had to go out of my way to see religious sights. (Except for the Notre Dame cathedral.) Guess we have the communists to blame for that.


Worth noting, I had 99% success with bug spray…even a “natural” lemon eucalyptus spray (made by Cutter) that didn’t even have any Deet in it. I wore it like perfume, sprayed it on all the exposed skin every day, after every shower. I got one mosquito bite the whole time…and then ran out of the spray on my last day. When I got home, I discovered three bites on my legs and feet.

The trip was entirely without travel disasters and I enjoy reflecting on the experience and looking at my pictures. I especially appreciate the feedback my pictures get on Facebook.

But the best part of all was seeing Rob pull up to the curb at the airport, with Isis poking her nose out the open window to welcome me home.

Aren’t you going out tonight?

I felt a real kinship with Andy Dick when he moved into the Celebrity Rehab Sober House.

It dates back to when I was in college. I didn’t drink so I didn’t enjoy hitting the frat parties or using my fake ID at a bar. I did like sitting around the dorms and hanging out with my friends. But inevitably, at 10 or 11 or midnight, someone would say, “Let’s go out,” as though the evening activity didn’t start until we actually left the building.

Why did we have to go out? Why couldn’t we stay in, and continue to hang out? Drink if you want, but we’re already with the people with whom we want to spend the evening. Why isn’t that enough?

In my 20s, I learned to go out, started drinking, and for a spell had an active social life. Cut to 2001, when I traveled by myself to Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Russia. I found myself in a common kitchen in Vilnius, I think, with fellow travelers, eating bread and cheese. (OK, I have no memory of what we ate.)

Sure enough at some point, people starting saying, “Are we going out?” I mean, yeah, I’ve been clubbing in foreign cities before, but it was the first day of my trip. I was tired, and I didn’t really know these people well enough to want to get drunk and go dancing with them.

I stayed in, went to bed in the common room, and was awoken at 6 a.m., or whenever they all returned.

So that’s why I related to Andy Dick, who found himself freshly sober, wanting to stay in, make dinner and hang out with his new friends. But most of the other freshly sober housemates wanted to go out (to a club, where they would be tempted to relapse).

Stupid addicts.

You’ll have to watch the episode to be sure, but I think he stayed in and had dinner with Rodney King.

Carcass

Did you ever think you’d see the day when I’d be buying chicken hearts in bulk and feeding raw meat to my dog?

After reading a lot about the health benefits of raw feeding (less shedding, no bad breath, smaller poops, walking on two legs, growing opposable thumbs), in addition to my concern that her teeth were eroding because of some sort of nutritional deficiency…or else she’s compulsively chewing on her itchy skin (which also would be corrected by eating a “Franken-prey” diet)…I took the plunge. So far it’s just chicken and I haven’t had a problem with it. We’ll see how I do when I add other meats. I joined a co-op that bulk orders things like tracheas, whole deer and sheep heads. Ick. Haven’t ordered any yet.

Here’s how it works with my semi-vegetarian philosophy…if I love animals, isn’t the animal-friendly thing to do to feed my own critter a diet that’s as close to nature as possible? That’s how I rationalize it anyway.

Update: Isis has a root canal today. My worst case scenario was that she would need two root canals and have a small lower incisor pulled. Which turned out to be the case. So in a few weeks, I again have to drive Isis practically to Seattle and back for the second root canal…and not only will this cost me double what I expected to pay for one root canal, but today’s appointment was more than they told me it would be because they needed to take more films and use more anesthesia than they expected.

WTF? They can charge me whatever they want to when they’ve got my dog under anesthesia. I’m under no obligation to have the second root canal, but she does need it.

Career notes

I worked from home unexpectedly yesterday, so I could take my dog to the vet. As a result, I didn’t have a work notebook to take with me to a seminar today.

So I found an old reporter’s notebook that had not been completely filled up. It was the notebook they gave me when I did my trial story at the my first newspaper job in January 2003. The story was about plans for an off-leash dog park. A newspaper clipping about the public meeting still was tucked between the pages, which I discovered as I reached the end of the notebook this afternoon.

In addition to my notes from both stories I wrote for that job interview (the first was a total failure, about how the recent dock lockouts had affected a local port — which turned out to be not one bit. They gave me the dog park story because it was a little “easier.” Can you believe they hired me?), this notebook contained notes from all the apartments I looked at after the interview, so confident was I that I would get the job.

It also contained notes I scrawled during the phone conversation I had with my current boss in October 2006, when he offered me the job, including details about my salary and raise schedule.

Also notes about our road trip to Calif. in July 2007 and Disney World vacation in Sept. 2007.

And now three-quarters of it is notes from a tribal climate change workshop in April 2009.

My canine’s canines

I loved getting a root canal so much that I’m getting one for my dog.

A little more than a year ago, I noticed that one of Isis’ teeny little lower front teeth looked like it had been worn down. I googled it, got scared and took her to the vet, whose reaction was basically, “Eh, no big.”

That tooth never seemed to bother her and didn’t wear away to nothing. So I wasn’t overly concerned when I noticed that Isis’ canines were no longer pointy. It’s kind of a mixed blessing, isn’t it? Like Stew not having claws. Stew can’t scratch and Isis’ canines can’t puncture. (Theory B as yet untested).

How did this happen? She chews on your normal dog stuff. Rubber toys, plush squeakies. I know tennis balls can be bad, but she doesn’t chew on those too often. Soccer balls, yes, daily…but not for an excessive length of time.

Saturday, on the long drive home from dog class (she’s doing so well! I’m so proud, and even the trainer was beaming with pride), I noticed that the top of the lower left canine looked reddish or brownish. Last night, the whole tooth was brownish gray. So it’s dead or dying, and probably needs a root canal, which is absolutely my preference over an extraction.

We’ll be seeing a veterinary dentist next week to learn more. I’m not sure if the vet dentist will be able to tell why this happened, but I emailed my dog trainer. She mentions at least once every time I see her that she feeds her dogs raw. She has suggested that some of Isis’ behavioral problems could be nutritionally based, but waited until now to go into full proselytizing mode.

I get the feeling she has been waiting eagerly for the right moment, when I’d be faced with something that would make me consider even for a second obtaining and feeding my dog whole raw chickens. And tripe. Organs. Etc.

She sensed it would be off-putting to suggest I do anything other than buy a 40-pound bag of kibble, since as far as I knew, Isis was perfectly healthy. But the second I asked, “Do you think there’s something wrong with Isis’ nutrition that would result in her teeth eroding like this?”

Bam.

She didn’t say I had to feed Isis raw, or that I obviously don’t love my dog if I continue to feed her kibble. She said, “Please tell me if I’m out of line.” But I bit, and asked to hear more. And I’m considering it.

The anticipated expense of my dog’s dental work has me stressed out for other reasons too. I had just gotten my heart set on going to Cambodia and Vietnam in July. A friend is performing at the Park Hyatt Saigon for three months, and are you kidding me, of course I want to go visit.

The airline ticket would cost the same as a root canal for my dog.

Information Officer

When you hear that 80 percent of Americans say the economy is a significant source of stress, don’t you think the other 20 percent must be in serious denial? Of those surveyed, only 48 percent report being depressed or sad?

I’m depressed about the economy, and in particular the decline of The Newspaper, even though I’m “safe.” I got out of the newspaper business 3 years ago to work for a state university. Good thing I got out of that business 10 months later, since they’ve got money problems too. I have many, many years before retirement, so there’s time for my retirement accounts to bounce back to their former glory.

There’s been no sign that my business will have layoffs, or that I would be on the chopping block if there were. Meanwhile, my peers at newspapers are getting laid off or having their salaries reduced by 5 -10 percent.

One of my duties at my current job is to pitch stories to these newspapers. But they have fewer reporters than ever, so I’m guessing they’re struggling to cover breaking news and city council meetings.

We’ve kept up with this evolving world of journalism by updating our website. (I don’t actually know if that’s why we changed it, but it’s a fortunate side effect.) Our homepage is like our newsletter. With “press releases” that read more like news stories that happen to tell only the stories we want to tell. We might be biased, but we’re still journalists.

This is actually good for my career. Our quarterly newsletter is a 16-page magazine that comes out (as the name suggests) four times a year. So I went from writing between one and three stories a day at a newspaper to having four to seven printed in a magazine every three months. Slowed my work flow significantly.

Now, my stories can be published online as soon as I write them and have them approved. And there are no limitations on space. I can include photos, audio, video at my discretion. So this should motivate me to find more stories, write more stories, be more productive!

Except I’m too depressed about the economy.

Behold Toy Time

Isis has started some new training. I’ve described before various incidents that were amusing, or embarrassing, or perhaps frightening to the person on the other end. And I’ve watched The Dog Whisperer and thought all I had to do is walk, walk, walk this dog until she stops scaring people.

It used to be that she’d bark and lunge at other dogs. When I started walking her daily, in about October, I found that she didn’t always bark at other dogs. Sometimes we were far enough away that she barely noticed. She did always completely freak out at a particular golden retriever who hangs out in its front yard behind a rather short (for the purposes of containing a dog) fence. I blame it partially on the golden retriever itself, because it freaks out when we pass. We pass plenty of other fenced dogs whom Isis ignores.

She developed a new target: bicycles. In particular, bicycles headed directly toward us as we walk on the lefthand sidewalk. It started as a bark here and there, but evolved into a very scary barking and lunging at every single passing bicycle, which probably has made us very unpopular with all the bicycle commuters in the neighborhood.

Isis is what those in the dog behavior biz call “reactive.” So I’ve hired a trainer who specializes in reactive dogs. And what do you know, everything I’ve done so far is wrong. With a reactive dog, evidently fearful of bicycles, it does not “cure” her to doggedly (heh) walk her past the stimulus every day and expect her magically to learn to ignore it.

Also, not a good idea to let her sit on a couch looking out the window all day long. Silly me. I thought she loooooved looking out the window. But what that’s done is give her the idea that she has to monitor ever passerby, and made her excessively protective.

I like our trainer. We’ve had one actual session so far, but I’ve been working on making some changes in the house to facilitate this personality overhaul. One is the excruciating 5-minute rule, in which we must wait for her to, on her own, settle down and relax completely for five minutes. Not looking at me. It’s taking her a while to get it — that the way to get me to play with her is not to rest her adorable little head on my lap, or whine. And it’s hard for all of us to avoid making eye contact or petting her, when she stands there smiling so eagerly.

By the time she’s accomplished her five minutes, and I call her to me to lavish praise upon her, she’s not smiling anymore. She looks worried. And sad.

Fortunately, we have an activity that puts the smile back on her face. It’s called “Toy Time!!” The idea is we only let her have two toys at a time, which we rotate each day. Every day, for 15 minutes, we dump open the toy box and let her play with whatever she wants. This is to be accompanied with squeals and cheers of encouragement (I may have added that rule myself).

She has a lot of toys, and I’ll admit, the house looks better with them off the floor. Amusingly enough, there is one that she picks up first every single time. It’s a white squeaky Milk Bone. It came in a gift package of toys that I both gave (to her) and received (from Quin) two Christmases ago, and maybe I never actually gave it to her before. Hadn’t occurred to me that she would prefer this to the stuffed squeaky squirrels or the obnoxiously squeaky plastic lotus flower.

The Milk Bone squeaker wore out yesterday, but as I said, I had another one! I might even have a third one, since I think Mom’s dog Millie got the same gift bag, but she’s not allowed to play with toys. (Just kidding, she doesn’t like them).

She also is quite fond of a pink leopard ring, which we call “the donut” given by Aunt Louise. We usually spend 15 minutes with her squeaking the Milk Bone. I throw the donut, which she chases and brings back in her mouth with the Milk Bone.

You don’t know what you have until it’s gone

Unless you don’t know it’s missing in the first place.

The most recent episode of Brothers and Sisters featured U2’s “Running to Stand Still.” I sang along a little bit and thought, “I love this song, I should listen to The Joshua Tree.“

But when I checked my iPod, I did not have The Joshua Tree on there, just The Unforgettable Fire and Achtung Baby (plus the song “Stuck in the Moment,” which I illegally downloaded on BearShare while living in Prague).

How strange that I would have uploaded two of my U2 CDs, but not The Joshua Tree. At work yesterday, I became so completely obsessed with listening to “Running to Stand Still,” that I played videos of it live on YouTube until my coworker told me I could listen to it for free on Rhapsody.

I went home and looked for the CD, and couldn’t find it. Honestly, I haven’t listened to it in years. It could have been stolen when my car was broken into in 2005, or it could have been stolen with my entire car in 1998. (Although I have a vague memory of listening to it while driving from Chicago to Washington, D.C. Or maybe that was Achtung Baby…)

Here’s the really disturbing thing. I asked Rob if he had the CD and he does not!! He said it was possible he had it on his iPod, as inherited by his 17-year-old nephew. Really? Your 17-year-old nephew (let’s do the math, born in 1992) is more likely than you to have a 1987 album, which is on many people’s Desert Island Disc lists, and which I think I first owned on cassette tape?

Some people might consider that a relationship deal breaker. But hey, if I’m willing to be with someone who refuses to watch Lost, I can let this go.