When I was little, my parents had a succession of cars with which they were largely unsatisfied. There was much lamentation about the sold VW Beetle–replaced by the unsatisfying AMC Rambler. They replaced the Beetle because I was born. The purchase of the Rambler was my fault. So was the collapse of AMC. You heard it here first.
The Rambler, in turn, was replaced by a VW 412 which overheated a lot. The VW was replaced by a Buick Electra Limited, a behemoth whose soft steering was my comfort as I was I learning to drive. Its landau top was forever the source of family drama because of the sparkler thrown onto it by my brother after an explicit warning not to throw sparklers.
I should note that this car lament/blame had a parallel in a story about the cat who died, because she was let out onto the busy street and run over. As I was weeks old at the time, it was not I (in the Electra) who ran her down. It was, nonetheless, my fault. I was said to be the source of her “freedom” because the African-American woman who helped my mother care for me as an infant had warned that cats will “suck the life out of babies.” Thus, cat outside on busy road, and a bad end.
Anyway, back to the cars.
Got the sequence?
Gave way (because of me) to:
Which wasn’t a good car, caused the downfall of AMC (my fault), and was replaced by:
Which overheated a lot. Did I mention that my brother and I didn’t get along as children? Thusly, one of us had to ride in the “way back” over the overheating engine one summer on a trip from Atlanta to New England. I can still remember how hot I was. Hotbox was replaced by:
There were more cars later, including the unfortunate car that became my first (handed down from my mom) and therefore the subject of my early driver accidents…
Have you ever noticed that certain cars never make people wistful for the past? No one longs to have a fully restored 1980 Chevrolet Citation. And that is why GM is failing. You heard it here first.
Anyway…
Between the 412 and the Electra, my dad bought a used car, which he drove for six or nine months. My excellent internets-based sleuthing has led me to the conclusion that it was a mid-70s Toyota Corona. (I knew it was a Toyota, I knew approximately when we had it, and then I recognized it while looking at google images of mid-70s Toyotas. See how clever I am?!)
That Toyota–while otherwise an ordinary car–had one extraordinary feature to my school-age mind. The headrests of the front seats had openings into which the poles slid. They functioned fine and the headrests were firmly attached. Nevertheless, into one of these very small holes, someone had placed a dried bean.
Like that one in the middle there. I saw very clearly how the bean could have been inserted. Getting it out was another matter.
I could not, for the life of me, sort out how it might be extracted. I spent hours contemplating. I really wanted to figure it out. Then, my dad sold the car and the bean was gone from my life. I still thought of it occasionally for years. The problem I could not solve. The void filled with bean.
I thought about that bean today.
We spent yesterday with Teresa’s parents and their three dogs and our two dogs. They have a small dog along with whom Biscuit does not get. (Did you follow that?) Anyway, Biscuit got into a fight with that dog and as a result, she smelled a little like the pee that dog emitted as a result of the fight. I should note that non-Biscuit dog started the fight and I later said, “Lulu wrote a check she couldn’t cash.” As a result of Lulu’s check, Biscuit smelled like Lulu pee. Oh and chocolate chip cookies. She smelled like pee and chocolate chip cookies. We had a fresh chocolate chip cookie in the car on the way home (a result of a coupon at Black Angus. Don’t ask). So my car smelled of dog, urine, and cookie.
I was taking Biscuit to get groomed this morning. I was traveling to a part of SoCal I generally avoid. Biscuit’s groomer had moved from a store in the valley in which I live to another north of here. I programmed my Garmin Nüvi with the address and set out. When I arrived in far northern valley, I discovered that the store was on a new bit of road that wasn’t known to the Nüvi. I got lost. I found myself staring at the Nüvi, which was showing my car in a blank space on the map.
It looked like that except there were no roads. I stopped the car and looked at it. The Nüvi said I was nowhere. And yet, I was somewhere.
The where was new space–not in a good sense, mind you. There I was driving down a new road lined with faux-Spanish facade built around all the expected national chain stores. Ex-urbs have no soul and may well be the reason for the bad economy. You heard that here first.
But Biscuit likes Harvey and Biscuit doesn’t like many people and Harvey had moved to the PetSmart at the place unknown to the Nüvi.
All of a sudden, staring at my virtual car in a virtual wasteland, I thought of the bean. I also thought of my nine year old self staring at the bean, trying to get it out of the void.
Then I looked up. Away from the blank, away from the bean.
I found the store and took Biscuit inside.
(Why does Biscuit’s hair cut cost twice as much as mine? Never mind, I know. It’s because I don’t nip and my hairdresser doesn’t brush my teeth).
Normally, when I defy the Nüvi’s directions, she says “recalculating” in a way I find judgmental. Today, as she tried to find her way through the blank space, I found her recalculations less judgmental and more bereft. She seemed (not that I’m anthropomorphizing AT ALL) relieved when I headed home.
When left to pick up Biscuit, I turned the Nüvi back on and directed her back to the blank space. Biscuit didn’t smell like pee anymore. The blank space is now filled in my mind by the exubry stuff that’s actually there.
I was listening to Carrie Newcomer as I descended back to the valley that is my home.
I’m the fool whose life’s been spent.
Between what’s said and what is meant
Or so she sang.
That bean is surely gone now. Dessicated enough to dry up and blow up and away from its void. Maybe it’s still there. It’s not a problem I need to solve.
So I will wander without fail
In circles that grow ever wide
The sky expands and then exhales…
When I arrived home, the Nüvi said, “arriving at home, on right.” We both felt glad.
I was doing one of those 25 things things. I never do memes on the blog, why I did one on Facebook, well, I dunno. I have NOT done any of the follow-up memes. 48 things, etc.
Anyway, here was things #23: I once got “stranded” on a rock in the former Yugoslavia (when it was still Yugoslavia). My friends and I made our way into town and I bought and ate some mallomars. They tasted better than any cookie ever had before or since.
A friend asked for more info on what had happened. Here’s my response. I should note that I have now corrected my spelling of the cookie in question. It’s Mallomar. I’m going to maintain that it should have a w, but acknowledge that it doesn’t.
My response:
In the late 1980s, I traveled with friends from Italy, up through Austria, and down into Yugoslavia. The train to Zagreb was fine, the train from Zagreb to Split was not.
Once we arrived in Split, we explored the city and decided to take a ferry one day to Hvar, an island off the coast. We were the only Americans, probably the only English speakers, and certainly the youngest people of the ferry. The ferry arrived at a rock. It opened itself up and we got off. Everyone else drove off in cars or was picked up. The ferry closed and started back to Split. There we were standing on the rock.
There was NOTHING there. Alone.
Off in what looked like an impossible distance to travel was a town. We climbed up the road and down into the town (it wasn’t actually very far). It turned out to be a pleasant resort town, largely closed for the winter (it was March). We wandered around, found a small grocery store. I bought the best Mallomars ever. When we saw the ferry headed back toward us, we walked back to the rock.
In our exploration of the town, we found a path along the harbor that got us back to the rock without having the climb the road/hill. We arrived as the ferry did and boarded it back to Split.
That night we had goulash, and the following night we took the overnight ferry to Bari.
It was that moment on the rock. I wanted to jump in the Adriatic and swim down the ferry.
This post is about poop and pee. Really. So, if that’s going to gross you out, may I suggest pineapples or nene? Those posts don’t involve poop at all and are escapist besides. Imagine yourself in Hawaii. See, isn’t that nice?
For those of you who are ready for poop, here we go:
As I have pointed out on more occasions than most people would ever want to hear, we have too many pets. It’s not that any one of them makes for “too much.” Rather, all sixteen paws add up to more paws than our four feet can manage.
Let’s have a roll call, ok?
Calif?
Ah, there she is. 14 years of fussy but sweet kitty.
Halo?
Oh, look Halo brought her meerkat lovah, in somewhat the same way that Dawn Denbo brought her lover Cindy everywhere on The L Word this season. Actually, it’s not really the same. Halo and the Meerkat only had the one tryst and it was documented on my trusty Rebel. Halo is going on six and is a svelte six pounds.
Biscuit? Scout?
We’ve been calling Biscuit “cockerdome” recently because the last time I got her groomed (really, shaved down, but it makes me feel better to have spent $50 on something called grooming than on something called shaving), I asked that the groomer to leave the top of her head alone. I wanted it left alone because it sometimes can be formed into a forelock that makes Biscuit look like a member of Spandau Ballet. We may have sung (in her “voice”) “True” a few times.
Doesn’t she kind of look like the guy on the left?
Anyway, the groomer said, “oh, you want me to leave the cocker dome.” Thus, Biscuit has become “cockerdome.” We may have noted on an occasion or two that she is “beyond cockerdome.” Ok, that was my only Mel Gibson reference, I promise. Biscuit is four.
Scout, the most junior member of the quadrapeds, is going on two. He still has a touch of puppy mange and is one of the sweetest dogs I’ve ever been around.
So everyone is accounted for. Lovely.
Lately Calif has cemented her status as “pet most likely to put waste in inappropriate places.” We have one rug that gets washed with so much frequency that the washer must really feel bonded to it. Whether this plot loss is a function of senility, spite, or some combination of both can only be known by the Calif litterbox committee of one.
A few weeks ago I was wearing my slippers and Biscuit came up and started to gently remove something from the bottom of the sole. When I jerked my foot away from her, I noticed a dried piece of cat poop. I had cleaned some up earlier in the day, but must have missed this one (by conveniently stepping on it and fusing it to my slipper). I immediately threw those slippers away. It wasn’t a great loss. Still.
Biscuit manages to absent herself appropriately, but her devotion to cat poop as a snack may exceed her devotion to the squeaky football. We call it almond roca. Did I ruin almond roca for you just now? Sorry.
Halo mostly does as she should litterbox-wise, her destructive tendencies are more claw than waste based, so I need to give her some props. Ha-lo. Ha-lo.
All of this brings us to Scout. We were out-of-town last week and Scout and Biscuit went to “dog camp.” When Honey brought them home last Saturday, he ran into the house and lifted his leg and peed on the side of the couch. Since then he’s peed on the kitchen trashcan twice, my bathroom rug once, and I stopped him from peeing on one of the chairs in the living room. All this from a dog we got housebroken in two days. We’ve got theories (adolescent male dogness, a bladder infection, kennel-based psychosis, and inaccessibility of preferred backyard pee spots because of yard overgrowth). Whatever the cause, he’s making me unhappy.
Last weekend, while doing yard work in the aforementioned overgrown backyard, I found poopland. I shoveled and shoveled. There were hundreds of poops that had previously been obscured by the overgrowth.
All of these pet waste issues compound my frustration over the continued, but not catastrophic, malfunction of our champion toilet.
It won’t stop running. When your champion toilet isn’t functioning like a champion, it may be emblematic of a larger problem.
There are no simple solutions to managing waste. Therefore, I suppose that my wish for everyone is that your waste management goes smoothly. In the meantime, if you’re looking for me, I’m probably washing rugs, coaxing a toilet into stopping, or frolicking in poopland with my poop slippers.
Thus endeth the poop post, appropriately enough, in poopland.
She built it to chase off planes. You may find yourself asking, “Sporks, how is it that a 35 pound cocker mix can chase off airplanes?” Good question, good question.
We live on the flight path of the Burbank airport. Planes pass over our yard. Biscuit has discovered that if she obsessively runs in circles, the planes will leave. See how that works in the spanhead mind?
“Um, I run in circles and the planes leave. Therefore, I have chased off the planes.”
Now, you and I might know that “post hoc, ergo propter hoc” (after this, therefore because of this) is a classical logical fallacy. If anyone has an idea HOW I can explain this to Biscuit, share out.
My tenure file is due this Friday and to say I have been a little bit, well, tense, is an understatement. Last Friday I returned home.
I heard Scout, but Biscuit seemed less present than she usually is. When I opened the door to let them in, Scout came in first. In alpha-bitch Biscuit land this is normally not allowed. She came in a few seconds later and retreated to the front entryway. I noticed her licking her leg and went over to discover that she had cut it open.
How did she do this? Probably by chasing off the planes.
I decided the cut looked bad enough to take her to the vet. Scout hearts Biscuit. Scout can’t live without her. Scout is pathologically attached to Biscuit. So, as I left with her, he began to howl in total panic.
Honey and I had noticed that Biscuit’s eye was red a day or so before the leg cut.
When the vet examined Biscuit, he said she had something lodged in her cornea. He also wouldn’t remove it because, and this disturbed me, if it had punctured the cornea and he removed it…ALL THE FLUID WOULD DRAIN OUT OF HER EYE. Um, ok, yuck. Anyway, he referred us to a dog ophthalmologist. Um Hmm. A dog eye doctor.
How did she get a pebble stuck in her eye? Probably by chasing off planes.
He stitched up her leg and sent me home with her. He suggested she wear a cone to keep her from chewing the bandage.
Here’s the Biscuit accounting:
Cost of leg cut: $350
Potential cost of eye exam: $150
Number of pages I filled out at dog eye doctor: 8
Number of things still stuck in Biscuit’s eye when I looked at it after filling out the 8 pages: 0
Time of departure from potential $150 visit: Immediately thereafter
Cost of visit: 25 cents (for meter)
Number of times we put the cone on Biscuit: 3
Number of times this resulted in near paralysis of dog from stress: 3
Amount of movement she was capable of when we were not home while coned: normal
Amount of movement she was capable of when we were home while she was coned: negligible
Number of bandages she chewed off her foot: all
My relief when told she didn’t need a bandage today on the “wound check” visit: high
Number of times she set off my car’s seatbelt alarm: 8
How: By stepping on center console and then back on the seat, making the car think I had a small adult moving on and off the seat
Time elapse after returning home she chased a plane: 5 minutes
Time lost to Biscuit maladies this week when I could otherwise be obsessing about the future of my career: 7 hours (including this post)
Regrets about giving that time to my sweet Biscuit dog: none
Wanderings vary. Some are by choice. Some by coercion. Others just happen.
On the day after I returned from my slog through the South, Honey and I discovered the kittens. I don’t mean to suggest that we discovered kittens in the sense that no one had ever seen one before. In fact, we were well aware that this brood existed before we saw them. The feral cat we feed had them and brought them to semi-maturity under our house. Kittens under a house don’t sound all that dissimilar to rats in an attic, for what it’s worth. Anyway. Slinky (as we call her) had brought her kittens around to the front of the house.
Honey went to look and reported three in the brood.
We know we needed to trap them. We understand.
As we speak, in fact, there is a cat trap with tuna in the front yard. I just checked and Slink is lying next to it. I asked her why she wouldn’t go in. She had no reply. Her momma didn’t raise no fool up under the house.
So, on Monday morning, still weary from my journeys, I get in my trusty truck to drive to work.
About seven miles in to the 8 mile drive, I think I hear a sound. Then I hear it again.
It sounds like a kitten.
When I get to campus and park my car, I pop the hood of my truck. And there, sitting on the battery, is one of the kittens. I reach for it but it dives under the minivan parked next to my car.
I call the people who do feral cat stuff on campus, but no one can locate the kitten. And the other kittens seem to have disappeared too.
All week I can’t get that image out of my head. The kitten on the battery. Sometimes you go places you don’t expect and don’t like it much when you get there.
Today I drove home a different way because I had to stop by my HMO’s pharmacy to get my birth control pills (don’t ask). As I was driving down one of my least favorites streets in the vague region they call SoCal, I noticed professionally printed yard signs on a number of yards that read “Puppies” and had arrows.
Then I see a yard with lots of the signs and a large wire crate and people milling about and sure enough the puppies are there and the signs seemed to have worked.
Now, I don’t claim to have made all the best dog decisions ever. On the contrary, I acquired Biscuit less than a week after Red died. And Scout’s attempt to get a dog resulted in a trip to “urgent care” for me. (Right across the street from the pharmacy near the puppy signs!) Still and all, though the yard sign technique seemed to be working, I can’t help but think that people looking at those puppies may make a decision they’ll not be happy with long term.
Biscuit and Scout were happy to see me when I got home and even obliged for a little picture taking moment.
*Picture behavior achieved through bribes of cookies
I suppose I shouldn’t judge, because however we acquire our animal companions (aka pets), they love us. But professionally printed puppy signs? I’m not so sure.
The dog bite stitches are now exposed to the world. I may just cut them out myself. No sign that they’re going to dissolve. When I had my appendix out, shortly after graduating from college, they used staples. When I went to have them removed, the doctor just took what looked like a butter knife and lifted them out. Easy come, easy go.
My anxiety level when new pets are acquired is high. I didn’t really need that phrase in the middle of there. My anxiety level is high.
But…
Honey and I talked and we talked some more and she really wanted a dog of her own. Which is somewhat unlike Virginia Woolf’s concept. So, we went and looked at dogs. After the “dog bite incident,” which was the result of adopting a dog from the pound, we decided to go to a different non-profit rescue. They temperament test the dogs. That’s a good thing. No more visits to Dr. Tang. At least no more dog-caused visits to Dr. Tang.
Tang the drink is tasty, though.
Scout’s dog Scout arrives next weekend. He’ll be the only boy in our household. We can’t have him until then, so he can become slightly less boy than he is now.
Oh wait, it’s the other way around. On my right hand/wrist. Stitches, tetanus shots, and antibiotics that give me gas, a few days healing, and I am on the mend.
Yes indeedy, I got bitten by a dog. No, Biscuit didn’t bite me. It was another dog. It’s a yucky and unhappy story, which I will spare the few of you that read this blog thang. Typing is a little less than fun given where the stitches are.
Here are some facts:
Number of Doctors who stitched me up named like an orange drink: 1
Name? Tang
Did it make you want some Tang? Yes, yes it did.
Number of stitches: 6
Number of places on arm stitched: 2
Days on antibiotics: 7
How gassy do they make me? Very
So I’m bruised and gassy, how many people are glad I’m not going to Sassy’s gathering? More now than before
Number of dogs in household currently: 1
Number of times she’s tried to bite me: Once
Why? Steak bone
Number of steak bones she’s gotten since: 0
Does she ever get human food? Yes
What? Pancakes
Really? Yes, Honey makes her one big dog pancake every time we have them.
Does she bite over pancakes? Nope
So what does she do for pancakes? All her “puppy school” tricks
Does she do those tricks others times? Not usually
This week I had a flat tire on the freeway. My tough little truck has BIG tires. Honey and I and a nice passerby guy who had just moved to L.A. (natch–no “real” Angelino would stop) changed the tire. No single one of us could lift the damn thing. When I went to get a replacement (gash in the sidewall), I found out that tires are $210 EACH. They say you buy cars with your reptile brain. I want. Truck pretty.
Don’t get me wrong, I like my truck, but it seemed less than smart when I can’t change the tire by myself and the replacement costs that much.
The other day I was washing out Biscuit’s water bowl. She had fresh water. She walked over to the mud puddle I created washing the bowl out and started to drink. I called her to the clean water. She sniffed and lapped at it for a second. Then she went back to the puddle. Water. Mud. Drink.
I’m about to go off to a meeting where I have to faciliate a high-end discussion. My boss’s boss asked me to do it. Hope I can get to higher order thinking. Given the way things have been going, I’d take the under.
Blogs worth reading 
by Carrie Newcomer, “There is a Tree”)
