Lucy

You always know it’s coming. But that doesn’t make it any easier. Yes, she’d been slowing down lately, showing her age, but that just meant she’d take short breaks while playing full-bore fetch for hours at a time. After all, she’s Lucy!

She’s the one who welcomed me back to America on sunny afternoons in the yard. She didn’t care that I owned a total of four shirts and had no idea what to do with myself. She was always there, a calm companion, smiles and play. I was just looking for a room where I could pause for a few months, but instead found a home with Manny and his two dogs, Sam and Lucy.

When I first moved in I didn’t know what I was doing and would put the dog gate across my door when I was trying to work. Lucy would come check on me, standing politely outside. I’d been there a month before I changed my mind, waving her in while I stood up to go move the gate. But she’d just been humoring me, and vaulted that fence from a standstill like it was nothing at all, landing gracefully and coming to say hello. Tail wag. Then turning and effortlessly hopping over my silly barricade again.

A couple times I came home to find garbage strewn across the kitchen floor, an impromptu indoor beach of coffee grounds. Sammy, the other hound of the house, would be grinning and wagging his tail but Lucy would be in the corner, ears down, refusing to meet my eye, shame in her every line despite the obvious truth that Sammy’d done all the mayhem (breaking the lock we’d put on the cabinet). Looking back and forth from his grin to her sweethearted penitence I would have the hardest time maintaining a stern facade.

And when I moved out of that house, bringing some floor coverings to my new apartment, I would find tumbleweeds of Lucy hair blowing around an apartment she’d never seen. I was sad when that stopped.

And the day I bought a new coat for a trip to Amsterdam with Lady L, we met Manny and Lucy for brunch and my dignified coat came away well-patterned with shepherd hair. But that’s what happens when you can’t resist getting down to hug the beast. Idly picking them off on Nieuwezijds Burgewaal made me smile as they drifted off among the tram tracks and bicycle tires.

A couple years ago I wrote a post about Lucy's habit of coming in to say goodnight to me. She was still thriving at the time but understandably it sounded to some like an obituary, and I remember thinking “Nope, so glad it’s not that, yet.”

But now it is. It is that. It is time to say not goodnight, but goodbye.

I’m not good with loss. The invincibility of death still overwhelms me with the terror of permanence. It doesn’t seem real that something I care about it just...gone. Over. Not coming back. I feel that now for a dog I knew. A dog I miss.

Goodbye Lucy.

Pussycat love and opinions in Israel

So yes, Jerusalem felt like it wanted to hate me. But I still fell head-over-heels in love in the city.

I suspect he was a male. He had clean teeth, big feet, and the sort of insightful eyes that see right into your thoughts. I passed him on a thin street behind some big important church or other.

“You feel like this whole city wants to fight, don’t you?” He asked me as I walked past.

“Yes! And that troubles me. It doesn’t seem like a healthy way to live.”

“It’s not, but you have to understand, there has been so much suffering here, so much tension, in both history and living memory, that everyone carries the scars of memory and fear. The spirit has trouble thriving in that environment, but it’s possible.”

“Do all cats know this?” I was curious.

“Of course. We’ve transcended it though; have you ever heard of cats seeking genocide against dogs? No.”

“But dogs have never denied cats’ right to exist.” I thought I had a winner point there.

“No, but nor has anyone in their right mind ever claimed Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. Sure, it’s in some papers and some rants, but does any rational person actually believe that?”

“Well, no. And personally I’ve only ever encountered the idea from pro-Israelis who were shouting that it wasn’t true.”

“Exactly,” purred my love, “because only extremist nutjobs would say it in the first place, and you don’t talk to many extremist nutjobs. Know why? Because if you respond to the extremists all the time, let them shape the dialogue, then you tend to become an extremist too.”

“Kinda like a violent/homicidal version of the Tea Party?”

“Exactly,” his eyes squinted shut in feline pleasure that I saw his point. “Your country argues about whether or not to pay its bills while everything goes to shit, because you listen to a group of people whose platform is defined by the rejection of rational thought. Climate change deniers have no place in governance.”

I agreed with that statement so completely that I had to spend another few minutes scratching under his chin.

“But what about all those people who hate Israel?” I asked, concerned for the fate of a nation.

“Sure, there are some who hate Israel, as we talked about, but hell, there are probably some who hate Canada too, and those syrup-sippers are almost as loveable as I am. But what are the statements that you hear depicted as anti-Israel?”

“Well, people who talk only about the approximately 1,416 civilians* who have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, versus the 3 Israelis killed by rockets, one of which died of a heart attack. And then what’s worse, don’t talk about the violence of something like ISIS!” I was passionate.

*Based on this article’s stats of casualties and civilian percentage

“Dude. Here’s the math. If the number of Israeli civilians killed is X, and the number of Palestinian civilians killed is Y, and the number of UN Workers or any other group killed is Z, then if (X + Y + Z) > 0 then it’s too damn high. Killing anyone? Bad. Those three Israeli civilians killed: awful, shouldn’t have happened. Those 1,416 Palestinian civilians killed, and the fact that we have to estimate since aerial bombardment is so indiscriminate…Awful.”

I couldn’t deny his math.

“And about the ISIS thing? Have you watched the news? Good news? They’re talking about that too. A lot. A lot a lot a lot. And rightly so. If you think no one is talking about how wrong those executions are, then you’re only listening to the voices you find most offensive, which is basically the same mistake as listening only to the extremists.”

Three nuns walked past and smiled at my clear love of this feline sage.

“But all these criticisms of Israel are just more of the traditional anti-Semitism that has plagued Judaism for centuries!” The nuns turned around and gave me worried looks at seeing me argue with a cat. I smiled at them, hoping they wouldn’t come back to perform my exorcism. Those really get in the way of conversation.

“Ah yes, here’s the heart of it, no? The idea that criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic.” His big beautiful eyes grew sad. He paused. “Do you love America?” I nodded that yes, I love my homeland. “Is everything perfect there?”

I gasped, at a loss as to where to begin. “We haven’t been a democracy in decades, if not longer, and our Supreme Court doesn’t even pretend to hide the fact that we’re a plutocracy anymore, government by the wealthy. I genuinely believe our former president and all his cronies should be facing charges of Crimes Against Humanity in The Hague, and I would like to see an investigation about our current one as well. He, in turn, the man who made me so hopeful I literally cried when I heard his campaign speeches in 2008, has followed a policy of unlawful detention, deported more people than anyone else, nominates cable industry lobbyists to head the FCC, gives MASSIVE corporate handouts to multinationals who don’t pay taxes, and didn’t do squat to prosecute the bankers who nearly crashed the world’s economy, and-”

“Whoa there tiger, that’ll do. Pet me until you calm down.” I did so, breathing deeply. “See, you are a patriotic American who recognizes and criticizes certain actions of your government. That itself is patriotic. The old adage ‘My country, right or wrong’ is treason against both the nation and humanity as a whole.”

“So?”

“So calling Israel out on bad behavior is not the same as hating the country itself. You can support a nation, and still think something like the Dahiya Doctrine of deliberately targeting civilian populations with disproportionate force is wrong.

But that’s not the most important thing.” He paused for a second, then asked “What armed conflicts can you remember?”

“Well, Iraq and Afghanistan of course. The violence in Ireland. Bosnia in the mid-90s, I was reading about Srebrenica the other day…”

“Right,” he said, vertical pupils intent. “Notice a theme in those? Sunni v Shiite in Iraq? Taliban in Afghanistan? Catholic v Protestant Ireland? The massacre of Muslim Bosniaks in Srebrenica?”

“Well yeah, religion often drives people into horrible acts, but it also leads people to higher states of altruism, compassion, and kindness, not to mention giving meaning to many people’s lives.”

“Of course it does, I’m not saying religions are bad. But just maybe, linking a religion with a political entity is a recipe for disaster? Mainly because if you believe you have ‘The Right Answer’ to God, it’s a shockingly short step (for many) to believe everyone who doesn’t agree with you on the specifics to be wrong, and therefore lesser. Crusades, anyone?”

“Oy, don’t even bring up that 1000 year old can of worms.”

“Righty-o. But also, if you say ‘State X did a bad thing’ that’s one thing, but when people can twist that statement into ‘Religion X is bad’, you have a huge problem. Hard to talk to people if you feel like they’re attacking your faith in God.”

“But they’re NOT attacking your faith in God, not at all.”

“Sure, but people feel like you are. And that’s enough.”

“Oy vey,” was all I could think to say.

“Yeah, sorry, kinda went long there. To sum up: only lunatics deny Israel has a right to exist, and lunatics should not be allowed to set the discourse.” I nodded.

“Any group who kills civilians should be held accountable for it.” No contest.

“You can love America/Israel/Djibouti and criticize its government. And most importantly: equating a nation-state with a religion is a very dangerous thing.” Agreement, and sadness.

“You poor human. Want a little pick-me-up? Shall I give you the answer?”

I perked up like a tabby when you open the can of tuna.

“Humans are inherently good. Y’all don’t actually want to hurt each other. There are basically three things that make you do it.

1. Bad experience. They killed/attacked you or your family? You may want to hurt them.

2. No experience. You don’t know ‘Them’ so you believe what you’re told about ‘Them.’

3. Fear. Fear for your future or that of your children, in terms of violence, economic well being, whatever.

The good news is: the first two are really easy to fix. 1A: Stop killing each other for a little while. 2A hang out together. Did you ever see that documentary about Israeli and Palestinian kids playing soccer? They were best friends after a few weeks. Let the kids be friends, and they’ll grow up into adults who are too.”

“What about the third one?” I asked, hoping he had an easy answer.

“Oh that baby’s hard, though not as hard as you think, or as your media and lobbyists want you to believe. But you have to figure that out for yourself. Right now, the sun is warm: it’s naptime. One more belly rub and then you may go.”

Take the good, take the bad, enjoy the moment

The texture of the thing is smooth, and it has a pleasant earthy stink to it before we light it on fire. It’s also surprisingly light; you’d think something with such a known name (and that conceivably could have cost me $10,000) would weigh more. But in the end, a Cuban cigar is just a little rod of leaves.

I’m not a smoker, never was. Maybe it was those years as a runner, and the preposterous notion of putting corrosive cigarette smoke in lungs that I’d worked so hard to improve. But there’s something about a good cigar, right now, seasoned with the elusive vapor of being Cuban and supposedly illicit, that makes it an essential part of the moment.

And it’s a good moment.

The day’s tasks, some completed and some waiting for tomorrow or next week or never, are set aside and dismissed. I’m here. Today my legs pedaled across miles, my lungs filled with clean air and pollen, car exhaust and song. I ate food both tasty and worthwhile, and reached out to an old friend or two who I’d never meant to lose touch with.

The air is that special summer edition of warm, perfect for shorts and sandals, but no sweat unless you choose it. Seems I’ve lost my girlfriend, and finished losing everything my last one too, but the dog loves me. Sure there are a pair of potentially serious health concerns that won’t be soothed for months yet, but today I feel invincible. Apparently having no verifiable address for five years while you wander the world is a problem when you come back and apply for an apartment, so I may be homeless in three weeks, but right now I’m going to sit on this porch stoop and enjoy the ending of the day.

The beer is cold. My friend and roommate is smoking the second cigar I brought back, semi-forgotten in the depths of my bag as they waved me through customs. Don’t forget to roll it as you smoke. Don’t draw it into the lungs, just hold it in your mouth like a lyric. And what else goes with Cuban cigars better than Cuban music? So put some of that on. Sounds good, good sounds.

The puppy doesn't actually live here, and the worries
won't always be here, either.

Passersby stop to chat. They pet the dogs, who love them for a moment then go back to fetch. This is a neighborhood, a dream we seek. Condensation on the bottles makes my fingertips shine, and the birds seem to sing just for the hell of it.

The worries aren’t solved; it seems that category never really finishes until you die, and right now, in the wrap of sunlight and ease, that’s fine with me. It’ll all work out.

Life is good.

Miles, my friend.

Miles was the first one I met when I came to look at my prospective US residence. Drenched in August sun, his eyes closed in feline pleasure, he welcomed me to the neighborhood with a purr and a stretch. I liked him immediately.

Thirteen years ago, my roommate’s neighbors in Santa Barbara asked him if he’d like a kitten. “Sorry, I’m allergic, and not really a cat person anyway” he answered.

But they knew him well, apparently, and added “We found him in a dumpster, but our pitbull keeps trying to eat him. He can’t stay here.”

So Miles came home for a day or two while they looked for something else. But Miles had found his home, and moved with it to Nevada, then here to Oakland. He acquired two canine family members along the way, and welcomed them magnanimously. My roommate’s nephews and nieces would come over, too young to realize they’d gotten his name wrong, and immediately ask “Where’s Smiles?”

Roommates brought their own animals over the years, the last of which was a dinosaur of a dog who was entirely too interested in Miles, in his inestimable feline opinion. So Miles basically lived on the porch.

He enjoyed his outdoor life. He’d curl up on a sunny rock, stalk the block, and greet me with a squawk when I came up the walk. (Sorry that got a little out of hand.) His little blue food bowl sat just outside the door, with a water dish on the other side. Across was a scratch post which he’d use to graciously provide us the chance to rub his magnificent feline belly, where the fur was a bit nappy. At first I thought him a grungy little dude, but over time I noticed just how elegant he was.

Once it was clear the behemoth had moved on to other pastures, Miles made his way back inside. He’d kick the dogs off their bed and plop right in the middle with a satisfied smirk while they looked on morosely from the hardwood. Often I’d be at my desk and hear the tinkle of his collar as he’d rouse himself from sleeping on my old backpack in the closet. He’d emerge into the light, squint up with feline affection, stretch, and wander out to find the day.

If I got home late, or got up early, we’d hang out on the porch together, watching the quiet neighborhood go about its modest business. When I ate lunch in the front yard with the dogs, he’d cruise up and take a place on the warm stone walkway. Passing the dogs, he’d usually pause to give them a little sniff-kiss on the nose.

When I found myself alone on Christmas Eve, Miles was here. He nestled in my lap to watch a movie. He kept me company.

.

I’ve been using the past tense for Miles.

On my last trip I got a message from my roommate. Miles, after years of peaceful coexistence with everything on Earth, had gotten caught on the side of the house by raccoons. I still don’t understand what happened. Why now?

They hurt him too badly, and we had to put him to sleep. There was nothing else to do.

One day to the next, no warning, and he was gone. I hate the thought that his last moments were so full of pain, fear. I loved that cat.

In his text, my normally understated roommate could only say “I wasn’t a cat person. He made me one. I miss him.”

I miss him too.

Sam has issues

“I’m not sure if Sammy did something really bad in a previous life, which is why he is the way he is, or if he did something really good, which is why he has the owner he does.”

So pondered Charly, my friend and the previous occupant of my room, as we walked the dogs around Oakland prior to the tenancy transfer. Her massive donkey of a dog was smiling at the world, Lucy was monitoring the shadows, and Sam? Sam was nervous and happy and adorable and disgusting and oh-so-concerned.

This is Sam.

Sam has issues.

The first thing I noticed about Sam was his grin, then his brown eyes, followed by his enthusiasm, earnestness, and charm. Then I noted the big bleeding patches of oozing flesh on his paws.

Sam has allergies. Specifically, he’s off-the-charts allergic to dust mites. His owner bought a big air-purifier that runs in the hallway 24/7, and we clean the hardwood floors at least once a week, no carpet here, but there is no escaping dust mites.

It probably doesn’t help that Sam’s kind of nuts. He’s an anxious pup and a determined one. Bandages last a few minutes, and that bitter spray that’s supposed to keep animals from chewing? He puts that stuff on his breakfast. And the sores go bleeding on.

So Samwise wears the cone when his spots get bad. As good natured as he is, he seems to actually kind of like it. Sometimes when we take it off, he’ll go over and lay by, or even on it, as if asking to have it back on. The bad news is that after years of doggy yoga, he can get his knee inside the cone, and soon the skin there is raw and dripping. It gives his paws a chance to heal, but just relocates the problem to his knee. And after a while, even with daily removals and frequent washing, he gets a yeast infection on his neck from it. Poor little guy.

The cone doesn’t solve the problem, so Gamgee is also one medicated little pup. He gets allergy medicine twice daily, plus a steroid. These help with the wounds, but allergies and anxiety are as close in dear Sammy as they are in the dictionary, and the pill that makes the biggest difference is his serotonin reuptake inhibitor.

Yes, when his sores get really bad, Samster pops puppy Prozac, and the mellow blossoms.

That stuff ain’t cheap, and we want as naturally happy a Sampler as possible, so his wardrobe includes a Thunder Shirt. Have you seen these things? A compression vest, you put it on, and the constant hug mellows the animal out considerably. When you first put it on him, he’ll stand in the middle of the room, Zen and peaceful. Just kind of stares at the wall, in love with the world, observing the flow of the universe. But one can grow accustomed to all things, and the effect diminishes over time.

So to alternate, Samwise’s current attire is a soft cone, made of fabric instead of the familiar hard white plastic. It’s supposed to restrict less and breathe more than the plastic one, though I’m not sure if the Emperor Palpatine vibe is an asset or not. It also limits his peripheral vision more, giving him a habit of running into people (he knows where the walls are, but your location is anybody’s guess) and pushing doors closed when he tries to squeeze through them.

Walk Sam past a bus stop, and he’ll try to get on the bus. No one knows where he’s trying to go.

Samson loves Animal Planet, watching intently while the show is on, getting bored during commercials, and perking up again when the animals come back. His favorites are dogs (of course), cats, and meerkats.

When you get home he'll bring you a shoe, but that day
he chose a sock, for some reason.

I got home yesterday and Samwise was nowhere to be found. Just as I was starting to freak out, I noticed the bathroom door was closed. I opened it to find a very relieved Sammypants, chilling in the bathtub.

There’s one other advantage to the soft cone over the hard one. Sam’s not one for fetch, but take him outside in the sun, and you will be treated to one of my favorite things on Earth. The Sammysault. This is a ninja dog, who takes a few loping steps, lowers his head, rolls over a shoulder, then breakdances his exultation on his back before jumping up and grinning at you. Repeat.

Good boy, Samwise.

Lucy saves the day

Splinters from the weather-worn planks scrape my knees as they thump to the dock. The thud echoes down to where the fires are still burning from my desperate last stand, homemade molotov cocktails and boobytraps with last summer’s fireworks. But it was all for naught.

The setting sun is warm on my back, casting my shadow forward to the evil drug lord who aims his shotgun Uzi at me. He smirks below a sleazy mustache. “It’s over. Put your hands up. Then I kill you.”

I watch my reflection in his aviator sunglasses as my hands rise, then form the letter O in the air. He scoffs, “What are you doing?” He thinks nothing of it as the shadow of my hands creates a circle on his forehead.

Suddenly! A blur of tawny fur as the sleek German shepherd leaps out of nowhere, sails over my head, and pounces on the evil man. She knocks him to the burning dock, where she digs his brains out where the circle had been.

Ha HA, triumph!

That’s the epic conclusion to my brother’s screenplay. Lucy saves the day through her neurotic obsession with shadows, and digging at circles. The first time I came here, hoping to move in a week later, we stood in the kitchen talking, and I watched Lucy staring at the floor, her head tracing from one side to the other.

I thought she’d given away the presence of rats running around below the floorboards. But no, she was watching our shadows. And if you make anything like a circle? Wham! Full-grown shepherd pounce. Think arctic fox, but bigger. We take care not to cast circular shadows anywhere else in the house, since she’d dig through the hardwood floor like stale crackers.

She takes her job very seriously. (Triangles? No deal. Squares? Quit wasting her time.)

Lulu’s a hardworking sort, and is also an expert reflection-chaser (from wine glasses, phone screens, angled knives, or her favorite, the dishwasher door as it opens). Not sure what she thinks the little white pieces of light are. Insolent insects? Alien invaders? Malevolent faeries? She doesn’t know, but she’ll damn well do the diligence to find out.

Few things are as delightful as taking Lou in the front yard for a match on a sunny afternoon. Chip her big blue ball into the air, and she’s got about an 85% chance of catching it on the way down. We have shoot-outs, where I try to get the ball past her to the fence. Final score is often 10-9, but it can go either way.

Last week we had some thunder and lightning, a rare occurrence in this land whose storms normally come down from too-cold-for-such-friction-tomfoolery Alaska. Lookoovore wasn’t super keen on that racket. I calmed her down and she spent the rest of the day within a few yards of my side. I thought I had consoled her, until I told a friend that Loopers brought me one of her bones. “She was taking care of YOU!” she crowed.

Good dog.

And walking her! I had heard that we walk our dogs wrong. You’re not supposed to let them walk ahead of you, much less pull you, or they are walking you. That’s not just a cute joke among dog-walkers, it’s actually a dominance issue. But how to change it? Try walking my parents’ beagles like that? Fuggedaboudit. But Lupinatrix? She stayed right by my side, occasionally sneaking forward, but falling in next to me at a yank on the leash.

In one of his books, Kurt Vonnegut decried training the personality right out of a dog, but that is not the case with Lucifress. Well behaved, but a lover, she has come in twice during the course of typing this blog, just to say hi and see if I’m up for some luvin.

I am.

Now. The sun is warm outside, no sign of rain. I think it’s time for a pbj sandwich, bag of chips, and game of catch with canus Lucious.