So I planned a shindig and worked up a great flyer in pdf format to print and mail out. But I only had a handful of addresses, while I had everyone's email. So since email works for me, I emailed all the invitations.
My partner contends that emailing the things was rude. Much better to call and get snail-mail addresses, or walk them around, something. She's probably right. Maybe some of the declines I got were in reaction to an email being impersonal. I wouldn't know, because my social instincts are alleged to be weak.
Then I got a positive response, and this started a convo, and the gist of that was that everybody sends evites these days. Real mail, envelopes, stamps? Pfah. Granted, this person works in the same overly-electronified industry as I and may be as out of touch with basic reality.
So what say you? Would you be less inclined to accept an invitation sent in email than if the flyer was sent in real mail? Granted, anyone reading this is plugged in and switched on and predisposed to send and receive their global communications in the form of IP packets, so maybe as a poll this is far from scientific, but I'm interested in your reaction regardless.
In other news, as a sort of general catch-up to What Is, I finished my retaining wall and poured the hot tub slab, my dad's still in hospital but recovering (as well as one can - there's really only one way to recover from old age), skies are clear of smoke but only for the time being as we head into a year of record-low precipitation and water storage, the cat is slowly getting less reactive to the puppy-dog's enthusiastic leap and play, our house continues to be a brief waystation for random collections of surprisingly polite teenagers, and there is still only one number between one thousand and two thousand that is not a sum of consecutive integers.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Overheard
"I'm not liking the tenure of his emails."
I'm thinking that should have been a mute point.
Chief Seattle watches over gulls and ferryboats, 24 May 08
I'm thinking that should have been a mute point.
Chief Seattle watches over gulls and ferryboats, 24 May 08Dreams Aside
So yesterday I mentioned BART. Near and dear to my heart. At the web page is a history page, which mentions the planning and development of a high-speed electric rail system for the Bay Area being underway even as the existing electric rail system for the Bay Area was being ripped up and paved over by local governments under the influence of gas, tire and auto companies (they don't mention that last part, but the timing -- late 40s, early 50s -- is interesting).
The final recommendation was submitted to the Legislature in 1957, about the time my grandfather was fixing to retire from County service. He was a bigwig by then -- there's actually an office building in Martinez they wanted to name after him, but he refused it -- and among his effects landed a bound copy of that proposal. I pored over it as a kid, enthralled by proposed railroad routes and station designs. Then it disappeared, probably tossed out by his widow.
Crossing my fingers and hoping for an online version, I searched yesterday on my grandfather's name, thinking maybe he'd be listed therein as one of the significant officials and thus serve as the document's hook for the search engine. No luck. What the search engine did find however was at freepatentsonline: his invention, patented May 2, 1967, of a bottle stopper. Seems to be one of those mechanical corks whose piston employs pressure to seal an opened bottle. We've a few of those, and though wine is much better served by the cork that came with it, they occasionally come in handy. I was surprised as hell to find this.
Grandfather was not an inventor or an engineer. He was an accountant and retired as County Auditor in 1958. But he evidently had a curious and disciplined mind. I think it's great that the invention he managed to get filed at the U.S. Patent Office was related to social drinking. I printed out a copy and will give that to my father when next I go to the hospital for a visit (yes, still in). I also printed out another one: This find sparked a vague memory, so I searched on my great-grandfather as well and sure enough, there he is on U.S. Patent 1,363,615, "Feathering-Wheel", patented Dec. 28, 1920:
"Our invention is an improvement in feathering wheels, and has for its object to provide a wheel of the character specified especially adapted for flying machines, by means of which the machine may be made to ascend or descend in a nearly vertical manner and to hover over a comparatively small area or to move forward in the manner of an aeroplane's flight."
As with his son-in-law, my great-grandfather did not capitalize on the effort to get the patent but ultimately let it lie. He wasn't an engineer either. Al was born and raised in gold mining country, and about the time of this patent had two teenage daughters and was shifting from being a small-town postmaster to selling Bay Area real estate. I have no idea what interests, influences or ambitions led him to draw up the plans for an early (and probably impractical) helicopter.
All of which make me feel very much the slacker. I'm the one whose career is in some large high-tech company that enables, nay encourages, its employee base to apply for patents for any and all of their bright ideas. I'm the one who presumably should have a wall full of engraved plaques commemorating my brilliant inventive efforts, not the dabbling businessman-of-all-trades or retired accountant who came before. But no-o-o-o. All I do is slog overwhelmed through my list of customer issues and technical documents and try to absorb endless already-invented technical trivialities, and write blog posts. Oh, and last night I wrote a thousand words or so of fiction. Whoopie do.
The final recommendation was submitted to the Legislature in 1957, about the time my grandfather was fixing to retire from County service. He was a bigwig by then -- there's actually an office building in Martinez they wanted to name after him, but he refused it -- and among his effects landed a bound copy of that proposal. I pored over it as a kid, enthralled by proposed railroad routes and station designs. Then it disappeared, probably tossed out by his widow.
Crossing my fingers and hoping for an online version, I searched yesterday on my grandfather's name, thinking maybe he'd be listed therein as one of the significant officials and thus serve as the document's hook for the search engine. No luck. What the search engine did find however was at freepatentsonline: his invention, patented May 2, 1967, of a bottle stopper. Seems to be one of those mechanical corks whose piston employs pressure to seal an opened bottle. We've a few of those, and though wine is much better served by the cork that came with it, they occasionally come in handy. I was surprised as hell to find this.
Grandfather was not an inventor or an engineer. He was an accountant and retired as County Auditor in 1958. But he evidently had a curious and disciplined mind. I think it's great that the invention he managed to get filed at the U.S. Patent Office was related to social drinking. I printed out a copy and will give that to my father when next I go to the hospital for a visit (yes, still in). I also printed out another one: This find sparked a vague memory, so I searched on my great-grandfather as well and sure enough, there he is on U.S. Patent 1,363,615, "Feathering-Wheel", patented Dec. 28, 1920:
"Our invention is an improvement in feathering wheels, and has for its object to provide a wheel of the character specified especially adapted for flying machines, by means of which the machine may be made to ascend or descend in a nearly vertical manner and to hover over a comparatively small area or to move forward in the manner of an aeroplane's flight."
As with his son-in-law, my great-grandfather did not capitalize on the effort to get the patent but ultimately let it lie. He wasn't an engineer either. Al was born and raised in gold mining country, and about the time of this patent had two teenage daughters and was shifting from being a small-town postmaster to selling Bay Area real estate. I have no idea what interests, influences or ambitions led him to draw up the plans for an early (and probably impractical) helicopter.
All of which make me feel very much the slacker. I'm the one whose career is in some large high-tech company that enables, nay encourages, its employee base to apply for patents for any and all of their bright ideas. I'm the one who presumably should have a wall full of engraved plaques commemorating my brilliant inventive efforts, not the dabbling businessman-of-all-trades or retired accountant who came before. But no-o-o-o. All I do is slog overwhelmed through my list of customer issues and technical documents and try to absorb endless already-invented technical trivialities, and write blog posts. Oh, and last night I wrote a thousand words or so of fiction. Whoopie do.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Fire At Will
Sometimes I believe I should blog more, not less. Shorter subjects, more frequently. This is probably the effect of some low-level bipolarism in my chemical makeup, or an intractable impulse to shirk at my job mixed with the occasional decision to remember that expression, artistic expression especially, cares not what you think about it. But whatev. Point is, for no known reason as I sat here working too hard on the details of a procedural definition no one will follow, the movie THX 1138 suddenly came to mind. Despite the Wiki's pronouncement that the film "was released to theaters on March 11, 1971 and failed to reach an audience," I saw it when it came out, and have wanted to have my own copy ever since (I just forgot for most of three and a half decades). In other words, it did not fail to reach me. The main reason I wanted to see it, of course, was I knew part of it was filmed in the yet-to-be-completed Transbay Tube and, being twelve, anything to do with BART, under construction and not yet running, fascinated me.
(I used to ride my bike down to the construction site where the elevated BART tracks dove underground at the Berkeley city limits. The people of Berkeley had voted to pay extra to put the tracks underground so as not to leave part of the city on the "wrong" side of the tracks. I can still picture the earth-moving equipment, the vast structures of rebar, the great open maw of the tunnel leading into a dark and mysterious underworld.)
(I used to ride my bike down to the construction site where the elevated BART tracks dove underground at the Berkeley city limits. The people of Berkeley had voted to pay extra to put the tracks underground so as not to leave part of the city on the "wrong" side of the tracks. I can still picture the earth-moving equipment, the vast structures of rebar, the great open maw of the tunnel leading into a dark and mysterious underworld.)
Game
The puppy is seven or eight months old and bigger now than the old dog was. We thought he was big. Then we had him sheared. Anyway, she’s all romp and play. The cat is of mixed mind about this.
Baleful stare. “Come closer and I will kill you.”
Tail wag, chin to ground, paws out. “Let’s play!”
Narrow gaze. “Any closer, I will remove your eye.”
Tail wag, playful leap, tongue out. “Let’s play!”
Sidelong glare. “I kid you not. Sliced eyeball.”
Toothy smile, circle jump, pounce position. “Let’s play!”
Slow, dignified walk to create distance. “Come any closer than THAT, I will sever an artery.”
Happy bark, back flip, dance in place. “Let’s play!”
Cat takes three steps forward. Dog runs away off the porch, takes three high-speed turns around the lawn, circles a porch pillar and the legs of all humans nearby, pounces the ground fourteen inches in front of Cat, wags tail, barks again, grins with tongue trailing slobber along the ground. “Yay! Let’s play!”
Cat leaps forward, kung-fu claws slicing the air two millimeters from Dog’s nose, left right right left right in dizzying motion. Dog jumps backward and runs away, emerges seconds later from cloud of dust, slides on all fours beneath Cat’s new position. “Missed! Ha ha! We’re playing!”
Cat curls tail lazily around perch atop railing, licks paw. “Huh. I ain’t playin’ wit chew.”
Stare, sit, stare, stand, look away, wag tail, wander off happily, find disgusting rotten stick to chew on. “We played! Ooh! Dirt flavor!”
Cat looks at humans, eyes half closed. “I win. WE DIDN’T PLAY! But I win.”
Baleful stare. “Come closer and I will kill you.”
Tail wag, chin to ground, paws out. “Let’s play!”
Narrow gaze. “Any closer, I will remove your eye.”
Tail wag, playful leap, tongue out. “Let’s play!”
Sidelong glare. “I kid you not. Sliced eyeball.”
Toothy smile, circle jump, pounce position. “Let’s play!”
Slow, dignified walk to create distance. “Come any closer than THAT, I will sever an artery.”
Happy bark, back flip, dance in place. “Let’s play!”
Cat takes three steps forward. Dog runs away off the porch, takes three high-speed turns around the lawn, circles a porch pillar and the legs of all humans nearby, pounces the ground fourteen inches in front of Cat, wags tail, barks again, grins with tongue trailing slobber along the ground. “Yay! Let’s play!”
Cat leaps forward, kung-fu claws slicing the air two millimeters from Dog’s nose, left right right left right in dizzying motion. Dog jumps backward and runs away, emerges seconds later from cloud of dust, slides on all fours beneath Cat’s new position. “Missed! Ha ha! We’re playing!”
Cat curls tail lazily around perch atop railing, licks paw. “Huh. I ain’t playin’ wit chew.”
Stare, sit, stare, stand, look away, wag tail, wander off happily, find disgusting rotten stick to chew on. “We played! Ooh! Dirt flavor!”
Cat looks at humans, eyes half closed. “I win. WE DIDN’T PLAY! But I win.”
Friday, July 11, 2008
Scasm Flasm Slurpee Day
It's 7-11! That makes it Free Slurpee Day! Yippee. Getcher brain freeze now.
Is anything more agonizing than brain freeze? For about three seconds you just want to die.
And then you don't.
Cold-sensitive teeth don't help. Where the hell did that shit come from? Something about living long enough for something in my mouth to wear down and expose a nerve. Can't even drink ice water without being real careful, or brush my teeth on a cold morning.
Cold mornings are the least of our worries this time of year.
At the web site it says, "Want A Fun Job?" Yes, they mean at Seven-Eleven. I cannot fathom the state of mind that leads a person to consider working at 7-11 as a result of seeing an internet ad. "Ooh, mom, it'll get me out of the basement!" Nothing wrong with actually working there. It's the internet recruiting angle I don't get, not for that. We all pass one or several every single day.
I worked at 7-11 once. After my friend and I blew my student loan money in Mexico, I came back impressed with how hard the Mexican people worked for almost nothing and decided to quit lying around and got me a job. Yes, at the local Seven-Eleven, working eleven to seven. For awhile there were two of us, my partner being either a punkish Christian newlywed who worked on his car before sunrise to beat the heat, or his even more punkish little brother who regaled me with tales from the local gay spinning club and once pointed out a hairy tough-looking guy who'd come in to buy beer to say, "See him? He is hung like a donkey." I thanked him for that valuable info.
Once trained, I had the place to myself. It was mostly nuts when the bars closed around two and again at six when people were headed off to work. Otherwise I stared out the front windows, wiped counters, told kids the magazine rack wasn't a library, and stole quarters out of the till for use on the pinball machine. One time, about four a.m. two very hot chicks nearly begged me to let them buy beer for their "man" outside, but you cannot sell alcohol between two and six in the morning in this state, and I was upright and righteous and refused. I've often thought since that I should've have swung a deal. Another time, some local long-haired hophead got rude with the microwave: Didn't take the foil off his burrito, which is bad for the equipment, then stood there eating it with his mouth open staring at me. I told him to leave. Later when I walked home I found him lying unconscious on the sidewalk, which made me feel better about not kicking his ass earlier (but you know, those places have cameras).
Then I got an eight to five electronics job and should've just quit, but I was a responsible sod and gave two weeks' notice. For two weeks I worked two forty-hour jobs -- did my shopping in the wee hours Saturday at the all-night grocery and only slept between six and nine pm during the week. It never occurred to me to just walk away -- retail people do that all the time. But that's just the way I was.
This walk down memory lane (I'm not saying how long ago that was -- let's just say it was during the first term of a President who'd had a relationship with a monkey) was brought to you by random emails, oxygen deprivation, and an uncertainty as to whether I blog more when in a good mood or in blah. Maybe it's to do with the subject matter (so-called); which is quite random, really, much like life itself.
Is anything more agonizing than brain freeze? For about three seconds you just want to die.
And then you don't.
Cold-sensitive teeth don't help. Where the hell did that shit come from? Something about living long enough for something in my mouth to wear down and expose a nerve. Can't even drink ice water without being real careful, or brush my teeth on a cold morning.
Cold mornings are the least of our worries this time of year.
At the web site it says, "Want A Fun Job?" Yes, they mean at Seven-Eleven. I cannot fathom the state of mind that leads a person to consider working at 7-11 as a result of seeing an internet ad. "Ooh, mom, it'll get me out of the basement!" Nothing wrong with actually working there. It's the internet recruiting angle I don't get, not for that. We all pass one or several every single day.
I worked at 7-11 once. After my friend and I blew my student loan money in Mexico, I came back impressed with how hard the Mexican people worked for almost nothing and decided to quit lying around and got me a job. Yes, at the local Seven-Eleven, working eleven to seven. For awhile there were two of us, my partner being either a punkish Christian newlywed who worked on his car before sunrise to beat the heat, or his even more punkish little brother who regaled me with tales from the local gay spinning club and once pointed out a hairy tough-looking guy who'd come in to buy beer to say, "See him? He is hung like a donkey." I thanked him for that valuable info.
Once trained, I had the place to myself. It was mostly nuts when the bars closed around two and again at six when people were headed off to work. Otherwise I stared out the front windows, wiped counters, told kids the magazine rack wasn't a library, and stole quarters out of the till for use on the pinball machine. One time, about four a.m. two very hot chicks nearly begged me to let them buy beer for their "man" outside, but you cannot sell alcohol between two and six in the morning in this state, and I was upright and righteous and refused. I've often thought since that I should've have swung a deal. Another time, some local long-haired hophead got rude with the microwave: Didn't take the foil off his burrito, which is bad for the equipment, then stood there eating it with his mouth open staring at me. I told him to leave. Later when I walked home I found him lying unconscious on the sidewalk, which made me feel better about not kicking his ass earlier (but you know, those places have cameras).
Then I got an eight to five electronics job and should've just quit, but I was a responsible sod and gave two weeks' notice. For two weeks I worked two forty-hour jobs -- did my shopping in the wee hours Saturday at the all-night grocery and only slept between six and nine pm during the week. It never occurred to me to just walk away -- retail people do that all the time. But that's just the way I was.
This walk down memory lane (I'm not saying how long ago that was -- let's just say it was during the first term of a President who'd had a relationship with a monkey) was brought to you by random emails, oxygen deprivation, and an uncertainty as to whether I blog more when in a good mood or in blah. Maybe it's to do with the subject matter (so-called); which is quite random, really, much like life itself.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Hot and Poisonous
The sky has been replaced with a choking haze that turns the sun orange and makes anything more than two miles away disappear. Our thoughts should be with the firefighters and with the people whose homes are in danger or already destroyed, but I admit the surreal atmosphere outside gives me a nihilistic sort of thrill portending the end of the world. In a few moments I'll cut a way through the poisonous fumes, take down the top of my convertible, and ride home through the glowing gloom with scorched air forcing a smoker's lifetime of cancerous pollution into my shriveling lungs. With any luck, I'll be dead in twenty minutes.
Ah, but that's nothing: The citizenry of San Francisco was subject to so much heat yesterday that the NWS declared an "excessive heat watch". Poor dears: It was 80 degrees! While down in Sacramento, it was only 106, barely hot enough to notice. Perhaps the Venusian atmosphere provides an ameliorating effect I have failed to appreciate.
Ah, but that's nothing: The citizenry of San Francisco was subject to so much heat yesterday that the NWS declared an "excessive heat watch". Poor dears: It was 80 degrees! While down in Sacramento, it was only 106, barely hot enough to notice. Perhaps the Venusian atmosphere provides an ameliorating effect I have failed to appreciate.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
LA 2017
Six fifty in the morning and the air conditioner in the older part of the house was on. I went and checked the thermostat: 78. So I bumped it up to 80 and it turned off. I'd say it's a bad sign when the upstairs is almost eighty degrees shortly after the sun has come up.
I drove the convertible because the clutch in the Jeep is giving out and breakfasted on smoked oxygen. Fires still rage in the mountains all around and there is no wind to carry it away: A pinkish-gray pall has drifted on the high air and settled in the Valley. Sensitive types find their throat and eyes are always hurting. Cars are pulled over at odd angles, the occupants reduced to dried-out husks under their gas masks. Do you remember this show? I'll never forget it and it's coming true today.
But no worries! It's summertime!
For those of you who live in the 21st Century, 108°F is over 42°C
I drove the convertible because the clutch in the Jeep is giving out and breakfasted on smoked oxygen. Fires still rage in the mountains all around and there is no wind to carry it away: A pinkish-gray pall has drifted on the high air and settled in the Valley. Sensitive types find their throat and eyes are always hurting. Cars are pulled over at odd angles, the occupants reduced to dried-out husks under their gas masks. Do you remember this show? I'll never forget it and it's coming true today.
But no worries! It's summertime!
For those of you who live in the 21st Century, 108°F is over 42°C Monday, July 07, 2008
End of Story
Summer weather: I wake up early, whatever I did the night before. And the 5th of July was a Saturday. I could do what I want! Skies were clear, air was cool with a promise of heat. Perfect.
I lassoed the younger dog, Bailee, the retriever born last winter, and took her for a walk. We went out into the neighborhoods to watch the community do morning. People were walking or starting their yard work or just having breakfast tea in the shade, all of us together watching a perfect day come to life. We went a couple three miles, looking at houses (all of them different, this being an area of small old ranches converting slowly to small developments and custom homes), went along the boulevard looking at closed businesses, came up to the working orchard looking at trees. We walked between the trees to the fruit shed. That family’s been farming there since 1911, house looks like it was built about that time, a stone Lincoln Highway marker decorates the front yard. I tied the dog up in the shade and looked around and bought some Regina peaches and some Babcock peaches to take home for breakfast. They were the most perfect peaches I’ve ever seen.
Home, I put her in the yard and looked for the older dog. I had been careful that he not see us leave or he would follow. He’s very slow and if I didn’t know he was following, he might end up in the street, us not knowing where we went. I wanted to make sure he was home, say good morning, all that. He wasn’t in his place in the garage or in his dog house. I took a flashlight and inspected under the front porch where he likes to lie on the cool hard earth – not there either. I took a walk around the house to look in his place in the rear courtyard, where it’s also nice and shady.
Surprised to find him lying in the early sun, out in the dry grass next to my big mound of earth where I’m dumping unneeded piles of hillside. Just lying there. Not moving. No discernible breathing.
I touched his head.
He was not at home.
I sat in the dirt and petted him again a few times, and tears started to squeeze out of me and I said, “Goodbye, Stormy. Goodbye, old boy.”
Nothing. Not even that reaction when you touch someone and they don’t notice, a tiny flinch you yourself don’t notice unless it’s not there. Just gone.
I went to his dog house and retrieved the nasty old blanket he kicks around in there, and put it over him. Wife as it happens had started giving the younger dog her bath, in the shower. So they were in there and I went in too and sat down on one of the benches – it’s a large shower – and said, “Stormy’s gone. He’s home, but he’s gone.”
She started to cry and we held each other in the warm rain and cried awhile, Bailee in there with us too, wet, patiently waiting.
Later I lifted him in his blanket onto the garden cart, and put him in the shade under the tree in the lawn, where so often he would writhe around on his back to scratch it and bark. He always had itchies and they made him bark.
Later that morning, everyone else out of bed, the four of us sat around him and silently said our goodbyes, each in our own way; then lifted him into the bed of the pickup and took him, all four of us together, down to the vet hospital. They came out with a cart and took him away. They were very sympathetic, because of course they are animal people, and our loss was on all our faces.
And that was it, except for waves of remembrance, especially when passing one of his lie-around places, or encountering a wad of brown dog hair, or just sort of looking for him as usual and then, oh yeah. More tears.
I suppose people cry when their cats die, but dogs are truly part of the family. They have eyes that other loving mammals such as humans can read, and eyebrows that express, and mouths that smile. Most of all they have a presence, or at least the smart and loving ones do; and when they go on it isn’t tragic, of course, but it is sad. They are missed. I very much miss Stormy – just as I miss Max, who was Stormy’s elder – and someday, maybe in about a dozen years, Bailee too will be the old dog being harassed by a younger dog, and she too will go her way as we all must. So.
So. Being philosophical is just a way of avoiding the hurt. I miss Stormy very much. End of story.
Stormy gets a shearing about two weeks ago.
I lassoed the younger dog, Bailee, the retriever born last winter, and took her for a walk. We went out into the neighborhoods to watch the community do morning. People were walking or starting their yard work or just having breakfast tea in the shade, all of us together watching a perfect day come to life. We went a couple three miles, looking at houses (all of them different, this being an area of small old ranches converting slowly to small developments and custom homes), went along the boulevard looking at closed businesses, came up to the working orchard looking at trees. We walked between the trees to the fruit shed. That family’s been farming there since 1911, house looks like it was built about that time, a stone Lincoln Highway marker decorates the front yard. I tied the dog up in the shade and looked around and bought some Regina peaches and some Babcock peaches to take home for breakfast. They were the most perfect peaches I’ve ever seen.
Home, I put her in the yard and looked for the older dog. I had been careful that he not see us leave or he would follow. He’s very slow and if I didn’t know he was following, he might end up in the street, us not knowing where we went. I wanted to make sure he was home, say good morning, all that. He wasn’t in his place in the garage or in his dog house. I took a flashlight and inspected under the front porch where he likes to lie on the cool hard earth – not there either. I took a walk around the house to look in his place in the rear courtyard, where it’s also nice and shady.
Surprised to find him lying in the early sun, out in the dry grass next to my big mound of earth where I’m dumping unneeded piles of hillside. Just lying there. Not moving. No discernible breathing.
I touched his head.
He was not at home.
I sat in the dirt and petted him again a few times, and tears started to squeeze out of me and I said, “Goodbye, Stormy. Goodbye, old boy.”
Nothing. Not even that reaction when you touch someone and they don’t notice, a tiny flinch you yourself don’t notice unless it’s not there. Just gone.
I went to his dog house and retrieved the nasty old blanket he kicks around in there, and put it over him. Wife as it happens had started giving the younger dog her bath, in the shower. So they were in there and I went in too and sat down on one of the benches – it’s a large shower – and said, “Stormy’s gone. He’s home, but he’s gone.”
She started to cry and we held each other in the warm rain and cried awhile, Bailee in there with us too, wet, patiently waiting.
Later I lifted him in his blanket onto the garden cart, and put him in the shade under the tree in the lawn, where so often he would writhe around on his back to scratch it and bark. He always had itchies and they made him bark.
Later that morning, everyone else out of bed, the four of us sat around him and silently said our goodbyes, each in our own way; then lifted him into the bed of the pickup and took him, all four of us together, down to the vet hospital. They came out with a cart and took him away. They were very sympathetic, because of course they are animal people, and our loss was on all our faces.
And that was it, except for waves of remembrance, especially when passing one of his lie-around places, or encountering a wad of brown dog hair, or just sort of looking for him as usual and then, oh yeah. More tears.
I suppose people cry when their cats die, but dogs are truly part of the family. They have eyes that other loving mammals such as humans can read, and eyebrows that express, and mouths that smile. Most of all they have a presence, or at least the smart and loving ones do; and when they go on it isn’t tragic, of course, but it is sad. They are missed. I very much miss Stormy – just as I miss Max, who was Stormy’s elder – and someday, maybe in about a dozen years, Bailee too will be the old dog being harassed by a younger dog, and she too will go her way as we all must. So.
So. Being philosophical is just a way of avoiding the hurt. I miss Stormy very much. End of story.
Stormy gets a shearing about two weeks ago.
