Dog

This is Dog. He is our family's social ambassador, as the rest of us (Husband, me, two snakes, and three lizards) are markedly more introverted.
He enjoys long walks on the beach, cheese, sniffing tail, playing tug of war, wrestling, investigating dead things, and swimming, except when the waves are scary.
He does not appreciate grooming, vacuum cleaners, hot weather, being excluded from any meals or snacks, strangers approaching his yard, playing "wheelbarrow" (which is too bad because I thoroughly enjoy it), or long road trips...although he hates to be left behind and generally suffers well through the car portion of any adventures we take.

cars win all ties

Yesterday, it being a holiday, I took Dog to the P-A-R-K. (This being a blog, my being away from Dog, and the fact that Dog cannot read, all together, do not seem to have overcome my habit of spelling out that word to avoid the quivering full-body excitement that speaking that word aloud incites in Dog.) Well, that's not completely honest: Husband had a study partner at the house for the purposes of tackling calculus, and our house is 715 square feet, many of which can seemingly be simultaneously occupied by Dog, especially when a week of rain has kept him cooped up in his dog house; also, he is extremely enthusiastic about visitors. It seemed disrespectful of the study group to lounge on the couch and watch TV while Dog molested the study partner, not to mention the TV could prove distracting (to them). And I had an invitation to join a couple of friends and their puppy at the p-a-r-k. It took all of these factors combined to motivate me to change out of my pajamas and pile Dog in the car, and then we went to the p-a-r-k.

I had printed directions from the internet, but all the park entrance roads were closed and I spent some time being lost, asking for directions, retracing my path, giving up, parking, and hiking up a substantial elevation change on sodden unpaved soil, but we eventually arrived at the dog p-a-r-k. Incidentally, if I have any readers and if said readers happen to be dog owners, how is one expected to navigate such terrain whilst keeping the dog on-leash? The p-a-r-k rules are very specific as to this necessity, but I feel strongly that had I not released my grip on the leash on at least two occasions, Dog and I both would likely have sustained falling-related injuries. His strategy is to speed up -- which works well on the descent as he avoids the problem of inertia that threatens to deliver me to the bottom on my backside, but causes substantial loss of traction on the ascent and threatens anyone within, say, a six-foot radius. Isn't it ironic that the required dog leash is six feet long? Dog is accustomed to being off-leash at our usual dog p-a-r-k and allows me to reclaim his leash after hills...and I don't really see a viable alternative. But I digress.

After overcoming the motivational, navigational, road-closure confrontational, and elevational challenges involved in arriving at the dog p-a-r-k, there were no dogs there. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration: there were three dogs there who left within five minutes of our arrival. We hung out for a while hoping for company and one more showed up, but she was elderly and had no interest in entertaining a giant puppy. So we walked back down to the car and loaded Dog inside.

A minivan had just parked in front of us on the street and its various passengers were gradually disembarking. The kids piled out onto the sidewalk, but Presumed Grandma stood, oblivious, in the middle of the street. It's a downhill slope with a speed limit of 30 mph, and the particular spot in which we were situated followed a more-or-less blind curve...so, basically, she was awaiting road kill status. Presumed Dad made gestures suggesting Presumed Grandma remove herself to the sidewalk. I sat and waited. Finally, Presumed Dad took Presumed Grandma by the arm and placed her on the sidewalk. I began slowly creeping out of my parking space, alternately cranked 180 degrees backward to see approaching traffic descending from the blind curve, and checking back to see that no children or feeble-minded elderly persons had ventured into my path. These maneuvers were repeated multiple times. As you can see, I am a very conscientious driver. When I finally pulled out and cleared the minivan, I punched the accelerator because, well, you know, I was entering traffic and must get up to speed. That's when the biker (bicyclist, not motorcyclist) cursed me out from the other lane.

Clearly, he had been coming down the hill in the right-hand lane, not that I could see him since he came around a blind curve and was hidden by parked cars. Clearly, he had been able to see me pulling out, since he didn't crash into my rear end. Clearly, since his vehicle has no walls, it is in his best interest to be hyperaware of his surroundings. I felt awful, even though it wasn't my fault. But then he cut me off. Seriously, who the fuck cuts off a car on a bicycle? That's worse than standing in the middle of the street, tempting fate. That's deliberately putting oneself in harm's way, apparently to make a point, or to exact some revenge? I don't know. So I hit my brakes, created a reasonable following distance, and we coasted tandem to the bottom of the hill, where there is a stop sign. The high and mighty bicyclist, of course, blew right through the stop sign, just as I was expecting. Since I was stopped at said stop sign, I may have taken the opportunity to remark (or yell down the street) that stop signs also apply to asshole bicyclists.

Lest I offend anyone, please allow me to state for the record that I share the road at every opportunity. I have never once hit a bicyclist or pedestrian -- never even come close -- although I myself was hit by cars three times in college while riding my bicycle. I was riding legally every time, and the drivers broke the law: 1. Didn't look right while turning right, 2. Didn't look behind when pulling out from street parking, 3. I don't know what happened but he hit me from behind which was just ridiculously incompetent. At the same time, as a bicyclist I realize that I am less visible than a car to other drivers, and that (as my junior high track coach phrased it) cars win all ties. If you're a bicyclist on the road, you're a vehicle. You have all the rights of a vehicle, as well as all the responsibilities. You can't expect to be protected by the laws when you don't obey them: traffic laws exist to create a common understanding regarding right-of-way, safe speeds, etc. I know it sucks to lose all that downhill momentum because of a stupid stop sign, and to have to start from zero again. But if you want to play with the big kids out on the road and escape with your various body parts intact, that's what's required. And you lose all credibility when your supercilious ass flies through stop signs after bitching at drivers who are doing their very best to be careful of everyone else.

Here's a link to a video -- it doesn't show the actual accident and everyone was okay, but it resulted from a bicyclist running a stop sign and hitting (not being hit by) a car. Bicyclist runs stop sign, collides with car.

musings: a narrow escape

My best friend texted me this morning because she was laughing over one of her many brushes with extreme bodily injury and wanted to share the joy. That girl gets herself in and out of more scrapes than the average ten people combined. I'd like to be able to blame it all on her drinking, but that -- while it certainly complicates matters -- is an insufficient explanation. I swear scrapes just descend upon her like flies on shit.

Last summer, I got married. It was a super secret affair that masqueraded as a camping trip (okay, it started off as a legitimate camping trip but then we crazy kids got it into our heads to get hitched and start living as legitimately wedded adults instead of merely cohabitating in gleeful non-wedlocked sin). I picked her up from the airport after work and she was already sloshed. Then, my husband-to-be entertained her and himself with drinks while I packed a bag, camping gear, and the car. He knows well her tendency to over-imbibe and tried to take it easy on the pouring, but, true to form, she snatched the bottle from his hand and topped herself off generously. She and I were driving up early to snag an additional site at the campground and spend one night before the rest of the group joined us. By the time we actually departed, I was certain she'd pass out immediately in the car...but, no. Lest you think I'm complaining, I actually very much enjoy DA's intoxicated company. She definitely has a drinking problem, but she is generally not a problem when she drinks -- at least, not when she's with me (it's all the other times that she really gets into trouble). She chatters enthusiastically and enjoys my bad attempts at humor, and she's one of the few people in the world who gets me unfettered because I know she'll always love me, anyway. So I took the responsible driver role, and she took the entertainer role, and the time and road flew past us, giggling and giddy on empty highway. Until she had to pee.

By that time, we were really out in the middle of nowhere, not to mention that the PCH drops off precipitously on the coastal side, leaving a narrow ribbon of pavement and few opportunities to pull over. She was not, she informed me, going to make it to the next town, however far ahead that might be. I managed to find an off-shoot from the main road, which had a couple of houses, and pulled to the side. Since it was past midnight, left my brighted headlights on to assist in the location of an appropriate bathroom. DA toddled drunkenly off onto the shoulder...and promptly disappeared. What the fuck? I had deliberately turned eastward, i.e., away from the precipitous 100-foot drop-off to the rocks and surf; how had this calamity befallen us? I heard her groaning painfully from somewhere, yanked on the e-brake, and vaulted out of the car. Calling to her, I checked my run as I realized that, if I fell off whatever she'd fallen off, no one was likely to find us or hear us calling for help. Sure enough, ten feet off the roadside and conveniently just at the edge of my headlights, the ground dropped off into a concrete drainage ditch ten or twelve feet deep. Full of muddy water. And blackberry vines, full-grown and vicious, with thorns an inch long and populous. And there was no way in hell I could reach DA.

She ascertained that nothing seemed broken, to my immense relief and disbelief, but couldn't figure out how to climb out. "Well," she said, ever the pragmatist, "since I'm down here I'm going to pee." I paced around the lip of the crevasse and discovered that the drop was less high on the far side of the blackberries, which she would have to climb through. If you've ever tried to harvest blackberries, you probably noticed that getting near them usually results in bleeding and pulling stickers out of your flesh. No gardening gloves I've met can prevent it (although they can be helpful in limiting the severity of the resultant puncture wounds). My best friend, though, is a superstar with the world's highest pain tolerance -- just ask her tattoo artists -- and she gamely mounted the monstrous thorny bush and scrambled up the muddy embankment with hardly more than a squeaky, slightly desperate-sounding protest when it snagged her various bits and pieces. In the light of the headlamps, I could see she was soaking wet, muddy, slightly bloody, and shivering. She theorized (and I couldn't help but agree) that it was likely fortunate she was wasted when she fell off the cliff into the brambles, because when you're drunk you don't stiffen: she apparently flopped somewhat gracefully into the drainage ditch, landed on one hip, and sort of rolled off it and spread out the impact. Fresh out the culvert, and she suggested she should strip naked so as to avoid smearing mud all over the interior of my car! For perhaps the only time, I appreciated Lucy's (my car's) aged black leather interior. After giving her (DA, not Lucy) a final once-over, we piled back in, cranked up the heater, and were on our merry way.

It was dark when we arrived at the campground and we set up the tent and went to bed, still giggling over DA's tendency to attract (near) disaster. In the light of day, which was her birthday the cut on her hip looked much more menacing...we eventually had to run to town to pick up some first aid supplies as it started to get infected. But other than needing to wash her clothes, the girl sustained very little damage from her ordeal. We got a lot of mileage out of the story as our friends arrived and we recounted it to each of them, and everyone was equally incredulous that she managed to escape unharmed (for the most part) and with her humor, if not all her dignity, intact. And then we proceeded to have a fabulous weekend with friends camping on the beach, celebrating DA's birthday, and gettin' hitched. There are plans developing to return this year, so I'd better put my flashlight back in the damn car.

afterburner

Thirteen years ago today, my brother died by suicide. It has been a long process to the understanding of the event that I have today, but in many ways it's hard to comprehend how much time has passed. My life now bears little similarity to then, in terms of the people I know, the place I live, the stage of life I'm living. None of the people I will see today has ever met my brother, and it's likely that I won't talk to anyone who knew him. I'm married now, living 2,000 miles across the country, and even the season is different in this part of the world at this time of year (i.e., there is no sign of ice on the ground and flowers are blooming in my front yard). It's a different world.

I called up my mom to share some love, and of course we reminisced and shared some stories and reflections, which demonstrates more than anything else how far we've each come in moving forward: at the time, we could not have had a discussion regarding "why" and I most assuredly could not have told her that I don't disapprove of his taking his own life. Today I can express quite freely my opinion that every person should have control over his or her life, to the point of making a decision to end it. This is not a validation of suicide per se, but rather a recognition of freedom of choice. Only purely selfish motives are involved in determining that another person must continue a life that he or she wishes unequivocally to end, and those are not valid motives. But beyond the rest of our conversation and its indications, the most positive aspect of our chat was The Afterburner.

Afterburner was a flight sim game in the 1980s -- Google tells me that it was actually an arcade game that was later released for various consoles -- but in our house it referred to a laptop-sized console with a joystick. M got it for Christmas one year and played it obsessively. There's a picture of him sprawled out in the hallway on Christmas completely immersed. That hunk of plastic accompanied us on every road trip we took -- and there were quite a few -- despite its terribly awkward dimensions and the constant reminders to put the damn thing on mute because, oh, my god, the sounds it made were soooo annoying, especially with four of us crammed into the car for hours on end. I have never been into video games but I got fairly handy with the thing, too. Eventually he grew out of it, and I have no idea what happened to it. It's more than likely stashed somewhere in my parents' house to this day.

The day we went to the crematorium, it was just the three of us: me, my mom and dad. The hearse had already delivered the casket and it was awaiting our arrival on the roller belt to the crematory oven. We just kind of stood around awkwardly while they started up the super-industrial machinery and turned on the gas. After the desperate prettiness of church flowers and polished funeral home decor, a crematorium is strikingly sterile and unapologetically harsh. After the casket is delivered into the oven, the door was shut and there was nothing more to see, but some odd sense of unfinished witness-bearing persevered and we didn't seem able to leave. The crematory process lasts for hours, and the cremains cool afterward before being removed and proceeding to their eventual "resting place" or whatever you want to call it; there's really no point in hanging out. I don't remember who noticed it, but the control panel contained an Afterburner indicator light, and we all seized upon it. Afterburner! Potentially the most morbid indicator light of the crematory oven, and it was our release. The Afterburner phase marked the end of our responsibility, because it was familiar and recognizable and therefore comforting. My mom reflected that it might be really painful for some people, but for us it has positive connotations, all wrapped up in a long-ago Christmas that somehow summarizes a person we all loved. We must be really fucked up people. I just love that we all saw it the same way.