At age 21, I bought a motorcycle, a Yamaha Virago -- meaning warrior woman-- dark red with chrome. On that bike with my black helmet and black suede leather jacket with the fringe, I thought I was the coolest amazon in town. Pet sitting on a motorcycle turned out to be great during the summer months, all that sun and fresh air and only $3 to fill up the gas tank, but when the rainy season started it was a real drag. I tried every type of rain gear, but nothing could keep me from getting soaked to the skin, and spending a day on your feet in wet shoes and underwear is quite unpleasant. The day finally came for me to buy a car.
Since I had only had my business less than a year, my budget was rather limited: I had no more than $1000 to purchase my new wheels, so I went to my local convenience store and picked up the Auto Trader magazine, a good pre-internet source for used vehicles. Each ad included a description of the vehicle with a photo and the seller’s phone number. Of course, one had to know how to translate these ads:”like new” meant not too many dents, “never raced” meant it probably was, especially if it was a Camero with a huge engine, and “cherry” meant it was washed recently. All ads contained the ubiquitous phrase, “runs good,” including, amazingly, some for cars without engines! I sat down with a cup of coffee and a pen and circled the most likely vehicles for me, then I began to make phone calls. The conversations went something like this:
Me: “Hi, I’m interested in your 1980 Honda.”
Woman’s voice: “Oh, it’s my husband’s car.”
“Okay, may I speak with your husband?”
“No, he doesn’t speak English.”
“Okay, how about I ask you questions and you ask your husband?”
After a long pause she agreed.
My first question, a common one, “How many miles does it have on the odometer?” I sat with pen poised over my notebook with the list of car-purchasing questions.
I heard her place the phone down on the table, then a muffled exchange in Spanish. She picked the phone up after some time and said, “My husband says, it doesn’t matter how many miles it has!”
My next call was no more successful. A man with a strong New York accent sang the praises of his 1982 Toyota Corolla for ten minutes, then said, “It just has oooone little problem.”
“Oh really, and what’s that?”
“Well, it doesn’t have third gear, but it runs just fine, you just shift like this: first, second, fourth!”
After the telephone screening, there was the actual viewing of the vehicles, which was no less amusing. Having been raised by my Dad, I was more car savvy than the average girl, but I was still leery of going to strangers’ homes alone, so he joined me for the shopping. So it was that we pulled up to the home of Chip, who was selling a 1980 Toyota Celica. Chip lived in, let’s just say, the “inexpensive” part of town; I immediately noticed that, along with a great deal of rubbish, there were several Toyotas in front of his home in varying states of repair. The hood was up on one of them and he was deeply buried in the engine compartment; my eyes traveled to his pants, which were slipping down and, oh god, there it was, the crack of his butt greatly exposed. I got out of Dad’s car and was accosted by the smell of dirty motor oil and Gunk engine cleaner spray. The smell got worse as we climbed into the Celica with Chip, who for some strange reason insisted on driving it himself, rather than letting one of us drive. Oil and Gunk were joined by B.O. and the smell of filthy upholstery and sun-damaged vinyl. He popped the clutch and flew down the street, hanging corners and grinding through the gears like a madman, talking all the way.
“Yeah, I did all the repairs on this car myself,” he said, to no great surprise. “I replaced the brakes and the clutch.” As if on cue, the clutch slipped just as he said that. “Yeah,” he went on, patting the cracked and warped dash board, “It runs good, but the insides ain’t so cherry!”
Finally my search yielded a treasure, a dark blue 1980 Honda Civic hatchback, great for transporting dogs, cheap on gas, and, as I soon discovered, small enough to park anywhere. I paid the seller $900 cash and drove away feeling like a wealthy lady in a Rolls Royce; that feeling was soon tempered, however, by my discovery of the vehicle’s “idiosyncrasies.” For one thing, the seat was not bolted down. It was somehow attached on the left side, so no problem making a right turn, but a left turn caused me and the seat to tilt at an alarming angle. There was no back seat, which was unsightly but worked out fine for dog transport. There were also some slight electrical problems, like when I put on the turn signal, the horn beeped, and when I pressed the horn, the turn signals flashed. When the rainy season started, I discovered that the sun roof, installed by the previous (teenage boy) owner, was not sealed properly and water leaked all over the place. I drove around wondering what was worse, sitting on a dry motorcycle seat and getting rained on or sitting on a wet, moldy smelling car seat? I developed a method of folding newspaper and wedging it between the visor and the leaky window. The newspaper turned out to be just as useful for absorbing rain water as puppy pee, and as long as I changed it every couple of days I stayed dry.
By the time I got rid of the Honda, it had 250,000 miles on the odometer; like the ad claimed, this vehicle “ran good” and, despite its shortcomings, was reliable transportation for two years, until I could afford to buy what I always wanted, a truck ... but that’s another story.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Puffer Fish
I never knew that fish had much in the way of personality.
As a kid I’d had my share of goldfish, the kind won at carnivals by tossing ping pong balls into bowls. Despite my attentive care, they seldom lived longer than a year in their little plastic bowl in my bedroom. In high school, I somehow got involved in a guppy-breeding project for science class. Myself and several other students brought home various guppies, males and females, and did reports on what we observed. What I observed was that guppies are pretty, they are very prolific, and they like to eat their babies. In my 20’s, I got into aquariums and, for a couple years, had a fresh-water setup. These critters were even more delicate than the gold fish and the guppies, and I had a heck of a time keeping them alive; it seemed like the more they cost, the more likely they were to be short-lived. I finally managed to have a stable population for a while, until I decided that it would be fun to add a little crab to the mix. It was fun until the fish started disappearing, and when I cleaned the tank I noticed a pile of fish skeletons under the rock where the crab liked to hang out. Still determined to make it work, I hired an aquarium maintenance guy, Dan, to advise me and to help me clean the tank and make sure it was running properly. He was very knowledgeable and a big help, but unfortunately he came with a jealous wife who had to accompany him on his rounds. She’d sit on my bed, not saying a word, staring at me and at him as he worked on the tank. When he wasn’t shoulder-deep in the tank, she was hanging off his arm, perhaps protecting him from a sudden attack by me. It was awkward to say the least. After that, I decided that keeping fish was just way more work and expense than it was worth for the enjoyment, or lack of, I got from them.
Susie and Jilly, however, made me think differently. Susie and Jilly were puffer fish, club-shaped brown and white creatures with large expressive eyes and absurdly small fins. When comfortable, they had a smooth appearance, but when alarmed they would “puff” and their bodies would resemble a spiky balloon. There is poison in their skin, so any predator trying to eat them will be stabbed by the spikes and injected with poison. In Japan, the larger puffers are eaten as a delicacy, and several people die each year from improper preparation.
It was hard to imagine these cute, clumsy things being deadly poisonous. They bobbed around in the water like some kind of children’s toys, opening and closing their mouths and looking around with their big eyes. They seemed to be quite aware of the environment outside the tank, unlike the banal, blank-expressioned fish I was used to.
“Here is their food,” said Kate, the fishes’ owner, opening the freezer. She pointed to several different bags of frozen fish-goodies. “Don’t give them too much!” she cautioned. “They love their food.”
There was another tank containing a lion fish, Leo, another spiny poisonous critter. This one was beautiful and regal with a great plume of fins and tail, floating about in an aloof manner, nice to look at but not interactive like the puffers.
“Be sure not to touch them,” Kate cautioned. “They are poisonous. They’re not aggressive, but if you startle them you might get stung.” I assured her that I had no intentions of putting my hands anywhere near these little people.
On my first day caring for the fish, everything went smoothly. I walked into the home office room where the tanks were set up and took a look at everyone. Pumps, lights, and heaters were all plugged in and on timers, so all I had to do was make sure everything was doing what it was supposed to. All seemed well, so I proceeded to the little freezer with the food inside. Leo was floating regally, seemingly unaware of my presence, but Susie and Jilly appeared to be watching my every move. When I opened the freezer their tiny fins moved very fast and they opened and closed their mouths.
“Here you go, girls!” I said, dropping the goodies into the tank. The girls devoured the frozen brine-shrimp-and-who-knows-what-else in seconds. I gave Leo his portion and he attacked it, pulling off portions and consuming them. Lion, indeed.
Two days later, I walked into the office room and did my usual check. When I turned my back on the puffers’ tank, I thought I felt something wet on the back of my neck. “What the?” I said to myself, looking up at the ceiling for a leak. I saw nothing unusual, so I reached again for the freezer door. Splash! This time it hit me in the face. What on earth was happening? I was standing several feet from the tank, so water couldn’t just be dripping out onto me. Susie and Jilly were wiggling near the surface of the water looking excited. Could it be? I reached for the door again, but kept my eyes on the tank. I’ll be damned if they didn’t fill their mouths with water and expertly spit it at me!
A week into the job, I arrived to see things looking different. There had been a massive storm the previous night, taking down trees and fences all over San Mateo County. I’d already started my day chasing a client’s Beagle across a golf course who had escaped because of a downed fence. Many homes in the area had lost power, probably this one too.
Leo looked lethargic, and the girls were staying near the surface of their water, mouths open. I wasn’t hearing all the usual noises. I suppressed panic as I realized that the machinery pumping air into the water was probably not working! I grabbed the phone to call an aquarium store, and thankfully got someone on the line. I waited tensely, talking to the fish as if they could understand me. “Come on, girls,” I said, touching the glass front of the tank, “Hang in there. Help is on the way!” They looked at me and moved their fins weakly. After what seemed like an eternity, the aquarium service person showed up.
“How long has it been like this?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I got here an hour ago, and I haven’t been here since yesterday. The power must have gone out last night because of the storm. It must have reset everything.”
“Hmm,” he frowned and got to work. After a while, he was able to get everything back working the right way.
“Will they be okay?” I asked, eyeing my two sad-looking club-shaped friends.
“If they didn’t go too long without oxygen.”
The next day I came to see the fish first thing in the morning. I was delighted to see everyone looking active and normal. Susie and Jilly were spitting at me even before I walked near the freezer. Checking Leo’s tank, I noticed with dismay that one of the heating tubes, attached to the inside with suction cups, had been knocked loose, presumably by the actions of the aquarium service person. “Damn it,” I said, looking at the large poisonous fish cruising around next to the floating tube. I waited till he was at the opposite end of the tank, then carefully lowered my hand into the water and attempted to grab the tube. This proved more difficult than I thought, as it was slippery and the surface of the water distorted my vision. After several attempts, I still didn’t have a hold of it. Slowly, like a tank, Leo turned and headed back towards my hand. Did he look “alarmed” or was it my imagination? I removed my hand from the water, and waited. Thinking of how it would feel to be stabbed by those poisonous spines, I slowly and carefully replaced the heater where it belonged. Crisis averted, again.
On my last day, I said goodbye to my new friends and marveled at my new appreciation of the personalities of fish. Figuring the girls saw me as a friend and food-provider, I couldn’t resist sticking just the tip of my finger into their water and letting them nibble on it.
As a kid I’d had my share of goldfish, the kind won at carnivals by tossing ping pong balls into bowls. Despite my attentive care, they seldom lived longer than a year in their little plastic bowl in my bedroom. In high school, I somehow got involved in a guppy-breeding project for science class. Myself and several other students brought home various guppies, males and females, and did reports on what we observed. What I observed was that guppies are pretty, they are very prolific, and they like to eat their babies. In my 20’s, I got into aquariums and, for a couple years, had a fresh-water setup. These critters were even more delicate than the gold fish and the guppies, and I had a heck of a time keeping them alive; it seemed like the more they cost, the more likely they were to be short-lived. I finally managed to have a stable population for a while, until I decided that it would be fun to add a little crab to the mix. It was fun until the fish started disappearing, and when I cleaned the tank I noticed a pile of fish skeletons under the rock where the crab liked to hang out. Still determined to make it work, I hired an aquarium maintenance guy, Dan, to advise me and to help me clean the tank and make sure it was running properly. He was very knowledgeable and a big help, but unfortunately he came with a jealous wife who had to accompany him on his rounds. She’d sit on my bed, not saying a word, staring at me and at him as he worked on the tank. When he wasn’t shoulder-deep in the tank, she was hanging off his arm, perhaps protecting him from a sudden attack by me. It was awkward to say the least. After that, I decided that keeping fish was just way more work and expense than it was worth for the enjoyment, or lack of, I got from them.
Susie and Jilly, however, made me think differently. Susie and Jilly were puffer fish, club-shaped brown and white creatures with large expressive eyes and absurdly small fins. When comfortable, they had a smooth appearance, but when alarmed they would “puff” and their bodies would resemble a spiky balloon. There is poison in their skin, so any predator trying to eat them will be stabbed by the spikes and injected with poison. In Japan, the larger puffers are eaten as a delicacy, and several people die each year from improper preparation.
It was hard to imagine these cute, clumsy things being deadly poisonous. They bobbed around in the water like some kind of children’s toys, opening and closing their mouths and looking around with their big eyes. They seemed to be quite aware of the environment outside the tank, unlike the banal, blank-expressioned fish I was used to.
“Here is their food,” said Kate, the fishes’ owner, opening the freezer. She pointed to several different bags of frozen fish-goodies. “Don’t give them too much!” she cautioned. “They love their food.”
There was another tank containing a lion fish, Leo, another spiny poisonous critter. This one was beautiful and regal with a great plume of fins and tail, floating about in an aloof manner, nice to look at but not interactive like the puffers.
“Be sure not to touch them,” Kate cautioned. “They are poisonous. They’re not aggressive, but if you startle them you might get stung.” I assured her that I had no intentions of putting my hands anywhere near these little people.
On my first day caring for the fish, everything went smoothly. I walked into the home office room where the tanks were set up and took a look at everyone. Pumps, lights, and heaters were all plugged in and on timers, so all I had to do was make sure everything was doing what it was supposed to. All seemed well, so I proceeded to the little freezer with the food inside. Leo was floating regally, seemingly unaware of my presence, but Susie and Jilly appeared to be watching my every move. When I opened the freezer their tiny fins moved very fast and they opened and closed their mouths.
“Here you go, girls!” I said, dropping the goodies into the tank. The girls devoured the frozen brine-shrimp-and-who-knows-what-else in seconds. I gave Leo his portion and he attacked it, pulling off portions and consuming them. Lion, indeed.
Two days later, I walked into the office room and did my usual check. When I turned my back on the puffers’ tank, I thought I felt something wet on the back of my neck. “What the?” I said to myself, looking up at the ceiling for a leak. I saw nothing unusual, so I reached again for the freezer door. Splash! This time it hit me in the face. What on earth was happening? I was standing several feet from the tank, so water couldn’t just be dripping out onto me. Susie and Jilly were wiggling near the surface of the water looking excited. Could it be? I reached for the door again, but kept my eyes on the tank. I’ll be damned if they didn’t fill their mouths with water and expertly spit it at me!
A week into the job, I arrived to see things looking different. There had been a massive storm the previous night, taking down trees and fences all over San Mateo County. I’d already started my day chasing a client’s Beagle across a golf course who had escaped because of a downed fence. Many homes in the area had lost power, probably this one too.
Leo looked lethargic, and the girls were staying near the surface of their water, mouths open. I wasn’t hearing all the usual noises. I suppressed panic as I realized that the machinery pumping air into the water was probably not working! I grabbed the phone to call an aquarium store, and thankfully got someone on the line. I waited tensely, talking to the fish as if they could understand me. “Come on, girls,” I said, touching the glass front of the tank, “Hang in there. Help is on the way!” They looked at me and moved their fins weakly. After what seemed like an eternity, the aquarium service person showed up.
“How long has it been like this?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I got here an hour ago, and I haven’t been here since yesterday. The power must have gone out last night because of the storm. It must have reset everything.”
“Hmm,” he frowned and got to work. After a while, he was able to get everything back working the right way.
“Will they be okay?” I asked, eyeing my two sad-looking club-shaped friends.
“If they didn’t go too long without oxygen.”
The next day I came to see the fish first thing in the morning. I was delighted to see everyone looking active and normal. Susie and Jilly were spitting at me even before I walked near the freezer. Checking Leo’s tank, I noticed with dismay that one of the heating tubes, attached to the inside with suction cups, had been knocked loose, presumably by the actions of the aquarium service person. “Damn it,” I said, looking at the large poisonous fish cruising around next to the floating tube. I waited till he was at the opposite end of the tank, then carefully lowered my hand into the water and attempted to grab the tube. This proved more difficult than I thought, as it was slippery and the surface of the water distorted my vision. After several attempts, I still didn’t have a hold of it. Slowly, like a tank, Leo turned and headed back towards my hand. Did he look “alarmed” or was it my imagination? I removed my hand from the water, and waited. Thinking of how it would feel to be stabbed by those poisonous spines, I slowly and carefully replaced the heater where it belonged. Crisis averted, again.
On my last day, I said goodbye to my new friends and marveled at my new appreciation of the personalities of fish. Figuring the girls saw me as a friend and food-provider, I couldn’t resist sticking just the tip of my finger into their water and letting them nibble on it.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
A New Job, Part Two
This story is Part Two in a series. If you haven't yet read Part One, CLICK HERE.
Clutching my backpack with both hands, I walked up the stairs to my first pet sitting client’s home. There were three flats in the building, and hers was the middle. I knocked on the door and it was quickly opened.
“Hi, I’m the pet sitter.”
“Come in,” she smiled, and stepped aside to reveal an adorable pit bull puppy. He was fawn colored with a black face and big dark eyes. At the moment, he sat in the middle of the floor concentrating on a red rubber chew toy.
I went right to him, sat on the floor, and pet his cute face. Abandoning the toy, he climbed into my lap and licked my face.
His owner looked worried. “You have done this before?”
“Yes, of course.” Not exactly, but it wasn’t as if I didn’t know how to care for a puppy. Mugsy, as he was called, was Nancy’s first dog. She had just bought this flat and was excited to finally be able to keep a pet. She wanted to do everything right, from diet to training to house breaking. She had called Krystal, my boss, to set up visits twice a day while she was at work. Since Mugsy was so young and not fully vaccinated, all I had to do was let him in the back yard and play with him. Seriously, I thought, I am going to be paid for this? I got all the pertinent info: visit times, routine, where everything is kept, and I had her sign the service agreement. It’s official now, I thought, I’m a professional pet sitter. I shouldered by backpack with paperwork, day planner, and other necessities inside, and headed out the door to meet my next new client.
My next new charge was bigger, and longer, and thinner. Dolly the Greyhound was a track rescue, a lean dark brindle with a great toothy smile and a tail so long and active it was often bleeding at the tip. Greyhound racing, still legal in 15 states (not including California), produces thousands of unwanted dogs every year. By the age of five years -- or sooner if they don’t place well enough in the races -- dogs are retired, and before the creation of rescue and adoption groups, “retirement” only meant one thing … death. Thanks to these tireless nonprofit groups, many of these dogs are instead placed in loving homes where they soon adapt to life as a pet.
I don’t believe I ever touched a Greyhound before Dolly. I’d seen them in pictures -- the pointed faces, the huge thighs, the whippy tails -- but meeting one in person was, well, a whole different animal. Since then I have known and loved many of these special dogs, and they never fail to delight me with their positive energy. Dolly was typical with her wide adoring eyes, big smile, and happy-dancing feet. I was in love at once. I pet her super-short fur as I listened to her owner, Jim,talk about her. Jim and his wife Hazel were not new to dogs, but they were new to Greyhounds, so they were eager to learn. Dolly had some goofy habits they couldn’t figure out, like an inability to walk up and down stairs, and a thing for music.
“Music?” I asked.
“Yes, we heard that at the track they leave a radio on all the time, so we do that at home and it seems to calm her. She likes classical.”
At the mention of her favorite music, Dolly’s head popped up and she gave her owner a loving look with her great dark eyes.
“I’ll be sure to leave the music on,” I said with a smile.
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“Mugsy, I’m here!” Two weeks had passed since my first day as a professional pet sitter. I was loving my new job and actually eager to start work each morning. I opened the door of the flat to see a great pup who was, as always, larger than yesterday. He came bounding down the stairs and stood expectantly at my feet. He was quite friendly, but also independent, and didn’t whine or make a fuss. I opened the back door and together we walked down the stairs to the yard. While he took care of business, I sat on a bench and unwrapped the breakfast I’d purchased down the street at the bagel shop. Sipping my apple juice, I watched him cavort and felt that all was well in the world. He bounded around, playing with leaves that floated around the back yard in a breeze. After 30 minutes, I gave him a cookie and locked him back in the house. Noticing the shredded (expensive looking) dog bed, I thought to suggest crate training to Mugsy’s owner. Leaving a pup alone anywhere, let alone a nice flat with new furnishings, was not the best idea. I headed out and off to my next visit.
I didn’t have to call out for Dolly – she knew the sound of my vehicle and was waiting always by the door. I could hear her tail whacking against the wall as I fumbled with the lock and pushed my way in. The house looked like it used to be a store, and the front door, or doors, were swinging glass. There was a living room, bathroom, and kitchen on the ground level and the bedroom, which was formerly an attic, was on the second level and could be accessed via a ladder. The leggy dog wasn’t able to climb the ladder; nor, in fact, was she able to climb down the stairs into the back yard. Her owners, unable to get her to take a step, had to carry her. I slipped the wide martingale collar used for walks around her neck, clipped on the leash, and headed out the door. She was a dream to walk, sweet and attentive, seldom pulling on the leash except for when she saw a small animal running. Her owners had warned me – and I had since read in a book about Greyhounds – of their ability to “run without heed.” Because of this, it was never recommended to take them off-leash except for in a very secure area. Apparently, this “ability” comes in handy when hunting or running on the track, but it can make for a challenging pet. Dolly’s neighborhood was hilly, so we had a good 30 minute exercise by the time we were done. I removed the walking collar, gave her a cookie, and went on my way.
A month later, I was cruising through my pet sitting days with ease. I’d met a few other new clients and was beginning to do some vacation care for cats and dogs. Mugsy and Dolly continued to be my favorite daily companions, however, and I always looked forward to their visits. Life was good and nothing could possibly go wrong. Opening the door to Mugsy’s on this windy Spring day, I was surprised when he didn’t appear. “Hello?” I shouted in the door, thinking maybe the client was at home. In those pre-cell phone days, immediate communication was not yet a reality, leading to some mix-ups and embarrassing moments. No one answered, so I entered the house and looked around. Finally, Mugsy, who was now four months old and getting quite tall, came walking out of the bedroom. He looked sleepy, and clumsy. “What have you been up to?” I said, petting his head. It didn’t take long to find out: in the bathroom, the medicine cabinet was wide open and all kinds of medication boxes and jars were on the floor. Pain killers, cough syrup, decongestants … all had tooth marks on them and parts of the packaging were missing. “Oh no!” I said as I looked back at Mugsy, who smiled up at me with glassy eyes. I ran down to the car and got his owner’s contact info. Thinking he was going to drop dead any minute, I called her at work and, fortunately, got her right away. At first, she didn’t seem too alarmed. In the future, I would experience this again and again as I called clients to tell them of disasters which had occurred with their pets. As grace under pressure is one of my strong suits, I wonder if my apparent calmness leads people to believe that it isn’t all that bad; perhaps they don’t get the sense of urgency if the caller isn’t shouting and crying? After some convincing, thank god, Nancy agreed to come home immediately and take him to the vet. It was a nerve-wracking 15 minutes waiting for her, and when she did arrive home she seemed shocked at his drunken appearance.
“What should I do?” she asked.
“Take him straight to the vet,” I said, handing her a stack of shredded papers. Knowing the vet would ask what had been consumed, I had picked up the shreds of the medication boxes with the product names on them: DayQuil, Advil, Pepto Bismol… Putting the pieces in her purse, she took Mugsy and I headed out to Dolly’s.
The first thing I noticed was no whippy tail sound on the wall. Red flag, I thought … where is Dolly? I pushed open the double frosted glass door and peeked in. “Hello?” I called out. My voice echoed through the cavernous house, and no one answered. Locking the door behind me, I went straight to the kitchen where Dolly’s owners often left notes for me. On the wood table was a basket of apples and a phone bill, but no note. Hmm. I searched all over the house and yard, thinking Dolly was stuck somewhere, but I saw no sign of her. I picked up the phone and dialed Jim’s work number. Fortunately, he answered right away.
“Hi Jim,” I said. “I’m here to walk Dolly, but she’s not here. Was I supposed to come today?”
Jim’s voice cracked as he told me what happened. That morning, Hazel had taken Dolly to a big field in the neighborhood where many people ran their dogs. Hazel was very bonded with Dolly at this point, and found her to be very attentive and obedient. Eager to allow Dolly some socialization, she thought it would be okay to allow her off-leash as she would stay with the other dogs and always came when called. Dolly was having a great time running around with the local Labs and Pit Bulls, until a cat darted across a yard … across the street from the field. Like an arrow released from the bow, Dolly shot straight towards the cat, right into the street, her ears deaf to Hazel’s shouts. A Toyota Corolla was coming along at that moment, and the driver had no time to stop as the dog suddenly appeared from behind other parked cars. He hit her and she went airborne, to the horror of everyone watching. The driver stopped and spoke briefly with Hazel, but soon went on his way. Since dogs were not actually allowed off-leash there and he was not speeding, he was not at fault.
“Will she be okay?” I asked, having terrible flashbacks of one of my dogs being hit by a car, having major orthopedic surgery, and never being the same again.
“We don’t know,” Jim replied. “She’s at the vet now.”
My heart sank as I hung up the phone. Tears in my eyes, I drove on to my next visit.
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“How’s my Mugsy?” I called out as I entered the flat. A week had passed since the terrible day he'd eaten a cabinet full of medicines. I heard a great metallic clanging as his long tail hit the sides of his shiny new dog crate in the kitchen. “Good dog,” I cooed as I clipped the collar to his leash and took him out for a walk (quickly, as he had to pee immediately and a hesitation would equal a puddle). Now old enough and fully vaccinated, he was good to go for walks off the property. People crossed the street when they saw us coming. Adopted as a “Boxer mix,” Mugsy’s startling growth was making “Mastiff mix” his more likely breed. We enjoyed a stroll around the neighborhood, then I gave him a chewy bone and locked him in his crate. Thank god, his brush with death had left him no worse for the wear, and it had taught his owner an important lesson. She had initially resisted crate training because she thought it was cruel, but after almost losing her puppy and running up a $1000+ vet bill, she decided it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
By the time I got to Dolly’s, I was tired. I hadn’t slept well the previous night, and the driving was making me drowsy. My spirits were raised, however, when I saw my friend walk happily up to the door and whack her tail on the wall. “Good dog,” I said, stroking her muscular body which was intact except for a few abrasions. Amazingly, the only thing she suffered as a result of the accident was shock. She had no broken bones or other permanent damage. An afternoon at the vet had pulled her out of shock and back into the land of the living, where she would never again be let off-leash in a non-secure area. I closed the swinging glass doors behind me and flopped down on the big comfy couch. It’s a little-known fact that Greyhounds, although one of the fastest land animals, are actually quite lazy. They love to lounge around, and most Greyhound owners will have a large collection of thick, fluffy beds in every room. Dolly hopped up on the couch next to me and put her pointed head in my lap. I stroked her and played with her little ears, getting very comfortable as the warm sun poured on me through the glass doors. The next thing I knew, I heard the front door opening. The couch was directly facing the front door, so there was no escape. Jim had come home early, and caught me sound asleep! Stammering and wiping the drool from my mouth, I grabbed the leash and hurried out for our walk. He just smiled.
To read part three of this story CLICK HERE.
Clutching my backpack with both hands, I walked up the stairs to my first pet sitting client’s home. There were three flats in the building, and hers was the middle. I knocked on the door and it was quickly opened.
“Hi, I’m the pet sitter.”
“Come in,” she smiled, and stepped aside to reveal an adorable pit bull puppy. He was fawn colored with a black face and big dark eyes. At the moment, he sat in the middle of the floor concentrating on a red rubber chew toy.
I went right to him, sat on the floor, and pet his cute face. Abandoning the toy, he climbed into my lap and licked my face.
His owner looked worried. “You have done this before?”
“Yes, of course.” Not exactly, but it wasn’t as if I didn’t know how to care for a puppy. Mugsy, as he was called, was Nancy’s first dog. She had just bought this flat and was excited to finally be able to keep a pet. She wanted to do everything right, from diet to training to house breaking. She had called Krystal, my boss, to set up visits twice a day while she was at work. Since Mugsy was so young and not fully vaccinated, all I had to do was let him in the back yard and play with him. Seriously, I thought, I am going to be paid for this? I got all the pertinent info: visit times, routine, where everything is kept, and I had her sign the service agreement. It’s official now, I thought, I’m a professional pet sitter. I shouldered by backpack with paperwork, day planner, and other necessities inside, and headed out the door to meet my next new client.
My next new charge was bigger, and longer, and thinner. Dolly the Greyhound was a track rescue, a lean dark brindle with a great toothy smile and a tail so long and active it was often bleeding at the tip. Greyhound racing, still legal in 15 states (not including California), produces thousands of unwanted dogs every year. By the age of five years -- or sooner if they don’t place well enough in the races -- dogs are retired, and before the creation of rescue and adoption groups, “retirement” only meant one thing … death. Thanks to these tireless nonprofit groups, many of these dogs are instead placed in loving homes where they soon adapt to life as a pet.
I don’t believe I ever touched a Greyhound before Dolly. I’d seen them in pictures -- the pointed faces, the huge thighs, the whippy tails -- but meeting one in person was, well, a whole different animal. Since then I have known and loved many of these special dogs, and they never fail to delight me with their positive energy. Dolly was typical with her wide adoring eyes, big smile, and happy-dancing feet. I was in love at once. I pet her super-short fur as I listened to her owner, Jim,talk about her. Jim and his wife Hazel were not new to dogs, but they were new to Greyhounds, so they were eager to learn. Dolly had some goofy habits they couldn’t figure out, like an inability to walk up and down stairs, and a thing for music.
“Music?” I asked.
“Yes, we heard that at the track they leave a radio on all the time, so we do that at home and it seems to calm her. She likes classical.”
At the mention of her favorite music, Dolly’s head popped up and she gave her owner a loving look with her great dark eyes.
“I’ll be sure to leave the music on,” I said with a smile.
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“Mugsy, I’m here!” Two weeks had passed since my first day as a professional pet sitter. I was loving my new job and actually eager to start work each morning. I opened the door of the flat to see a great pup who was, as always, larger than yesterday. He came bounding down the stairs and stood expectantly at my feet. He was quite friendly, but also independent, and didn’t whine or make a fuss. I opened the back door and together we walked down the stairs to the yard. While he took care of business, I sat on a bench and unwrapped the breakfast I’d purchased down the street at the bagel shop. Sipping my apple juice, I watched him cavort and felt that all was well in the world. He bounded around, playing with leaves that floated around the back yard in a breeze. After 30 minutes, I gave him a cookie and locked him back in the house. Noticing the shredded (expensive looking) dog bed, I thought to suggest crate training to Mugsy’s owner. Leaving a pup alone anywhere, let alone a nice flat with new furnishings, was not the best idea. I headed out and off to my next visit.
I didn’t have to call out for Dolly – she knew the sound of my vehicle and was waiting always by the door. I could hear her tail whacking against the wall as I fumbled with the lock and pushed my way in. The house looked like it used to be a store, and the front door, or doors, were swinging glass. There was a living room, bathroom, and kitchen on the ground level and the bedroom, which was formerly an attic, was on the second level and could be accessed via a ladder. The leggy dog wasn’t able to climb the ladder; nor, in fact, was she able to climb down the stairs into the back yard. Her owners, unable to get her to take a step, had to carry her. I slipped the wide martingale collar used for walks around her neck, clipped on the leash, and headed out the door. She was a dream to walk, sweet and attentive, seldom pulling on the leash except for when she saw a small animal running. Her owners had warned me – and I had since read in a book about Greyhounds – of their ability to “run without heed.” Because of this, it was never recommended to take them off-leash except for in a very secure area. Apparently, this “ability” comes in handy when hunting or running on the track, but it can make for a challenging pet. Dolly’s neighborhood was hilly, so we had a good 30 minute exercise by the time we were done. I removed the walking collar, gave her a cookie, and went on my way.
A month later, I was cruising through my pet sitting days with ease. I’d met a few other new clients and was beginning to do some vacation care for cats and dogs. Mugsy and Dolly continued to be my favorite daily companions, however, and I always looked forward to their visits. Life was good and nothing could possibly go wrong. Opening the door to Mugsy’s on this windy Spring day, I was surprised when he didn’t appear. “Hello?” I shouted in the door, thinking maybe the client was at home. In those pre-cell phone days, immediate communication was not yet a reality, leading to some mix-ups and embarrassing moments. No one answered, so I entered the house and looked around. Finally, Mugsy, who was now four months old and getting quite tall, came walking out of the bedroom. He looked sleepy, and clumsy. “What have you been up to?” I said, petting his head. It didn’t take long to find out: in the bathroom, the medicine cabinet was wide open and all kinds of medication boxes and jars were on the floor. Pain killers, cough syrup, decongestants … all had tooth marks on them and parts of the packaging were missing. “Oh no!” I said as I looked back at Mugsy, who smiled up at me with glassy eyes. I ran down to the car and got his owner’s contact info. Thinking he was going to drop dead any minute, I called her at work and, fortunately, got her right away. At first, she didn’t seem too alarmed. In the future, I would experience this again and again as I called clients to tell them of disasters which had occurred with their pets. As grace under pressure is one of my strong suits, I wonder if my apparent calmness leads people to believe that it isn’t all that bad; perhaps they don’t get the sense of urgency if the caller isn’t shouting and crying? After some convincing, thank god, Nancy agreed to come home immediately and take him to the vet. It was a nerve-wracking 15 minutes waiting for her, and when she did arrive home she seemed shocked at his drunken appearance.
“What should I do?” she asked.
“Take him straight to the vet,” I said, handing her a stack of shredded papers. Knowing the vet would ask what had been consumed, I had picked up the shreds of the medication boxes with the product names on them: DayQuil, Advil, Pepto Bismol… Putting the pieces in her purse, she took Mugsy and I headed out to Dolly’s.
The first thing I noticed was no whippy tail sound on the wall. Red flag, I thought … where is Dolly? I pushed open the double frosted glass door and peeked in. “Hello?” I called out. My voice echoed through the cavernous house, and no one answered. Locking the door behind me, I went straight to the kitchen where Dolly’s owners often left notes for me. On the wood table was a basket of apples and a phone bill, but no note. Hmm. I searched all over the house and yard, thinking Dolly was stuck somewhere, but I saw no sign of her. I picked up the phone and dialed Jim’s work number. Fortunately, he answered right away.
“Hi Jim,” I said. “I’m here to walk Dolly, but she’s not here. Was I supposed to come today?”
Jim’s voice cracked as he told me what happened. That morning, Hazel had taken Dolly to a big field in the neighborhood where many people ran their dogs. Hazel was very bonded with Dolly at this point, and found her to be very attentive and obedient. Eager to allow Dolly some socialization, she thought it would be okay to allow her off-leash as she would stay with the other dogs and always came when called. Dolly was having a great time running around with the local Labs and Pit Bulls, until a cat darted across a yard … across the street from the field. Like an arrow released from the bow, Dolly shot straight towards the cat, right into the street, her ears deaf to Hazel’s shouts. A Toyota Corolla was coming along at that moment, and the driver had no time to stop as the dog suddenly appeared from behind other parked cars. He hit her and she went airborne, to the horror of everyone watching. The driver stopped and spoke briefly with Hazel, but soon went on his way. Since dogs were not actually allowed off-leash there and he was not speeding, he was not at fault.
“Will she be okay?” I asked, having terrible flashbacks of one of my dogs being hit by a car, having major orthopedic surgery, and never being the same again.
“We don’t know,” Jim replied. “She’s at the vet now.”
My heart sank as I hung up the phone. Tears in my eyes, I drove on to my next visit.
***********************************************************************************************
“How’s my Mugsy?” I called out as I entered the flat. A week had passed since the terrible day he'd eaten a cabinet full of medicines. I heard a great metallic clanging as his long tail hit the sides of his shiny new dog crate in the kitchen. “Good dog,” I cooed as I clipped the collar to his leash and took him out for a walk (quickly, as he had to pee immediately and a hesitation would equal a puddle). Now old enough and fully vaccinated, he was good to go for walks off the property. People crossed the street when they saw us coming. Adopted as a “Boxer mix,” Mugsy’s startling growth was making “Mastiff mix” his more likely breed. We enjoyed a stroll around the neighborhood, then I gave him a chewy bone and locked him in his crate. Thank god, his brush with death had left him no worse for the wear, and it had taught his owner an important lesson. She had initially resisted crate training because she thought it was cruel, but after almost losing her puppy and running up a $1000+ vet bill, she decided it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
By the time I got to Dolly’s, I was tired. I hadn’t slept well the previous night, and the driving was making me drowsy. My spirits were raised, however, when I saw my friend walk happily up to the door and whack her tail on the wall. “Good dog,” I said, stroking her muscular body which was intact except for a few abrasions. Amazingly, the only thing she suffered as a result of the accident was shock. She had no broken bones or other permanent damage. An afternoon at the vet had pulled her out of shock and back into the land of the living, where she would never again be let off-leash in a non-secure area. I closed the swinging glass doors behind me and flopped down on the big comfy couch. It’s a little-known fact that Greyhounds, although one of the fastest land animals, are actually quite lazy. They love to lounge around, and most Greyhound owners will have a large collection of thick, fluffy beds in every room. Dolly hopped up on the couch next to me and put her pointed head in my lap. I stroked her and played with her little ears, getting very comfortable as the warm sun poured on me through the glass doors. The next thing I knew, I heard the front door opening. The couch was directly facing the front door, so there was no escape. Jim had come home early, and caught me sound asleep! Stammering and wiping the drool from my mouth, I grabbed the leash and hurried out for our walk. He just smiled.
To read part three of this story CLICK HERE.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Recommended Reading: Territory by Emma Bull
Readers often ask me what my favorite books are, so I'm going to start sharing them here. I enjoy fiction, creative nonfiction (what this blog is all about), memoirs, and sci-fi/fantasy, among others. I'll also post books about writing that aspiring authors may find helpful.
Territory is an interesting twist on historical fiction, blending elements of drama, myth, and magic around some very compelling characters. Newspaper typesetter and aspiring author Mildred Benjamin finds her life turned on its ear after meeting traveling horse tamer Jesse Fox. Fox, although white, has been educated in the ways of Chinese language, medicine, and magic by his friend and mentor Dr. Chow Lung. This education gives him a unique insight into the goings-on of Tombstone, Arizona in 1881 during the reign of the Earp brothers. What seems like an ordinary power play opens up to reveal a dark heart of sorcery into which Mildred and Jesse find themselves inextricably bound.
I enjoy straight-up fantasy, but I find even more compelling a story in which the reader is never sure if the events are ordinary or magical. Emma bull achieves that effect in Territory, leaving the reader wondering for some time afterwards what "really" happened.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
A New Job, Part One
The stress of working at the humane society was taking its toll. Anyone who has worked in this field is familiar with the term “compassion fatigue.” Now a recognized mental illness, compassion fatigue occurs when animal lovers go to work at a place where they believe they can save animals and make a difference … and then end up killing them. “Euthanasia,” as it’s more commonly – and gently – called, is done for a number of reasons: the animals are too young, too old, too sick, or too aggressive to be adoptable. In high-volume shelters, many animals are euthanized simply because all cages are full and there is nowhere to put them. If that isn’t bad enough, shelter staff face abuse from the public in the shelter and at large. Upset customers shout and curse at front desk staff, blaming them for their problems. Members of the public donate to wealthy national animal welfare organizations but refuse to give to their needy local shelter – which they insist on calling the pound -- because “they just kill all the animals.” Animal Control Officers are called “dog catchers” and lampooned in movies. It’s an unglamorous and soul-crushing industry, to be sure.
I’d never heard of compassion fatigue – all I knew was that I was drinking heavily, I couldn’t sleep, and I got stomach cramps every time I thought about going into work. I realized that I couldn’t do it any more, physically or psychologically, so I turned in my resignation. I knew I had a few weeks’ vacation that would be cashed out, so I had a little time to job search.
Miraculously, as soon as I turned in my notice, the symptoms went away. I woke up the next morning refreshed and walked down to the local coffee shop to get a newspaper. This was before the internet days, so I was doing my job searching in the classified ads. I sat outside in the pleasant San Mateo sun sipping my latte and circled anything pet-related: pet supply shop, veterinarian, groomer, and something about in-home pet care in San Francisco. Downing the last bit of coffee with all the sugar on the bottom of the cup, I got up and walked to the payphone (yes, this was also before the cell phone days) and called each potential employer. Some of the positions were already filled, and some were too low-paying or only part-time. For the in-home pet care I got a voicemail, and left a message.
Checking my voicemail the following day, I listened to a long rambling message from a woman about care giving, dog walking, and a bunch of other stuff that made no sense. Dog walking, I wondered. Isn’t that something people do in New York with like 10 dogs on leashes? I’d never seen such a thing around here. Since none of the other jobs had panned out, I went ahead and gave her a call back. After a few rounds of voicemail tag, we managed to set up an interview for the following week.
I shivered as I rolled down the window and drank in the San Francisco fog. I was parked next to Golden Gate Park in the Sunset district, just a stone’s throw away from the beach. Krystal, the owner of the in-home pet care business, didn’t have an office; she operated out of her home. I stepped out of the car, zipped up my jacket, and walked up to the old, small house. I knocked and rang the door bell, but got no response and heard no sound coming from inside. After a few chilly minutes, I got back in the car to wait. I checked my watch and it was 3PM, our scheduled time, but there was no sign of her. Oh well, I thought, she must be running late. I picked up a magazine that was on the floor of the car and started to leaf through it.
About ten minutes later I heard a car honk and I looked up, then did a double take. Crossing the street from the park was a slender lady dressed in pink sweat pants and a too-big man’s undershirt. Her longish hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. She was walking three dogs on retractable leashes, and they were going in three different directions. She had her hands full, and she looked lost. A car was stopped in front of her and the driver looked cross – this must have been the person who honked. Despite the fact that a car was waiting for her on a busy street, she did not hurry to get out of the way; rather, she seemed to be talking to one of the dogs, a fluffy small terrier. I marveled as she conversed with the dog, apparently in an attempt to get the animal to follow her instead of run off after something more interesting. The driver honked again, the terrier decided to follow his mistress, and I wondered who this wacky person was … until I saw her pull out keys and open the door that I was just knocking on. Oh lord, I thought, that’s my potential boss.
Collecting myself, I got out of the car and walked up to the door. It took her several minutes to respond to the knocking, and when she saw me she looked surprised.
“Hi, I’m here for the job interview,” I said.
She blinked, then said, “Oh, oh, come in.”
I stepped into the house and immediately breathed the scent of funky dog. The two terriers, one fluffy and the other wiry, jumped about my feet. The third dog, a large tan female of uncertain origin, sat in the corner and kept her eye on me. I looked around and saw that the whole living room was an office. There were stacks of papers on a large desk, more papers on the accompanying chair, and yet more papers on the floor nearby. There was no other furniture in the room except for a futon couch, which the two terriers parked themselves on, leaving no room for me. I stood by the desk for the “interview,” which basically consisted of Krystal telling me all about the job, and how her last employee had made a variety of mistakes then decided to quit. I’ll admit I was getting some red flags from this lady, but the job sounded very appealing: I was to walk dogs and feed dogs and cats in the clients’ homes. I would start with a few clients, but build up a busier schedule over time. Best of all, I would be working alone and managing my own time. By the end of the conversation I realized she was offering me the job. I mentally calculated my last day at the humane society, then said I could work a couple days later. She gave me some paperwork to take home, fill out, and sign.
I drove away, paperwork on the front seat and a strange sense of excitement in me. Little did I know of the long, rewarding journey on which this new job would take me.
To read Part Two of this story CLICK HERE.
I’d never heard of compassion fatigue – all I knew was that I was drinking heavily, I couldn’t sleep, and I got stomach cramps every time I thought about going into work. I realized that I couldn’t do it any more, physically or psychologically, so I turned in my resignation. I knew I had a few weeks’ vacation that would be cashed out, so I had a little time to job search.
Miraculously, as soon as I turned in my notice, the symptoms went away. I woke up the next morning refreshed and walked down to the local coffee shop to get a newspaper. This was before the internet days, so I was doing my job searching in the classified ads. I sat outside in the pleasant San Mateo sun sipping my latte and circled anything pet-related: pet supply shop, veterinarian, groomer, and something about in-home pet care in San Francisco. Downing the last bit of coffee with all the sugar on the bottom of the cup, I got up and walked to the payphone (yes, this was also before the cell phone days) and called each potential employer. Some of the positions were already filled, and some were too low-paying or only part-time. For the in-home pet care I got a voicemail, and left a message.
Checking my voicemail the following day, I listened to a long rambling message from a woman about care giving, dog walking, and a bunch of other stuff that made no sense. Dog walking, I wondered. Isn’t that something people do in New York with like 10 dogs on leashes? I’d never seen such a thing around here. Since none of the other jobs had panned out, I went ahead and gave her a call back. After a few rounds of voicemail tag, we managed to set up an interview for the following week.
I shivered as I rolled down the window and drank in the San Francisco fog. I was parked next to Golden Gate Park in the Sunset district, just a stone’s throw away from the beach. Krystal, the owner of the in-home pet care business, didn’t have an office; she operated out of her home. I stepped out of the car, zipped up my jacket, and walked up to the old, small house. I knocked and rang the door bell, but got no response and heard no sound coming from inside. After a few chilly minutes, I got back in the car to wait. I checked my watch and it was 3PM, our scheduled time, but there was no sign of her. Oh well, I thought, she must be running late. I picked up a magazine that was on the floor of the car and started to leaf through it.
About ten minutes later I heard a car honk and I looked up, then did a double take. Crossing the street from the park was a slender lady dressed in pink sweat pants and a too-big man’s undershirt. Her longish hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. She was walking three dogs on retractable leashes, and they were going in three different directions. She had her hands full, and she looked lost. A car was stopped in front of her and the driver looked cross – this must have been the person who honked. Despite the fact that a car was waiting for her on a busy street, she did not hurry to get out of the way; rather, she seemed to be talking to one of the dogs, a fluffy small terrier. I marveled as she conversed with the dog, apparently in an attempt to get the animal to follow her instead of run off after something more interesting. The driver honked again, the terrier decided to follow his mistress, and I wondered who this wacky person was … until I saw her pull out keys and open the door that I was just knocking on. Oh lord, I thought, that’s my potential boss.
Collecting myself, I got out of the car and walked up to the door. It took her several minutes to respond to the knocking, and when she saw me she looked surprised.
“Hi, I’m here for the job interview,” I said.
She blinked, then said, “Oh, oh, come in.”
I stepped into the house and immediately breathed the scent of funky dog. The two terriers, one fluffy and the other wiry, jumped about my feet. The third dog, a large tan female of uncertain origin, sat in the corner and kept her eye on me. I looked around and saw that the whole living room was an office. There were stacks of papers on a large desk, more papers on the accompanying chair, and yet more papers on the floor nearby. There was no other furniture in the room except for a futon couch, which the two terriers parked themselves on, leaving no room for me. I stood by the desk for the “interview,” which basically consisted of Krystal telling me all about the job, and how her last employee had made a variety of mistakes then decided to quit. I’ll admit I was getting some red flags from this lady, but the job sounded very appealing: I was to walk dogs and feed dogs and cats in the clients’ homes. I would start with a few clients, but build up a busier schedule over time. Best of all, I would be working alone and managing my own time. By the end of the conversation I realized she was offering me the job. I mentally calculated my last day at the humane society, then said I could work a couple days later. She gave me some paperwork to take home, fill out, and sign.
I drove away, paperwork on the front seat and a strange sense of excitement in me. Little did I know of the long, rewarding journey on which this new job would take me.
To read Part Two of this story CLICK HERE.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Train Wreck
To this day I’m not really sure what happened that night.
I was finishing late; it was at least 10PM and I was pooped. Twice a day visits were great for revenue, but tough on the body. These visits were typically for dogs who were confined indoors and needed to be walked, or for dogs who were let out in the yard during the day and confined in the house at night. Unless I wanted to clean up a mess and/or have some explaining to do with the client, I had to get up early and finish late to care for these dogs. This night, I had just walked and locked in a friendly Great Dane. He had to stay in the house at night or else the neighbor would complain about barking.
I was driving through Redwood City towards the 101 freeway entrance. Yawning, I looked around me at the evening street scene. Well dressed couples dined on Mexican food in an outdoor patio strung with lights shaped like chiles. Rougher-looking folks in jeans and work boots stood outside the small local bar smoking cigarettes and talking loudly to each other. Men walked out of the corner liquor store with paper bags filled with the night’s entertainment. I smiled to myself as I remembered a friend telling me that they sold badly-copied VHS tapes of porn movies from under the counter.
Leaving downtown, I approached the railroad tracks which were dark and deserted. I started to cross them when WHAM, something hit me from the left. Reeling in confusion, I started to panic when I realized that whatever hit me was now dragging me along the tracks. It wasn’t a train – in fact it wasn’t anything I could see. Some invisible thing was dragging my truck along in the dark. As soon as it began, it ended. The thing that hit me rolled on along the tracks and left me parallel to them. Stunned, I sat there wondering what to do when I saw a man running up to my window. Assuming he was coming to help me, I rolled down the window.
“What the f*** are you doing?”
“What?”
“You stupid f***ing bitch! What were you doing? Didn’t you see us?”
I started to get scared. Someone ranting like this wouldn’t have been a surprise coming from the local bar or the residential hotel, but I was too far away for someone to have walked. I was alone, in the dark, with a crazy person and a disabled vehicle. Then I noticed there were two other men, and they were all wearing vests with a company name on the back. This wasn’t a lunatic, he was some kind of a worker for the railroad. He continued to shout and curse at me, then he walked away. Realizing he was going to just leave me there, I went from shocked to scared to angry. I grabbed a pen and paper and got out of the truck.
“I need your name and phone number.” I said.
The man turned and gave me a dirty look, then went back to speaking with his coworker.
“I said I need your name and phone number.”
“Look, we’re trying to finish this job here. Can you just get the f*** out of here?”
I don’t know what made me so brave, I suppose it was anger and indignation, especially when I realized the nature of the problem. It was late and there was little traffic going that way. Probably figuring it was an unnecessary and time consuming step, the workers had put up no barrier or marker of any kind to indicate that work was occurring on the tracks and cars should stop and wait. I was not leaving without the information. I looked at the business name on the vests and wrote it down.
Walking around to face the man’s front instead of his back, I said, “Okay, I’ll just call 411 tomorrow and report this to your boss.”
Now it was his turn to look scared. He gave me his name, and the phone number, then quickly got into a truck with the other men and drove away.
Surveying the damage to my vehicle, I picked up my cell phone and called AAA. It was now 11PM, my vehicle was wrecked, and I was alone. Waiting for the tow truck, I was too shocked to be worried about the fact that I was a sitting duck in a bad neighborhood. I looked up at the sky and watched the stars twinkle, at least the ones that I could see through all the light pollution. About midnight, the tow truck appeared like an angel and a middle-aged, bearded man changed my flat tire.
“You need a new rim,” he said, pointing to the bent metal. “You can get this into the shop tomorrow?”
“Yes, thank you.” At least someone was showing some concern for my predicament. Bleary eyed, I drove home and went straight to bed.
The next morning when I looked at my truck, I realized how in shock I must have been after the accident. In a sane condition, there was no way I would have driven this vehicle. The front quarter panel was smashed and the wheel well was so dented that, had I made a sharp turn, the tire would have scraped against it. I felt lucky that it hadn’t been worse for me. I immediately called AAA and reported the accident.
“So you hit a train?”
“No, I didn’t hit anything, it hit me.”
“You were hit by a train?”
“No, it wasn’t a train, it was something moving along the tracks but it was short, I think.”
The conversation continued in this way – and would ring the same when I tried to explain to friends and family what had happened to me – and the insurance report ended up saying “Hit a metal object next to train tracks.”
“Hi! How can we help you?” A cheerful blonde-haired lady sat at the reception desk of Moon’s Auto Body with a telephone receiver in one hand and a pile of mail in the other. There were papers and boxes all over her desk, and plastic-wrapped auto body parts all around it.
“I called earlier, about the AAA claim. The Toyota truck?”
“Okay hon,” she said, picking up one of the papers from her desk and reading it. “Have a seat.”
As she asked me a number of questions, I looked around the shop. I’d been here several times before and knew the mechanics on a first-name basis. With all the driving I did, I exposed myself to more potential accidents, and they found me. Mostly people liked to back into me in parking lots, leaving me to scratch my head and wonder where that new big dent came from. Thank goodness for hit and run coverage. Suddenly I jumped a little in my seat as I realized the contents of one of the boxes on her desk was moving. Leaning forward, I peered into the box and saw a very sorry looking kitten. He was all grey and tiny, no bigger than the palm of my hand and probably about four weeks old. His eyes and nose were snotty and his coat was dull.
“Where’d you get him?” I asked.
“I hate people!” she said. “Someone threw him in our dumpster. I was taking out the garbage when I heard him crying in there. Had to climb in and get him out.”
I picked up the tiny person and held him in my lap. He felt weak but spirited. He looked up at me with green eyes in a great wise face, and purred.
“The boss said ‘No animals in the office,” she continued, leaning closer to me as she told this part of the story. “So I said, ‘Fine, I’ll just quit!’” She gave me a conspiratorial wink. I assumed that her threat made the boss back off of his ultimatum. Looking at the kitten, I imagine he figured it would be dead in a few days anyway. I continued to hold the little ball of fluff as we finished the paperwork, then I waited for the rental car to be dropped off. He liked to be scratched on his cheeks and purred very much when I did that. When the rental car arrived, I was sorry to give up my new friend.
“I hope he’s okay,” I said to the receptionist. “I’m so glad you found him.”
“He’ll be fine,” she said, “Then I’ll try to find a home for him.”
I thought of the little kitten as I struggled with the insurance claim over the next two weeks. The workmen on the train tracks denied any wrongdoing, and their boss sided with them. The only thing I could get them to agree to was to pay for the damage to my truck. Later, people told me I could have sued and collected a lot of money, but I didn’t know anything at the time and couldn’t afford to call a lawyer anyway. The truck was fixed and my life as a pet sitter went on … until two years later.
WHAM! It was like déjà vu, some strange thing coming out of nowhere and hitting the left side of my truck. This thing, however, was not invisible; it was a large deer. Startled by something, the animal had jumped out of the bushes as I was driving through the wooded hills of Belmont and slammed right into me. Stunned, it lay on the ground for a few seconds, then scrambled to its feet and bounded away. I didn’t realized how much damage it had done till I reached my client’s house and got out to take a look.
“Oh, you’re got to be kidding!” I said to myself as I saw the huge dent in the front quarter panel, the same one that had been replaced after the train track accident. It looked like it had been punched with a very heavy basketball. I sighed as I thought of the trouble: the insurance claim, the time at the repair shop, the deductible I’d have to pay. What a nuisance. At least I hadn’t killed the deer … or it hadn’t killed itself.
The next day I drove to Moon’s and walked into the office to see a different receptionist from the last time. This lady was heavier, and had brown hair pulled up into a pony tail.
“Hi, I called about the Toyota,” I said, sitting down in front of her desk.
“Okay, here it is,” she replied, pulling a paper from a file. The desk top was very neat, and now my paper was about the only thing on it.
We took care of business, then I went and sat in another chair as other customers were waiting. I leafed through a gossip magazine, marveling at how many articles could be written about who is having a baby and who is a fashion disaster. If I could spend $10,000 on an outfit, I mused, I wouldn’t care if I was a fashion disaster. While reading the list of Academy Award winners, I saw someone – or something – coming down the stairs from the manager’s office. Whoever it was jumped into the chair beside me, and looked up at me with green eyes in a great wise face. I looked down and saw a big grey cat with shiny long hair and a great plume of a tail. I reached down and stroked his cheek and he smiled and purred. I’ll admit it took me a minute to put two and two together, as it had been two years and I’d forgotten about the sorry creature the previous receptionist had rescued from the dumpster. Could it be?
At this moment the manager came down the stairs, and I greeted him.
“You again?” he joked.
“Yeah, I’ve managed to not have an accident for a while.”
“That’s Auto, our shop cat,” he said, gesturing to my new friend. “He usually sleeps in my office.”
Auto looked up at me and purred, and I’ll swear he winked.
I was finishing late; it was at least 10PM and I was pooped. Twice a day visits were great for revenue, but tough on the body. These visits were typically for dogs who were confined indoors and needed to be walked, or for dogs who were let out in the yard during the day and confined in the house at night. Unless I wanted to clean up a mess and/or have some explaining to do with the client, I had to get up early and finish late to care for these dogs. This night, I had just walked and locked in a friendly Great Dane. He had to stay in the house at night or else the neighbor would complain about barking.
I was driving through Redwood City towards the 101 freeway entrance. Yawning, I looked around me at the evening street scene. Well dressed couples dined on Mexican food in an outdoor patio strung with lights shaped like chiles. Rougher-looking folks in jeans and work boots stood outside the small local bar smoking cigarettes and talking loudly to each other. Men walked out of the corner liquor store with paper bags filled with the night’s entertainment. I smiled to myself as I remembered a friend telling me that they sold badly-copied VHS tapes of porn movies from under the counter.
Leaving downtown, I approached the railroad tracks which were dark and deserted. I started to cross them when WHAM, something hit me from the left. Reeling in confusion, I started to panic when I realized that whatever hit me was now dragging me along the tracks. It wasn’t a train – in fact it wasn’t anything I could see. Some invisible thing was dragging my truck along in the dark. As soon as it began, it ended. The thing that hit me rolled on along the tracks and left me parallel to them. Stunned, I sat there wondering what to do when I saw a man running up to my window. Assuming he was coming to help me, I rolled down the window.
“What the f*** are you doing?”
“What?”
“You stupid f***ing bitch! What were you doing? Didn’t you see us?”
I started to get scared. Someone ranting like this wouldn’t have been a surprise coming from the local bar or the residential hotel, but I was too far away for someone to have walked. I was alone, in the dark, with a crazy person and a disabled vehicle. Then I noticed there were two other men, and they were all wearing vests with a company name on the back. This wasn’t a lunatic, he was some kind of a worker for the railroad. He continued to shout and curse at me, then he walked away. Realizing he was going to just leave me there, I went from shocked to scared to angry. I grabbed a pen and paper and got out of the truck.
“I need your name and phone number.” I said.
The man turned and gave me a dirty look, then went back to speaking with his coworker.
“I said I need your name and phone number.”
“Look, we’re trying to finish this job here. Can you just get the f*** out of here?”
I don’t know what made me so brave, I suppose it was anger and indignation, especially when I realized the nature of the problem. It was late and there was little traffic going that way. Probably figuring it was an unnecessary and time consuming step, the workers had put up no barrier or marker of any kind to indicate that work was occurring on the tracks and cars should stop and wait. I was not leaving without the information. I looked at the business name on the vests and wrote it down.
Walking around to face the man’s front instead of his back, I said, “Okay, I’ll just call 411 tomorrow and report this to your boss.”
Now it was his turn to look scared. He gave me his name, and the phone number, then quickly got into a truck with the other men and drove away.
Surveying the damage to my vehicle, I picked up my cell phone and called AAA. It was now 11PM, my vehicle was wrecked, and I was alone. Waiting for the tow truck, I was too shocked to be worried about the fact that I was a sitting duck in a bad neighborhood. I looked up at the sky and watched the stars twinkle, at least the ones that I could see through all the light pollution. About midnight, the tow truck appeared like an angel and a middle-aged, bearded man changed my flat tire.
“You need a new rim,” he said, pointing to the bent metal. “You can get this into the shop tomorrow?”
“Yes, thank you.” At least someone was showing some concern for my predicament. Bleary eyed, I drove home and went straight to bed.
The next morning when I looked at my truck, I realized how in shock I must have been after the accident. In a sane condition, there was no way I would have driven this vehicle. The front quarter panel was smashed and the wheel well was so dented that, had I made a sharp turn, the tire would have scraped against it. I felt lucky that it hadn’t been worse for me. I immediately called AAA and reported the accident.
“So you hit a train?”
“No, I didn’t hit anything, it hit me.”
“You were hit by a train?”
“No, it wasn’t a train, it was something moving along the tracks but it was short, I think.”
The conversation continued in this way – and would ring the same when I tried to explain to friends and family what had happened to me – and the insurance report ended up saying “Hit a metal object next to train tracks.”
“Hi! How can we help you?” A cheerful blonde-haired lady sat at the reception desk of Moon’s Auto Body with a telephone receiver in one hand and a pile of mail in the other. There were papers and boxes all over her desk, and plastic-wrapped auto body parts all around it.
“I called earlier, about the AAA claim. The Toyota truck?”
“Okay hon,” she said, picking up one of the papers from her desk and reading it. “Have a seat.”
As she asked me a number of questions, I looked around the shop. I’d been here several times before and knew the mechanics on a first-name basis. With all the driving I did, I exposed myself to more potential accidents, and they found me. Mostly people liked to back into me in parking lots, leaving me to scratch my head and wonder where that new big dent came from. Thank goodness for hit and run coverage. Suddenly I jumped a little in my seat as I realized the contents of one of the boxes on her desk was moving. Leaning forward, I peered into the box and saw a very sorry looking kitten. He was all grey and tiny, no bigger than the palm of my hand and probably about four weeks old. His eyes and nose were snotty and his coat was dull.
“Where’d you get him?” I asked.
“I hate people!” she said. “Someone threw him in our dumpster. I was taking out the garbage when I heard him crying in there. Had to climb in and get him out.”
I picked up the tiny person and held him in my lap. He felt weak but spirited. He looked up at me with green eyes in a great wise face, and purred.
“The boss said ‘No animals in the office,” she continued, leaning closer to me as she told this part of the story. “So I said, ‘Fine, I’ll just quit!’” She gave me a conspiratorial wink. I assumed that her threat made the boss back off of his ultimatum. Looking at the kitten, I imagine he figured it would be dead in a few days anyway. I continued to hold the little ball of fluff as we finished the paperwork, then I waited for the rental car to be dropped off. He liked to be scratched on his cheeks and purred very much when I did that. When the rental car arrived, I was sorry to give up my new friend.
“I hope he’s okay,” I said to the receptionist. “I’m so glad you found him.”
“He’ll be fine,” she said, “Then I’ll try to find a home for him.”
I thought of the little kitten as I struggled with the insurance claim over the next two weeks. The workmen on the train tracks denied any wrongdoing, and their boss sided with them. The only thing I could get them to agree to was to pay for the damage to my truck. Later, people told me I could have sued and collected a lot of money, but I didn’t know anything at the time and couldn’t afford to call a lawyer anyway. The truck was fixed and my life as a pet sitter went on … until two years later.
WHAM! It was like déjà vu, some strange thing coming out of nowhere and hitting the left side of my truck. This thing, however, was not invisible; it was a large deer. Startled by something, the animal had jumped out of the bushes as I was driving through the wooded hills of Belmont and slammed right into me. Stunned, it lay on the ground for a few seconds, then scrambled to its feet and bounded away. I didn’t realized how much damage it had done till I reached my client’s house and got out to take a look.
“Oh, you’re got to be kidding!” I said to myself as I saw the huge dent in the front quarter panel, the same one that had been replaced after the train track accident. It looked like it had been punched with a very heavy basketball. I sighed as I thought of the trouble: the insurance claim, the time at the repair shop, the deductible I’d have to pay. What a nuisance. At least I hadn’t killed the deer … or it hadn’t killed itself.
The next day I drove to Moon’s and walked into the office to see a different receptionist from the last time. This lady was heavier, and had brown hair pulled up into a pony tail.
“Hi, I called about the Toyota,” I said, sitting down in front of her desk.
“Okay, here it is,” she replied, pulling a paper from a file. The desk top was very neat, and now my paper was about the only thing on it.
We took care of business, then I went and sat in another chair as other customers were waiting. I leafed through a gossip magazine, marveling at how many articles could be written about who is having a baby and who is a fashion disaster. If I could spend $10,000 on an outfit, I mused, I wouldn’t care if I was a fashion disaster. While reading the list of Academy Award winners, I saw someone – or something – coming down the stairs from the manager’s office. Whoever it was jumped into the chair beside me, and looked up at me with green eyes in a great wise face. I looked down and saw a big grey cat with shiny long hair and a great plume of a tail. I reached down and stroked his cheek and he smiled and purred. I’ll admit it took me a minute to put two and two together, as it had been two years and I’d forgotten about the sorry creature the previous receptionist had rescued from the dumpster. Could it be?
At this moment the manager came down the stairs, and I greeted him.
“You again?” he joked.
“Yeah, I’ve managed to not have an accident for a while.”
“That’s Auto, our shop cat,” he said, gesturing to my new friend. “He usually sleeps in my office.”
Auto looked up at me and purred, and I’ll swear he winked.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Poetry
Sometimes the words really flow through me when I'm too tired to think. I didn't sleep well the last two nights, so I was really a space cadet today. Lying on the bench in the dog play yard at the shelter with a white pit bull cavorting around me this afternoon, I thought of the Song of Amergin. The Song of Amergin is an ancient poem spoken by a Celtic bard upon arriving in Ireland a very, very long time ago. It was first written down -- as far as we know -- in Irish Gaelic during medieval times. There is much debate about its exact translation and its meaning. I find that the best way to understand a work is to write it yourself, to create your own version and in so doing understand the spirit of the original work. This is one of my favorites to re-write. Give it a try. What do you think it means?
I am your journey; I am the way
I am your destination; I am the place you leave behind
I am fire on the hill
I am wind in the manes of horses
I am the dance of spring; I am the death of winter
I am the laughter of friendship; I am the groan of loss
I am the goodness of dogs
Who but I knows the song of the earth from beginning to end?
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