Another Dog Story

Further evidence that San Francisco is an unusual and interesting place:

On our last day in the City, Uncle Burlington strolled down to the BART station to get a refund on his transportation pass.  He came back with some conciliatory Godiva chocolate [see previous post] and an interesting picture on his phone.  He had seen a man walking his pets.  The dog was on the leash.  On the back of the dog rode a cat, and on the back of the cat was a white rat.  Really.  All three seemed to get along just fine, proving that San Francisco is a great location for inter-species friendships.

Just as an aside, there are more dogs in San Francisco than there are children.

Walking the Dog

As Fuzzy Bunny and I were driving along we noticed a medium-sized man walking an enormous Great Dane.  We could see that the man was holding a second leash, but because the Great Dane was so big, we couldn’t see the second dog at all.

The three had stopped on the sidewalk, the Great Dane waiting patiently, a clearly resigned look on its face, while the second dog finished whatever it was doing – sniffing around, watching a bug…we just couldn’t tell.  But we were a little curious. 

As we passed by, we both swiveled our heads to see what kind of dog was on the second leash – and both of us burst into involuntary laughter.  The leash was attached to a toddler in a child harness.  Good thing the windows were up.

West Coast Wandering

I recently went to San Francisco.  Uncle Burlington was going to a conference there and he invited me along.  Off I toddled to enjoy the sights while he sat in one boring meeting after another.  I admired:

1. The Golden Gate Bridge (much better looking on professional postcards than my digital pix)
2. Muir Woods’ giant California Redwoods (my favorite part of the trip)
3. An enormous crayfish enjoying a shady stream under the giant redwoods
4. An exhibit of original artwork by Dr. Seuss
5. A lovely view of Alcatraz through the window of an overpriced seafood restaurant
6. Many other standard tourist attractions including Chinatown, cable cars, Fisherman’s Wharf, and Union Square.

And what did I come back with?  A bag of saltwater taffy for my co-workers and a severely sprained ankle.  Here’s how it happened (I’m sure you’re dying to know):

Uncle Burlington decided to skip yet another boring meeting and accompany me to the Haight-Ashbury District.  I had an ulterior motive.  I wanted to go to Mendel’s Far-Out Fabrics, an art supply and fabric store (so much cool stuff, so little room in my carry-on bag).  Uncle Burlington wanted to visit a completely different sort of store altogether.  We saw all kinds of things – myriad glass pipes, rolling paper assortments, “prop” containers for hiding…um…spare keys, I’m sure.  And, of course, a seemingly endless quantity of obnoxious t-shirts.  He was searching for a revenge gift for a friend.  As we headed for yet another array of horrible slogans disguised as clothing, I moved over on the sidewalk to let a group go by and stepped off the edge of a concrete cutout surrounding a tree.  [Insert carefully edited “OUCH” here]  The following conversation ensued:

UB: Are you all right?

AM: (through gritted teeth) No!

UB: Okay. Well, you can hold my arm and we’ll go back across the street to that first store I liked.

[hobble ouch hobble ouch hobble ouch]

AM: I’m really not sure I can stand.

UB: Just hold on to this [clothing] rack.  Which one of these do you think “Joe” will like better?  Wait!  There are some more over there!

[Repeat through several more stores]

The irony?  There I was on Haight Street, former home to the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, among others, and I couldn’t even find an aspirin.   Further, once Uncle Burlington got a look at the injury (after making me walk on it), he decided it was broken.  He even had the nerve to look disappointed when the x-rays showed it wasn’t!

I don’t think I should go on vacation anymore.

Flight of the Bumble Bee

In the not-so-distant past, it was thought that bumble bees should not be able to fly.  Their body weight, ungainly size, and comparatively delicate wings should have made flight impossible.  Thus, some claimed bumble bee flight to be a miracle while others stated that a bumble bee’s own belief in its ability allowed it to fly.  Many inspirational messages, homilies and plaques ensued.

Subsequent scientific study proved that physics underlies bumble bee aeronautics.  The heat created by the bees’ wings warms the surrounding air which is caught in the fuzz covering their bodies.  Since warm air rises, this provides “bee lift.”

Sermons found inspiration elsewhere.  Plaques were taken down.

“What does this have to do with anything?!” you ask.  Well, I just observed a bumble bee in my back yard.  It wasn’t just a big bumble bee.  It wasn’t even just an oversized bumble bee.  It was a JUMBO bumble bee.  Either it had recently read an old memo about its inability to fly or physics were beginning to fail.  I watched as it dropped alarmingly from a second story height, careened off of the gutter, bounced onto the grass, sputtered back into the air, wavered around the corner of the house and disappeared into a bush.

There’s another possibility, I suppose.  Is there such a thing as fermented nectar?

Currently Trouble Is... By The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band Everything Is Broken see related

Food for Thought

I’ve just finished reading two books: The Road,[1] by Cormac McCarthy, and Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100 Mile Diet,[2] by Alisa Smith and J.B. McKinnon. Odd companions certainly, and yet they include interesting similarities.  Both books hinge on traveling in search of food, much of it foraged.  They contain despair (one more honestly than the other), the threat of doomsday, and echoes of self-righteous superiority.  The protagonists in both books apparently have an unlimited amount of time to roam the countryside, or travel down a road to nowhere, in search of sustenance.  There are differences, too.  While one integrates a fair amount of cannibalism,[3] the other insists on vegetarianism in response to the cruel conditions under which animals are raised.  The authors of the latter eventually temper this attitude enough to eat a cow conceived through “real sex” and raised in a happy pasture.  I guess they got tired of squash, wild salmon, and nasturtium pods.  One author eliminates all animal life (including cockroaches – oh, please!), while the other devotes a significant portion of one chapter to weevils and rodent offal in the wheat supply.  Bon appétit!

So, in an act of reactionary audacity, I have just returned from buying a replacement day planner. (After I lost my last one I wasn’t going to replace it, but these two books pushed me over the edge.)  Here’s to my over-scheduled life filled with convenience foods and midnight runs to grocery mega-stores!  Even better – or worse, if you choose to buy into the authors’ insistence on, yet denial of, privation – on the way home I bought myself an over-sized, over-priced, calorie-laden, and completely unhealthy cup of specialty coffee, the combined ingredients of which probably traveled several thousand miles before being ground up in the coffee shop. 

And now I’m going to read fluff.  Nothing but fluff!