Domestic Violence: The Tale of a Tail and a Leg

I hate going to the doctor.

I love my doctor; he's a great guy. But I have a feeling he is going to ask me about the excessive bruising on my legs.

Since he's an open-minded man, I could probably intrigue him with tales of kinky sex and whips and chocolate.

The truth is not nearly as exciting. It's all about a dog. Zoe, my little Whippet/Pit Bull mix has a very long tail. She is also a very happy girl who swings that tail like a whip whenever she is glad to see you. I've heard the screams of "ouch" from the vet technicians when they take her back to give her a vaccination.

My darling cleaning woman, Maria, has stopped wearing her nice dresses when she comes to work at my house. Instead, Maria sticks to heavy duty jeans now with leggings under them. She's a smart woman.

When we first got Zoe, she actually hit the wall so hard with her tail that she cracked it and sent up blood spray making the house look like a place that Dexter would feel right at home. I actually hope that nobody ever accuses us of being serial killers because the trace blood from Zoe's tail is everywhere even after a thorough cleaning.

My vet suggested we have the tail amputated. That seemed very harsh to me. And I'm glad we didn't do it. It would be like amputating her smile. And the good news is she has slowed down a bit.

Zoe no longer whips her tail against furniture or walls. She now concentrates on shins. I'm sure that feels a lot better to her than the hard walls.

I really don't mind the bruises that much. It makes me look like I may have played a part in an S&M "art film". Okay, porno. While that's not the look everybody goes for, I am not really opposed to a walk on the wild side from time to time.

And I have the bruise striped legs to prove it.

Why Are All Those Mexicans Marching?

A woman asked me that question on Saturday afternoon in San Francisco.

I had seen the huge throng of people with signs, but I had no idea what it was about. I thought it might have been an "Occupy" protest. Looking a little closer, I saw the "Pro-Life" signs.

The woman who approached me seemed a little agitated. I told her that I really didn't know. She followed up with a comment that "more white people should be having more children", and I just looked at her.

Of course, by this time I realized she was a little bit of a nut case. We ducked into a chocolate shop to avoid any further discussion with her. Chocolate seems to right the wrongs of the world in most cases.

There may have been a lot of Hispanic people marching that day. I would attribute some of that to the Catholic Church. I'm not sure though.

I sort of take exception with the words "Pro-Life". I mean, is anybody really "Anti-Life"? Even the opposite slogan "Pro-Choice" sort of annoys me. Don't we all want choices? Do we want to have choices made for us? I think not. If I could choose, I might want to live in Paris, drive a new Mercedes, and be 30 years old and married to Steve Jobs, and have Denzel as a lover. Is that an option? Of course not.

If one of my young teen granddaughters got pregnant by her daddy, her brother, her uncle, or a rapist, do I want her to have the choice to end the pregnancy? Yes, I do. Do I want to see the man who impregnated her in prison. Yeah, I do.

If a woman is carrying a child who has severe mental and/or physical disabilities, should she have the choice of terminating her pregnancy? I think she should have that choice. In the alternative, if a woman wants to have a baby that is the product of incest or rape, should she be forced to end a pregnancy? No, she should not.

Does that make me anti-life? I don't think so. It really is about individual rights, and perhaps the rights of a woman placed before the rights of a fetus.

Although I am Mexican, I wasn't marching that day.