Windows To The Soul

This is Harry.

Harry is not religious, but he is spiritual. Actually, he probably is part Jewish and he loves matzo balls. Harry loves to eat, meditate and sleep. The only thing he likes better than eating, meditating and sleeping is eating, meditating, sleeping and going for walks.

Another one of Harry's major pleasures is chasing squirrels. Sometimes he even catches one and that's not a good thing.

Harry was tossed in the night drop box three times before we finally got him. For various reasons, the owners who had adopted him before us decided they could not keep him. Rather than take him in and surrender him at the shelter, they decided to just stick him in the night drop box after everybody left the shelter for the night.

If this had happened once, I might understand it better. When we adopted Harry, the shelter worker said he actually prayed it would work this time. It was very upsetting to find Harry dumped three separate times.

Being abandoned three times before you were even 18 months old is very traumatic, I'm sure. As a result, although Harry is a wonderful dog, he has a lot of neurotic quirks. For example, he's afraid of trees. I am also afraid of trees. Harry is terrified of wind and rain and I don't like those things much either. Harry does not like the country. He is a city boy. I also understand that.

Harry barks at flies and tries to catch and eat them. Flies taunt him and look at him funny which upsets him no end. But honestly, does anybody really like flies?

Harry is about 8 years old now. He's slowing down a bit. We got Harry a new companion a while ago. Her name is Zoe and she's a puppy.

She is also a rescue dog. Zoe is very sweet, very friendly and very playful. Harry likes her but finds her very pesky. Zoe seems to take the song "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" very seriously. Harry get annoyed because when he's trying to meditate, Zoe comes up and bites his neck and licks his nose and ears until he pays attention to her.

Zoe's favorite thing in the world is playing "grab ass" with Harry. That is a game where they both run as fast as they can through the house knocking over everything in their path. This is always accompanied with growls and yips and howls.

Zoe has the body of a world class athlete. She is pure muscle and fast, very very fast. Harry is an older dude now and a little fat. He's not slow, but he cannot catch Zoe if she doesn't want to be caught.

So, after a while, Harry gets tired of playing the game and tries to resume meditation. Zoe comes over to nuzzle and chew on him and then Harry has had enough.

He takes his big body and knocks her on the floor. She throws all four legs in the air to show her submission. Harry stands over Zoe and growls for a few minutes.

Then it's nap time. What a life!

The Jade Bracelet

He bought it at a jewelry store in Chinatown.

It was his Christmas gift to me. Jade and 22 karat yellow gold, sometimes called "Chinese Gold". Just lovely. He spun a tale to me telling me that jade is for "good luck".

Because he was proud of his purchase, he went on to tell me that the jade was of very high quality. I assumed it probably was.

What I didn't tell him is that I like diamonds and rubies and emeralds. Jade is cold to the touch, dead in color, and not in the least appealing to me.

He fastened the ornate clasp on my wrist and told me how beautiful it looked. I smiled, but the smile did not reach my eyes.

In his way, he was trying to teach me "quiet good taste". Little did he know that this bracelet taught me that I didn't love him or need him to teach me anything.

The next day, I went downtown shopping. Somehow the bracelet caught on something and the clasp opened and dropped to the floor somewhere. I hope the person who found it found good luck from it.

I never told him I lost the bracelet. Our seven year interlude had run its course.

Sex in the Fish Pond

We started out with ten fish. Now we have about 30.

There is only one way this could happen, and I guess we all sort of know what that one way is. These fish must be having sex. We used to have an aquarium and it was very easy to see the fish mating. At first I thought they were fighting, but no, it was soon evident that lots of baby fish were being born all the time.

Unfortunately, the baby fish were frequently eaten by the mature fish even with having plant life in the tank where the babies could hide. Still, some of the babies flourished and grew up to be just as cannibalistic as their parents.

The fish do quite well in the pond and there is a lot of plant life around to hide them from predators. We also have Harry and Zoe who consider the fish to be "their" pets, and they will both chase off the occasional egret, hawk or seagull who drops by for sushi lunch from our pond.

I cannot help but wonder if one fish is particularly attracted to another because of physical beauty, or it could be purely a personality thing. Do black fish mate with white fish? Do silver fish mate with red fish and yellow fish? When I had a tank, it seemed to me that the fish were mating all the time or at least with a lot of regularity, but sometimes it was hard to keep track of who was zooming whom.

I'm reading a book that a friend recommended to me as "steamy". When I asked her to tell me a little about it, she said "It's about a 21 year old virgin who gets involved with a handsome young multimillionaire who is into bondage and domination but then they fall in love. (Okay, what's not to like so far?) I began the book which is titled "Fifty Shades of Grey".

It certainly had all the sex scenes I expected and that's fine. Actually, I got a little bored with all the sex and sort of skimmed ahead to try and find a bit of plot. The thing is, this book has me unable to suspend my cynicism. These two people are having sex every fifteen minutes round the clock.

I have had several periods of hyper-sexuality in my life. Perhaps we all have. But the truth of the matter is that how can one believe that anybody is having even kinky sex every 15 minutes and thinking about sex at every moment they aren't having sex. I just don't buy it.

Plus, bondage, spanking, flogging, and such is all fine, but you really can only describe it so many ways. I think I was hoping for something a little more "unusual".

Know what I mean?

Professional Bride - 101

Lord knows I have had enough practice. The first time I got married, I was 19. That one didn't work out real well. Neither did the next one.

Alex and I were driving up to Lake Tahoe to get married in September of 1989. By the time we reached Sacramento, I realized that in my haste to leave, I had changed bags and didn't have an Identification card with me, although I did have some credit cards, a checkbook, and my library card.

Since we were over half-way to our destination, I figured we'd just go ahead and see what happened. We were both a little nervous and on edge anyway, but we had already rented the condo and made the commitment to get this done.

We checked into our condo, and found a local chapel who said they would marry us even without my proper identification. The ceremony was actually quite nice. The minister used some kind of an Apache prayer as part of our service. Our witnesses were the man and his wife who owned the chapel.

For a charge we could have the recording of the wedding ceremony but we decided we didn't need that. Nor did we opt for the photo package. We just wanted to get hitched and get out of there.

We both let out a sigh of relief when it was over and left the chapel. Across the street, there was a chain restaurant called "Carlos Murphy's". We went directly to the bar and ordered two double shots of tequila. We tossed down our drinks and returned to the condo.

We ordered a pepperoni pizza and watched a movie. I remember it was snowing and very cold outside. I slipped into my gold lame Bob Mackie teddy with the matching robe and sat around looking glamorous for a while we drank champagne and watched the snow fall and waited for our pizza.

It was my best wedding ever.

What I Like About Me

I have good legs.

I have to say that the first thing one of my ex-husbands noticed about me were my "little skinny legs". He called them "toothpick" legs. I bed to differ. These legs are damn good legs.

Unfortunately, that is not enough to get me a bus ride across town. Well, actually, that's not true. I do have bus drivers who are very fond of me and my legs, both men and women.

I've always had a soft spot for bus drivers. I don't really know why. Maybe it's the uniforms. Maybe it's because I see them as taking responsibility for a bunch of different people.

When I was about 25, I had a bus driver named Joe who would actually park his bus in front of my apartment and come up and knock at my door if I was running late. He would also grab one of my kids and carry them out to the bus so I could take them to their respective childcare places on my way to work.

This same bus driver came to my place for Christmas more than once. It pays to have friends in high places!

One morning, several years ago I was on a bus in San Francisco. The bus driver called me up to the front of the bus and told me he had a call for me. I took his phone and it was my old bus driver Joe who had seen me getting on this bus. I was flabbergasted but delighted. He said he was pretty sure it was me, and then he saw my legs and he knew it was me.

I commuted by bus from Alameda to San Francisco for several years. One young lady bus driver was having a legal dilemma and I wrote letters for her to help her with her situation. This young lady on occasion would hijack her entire busload of people to take me to my home even though I was not on the bus route she drove.

Another bus driver, a man, liked me and gave me free monthly bus passes. that other people had on his bus. Hey! Commuting isn't cheap!

I may not always like my introverted (really) personality. I may not always like my fat butt.

But, damn it, I always like my legs!

"It's Just What You're Stuck With"

We were having a very early morning conversation.

Still in bed, thinking about getting up, I asked Alex the following question.

"Honey, isn't it weird that both of your sisters married Mexican guys? Isn't it weird that you had a serious girlfriend who was Mexican before marrying me, your Mexican wife? It seems funny that none of you got involved with Navajo partners, considering that you are Navajo."

Alex took a moment to ponder my question. He looked at me and said "It's just what you're stuck with."

"It's just what you're stuck with?" What on earth does that mean? He's stuck with me? I don't understand this at all, but I'm not liking the sound of it much. Does Alex mean that I am what he is stuck with? Is that a loving or kind thing to say to your simple Mexican wife?

I was spluttering a bit at his response, ranging a bit between laughing and smacking him up along side his head. Alex went on to explain what he meant. Growing up in Phoenix, he did not live in the same area that most of the Navajos lived. Alex and his family lived in a house in racially mixed areas but many Native Americans lived in apartments in a different area of town. As kids, Alex and his sisters hung out with Mexican, Asian, White or Black kids.

While Alex spent time with his cousins on the Reservation every summer, he was viewed as a "City" kid by them. Alex had very different life than his cousins on the Rez. Alex's Dad, Fred, was a self proclaimed "Red Apple". He said he was "red on the outside, but white on the inside". Fred spent time in the Marines and I think he was actually "red, white and blue" on the inside. Fred really wanted his children to assimilate into the population at large and not get into a mentality that was prevalent in Arizona where Native Americans were considered to be second class citizens. (Has that changed? I doubt it.)

Alex's Mother, on the other hand was much more "traditional" Navajo. She still is for that matter. She wanted her kids to speak Navajo, go to "Indian School" and embrace their culture above all. His Dad wanted the kids to be Americans first. Neither of Alex's parents got exactly what they wanted, but I think they got the best of both worlds.

I'm glad I am "just what he's stuck with".

I'm Not As Cool As I Thought

I've told a lot of people there is a town named after me in Yuba County, California.

Turns out, it's not a town at all. Linda is something called a "Census-Designated Place", or CDP. Roughly 17,000 people live in what I thought was my town. Linda, California sits right on the border of Beale Air Force Base.

When Alex has to travel to Beale, sometimes we go with him, "we" meaning the dogs and me. Because Alex is retired-military and a defense contractor, we have used the base lodging on occasion. It's really not bad. We settle ourselves in a 3 or 4 bedroom townhouse and there is a yard including a sheltered kennel area for the dogs.

The base is huge and pretty self contained. They have a restaurant and a bar with outdoor seating and I can drink enough to not think the food there is inedible. Or we can go to the movies or workout in the gym. We can also go to the shooting range, or bowling alley. See, it's a fun place.

What usually happens though is not really so fun. Alex goes to work and I watch television for hours on end. There is nothing I can really walk to around, and there is terrible cell phone service for some reason. I can sit out in the yard and watch the UFO's fly over. Oh I know they aren't really UFO's; they are just airplanes that I've never seen before. That's fun for 5 minutes. I could use Alex's iPad, but I don't like the thing. It has a weird keyboard and I can't type on it easily.

The last time we stayed on base, it was in the summer time and pretty hot. Harry went out in the yard to relieve himself and I was horrified to see that he had a very bloody stool. I tend to panic over things like that. I couldn't get my cell phone to work and so I had no way of contacting Alex. (Plus, Alex can't take his cell phone into the work area anyway because of security concerns.) By the time Alex called me on his break, I was having almost a full fledged nervous breakdown. Alex left the job and came to pick us up and drive us to Marysville (15 miles away), so that Harry could be examined by a vet. Harry was fine. I was a wreck.

This whole area is like the country. I don't do well in the country. I think Harry feels the same way and that's even what caused his bloody bowel syndrome. There is nothing in that whole area that is over two stories high, except the WalMart store, in that Census-designated place, Linda.

I saw rabbits running in the field. I saw a fox. And I saw a lot of people with missing teeth in Linda, California. I think it's the meth capitol of the United States.

I'm not going back.