The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

Travels With No Charlie

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Medford, Oregon, June 6, 2018 — This morning as usual, I got up and dressed, and then I took myself for a walk.

As some of you know, usually gooddog Charlie takes me for my morning walk, but not today. Because last night at 8 o’clock my good Charlie died.

And this morning when I returned from my walk, his body was still lying upon his bed, his eyes open as if seeing something very faint and very far away.

And he remained so very, very still.

What Happened

A year ago, on our morning walk to the little hidden park a block away, while I was petting him and putting his leash back on, I discovered a lump on his chest. About the size of a half lemon. A few days later, the vet said she didn’t know what it was, but we should take it out.

She quoted an amazing amount of money, and frankly I didn’t have it. And over this year, [Read more…]

Charlie’s Fortune

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Panda Express, Medford, Oregon, May 14, 2018 — My favorite, and pretty much only place I get lunch when I don’t want to cook/prep, is Panda Express, because you can get vegetables instead of rice, and while not perfect, it’s a pretty healthy meal.

I take gooddog Charlie so he gets an outing, but I don’t let him out so I bring him the fortune cookie. (He eats them, but I do not.) And so naturally that means the fortune is actually gooddog Charlie’s fortune.

Lately I’ve begun to question these Panda Express fortunes that he gets. I was suspicious last week when he got, “You will be a great success, both in business and socially.”

And now, after yesterday — when he got “Good news will come to you by mail.” — I am seriously questioning the accuracy of these Panda Express fortunes.

Memorial Day for a Great Warrior

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Mount Shasta, California, Memorial Day, May 28, 2007: My cat Percy was found in the Mendocino countryside by a short-term roommate when I lived in Mill Valley. The roommate was moving and I asked to keep the kitten.

“Sure,” said the roommate.

There we lived with Morgan, my durn ol kitty, who liked the kitten, and taught him such cat wisdom as she could. Then we moved and became trailer trash in San Rafael. Percy the kitten grew quickly into a long-legged male with yellow eyes, and a short gray coat. Together they roamed the trailer park. There Percy discovered a vile enemy. Black cat.

Black cat, and Percy had many rumbles. It was a scandal.

At the end of the day, as the sun sunk slowly over Toys ‘R Us, I’d step from the trailer and whistle loudly twice. From somewhere up the way would come wandering Morgan and Percy, tired from the day’s toil, and ready for supper.

And then we moved to San Anselmo.

Dangers of San Anselmo

We’d been invited to live with Adrienne and the dog Tulip. Morgan and Percy spent three days locked in the bathroom while Tulip went ballistic outside the door. And when Tulip became used to them living in the bathroom we introduced them all around, and as expected they became fast friends. Tulip and Percy invented a complicated and fun game which involved who could get their paws around the rungs of a chair. This game made Tulip smile.

We weren’t sure how trailer-trash cats would fare in this more upscale neighborhood, but you’d never know their origins from their behavior, as if they’d always been ritzy cats.

And then in his travels around the neighborhood, Percy discovered an evil enemy. Orange cat.

There were fabled rumbles. It was a scandal.

The Reinforcements: Tulip and Me

When the sounds of battle arose, Tulip leaped up as if electrified and ran out the door, followed swiftly by myself. There, in the distance of the driveway, the two battling cats froze, as Orange cat stared in growing horror at Tulip bearing down the driveway, and at myself on the deck.

(I waved my arms and gibbered like a wild ape and made loud growling threats, as is proper.)

Flying away into the underbrush, Orange cat beat a hasty retreat.

Percy, his tail much larger than usual, stormed grouchily into the house. We told him that he was whipping Orange cat’s butt, though sometimes that wasn’t totally clear.

The Big Yellow Truck

And so we lived, and then in time packed a household into the Big Yellow Truck, and Percy into his cat carrier, and moved to Mount Shasta. He complained all the way. Morgan had left us in San Anselmo, so she couldn’t make the ride.

Percy and Tulip enjoyed the yard, and Percy discovered that the railing and the apple tree led to the roof, and like a pirate of old, he kept a weather eye on the neighborhood.

It was not long, wandering the neighborhood, before Percy discovered a dreadful enemy. Striped cat.

There were wild rumbles. It was a scandal.

Warfare in Mount Shasta

He’s been happy in Mount Shasta. He likes the weather, except for the snow, which he blames on me, and he likes the water. He likes watching the birds. He leaps the gate to the fence, and comes and goes, and in the twilight can usually be found on the front porch steps, watching passers-by. When he’s not there, I whistle loudly twice, and then I call his special call.

This is his name with a loud gargle in the middle, and then “What you doin, boy?” These sound wacky and perplexes the neighbors no doubt. However, the sound carries, and he comes trotting from some errand in the vacant-lot woods behind George Brown’s house.

In the night, he likes to slip into my room where he snores on my chest until I fall asleep, and then, offended when I begin my own snoring, he scratches at the door so I have to awaken and let him out.

Then he goes to Adrienne’s room, and there entertains her during the night.

Nemesis

Today, he appeared to have an intestinal blockage, as he’s had before. He’s fifteen, which is latter days for a male cat. I found a vet willing to help us on this holiday, and so I bagged him up in the carrier, and assured him that he’d be right as rain soon.

But the vet had other news. Serious and bad news. It was something else. Percy was very lethargic. In my way, I asked him if he could get well. He said no.

I stayed with him while the deadly injection made its way to slow and still his breathing. Tough fellow, his heart beat on and on, growing weaker. I stroked his face the way he likes, and I told him how grateful I’ve been for his hanging out with me all these years. I reminded him of our many adventures. And finally, he was gone.

The world is a smaller place without him. Percy was his name. A great warrior. My good buddy.

Dogs Not Allowed

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Spring 1990: Some ten years earlier at Christmas time, Adrienne had rescued Holly the black cockapoo from the Humane Society, as a Christmas present for her father. Holly, with new puppies, had been abandoned upon a freeway. The puppies were adopted fast, and Holly then found a happy home with Adrienne, back in those days in Berkeley.

Her father, back in New Hampshire, was an avid climber and one of the founders of the Appalachian club. Twice he’d taken her climbing the mountain. The first time she loved it, and the second time, becoming a teen, she hated it, as was proper.

Back in New England, he’d been a “tramp” printer. That means a printer skilled in setting type, fine art books to newspapers, who was very good and who moved from job to job. They lived in nice houses, and he built a stone fence, and he liked to garden, and often worked a midnight shift.

When he’d been a young teen, his own father had left one day, and never came back. Clifford, oldest of six, had to drop from school to earn for the family. He read and studied anyway, and became a liberal intellectual, and when the war came he met Helen the actress and a week later they were married.

So now that he was retired, living in Pacific Grove, it seemed that Holly was to be his Christmas present.

But it didn’t work out that way.

Pacific Grove, not far from Monterrey, is the home of the Monarch butterfly. Every September, you can see them arriving from as far as Washington state. How can such a small creature travel so many hundreds of miles?

The Monarchs are black with bright yellow and orange designs. Some are huge, and to see them thick in the trees, and the air bright with their fluttering designs … it’s stupendous. Clifford and Hazel probably moved there because of the mild climate, and because Clifford was a lighthouse enthusiast, writing articles about lighthouses and lighthouse keepers, and visiting lighthouses up and down the coast.

The lonely point in Pacific Grove, and the lighthouse there in the grey air … perhaps it gives us an image of the man and his life.

Clifford was happy to have Holly, but love had been at work in the weeks before. Holly pined when Adrienne left. When Adrienne returned, Holly leapt with joy. And after a few visits, when Adrienne was about to leave, Clifford said, “You know, I never really wanted a dog, and it’s really clear that Holly is really your dog, so why don’t you take her back with you?”

“You mean it?” said Adrienne, thrilled.

He nodded, smiling.

And over the years, Holly and Adrienne had adventures together. Once Adrienne awoke, and found a hole dug beneath the fence. The trail led to the home next door. There, in the pool, Holly weakly treading water. Having fallen in, she could not climb up the ledge. Pulled out, she lay on her side, heaving to catch her breath. Whew!

And now this weekend, being Springtime and us feeling adventurous, Adrienne and Holly and I drove the surveillance vehicle down to Pacific Grove, where I’d made reservations. “Make sure they take dogs,” Adrienne had told me.

The year before, when Clifford had passed away, in his mind he was directing a movie, and one day he’d pulled all the tubes out of his arm, and faded into black during the night. Adrienne’s mother Hazel now lived in a home in southern California. But Adrienne wanted to show me the town where they’d once lived.

We drove to the motor hotel and I went in to sign us up. “You take dogs,” I said. The lady at the desk confirmed that dogs were just fine.

We drove to the room, and I made a great show of parking the car just so. “This place doesn’t take dogs,” I told Adrienne, “so we’ll need to smuggle her in.” Adrienne nodded. I went to unlock the door, while Adrienne waited in the car. “OK!” I called out, “The coast is clear!”

Quickly, Adrienne ran into the room with Holly wrapped up in a towel. I brought things in and we unpacked. When we went to see the lighthouse, we pulled the getaway vehicle so that our doorway couldn’t be seen from the office. When Holly needed to pee, we made sure to climb out the back window into the vacant lot next door. Late that night, we made sure to keep Holly from barking at neighbor sounds, to prevent discovery. And the next day, we cleverly smuggled her out again.

Later, as we were driving home from Pacific Grove, Adrienne read through the pretty brochure we’d picked up from the motor hotel. Suddenly she stiffened.

“Hey!” she said, “That place takes dogs!”

Unexpected Visitor

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A plump British Robin Redbreast sitting on a snow frosted fence post

Mount Shasta, February 15, 2004: As I was sleepily rising, Adrienne called from the kitchen. The fat robin was in trouble.

In our back yard, near my office door, the holly tree sports bright green prickly leaves, and bright red berries. Mothers around the world have warned us as children: Don’t eat the berries! That’s why I believe, and you believe, that the berries are poison.

Our robins, however, have never been warned by their mothers, and appear to gobble the berries throughout the winter. And do the robins appear dead, lying feet up in the snow?

They do not.

But one of the robins, the big fat one — we marvel that he can even fly — is sitting in the snow, today. Adrienne had spotted him in the branches, sitting very still. She worried, when she went outside, that he didn’t fly away.

And now he’s on the ground.

He’s not dead, for he looks around at me as I peek from the chilly doorway. I diagnose the freezing cold, rather than the holly berries, as the problem. Luckily, as I picked up a dog towel from the floor, Adrienne gives me professional advice on towel size, and provides me with a smaller one.

On the porch as I crunch through the snow, I speak softly to the big fat robin, and he permits me to wrap the towel around his little body. As I return to the kitchen, this fine wrapped bird in hand worth two in the snowy bush, Adrienne jitters.

“Don’t bring him in here!” she cries. “Take him out in the garage … to warm up!” But I don’t think the garage is very warm. I’ve been in that garage.

“I wanted you to see him,” I said, but before she could come over to see, suddenly between my warm hands a wild flutter and the bird launches, from within the towel, scrabbling and flying at the ceiling, the doorway, then quick as lace around a corner into the living room’s tall roof and the windowsill ten feet above the floor.

There he perches upon the sill, and flutters at the glass, perches and flutters, perches and flutters.

I ponder. I ponder over a cup of coffee, then another coffee. I ponder over toast and peanut butter. Pondering becomes me, but Adrienne has become impatient.

“Go on,” she says.

I try the magic trick. Holding my arm up toward the bird, with one finger outstretched, I say, “Come land on my finger.” It worked once with a fly; maybe it will work now.

Nope. It doesn’t.

I fetch the ladder from the garage. I clatter through the doorway, and set up the ladder below the window.

Up I go.

My balance is not what it was, but, hey, I’m only four feet up, daring bird charmer I. I have my specialty bird towel, and I speak calmly to the fat robin. He’s a little excited. Probably doesn’t get so much company, so up close and personal, most of the time.

I wait.

Sure enough, his perch and flutter method first takes him to the far side of the sill, and then his perch and flutter method brings him near. I wrap the towel around him; he is caught. He goes still, wrapped secure in the towel.

Outside on the back porch, I unwrap him and attempt to place him on a branch, thinking perhaps we might have a conversation. But once free, like a bat out of hell, or perhaps more like a robin freed from monsters, away he speeds in a straight line, away to the west to the tall, tall, distant evergreens so safe and dark on the far side of the block.

Probably just now he’s telling robin buddies about his adventure and his escape. Probably they don’t believe him. Among the branches, in the chill they stomp their feet and hunker down, awaiting the warm weather to come again.

Soon the talk turns to more acceptable subjects such as eggs and nests and cute lady robins, and bugs to eat.

 

Diplomacy

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Henrietta, Texas, 1954. Donny Burkman was my closest friend at this time, and also lived closest, just on the other corner of the block. My mother had only recently bought our little house with green siding, and I liked living there, in the north of town, near the graveyard. That may sound grim, but it was another neat place to explore.

We climbed the stone gateposts, we read the old gravestones, we walked on folks graves, we sat on the close-cut grass and drank sodas. It was a fine place.

Being ten years old, we wanted nothing to do with his younger brother, John, two years younger. And so we were dismayed, on that hot summer day, as we lounged in the shadows of my mother’s living room, when we saw John coming across the Laughon’s lawn.

My dog Bullet and John didn’t get along. Bullet rose from the cool porch, to greet John.

We were grateful, because that slowed John down. Clearly he was coming to look for us. Bullet stood his ground, growling low. John came slowly on, circling around Bullet.

“Nice Bullet,” he said. “Good doggy. Nice Bullet.”

Donny whispered, “Let’s hide.” With a sudden brainstorm, I herded Donny and myself behind the open front door. John would never think to find us there, so close. Now we could no longer see John, but we heard him drawing closer.

“Good doggie,” he said, somewhere near the porch.

“Nice Bullet,” he said, backing onto the porch.

“Good doggie,” he said, opening the screen door. He was just on the other side of the front door, behind which we hid. “Nice doggie,” he said, backing into the room, “Good Bullet.”

He closed the screen door.

“Stupid dog,” he said.

A Tiny Miracle on Napa Street

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Lacunae — blind spots —
like black cats prowling midnight,
but just out of sight.

Napa Street, Berkeley, Summer 1977: In Christine’s room, Richard W. and I were yakking about nothing in the late morning. The windows were open; the day would be warm. A fat fly buzzed lazily around Richard where he lounged on the floor beneath the window.

Our talk turned to magic and miracles. He’d seen some; I’d seen some. I was relating a strange experience in England. How magic can happen in an instant, with no sense of effort, and as though something else is acting through you. I’d felt it before. It feels natural, more natural than most days’ living; it’s hard to describe.

“It was as if, suddenly, there’s a kind of a wave, and you’re being carried along. You’re caught up,” I said, trying to capture it.

He looked dubious.

Suppose I said, to the fly …

A Fat Fly Buzzed Around.

“It’s like this,” I said. I pointed to the fly. “Suppose I said to that fly, ‘Come here.’”

The fly flew across the room, and landed on my finger.

“And then suppose I said, ‘Fly out the window.’”

The fly took off, flew past Richard and out the window.

And it was so …

Richard gaped. I nodded. It had come; it had gone. I felt no sense of triumph, or strength; it wasn’t exactly me that did it. It felt … right. At the time, it seemed inevitable.

Is this something that’s always in us, waiting to emerge? Or does it pass through humanity like a wind through the boughs? Why does it appear seemingly only at great need, or, like today, in no need at all? Is it a matter of attention, or, like conscious dreaming, a matter of exactly the right amount of inattention? What is it?

These things — miracles, epiphanies, synchronicities — surround us, like nebulae of faeries, visable and hiding in plain sight. Magic breathes into and out of our world, transient lacunae, trailing thin and smoky tracks like cosmic rays in this cloud chamber we call Earth.

A blink of the mind; they are gone.

 

 
 

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