The Adventures of Bloggard

A tip of the Bloggardo Hatlo to Spike Magazine, for their nice review of Adventures of Bloggard. They said:

“[The Adventures of] Bloggard – This one is truly random. Odd, amusing snippets from that [bygone] America. Or ‘True stories and lies. Wisdom, foolishness, and sometime epiphanies,’ as they put it.”

Mount Shasta, 9am: A week ago, about this time, our dog Tulip passed away; Yesterday and today have been hard, remembering, and also remembering last Tuesday when we awoke exhausted, with a hole in the morning.

While we sat at table over coffee, late-sleeping Tulip should have come walking, stiff and stretching, from the bedroom while we said “Good morning!” and “Here she comes, here she comes!” That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Have you ever noticed how, in tough times, syncronicity appears, and consciousness alters?

When Tulip was boarding at the animal hospital, we knew she’d be ill on her return, and in our rented house with carpeting, we’d need to keep Tulip in the kitchen with its durable floor.

Adrienne called the Noah’s Ark petstore, and spoke with the owner, a blonde woman we’d never met. However, the week before, the local newspaper displayed an article on cat rescue folks, and in the photo this same woman sat with a cat who looked exactly like Komodo Kittie that we’d placed with the Humane Society.

Adrienne wanted a baby gate, to close the kitchen from the carpet. The pet-store lady said she’d ask a woman named Chris at the Humane Society. “She’s a pet communicator,” said the pet-store woman, “I don’t know if you believe in things like that.”

Adrienne, very much, does.

In fact, musing with me the day before, she’d wished she knew a pet psychic, and when the pet-store woman reached Chris, Chris said she could help, and asked for Adrienne’s name. Chris already knew who she was, and the pet-store woman said, “Adrienne? Oh! You’re that Adrienne!” The story of Komodo Kittie had made the rounds, you see.

Chris said that her dog Nikki would help guide Tulip when the time came. And Chris then reminded the pet-store woman that there was a nice gate stashed in the back room of the pet-store, which had been forgotten.

“That’s right!” said the pet-store woman, and invited Adrienne to come over. Adrienne drew Angel Cards, and they said “Creativity” and “Spontenaity.” I don’t draw Angel cards, but every day I check the Fortune Cookie built into this site. Although the fortune is randomly selected from my quotes collection, quotes appear which I swear I’ve never seen before.

In the afternoon, Adrienne said she didn’t know how she’d go on, without Tulip. And in my office, the fortune cookie selected a quotation from Adrienne herself. “Don’t stop,” it said. “Just keep moving. — Adrienne Gallant”

The pet store gate was double-size. This was good, because we needed a double-size gate. Adrienne asked how much it would cost. The woman said, “Just take it. Take it with you.”

As we set up the gate, Adrienne again tried to reach the pet communicator, with no luck. And when, a week ago, the sun rose on Tulip’s last day, and when Adrienne rose in that early light, she pulled an Angel Card. It said, “Grace.”

The vet we reached on the phone agreed to come and set Tulip free of that broken body. She was a vet new to us. She was named Dr. Roberts, or actually, Dr. Grace Roberts.

While Dr. Roberts was preparing the injections, the phone rang. We didn’t want to talk, but it just kept ringing. “Go answer it,” I told Adrienne, “We don’t want it ringing.”

There, at that last moment, was Chris, the pet communicator, with words of comfort. Adrienne thanked her, hung up, then sat on the floor, and we stroked and spoke with Tulip as she passed away.

Later in the afternoon, from Chris Adrienne heard that Tulip was being escorted by guides including the dog Nikki and a horse, and that the journey would take three days. Adrienne tears up, telling me. “I wanted to tell them that Tulip couldn’t run very long,” she says.

During these three days of Tulip’s journey, we’ve been told to encourage Tulip to keep moving. And once she gets where she’s going, then she’ll be able to come back and visit us. Well, that sounds like a good idea to me, because I like her a lot, and miss her terribly. All this week, I hear Adrienne crying. “Keep moving, Tulip,” she says. “Keep moving.”

Two weeks ago, and two weeks before that, Adrienne told me of peculiar dreams. In the earlier dream, she and Tulip were walking and they met two strange dogs. These sound frightening, for they were tall, wild, stiff-legged, with dark coats and glowing pale blue eyes. Yet she and Tulip were not afraid. She awoke.

They’re guides, she thought.

In the later dream, again she and Tulip walked along a path, and topping a ridge they came upon a field, a field much larger than a football field, and upon the wide green grass, hundreds and hundreds of border collies were running, walking, playing, prancing, as far as you could see.

Adrienne spoke to Tulip, on the leash near her hand. “Look, Tulip,” she exclaimed, “All your cousins!”

But Tulip was no longer on the leash.

The leash was empty. And in the dream, Adrienne cried, knowing that Tulip had gone. Tulip had joined her cousins, out upon the sweet green grass.

Playing, running, prancing, I can see Tulip, blending with all the others, black and white and joyous, running with all the border collies of the world.

Flash! Just when you thought it was safe to come out of the water, new research reveals extensive use of a powerful chemical within many industry groups worldwide, suggesting a powerful effect upon our overall health.

For revelations about the now-widespread use of dihydrogen monixide in our world, see Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division (DMRD), located in Newark, Delaware.

Why aren’t our governmental agencies on top of this?

Mount Shasta, March 14, 2004: Today is bright and clear and the air fresh, promising Spring. Our dog Tulip, retrieved from the animal hospital with terrible blood tests, spent a bad night. Tulip cannot sleep, will not eat, throws up bile. Her body is failing; overnight she is ancient. Thin and gaunt, she shivers and trembles. Tulip is dying.

Because of blood and bile, she had to sleep in the kitchen. She wanted her own bed. She wanted her life back, but that life is gone now, fading as we watch.

Today she visited beside me in the office. This is her job, and comforts her, though she shivers, gasps, rail-thin.

I had to lift her up the steps. She is weak, and fading.

Adrienne and I spent much of last night, and most of today, sitting with Tulip while she is dying.

Tulip fades.

Mount Shasta: Our border collie Tulip is reaching the end of her life.

A year ago, tests said kidney failure. Normally, this never improves. In Adrienne’s dog-walking days, one of Adrienne’s dogs died this way. It’s not good. Tulip has lost weight, from 63 pounds down to 46. She’s thin and wobbles unsteadily, as her muscle mass fades away, her body trying to survive.

Clearly she’s uncomfortable, sometimes unable to lie at rest, shivering, weak. She’s eleven years old. Somehow we thought she’d be long-lived, reaching fifteen or sixteen. But no, it seems not.

We’ve known this day was coming.

Adrienne says she cannot imagine what life would be like, without Tulip. Tulip has been part and parcel of our lives, day in and day out, for the last eleven years. We’ve grown older, and along with us, she has grown from gangly puppy to a magnificent mature animal and now she diminishes toward that silent and eternal night, growing thinner and more frail.

Her eyes are not as clear as once, but her heart is loving as always. More these days, she comes to us for comfort, placing her head against us, waiting to be petted, waiting for us to caress her smooth fur, because we love her.

A border collie is a long-haired dog. For years, we find long black hairs blowing around the house. They gather into dust bunnies beneath the furniture, and crouch in the corners. It is difficult to prepare a meal without at least one black hair appearing as if by magic in the skillet, among the vegetables, or upon the plate. We’ve grown used to them.

Recently, since Lizzie came to live with us, with two long-haired dogs, the drifting fur has accellerated till it was making Adrienne crazy. She sent Lizzie to the groomer and had her shorn. Lizzie came back with a crew cut, looking very different, and the fur diminished.

So a few weeks ago, Tulip also went to a groomer, for the first time. She came back shorn and looking so thin, but the drifting hairs have almost vanished around our house. Then Tulip became weak and troubled, and the vet said her kidneys are failing badly. They’ve kept her the last three nights, feeding her fluids and medicines, in hopes that the flush will give her a few more weeks or months of life.

We’ve visited each day. She seems stronger, but so unhappy to be left there. She’s a good dog, but she so wants to come home with us. As we leave, she calls to us.

If we are lucky, tomorrow her new tests will say that she can come home again. If we are lucky, then she will be with us for some weeks, or some months.

Coming home, we ate at the Black Bear diner, and during the meal, on my plate suddenly there appeared a small black hair, falling from sleeve.

“Look,” I said, “One of Tulip’s hairs has got in the food again.” Adrienne looked at me, tears welling in her eyes. Her voice caught.

She said, “I wish they always would.”

San Anselmo, 1994: Adrienne’s border collie Tulip showed no signs of slowing down as she matured. Three trips daily to the Port Isabel dog park wasn’t enough.

After her Chinese landlord said dog goes or move, in Adrienne’s new apartment, the Danish landlord was cool, but the loony tenant downstairs first harassed Tulip in the yard, and then complained when she barked at him. Phone calls went round and round.

Moving again. To a house in San Anselmo. It had no yard, but it was quiet, though that would change later.

But still, what to do with the bouncing, energetic Tulip?

Adrienne pondered again and again. She says she wept at night for nine months, worrying how to give the dog the exercise, while working at the Larkspur vegan cafe, The Garden of Eatin’. Somehow, the answer came to her.

Adrienne’s All-Weather Dog-Walking.

Since she had to go a-walking with Tulip, why not take other dogs, too? (Why does this remind me of The Thumbtack Bugle early days?)

I was tapped to design a poster, something I’ve done in my postering days. I chose a deco woman in silhouette, dancing along, followed by four dancing dogs. Best poster I’ve ever done. Damn it was good!

And stapled outside College of Marin and Woodlands Market, it found customers immediately. They called into Adrienne’s new voicemail number. “Hi,” it said, “This is Adrienne of Adrienn’e All-Weather Dog-Walking Serivce. We offer …”

At first, timid, Adrienne said she’d walk one dog at a time. That would give them more individual attention, she said. After a few months, reason prevailed. She discovered that she could handle two to four dogs at a time. By a strange coincidence, that’s how many would fit into her car.

In the beginning, Tulip, a herding dog by nature, fit right in. She herded the dogs into the car, played them to exhaustion at the park, then herded them home.

After a few years, Tulip’s puppy nature matured, and as she grew beyond the need for day-long exercise, she became more alpha, tougher, more aggressive, and finally Adrienne could no longer trust Tulip not to fight at the dog park.

The dog business went on, now Adrienne’s bread and butter. Six months had put her full-time into walking dogs. Her heart easily ran to dogs over tofu pups, and the cafe job was left behind.

So now the dog business, started so she could spend her days with Tulip, went on … but without Tulip.

Adrienne and I lived then in San Anselmo, and I took Tulip to the office with me. On went the dog business; Tulip stayed behind, assisting me with the voicemail business.

Early in the morning, before work, Adrienne walked with Tulip, in the early light. Late in the afternoon, as the light waned, after her long day walking the dogs, Adrienne walked Tulip.

Oh, Adrienne tried various strategems to get me to walk Tulip. How it would be good for me. How it would give me a break. Few worked. Fact is, I did have other things to occupy my time.

Over several years, as Adrienne began to feel the wear from the walking, driving in smog, trying to get around road crews and traffic and contractors, and time as a constant pressure, the bloom wore off the business. She loved the dogs, loved to spend time with them, had a special touch with them. But she was getting tired. It was wearing.

I told her we were moving. She didn’t believe me, was all surprised when it came time to advise the clients: she was leaving. So long to her puppies of all these years. So long to the clients. So long to the friends in the early-morning dog park. So long to Adrienne’s All-Weather Dog-Walking service.

Now, she walks in the mornings. Our new dog, Lizzie, and ever faithful Tulip, walk beside her.

There they go.