Cooper is the most happiest when I say the magic words and pick up the leash and off we go for "walkers." Cold, he doesn't care. Heat, whatever. (Seriously, when it's 95 outside I try to discourage him from walking but he does not buy into my blistering comments about the sidewalk being too hot for his delicate paws, etc. Sigh.)
However, when it's raining, all bets are off. Yes, he has a little raincoat but it does not cover his face and ears. Thus, his head gets wet. And his legs and his belly. Cooper is not a water dog. He is not a retriever, he is not a fetching-of- ducks-in-swamps kind of dog. He has very little fur and therefore he gets cold when wet. It's no wonder he does not like the rain.
This evening I got home from work around 5:45. Cooper had been home alone since 8:30 and he was very happy to see me. We went for a nice walk, he peed, pooped and sniffed. (It was not raining at that time.) Upon our return he had dinner. He was happy. We sat on the small couch and I read and he snuggled and slept some more, which is probably what he did all day, but hey, whatever. All was well until about 10:00 when I decided it was time for him to go out and have our last walk around the block for the last pee and poop. We started walking and about 45 seconds into the walk it began to rain buckets. Cooper stopped, walked over to the nearest tree, peed for about ten seconds and then turned around to come home. No tugging on the leash could turn him around, he was done with his functions for the night. Rain = forgetaboutit.
I know, this is a stupid essay about my dog, and really, who cares? But there you have it.
Friday, April 6, 2018
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
The slog of looking for a new job pays off! Autocamp!
After pretending I was retired for five months, but most of those with a knee too painful to walk on for very long and thus confined to self-imposed house arrest, it is time to get a job. Being on the dole only lasts so long and that length is about to end. Thus began the depressing and demoralizing slog of looking for work.
Yes, the economy is great! Yes, there are jobs out there! But no, they still don't pay decently and they are all part time. Part time is fine with me but not at $12.50 an hour. I did not want to go back into the hospitality world, kissing butts, hauling luggage, working under the thumb of either a corporate master or a privileged hotel owner. But it's the world I know and it's the job I am good at and it's the one place I knew I could get hired.
In Guerneville exists Autocamp. (autocamp.com) It's a sort of hotel but the rooms are completely tricked out Airstream trailers. They are made to order at the factory in Ohio and then driven to the West Coast. Autocamp began in Santa Barbara and their second location is in Guerneville with a third location to follow later this year, location unknown for now. It is a very cool spot, surrounded by redwood trees, a huge common room with tables, chairs, an indoor firepit, a buffet where they have a continental breakfast and a little market where guests can buy wine, cheese, crackers, S'mores, hot dogs, hotel swag. And bags of charcoal because each trailer area has its own little firepit. In April they put up and opened ten tents that sleep two and which use a communal bathroom/shower area. It is quite the compound. These trailers are not cheap, the rate hovers between $350 to $425 a night for the Airstreams, less for the tents.
Last September I answered an ad for a part time swing shift position. I didn't want the shift but I wanted to see the property and they invited me over for a chat. The manager and I sat for more than an hour, just talking about the hospitality industry, the strangeness of the guests, the idiosyncrasies of different lodging properties. I told her I would call her in the early spring. I did just that.
Autocamp offered me a job which I will take. Probably three days a week, which is just fine for now. Benefits after 90 days if I work enough hours, which is also fine for now. I swore I wouldn't get back into the hospitality mode but there is something about the setting of this property and the feeling you get when you walk onto the property that I like. And bottom line, I am really good at this and they recognized that and they wanted me. There you have it.
Training starts next Monday. Another chapter waiting to be written.
.
Yes, the economy is great! Yes, there are jobs out there! But no, they still don't pay decently and they are all part time. Part time is fine with me but not at $12.50 an hour. I did not want to go back into the hospitality world, kissing butts, hauling luggage, working under the thumb of either a corporate master or a privileged hotel owner. But it's the world I know and it's the job I am good at and it's the one place I knew I could get hired.
In Guerneville exists Autocamp. (autocamp.com) It's a sort of hotel but the rooms are completely tricked out Airstream trailers. They are made to order at the factory in Ohio and then driven to the West Coast. Autocamp began in Santa Barbara and their second location is in Guerneville with a third location to follow later this year, location unknown for now. It is a very cool spot, surrounded by redwood trees, a huge common room with tables, chairs, an indoor firepit, a buffet where they have a continental breakfast and a little market where guests can buy wine, cheese, crackers, S'mores, hot dogs, hotel swag. And bags of charcoal because each trailer area has its own little firepit. In April they put up and opened ten tents that sleep two and which use a communal bathroom/shower area. It is quite the compound. These trailers are not cheap, the rate hovers between $350 to $425 a night for the Airstreams, less for the tents.
Last September I answered an ad for a part time swing shift position. I didn't want the shift but I wanted to see the property and they invited me over for a chat. The manager and I sat for more than an hour, just talking about the hospitality industry, the strangeness of the guests, the idiosyncrasies of different lodging properties. I told her I would call her in the early spring. I did just that.
Autocamp offered me a job which I will take. Probably three days a week, which is just fine for now. Benefits after 90 days if I work enough hours, which is also fine for now. I swore I wouldn't get back into the hospitality mode but there is something about the setting of this property and the feeling you get when you walk onto the property that I like. And bottom line, I am really good at this and they recognized that and they wanted me. There you have it.
Training starts next Monday. Another chapter waiting to be written.
.
Monday, March 26, 2018
Final (I hope) report on my new knee
Eight weeks ago today I had my knee replacement. When you do this with Kaiser, they send a physical therapist to your house the day after surgery to start you on the painful process of PT. Part of the big thing, as I have reported in the past, is the measuring of the bend of your knee.
The day after surgery, the angle for me was 90 degrees. By the time the PT guy signed off and sent me to Kaiser PT department, I was up to 110. Weeks went by (well, three weeks) and I got to 120 and was very happy. Last week, however, I fell back to 115. Sadness. Especially since I thought I was working it hard because it hurt. A lot.
But the PT guy showed me a couple of "leaning in" exercises and today, lo and behold, the bend measured 125 degrees! That's as high as they expect, that is what they consider "full range of motion." This was supposed to be my last Kaiser PT session, and with that sort of number on my chart they were happy to let me go.
All this is to say that the knee is getting better. Getting up from a sitting position still is painful and it takes about 5 seconds of moving it to make me trust it. It still hurts at night but I no longer think I will pop open the scar tissue if I bend it dramatically. I can now stand up and put on underwear and my jeans, instead of sitting on the bed and pulling them up like a friggin old person. I can crank up the resistance level on the bike at the gym and stay on it for more than ten minutes. Any hurt I feel is normal for a knee that was cut open, bones cut out, sanded down and fake, shiny knee parts screwed into those poor bones.
It's all good. I am so happy I had it done. According to friends, one day you realize "hey, the pain is gone" and that's the point I am aiming for now.
Thanks for listening. If you have good knees, be happy and grateful. Love your knees.
.
The day after surgery, the angle for me was 90 degrees. By the time the PT guy signed off and sent me to Kaiser PT department, I was up to 110. Weeks went by (well, three weeks) and I got to 120 and was very happy. Last week, however, I fell back to 115. Sadness. Especially since I thought I was working it hard because it hurt. A lot.
But the PT guy showed me a couple of "leaning in" exercises and today, lo and behold, the bend measured 125 degrees! That's as high as they expect, that is what they consider "full range of motion." This was supposed to be my last Kaiser PT session, and with that sort of number on my chart they were happy to let me go.
All this is to say that the knee is getting better. Getting up from a sitting position still is painful and it takes about 5 seconds of moving it to make me trust it. It still hurts at night but I no longer think I will pop open the scar tissue if I bend it dramatically. I can now stand up and put on underwear and my jeans, instead of sitting on the bed and pulling them up like a friggin old person. I can crank up the resistance level on the bike at the gym and stay on it for more than ten minutes. Any hurt I feel is normal for a knee that was cut open, bones cut out, sanded down and fake, shiny knee parts screwed into those poor bones.
It's all good. I am so happy I had it done. According to friends, one day you realize "hey, the pain is gone" and that's the point I am aiming for now.
Thanks for listening. If you have good knees, be happy and grateful. Love your knees.
.
"The Unseen World" by Liz Moore
Whatever led me to this book should get an award. I started reading this on Sunday morning and finished it just now, a book of more than 435 pages. I could not put it down.
The story is so enticing: we enter when the main character Ada is just a little girl, being raised by a single Dad, no mother ever in the picture. Her father, David, is a brilliant mathematician and scientist and cryptographer. Ada comes to work with her father at a prestigious tech college in New England, she doesn't go to school but learns everything from her Dad. Needless to say, her upbringing, while intellectual and caring, lacks the touch of a family. But they are happy together, very happy.
Then David is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. (It's not a spoiler, it's just a fact.) And Ada, in her early teens, is set adrift on a sea of confusion and displacement. Some of her situation gets sorted out, but other factors come into play, things no one could have envisioned.
On top of it all, David and his crew at the college are making huge leaps in the early days of the computer age, investigating things like virtual reality and cryptology and coding on a scale that might have even amazed Steve Jobs. It is fascinating to read and because the book jumps around a bit, timewise, we see the initial bearing of fruit in that tech world and then the final products much later in the timeline.
But the characters are what make this book amazing. The past two novels I have loved, "All The Light We Cannot See" and "A Gentleman In Moscow" were of a specific time and place but they were mostly about the people in those novels. This one is the same. They are so finely drawn, so real, the reader has (or should have) great empathy, interest and compassion for them.
I hated for this book to end. The only flaw I found was in the last chapter, which seemed a bit calculating and a bit too crafty. But that's just my opinion and that final chapter did nothing to alter my love for this book. If you find it in the library, please take it out and read it. And if a used copy comes your way, do the same so you can loan it to a friend. It's that good.
.
The story is so enticing: we enter when the main character Ada is just a little girl, being raised by a single Dad, no mother ever in the picture. Her father, David, is a brilliant mathematician and scientist and cryptographer. Ada comes to work with her father at a prestigious tech college in New England, she doesn't go to school but learns everything from her Dad. Needless to say, her upbringing, while intellectual and caring, lacks the touch of a family. But they are happy together, very happy.
Then David is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. (It's not a spoiler, it's just a fact.) And Ada, in her early teens, is set adrift on a sea of confusion and displacement. Some of her situation gets sorted out, but other factors come into play, things no one could have envisioned.
On top of it all, David and his crew at the college are making huge leaps in the early days of the computer age, investigating things like virtual reality and cryptology and coding on a scale that might have even amazed Steve Jobs. It is fascinating to read and because the book jumps around a bit, timewise, we see the initial bearing of fruit in that tech world and then the final products much later in the timeline.
But the characters are what make this book amazing. The past two novels I have loved, "All The Light We Cannot See" and "A Gentleman In Moscow" were of a specific time and place but they were mostly about the people in those novels. This one is the same. They are so finely drawn, so real, the reader has (or should have) great empathy, interest and compassion for them.
I hated for this book to end. The only flaw I found was in the last chapter, which seemed a bit calculating and a bit too crafty. But that's just my opinion and that final chapter did nothing to alter my love for this book. If you find it in the library, please take it out and read it. And if a used copy comes your way, do the same so you can loan it to a friend. It's that good.
.
Thursday, March 22, 2018
New movie "Isle of Dogs" from Wes Anderson
So many people I know have dogs and almost everyone I know loves dogs. Not all of those people know or love Wes Anderson movies but they should. He is the master at oddness in movies, strange but enticing stories, and he almost always has the same cast of characters: Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Scarlett Johansson, Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand and so many more. Witness "Moonrise Kingdom" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel" and "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" and many more. All are wonderful but quirky and not mainstream.
His newest movie, just out today is "Isle of Dogs" and you should google it and read the New York Times review of this movie. It sounds bleak and sad but also realistically uplifting and spirited. In stop motion animation (or something like that) it's the story of dogs that are sequestered on a trashy island off Japan and they live a sad life.
But there is more than that, of course, and I cannot wait to see it. Check out the trailers, just google it. And Rotten Tomatoes has already given it more that 90% approval rating and it has hardly been released yet! Such is the power of dogs.
.
His newest movie, just out today is "Isle of Dogs" and you should google it and read the New York Times review of this movie. It sounds bleak and sad but also realistically uplifting and spirited. In stop motion animation (or something like that) it's the story of dogs that are sequestered on a trashy island off Japan and they live a sad life.
But there is more than that, of course, and I cannot wait to see it. Check out the trailers, just google it. And Rotten Tomatoes has already given it more that 90% approval rating and it has hardly been released yet! Such is the power of dogs.
.
The last ten years of where I have lived, and hopefully moving again.
When I add up where I have lived since 1998, it's rather daunting. I mostly feel bad for little Cooper, although he has shown remarkable resilience in the close to ten places he has lived since I rescued him at the SPCA about ten years ago. And once again, he may need to readjust his dogness, but he will like the new smells.
In 1998 I sold the Big White House in Inverness. That was also the year my Dad died. And the year my divorce from Assbag came through. And the year my daughter left her husband of two years. Whew..... what a year, right? I had Webber then, the Wonder Dog, he didn't care where he lived as long as he had dead things to roll in. We moved into a tiny cottage without heat and without plumbing when it rained but I must say, I loved that place, I had great dinner parties there, really good sex with someone I never saw again after one memorable weekend, a lot of laughs. And from there, in the spring of 1999 I moved into another very lovely cottage in Inverness and there I stayed, and where Webber died and where Cooper came to be, for about ten years.
As I said in last night's post, I had to leave West Marin in 2010 because of the Great Economic Downturn and because I lost my job and could not find another one. Thus began Cooper's ten year adventure of New Places to Live.
From November 2010 until June 2011 I lived with Gabe and Annie, which was lovely. I had dozens of job interviews, none which were fruitful except one in a podiatrist office and the thought of dealing with old people feet made me want to collect unemployment forever. In June I moved, with little Cooper, to Texas for about 3+ months and lived with Jenn. We did fine, she was gone for part of the time, I did some catering, the weather was over 100 degrees every day, we had a few screaming arguments but then, on Labor Day of that year I left and drove north, up through Oklahoma, into Kansas and then veered over to Colorado, (stayed in Golden, home of Coors Beer!) and then to Wyoming and got to visit Yellowstone National Park, then to Montana (Big Sky!) which was so immense and so inspiring in some way. It was like the air was fatter there, the landscape mixed city and country and open land. I want to go back there.
Then into Idaho where I got a call from my friend David Warnimont telling me that my other friend Margaret had broken her leg and did I want her job at a bed and breakfast place in Healdsburg. Well, duh, I was still out of work and my unemployment was soon to end, so Cooper and I hoofed it down to NoCal and I took that job.
We stayed at Margaret's for a little bit, she had an extra vacation rental house that we could use when renters weren't there, and when it was rented Cooper and I stayed in a cheap motel or at my brother Steve's house for a night or two. Then Margaret led me (not physically because of her broken leg and all) to a couple who had a large trailer that they were willing to rent me. So I rented that for two months, worked in Healdsburg and in Calistoga, Cooper sometimes spent the day in the trailer, which was OK. Finally, when I gave up the Calistoga job and worked full time at the B&B in Healdsburg, my friend Jani from Burlingame came up and took me to lunch.
Jani was adamant that I get out of the trailer (and I was tired of sleeping over the poop tank) and just rent a place. My hesitation about lack of jobs for the past two years was mitigated by the fact that I had a little money in the bank and could show that to a landlord so I enlisted my friend Martha to look at some places in Santa Rosa. We found one, on Benton Street. It was a small duplex but it suited me well. (I cannot thank Jani or Martha enough for their combined encouragement and the push they provided.)
I lived on Benton for about 18 months. Then Jenn and I rented a larger (4 bedroom) house in SR and she stayed for about 15 months. I got a roommate after Jenn left but I realized I was not good roommate material, so I found my own place, here on Slater, in SR, and I am happy here.
However, the rent is huge and I have an opportunity to move to a very tiny studio apartment in Glen Ellen, hopefully by June. This will save me so much money that I cannot turn it down. But it will mean the seventh place that Cooper will call home in less than ten years, and that doesn't count the two or three weeks in the rental house and it doesn't count the two months in the trailer.
Yes, that's a lot of moving, not just for the dog, but for me. If I add in the random places I slept and the two months in the trailer, it's ten places I have lived in less than ten years.
Sigh. But the Glen Ellen place will, I hope, last us for more than just a year or two. However, it's one more major adjustment for little Cooper. But there will be squirrels there, I am sure, and a bit of room to roam.
More on that to follow. Thanks for listening/reading this far.
.
In 1998 I sold the Big White House in Inverness. That was also the year my Dad died. And the year my divorce from Assbag came through. And the year my daughter left her husband of two years. Whew..... what a year, right? I had Webber then, the Wonder Dog, he didn't care where he lived as long as he had dead things to roll in. We moved into a tiny cottage without heat and without plumbing when it rained but I must say, I loved that place, I had great dinner parties there, really good sex with someone I never saw again after one memorable weekend, a lot of laughs. And from there, in the spring of 1999 I moved into another very lovely cottage in Inverness and there I stayed, and where Webber died and where Cooper came to be, for about ten years.
As I said in last night's post, I had to leave West Marin in 2010 because of the Great Economic Downturn and because I lost my job and could not find another one. Thus began Cooper's ten year adventure of New Places to Live.
From November 2010 until June 2011 I lived with Gabe and Annie, which was lovely. I had dozens of job interviews, none which were fruitful except one in a podiatrist office and the thought of dealing with old people feet made me want to collect unemployment forever. In June I moved, with little Cooper, to Texas for about 3+ months and lived with Jenn. We did fine, she was gone for part of the time, I did some catering, the weather was over 100 degrees every day, we had a few screaming arguments but then, on Labor Day of that year I left and drove north, up through Oklahoma, into Kansas and then veered over to Colorado, (stayed in Golden, home of Coors Beer!) and then to Wyoming and got to visit Yellowstone National Park, then to Montana (Big Sky!) which was so immense and so inspiring in some way. It was like the air was fatter there, the landscape mixed city and country and open land. I want to go back there.
Then into Idaho where I got a call from my friend David Warnimont telling me that my other friend Margaret had broken her leg and did I want her job at a bed and breakfast place in Healdsburg. Well, duh, I was still out of work and my unemployment was soon to end, so Cooper and I hoofed it down to NoCal and I took that job.
We stayed at Margaret's for a little bit, she had an extra vacation rental house that we could use when renters weren't there, and when it was rented Cooper and I stayed in a cheap motel or at my brother Steve's house for a night or two. Then Margaret led me (not physically because of her broken leg and all) to a couple who had a large trailer that they were willing to rent me. So I rented that for two months, worked in Healdsburg and in Calistoga, Cooper sometimes spent the day in the trailer, which was OK. Finally, when I gave up the Calistoga job and worked full time at the B&B in Healdsburg, my friend Jani from Burlingame came up and took me to lunch.
Jani was adamant that I get out of the trailer (and I was tired of sleeping over the poop tank) and just rent a place. My hesitation about lack of jobs for the past two years was mitigated by the fact that I had a little money in the bank and could show that to a landlord so I enlisted my friend Martha to look at some places in Santa Rosa. We found one, on Benton Street. It was a small duplex but it suited me well. (I cannot thank Jani or Martha enough for their combined encouragement and the push they provided.)
I lived on Benton for about 18 months. Then Jenn and I rented a larger (4 bedroom) house in SR and she stayed for about 15 months. I got a roommate after Jenn left but I realized I was not good roommate material, so I found my own place, here on Slater, in SR, and I am happy here.
However, the rent is huge and I have an opportunity to move to a very tiny studio apartment in Glen Ellen, hopefully by June. This will save me so much money that I cannot turn it down. But it will mean the seventh place that Cooper will call home in less than ten years, and that doesn't count the two or three weeks in the rental house and it doesn't count the two months in the trailer.
Yes, that's a lot of moving, not just for the dog, but for me. If I add in the random places I slept and the two months in the trailer, it's ten places I have lived in less than ten years.
Sigh. But the Glen Ellen place will, I hope, last us for more than just a year or two. However, it's one more major adjustment for little Cooper. But there will be squirrels there, I am sure, and a bit of room to roam.
More on that to follow. Thanks for listening/reading this far.
.
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Those spirits that visit us while they are dead.
A few days ago I quoted from James Lee Burke this: if there is a such a thing as wisdom, and I have serious doubts about its presence in my life, it lies in the acceptance of .... the knowledge that those who have passed on are still with us, out there in the mist, showing us the way, sometimes uttering a word or caution from the shadows, somethings visiting us in our sleep, as bright as a candle burning inside a basement that has no windows.
I mention this because yesterday I had lunch with my extra daughter Stacey and she talked about some things she has experienced just after burying her Grandmother. Small things to anyone who wasn't paying attention: rain stopping for the seconds it took to run to her car, not just once but several times in one afternoon, a flower from the funeral left on one of her son's car seats in the back of her car, a few other things that made it clear that her Gramma was still seeing her.
Many people believe in God. Many people do not. Not many people have belief in that middle, spirit world. Oddly, I do. I truly believe that some of the dead carry on. Not all of them. But some. Stacey's narrative confirmed that for me, once again.
When my Mom was alive, I called her every Sunday. Every. Sunday. I remember calling her from a pay phone on an island off of Sicily, from a hotel in Tunisia, many times from Paris or Rome or small towns in other cities in Europe. Now when 4:00 rolls around on Sunday afternoon, I look up expectantly because I expect her to be calling me. So I talk to her for a few minutes, just to satisfy her curiosity of where I might be on that particular Sunday. I do believe she is listening.
There is more to say on this but right now the words are few.
I mention this because yesterday I had lunch with my extra daughter Stacey and she talked about some things she has experienced just after burying her Grandmother. Small things to anyone who wasn't paying attention: rain stopping for the seconds it took to run to her car, not just once but several times in one afternoon, a flower from the funeral left on one of her son's car seats in the back of her car, a few other things that made it clear that her Gramma was still seeing her.
Many people believe in God. Many people do not. Not many people have belief in that middle, spirit world. Oddly, I do. I truly believe that some of the dead carry on. Not all of them. But some. Stacey's narrative confirmed that for me, once again.
When my Mom was alive, I called her every Sunday. Every. Sunday. I remember calling her from a pay phone on an island off of Sicily, from a hotel in Tunisia, many times from Paris or Rome or small towns in other cities in Europe. Now when 4:00 rolls around on Sunday afternoon, I look up expectantly because I expect her to be calling me. So I talk to her for a few minutes, just to satisfy her curiosity of where I might be on that particular Sunday. I do believe she is listening.
There is more to say on this but right now the words are few.
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