Hello to an Old Friend

I used to write my blog religiously, or at least often. I thought about it a lot, looked far and wide for ideas, and, after being splashed in the face by the cold water of realization that nobody but my closest friend or two ever read what I wrote, I quit. Instead, I've been channeling my time into more fruitful endeavors (like work) and the hope that I might get a book (or two) published. I've now come full circle (although the shape is probably somewhat erratic and elongated and shares few similarities with a true, perfect circle) to where I would like to keep up a blog again. Insert golf clap. Truth is (we like truth, don't we?) the world is inundated with opinions and blogs and what we are now calling fake news. Who really gives a rip what I have to say? I suppose the greatest value in keeping up a blog is that it keeps me at the keyboard, keeps fresh ideas and solid grammar flowing, keeps those adjectives and adverbs and power verbs circulating in my head. And, I suppose, it keeps me from wasting the most precious commodity we have been given, the commodity of time. More later...

Goodbye to an Old Friend

Today was the day every pet owner dreads. It visited my home once again, and the results were predictable. Just like every other time in my life when I have extended the hand of mercy to a pet whose ailments had caused life's curtains to draw prematurely to a close, a horrible myriad of feelings has enveloped me.

First comes the grief. If you have never experienced this unique type of emotional agony, you are either not human or you don't love animals the way I do. I suppose either possibility is reasonable. And there's always a healthy slug of guilt to go along with the flood of regret that washes in afterward. Let's put all that all aside for the moment.

This remarkable dog's name was Crosby, though his ashes and his memory will carry his name until long after anyone is left who can recall him. He came to us in the summer of 2007 through an unlikely set of circumstances that are not particularly important. What matters is that he spent his last four years as a loving member of our family.

Sometime early this year, an energetic and otherwise very happy Crosby developed a breathing problem. The veterinarian told us it was likely caused by paralysis in his larynx. As the surgical option for a twelve-year-old dog had quite a number of risks, we opted for a much less invasive pill treatment. The medication cocktail had mixed results for a short time, but ultimately the disease progressed, leaving him with suffocating attacks far worse than those of asthma. As his larynx seized, his breathing became impossible, and the poor dog would panic.

At 1:20 this afternoon, the decision was made, and Crosby was loaded into the Jeep for his journey down the Green Mile. I prayed for an eleventh-hour miracle, but none came. I prayed that if there was to be no reprieve for him, that his passing would be sweet and blissful. I can only hope this is the way things went for him once he closed his eyes to the world around him. What was to be done would be final, irrevocable, and humane, and the product of much love and forethought.

At 2:05, the vet administered a sedative. Almost immediately, Crosby's breathing slowed and he began to dim. He continued to fade as the seconds ticked by and in just a few minutes, exhaled for the last time as he left this world, mercifully released from the aches and pains and struggles to breathe that had plagued him during his final months. Did we wait too long? Did we pull the trigger too early? Who can say really? Only God can judge these matters.

I hope he entered the equivalent of the heaven that awaits humans who put their hope and trust in God. If there is no heaven for our pets, at least there is no more suffering for certainly no dog is deserving of unending torment. In either case, Crosby is at rest now and has been set free from the earthly shell that bound him to his miseries.

Sleep well, my friend. I hope to see you again one day. Our time here went by much too quickly. Your unique personality and exuberant bark, your zest for life, the funny way you walked - all will dim in our minds with the passage of time, but you will never be forgotten. Please remember to say "hello" to all those who have gone before you. We love them just as much today as we did the day they departed, just as we have loved you...

 
Some Closing Thoughts

It is now a little after 8:00 PM. The house seems especially empty tonight, strangely quiet even though other dogs live here. Crosby left a half-eaten bone, one of those Rawhides that would take a Skilsaw a week to cut through; his bright blue rubber ball, now ignored, lies on the floor in the living room; and his food bowl remains tucked away in a cabinet, unused tonight for the first time in years. The other dogs - even one of the horses - seem to know something is not right. Are they reading my mind, or do they have some sort of dual existence which allows them to peer into the Great Beyond?

The items left behind by the death of my dog bear an eerie resemblance to that awful morning when my father passed away. I remember looking into his clothes closet at many things: shirts and pants that would never again be worn; pairs of shoes, some too new to throw out, others too worn to donate to the needy; personal effects belonging to a man who was no longer a part of this universe and who could not ever use them again. Yet there they were, like fallen autumn leaves collecting in a rain gutter, useless yet not without purpose, at least at some point in time.

Twenty years later, I spent a couple of days poring over my mom's things after she had died. There was that same hollow feeling, the haunting memory left by a departed parent who had left all her earthly possessions behind. The big difference here was that my mother left far more than my father had -- she left it ALL, including most of the furniture I had grown up with. Then, in a flash, everything she owned had been reduced to an unclaimed jumble.

Love is love, whether human or canine; life is a gift, an amazing journey; and death, though it is the completion of life, does not mean that love ceases, not at all. Possessions remain stubbornly tethered, even though there is no one left to possess them. It feels strange to simply throw away perfectly good items that Crosby would want, but without a portal to stuff them through to wherever he is, they lie here pointlessly, disconnected from the one who had once called them his. I guess I haven't yet decided what to do with them, the wound is still too raw. When I do, perhaps this will mark the beginning of the closure I need after losing someone who was my dog and my friend.   

Morning Magic

Let's try a little experiment. Set your alarm clock for an ungodly hour tomorrow morning, if you aren't already in the habit of doing so. If you groan or bristle at the thought of arising twenty or so minutes before the sun's first light, turn off Konan or the guy with glasses and the annoying gray tuft on his balding head, and go to bed early.

I live on acreage with (mostly) quiet neighbors and little nearby traffic, so this might work for me a little better than for you. However, while living in crowded southern California years ago, I had the same pleasant experience; if it can be done there, it can be done anywhere.

Now that you're awake, go outside. If it hasn't rained in the wee hours, dew will most likely cover nearly everything, and the air will be cool, so you might want to dress accordingly. Unless a cold front has crashed through and wiped out the desired atmospheric conditions, the air a few hundred feet above you will be markedly warmer than at the surface. (I'm taking the liberty of assuming a cloudless night with little or no air movement.) Assuming the aforementioned, an atmospheric inversion will be in place, and you will experience an interesting phenomenon.

Distant (up to a mile or so) noise is trapped under the inversion and will reflect off the cold-air/warm-air interface, returning to your ears quite loudly. This accounts for the interesting effect of sound waves carrying much farther than they do under typical daytime weather conditions, after the sun has warmed the ground and eroded the inversion. This ducting effect explains why a far-away moving vehicle sounds as if it is mere feet from you.

Welcome to Physics 101.

Now let's assume there is no traffic--perhaps it is a weekend or holiday morning, or you're lucky enough to live in a rural area. Perfect. You will find the quiet to be deafening, transcendental, and dare I use the word cosmic? Compared to the racket made by vehicles and noisy neighbors, the calm cannot be described.

Later, as the first hint of sunlight appears in the eastern sky, birds will awake and begin to chirp. If you're a coffee drinker as I am, the pleasant aroma will add to the effect as you sip your brew and feel its invigorating effects.

If you've followed my plan and not cheated by sneaking back to bed, you will greet the dawn with a euphoria that eclipses whatever benefit you might have had from watching the late-night clown shows, though modern technology has afforded you the luxury of recording their 11 o'clock antics, which I understand most people to do. In addition, you now have a whole day ahead of you.

Of course this all washes out if you're a night person as I used to be.
Perhaps I'm just getting older and am heeding the words of Ben Franklin.

Everything Will Be Alright—For Another Year, Anyway

 
Vin Scully has announced he will return to the Dodger broadcast booth for an unprecedented 61st season, most by any professional broadcaster in any sport. This is great news for LA Dodger fans, and good news for baseball fans in general.

I grew up in Southern California and was serenaded to Scully's ballgames beginning in 1965. It was an auspicious year for the home team -- Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Maury Wills, Wes Parker, and the rest of the boys of forty-five summers past -- as they defeated the Twins in the World Series; thus, it was a great way to receive my indoctrination into Dodger fandom.

As with weather and beaches and mountains, those of us who came of age in LA took much of it for granted. So it was with Vin Scully's soothing voice and melodic demeanor behind the mike. Vin didn't just call a baseball game; he told a tale, weaved a story, brought to the listener the fragrant scent of a thousand ballgames past and thousands of miles away right into your mind's eye as if you had been there in person. No other broadcaster I've heard has been as adept at his craft as Vinny, as he is known to Dodger fans.

Through fires and quakes and riots, he has been there to assure us that everything somehow will be alright. And for at least one more year, now I know it will be.
 
 

My Voicemail, My Greeting

 
Since 2001, I've had my wireless phone service parked at AT&T. Forget that they've changed their company name from AT&T to Cingular and back like an old game of Pong. They offered me a deal that was hard to pass up, and for the most part, I haven't spent too much time regretting it.

A week ago, I made another business decision that seemed to make sense. Given that Apple is poised to roll out the new iPhone 4 at any hour, the price of the iPhone 3G fell through the floor, so I snatched one up at a mere $99.

For the past nine years, my outbound message on my trusty Nokia remained virtually unchanged. It's basic, to the point, and not the least bit irritating (in my humble opinion). Once I set up my iPhone, however, I immediately noticed one nuance: At least on AT&T's network, there is a subtle voicemail change, six seconds of robotic instructions that grate on my nerves and which I am unable to remove. The menu options deep inside the tangled mess of voicemail instructions have been altered slightly so that the incantation is permanently affixed to my greeting.

So much for wise business decisions.

Now that practically everyone either has a cell phone or frequently calls someone who does, you likely know exactly what I am referring to. Specifically, this is my voicemail greeting before and after AT&T got done with it:

Me: You've reached Rob Petitt's voicemail. At the tone, leave your name and message, and I'll get back to you. Have a great day!

Robot: At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up or press '1' for more options.

This sounds like two people arguing over the phone, the robot through its silicon wisdom offering correction to my woefully inadequate thus inept instructions. By 2010, even a baboon knows what to do when encountering an unattended phone line and that, once it has left its message, it is time to hang up. I guess AT&T thinks they're spiffy by allowing the caller to press '1' for more options.

The sequence of instructions, on about the third level deep, led me to option #7, eliminating cut-through paging. Curiously, this option exists on the Nokia but is absent on the iPhone. Aside from this, the sets of instructions are virtually exact. Am I the only one who finds this odd?

No.

Last week, I sought help from my trusty friend, the internet. I crammed a few terms into a search engine, clicked the equivalent of "frappe", and was met with dozens of posts that appeared to have been written either by me or by some like-minded soul. It turns out there are a lot of folks who are riled up about the robo-lady and AT&T's insistence that we force-feed her to our callers. One particularly level-headed blogger assured that there was a rather straightforward remedy for her, and that I begin by contacting AT&T customer service. I did so, quite politely I might add, and opened up a trouble ticket. The ticket was sent off to the voicemail department for their technicians to review. As of this moment, my complaint has met with sympathetic ears, but not a satisfactory resolution as the internet posts have assured me will happen. I will follow up here if and when the case moves forward.

If you are as easily set aflame as I, and if your hackles are similarly up after reading about my encounter with Goliath, I would urge you to contact your wireless carrier and seek to banish the robo-lady, or at least return the choice to us paying customers. After all, we have purchased this so it is our voicemail, and it surely should be our greeting as well.
  

The Lakers Won but LA Lost

  
Having once been an Angelino, I was absorbed into the LA sports scene at an early age. Now a decade removed from southern California, I still bleed Dodger Blue and wear Laker purple and gold at every opportunity. If I can't watch a game, I at least catch the box score the following day, grinning when they win, and agonizing when they don't. So when the Lakers knocked off the hated Celtics in a thrilling seven game series, I was ecstatic.

Now comes the ugliness that has become the dark side of professional sports: looting and unwarranted violence.

What is the sense in destroying the city which represents the home team? The team, and the city, should be the object of adoration rather than hooliganism. Clearly, it only takes a few idiots to mar an otherwise euphoric event. These clowns are the one-percenters, the fools who look good in county-issued orange.

Since there likely will be no parade or subsequent riot in Bean Town, there surely won't be any vandalism. So in a way, the Celtics of Boston figured out a way to beat the Lakers.
  

No More Sardines For Me

 
The last US sardine packaging plant, which opened in Maine in 1875, will soon close. Partly due to shrinking demand and partly due to our shrinking economy, the plant can no longer remain in business. Our thirst for imported goods from cheap labor markets is undoubtedly at fault.

In a way, we are slitting our own throats. And as a result, one-hundred and thirty American jobs will be terminated, a meager sum when contrasted with the closing of large factories in favor of shifting to offshore labor (try telling that to the families of the displaced workers). Just another sign of the times.

Now for the shocker: China and Thailand will rush in to fill the void. Only God knows what ingredients will comprise the Asian sardines. With words like melamine, mercury, lead, and other toxins floating through the airwaves and the sea, it's probably time to switch to a more trusted source for the tiny fish.

As unemployment grows, more dollars will flow to foreign nations, notably Canada and some northern European countries, for what was and should remain an American product. While I trust our Canadian and European allies not to poison us, I would strongly prefer to keep the USA label on the cans.

For us fish lovers, cod liver oil--though mostly if not entirely imported from Norway--and domestically harvested cod and salmon are good sources of omega-3 oil.

As toxic heavy metals ruin the world's oceans, few fish are safe from the poisons; hence, few fish-eating humans are safe as well. There are some clean sources of omega-3 oil, notably Carlson's Cod Liver Oil. This is the one I use on a daily basis. I'll just give up my occasional sardines. Consider this not only a personal safety measure but a boycott of Chinese goods, however weak that boycott may be.

When onshoring replaces offshoring, Americans will return to work while foreign laborers will be left to fend for themselves as we are today. Only then will our economy once again flourish. For now, the tiny sardine factory is merely an emerging part of the same malignant iceberg.