I just had a brilliant insight. I don't know how I didn't realize it sooner!
So I was reading the paper (yes, I'm paper trained) and as hard as I tried to think about national interests and realpolitik and hegemonic interests and shifting alliances...I just couldn't fathom why so many people around the world are needlessly killing each other. I mean, I don't have a solution to the problems they are arguing about, but I KNOW that a) killing each other is not helping and b) it is very easy not to kill someone. War, unlike fleas or a blistering heat wave and no sweat glands, is so easily reversible. You really have to make an effort to be at war. And given the general trend of every animal instinct--to preservation of the species and/or preservation of the self--not being at war would seem to be a no-brainer. And yet, as an international trend, not-war seems to be falling a distant second to war.
And then I realized why. Humans must be like cats! Obviously they have nine lives, so they can throw around at least 7 or 8 with reckless abandon. Are dogs the only ones who got the short end of the stick? And not only that, but are expected to fetch it and bring it back?
Monday, July 31, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
Dale posting here:
Recipe for a delightful evening. I will do this a la Joy of Cooking, with the basic necessary steps first (i.e, "Making Custard") and then suggest a variation which I have found successful (i.e "Caramelized, alcohol-soaked, flaming Disney character-shapd custard")
So here are the basics for "Enjoyable evening", to be followed to the letter.
1) Acquire one (1) cute dog (Recipe may be doubled, but beginners should probably stick with one).
2) Confirm that dog likes children. (For instructions on how to check the child-tolerance-quality of your dog, see heading "Annoying nieces and nephews")
3) With dog acquired in Step 1, proceed to a space frequented by children (several).
4) Let sit.
Let me emphasize how important step 1 is in this process. Should you forget to follow step one, you will not only not produce an "enjoyable evening" but you will seem like a scary old lady/pedophile and people will snatch their children away from you. Should you forget step #2, you will not only not produce an "enjoyable evening," but you may produce "long and expensive legal battle." Should you forget step 3, you may still have an enjoyable evening, but your friends will be less interested in hearing about it the next day.
Now a variation I have been experimenting with recently.
"Enjoyable evening at Local Ballfield"
1. Take cute dog to local ballfield while game is in progress. An adult game with a few alarmingly unsupervised children wandering around is preferable to a youth game, which can have an overwhelming number of children and also some of their poisonous cousins: teenagers.
2. With dog, attract two 8-year old friends, one of Dominican and one of Puerto Rican heritage.
3. Discuss dog and baseball. Discover (per child #2) that the Mets were established in 1780 and that they have always been much better than the Yankees. Admit child #1 response that the Mets and Yankees do not play each other much because they are friends.
4. Attract 9-year old Haitian-American child who is mildly afraid of dogs. Begin to assure friendliness of current dog, only to have the children introduced in step 2 do this for you, claiming intimate knowledge of dog's preferences and habits and giving lessons in the proper handling of dog.
5. Watch dog almost die of happiness as three children concentrate full attention on giving him/her full body massage.
6. Listen as Haitian-American child explain to Dominican-American child the political history of Hispaniola ("they are really close, like you could even walk there") and the reason his family came to America and the modern immigrant story in a nutshell ("I was three, and my whole family lived there, but then there was riots and it wasn't safe, so my mother brought us here but first my uncle already came here so we lived with my uncle in the Bronx and now we live here") and relative housing prices ("but in Haiti you know everything is cheaper there so we got a big old house and my whole family lived there and we had a dog but here the apartments is too small so you can't have a dog") and then have all three boys break down the entire major league baseball roster into the best players, the main criteria for which seems to be: 1) are they on the Mets? 2) are they Dominican or Puerto Rican?
7. Discuss relative merits of kids' scooters, as compared to the scooters their uncle who has a store could get them.
8. Conclude that a dog probably cannot ride a scooter.
9. Enjoy.
Recipe for a delightful evening. I will do this a la Joy of Cooking, with the basic necessary steps first (i.e, "Making Custard") and then suggest a variation which I have found successful (i.e "Caramelized, alcohol-soaked, flaming Disney character-shapd custard")
So here are the basics for "Enjoyable evening", to be followed to the letter.
1) Acquire one (1) cute dog (Recipe may be doubled, but beginners should probably stick with one).
2) Confirm that dog likes children. (For instructions on how to check the child-tolerance-quality of your dog, see heading "Annoying nieces and nephews")
3) With dog acquired in Step 1, proceed to a space frequented by children (several).
4) Let sit.
Let me emphasize how important step 1 is in this process. Should you forget to follow step one, you will not only not produce an "enjoyable evening" but you will seem like a scary old lady/pedophile and people will snatch their children away from you. Should you forget step #2, you will not only not produce an "enjoyable evening," but you may produce "long and expensive legal battle." Should you forget step 3, you may still have an enjoyable evening, but your friends will be less interested in hearing about it the next day.
Now a variation I have been experimenting with recently.
"Enjoyable evening at Local Ballfield"
1. Take cute dog to local ballfield while game is in progress. An adult game with a few alarmingly unsupervised children wandering around is preferable to a youth game, which can have an overwhelming number of children and also some of their poisonous cousins: teenagers.
2. With dog, attract two 8-year old friends, one of Dominican and one of Puerto Rican heritage.
3. Discuss dog and baseball. Discover (per child #2) that the Mets were established in 1780 and that they have always been much better than the Yankees. Admit child #1 response that the Mets and Yankees do not play each other much because they are friends.
4. Attract 9-year old Haitian-American child who is mildly afraid of dogs. Begin to assure friendliness of current dog, only to have the children introduced in step 2 do this for you, claiming intimate knowledge of dog's preferences and habits and giving lessons in the proper handling of dog.
5. Watch dog almost die of happiness as three children concentrate full attention on giving him/her full body massage.
6. Listen as Haitian-American child explain to Dominican-American child the political history of Hispaniola ("they are really close, like you could even walk there") and the reason his family came to America and the modern immigrant story in a nutshell ("I was three, and my whole family lived there, but then there was riots and it wasn't safe, so my mother brought us here but first my uncle already came here so we lived with my uncle in the Bronx and now we live here") and relative housing prices ("but in Haiti you know everything is cheaper there so we got a big old house and my whole family lived there and we had a dog but here the apartments is too small so you can't have a dog") and then have all three boys break down the entire major league baseball roster into the best players, the main criteria for which seems to be: 1) are they on the Mets? 2) are they Dominican or Puerto Rican?
7. Discuss relative merits of kids' scooters, as compared to the scooters their uncle who has a store could get them.
8. Conclude that a dog probably cannot ride a scooter.
9. Enjoy.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Thursday, July 20, 2006
First of all, to follow up on the previous post.
So you thought I was crazy with that fan-breeze-connection hypothesis. So...you were right. I thought I was on to something, but hey, even Einstein didn't get e=mc2 on the first try. Starting yesterday evening I felt one of those breezes, I was enjoying it, and then I thought. Hey, I'm near a fan! What if I moved away? So I did...and the breeze continued, in fact, it's still going nicely as I type. Even when I went outside, where there are absolutely none of those weird blowing things, breeze heaven. So I still have no idea what those weird machines are for, but there are a lot of human inventions (clothes, toilet, war) I don't get. Thanks for the suggestions though, all who wrote in.
But what I really wanted to write about today is foreign policy. I've been reading the newspaper this past few days and everything is about the current conflict in the Middle East. I know I'm no diplomat or policy wonk or anything, but I feel that my own experiences might be helpful here, and since nobody else's ideas seem to be doing much good, I'm going to put my two paws in.
I'm sympathetic to territorial conflicts. I too often get irrational and agressive when other dogs get on my turf. In fact, I have gotten into quite a few scrapes over land to which I felt historically entitled. I'm not proud of it, but yes, innocent fur flew, puppies and bitches were harmed. I feel bad in retrospect, but at the time, I just couldn't control myself.
I have gotten over this, though. The key is: take off your leash. For some reason, the pulling and the yanking just makes everyone well...hot under the collar, and diplomacy doesn't have a chance. But take it off, give yourself a little room to romp around collarfree, and soon you won't even mind that a Dachsund/Wolfound/Jew/Arab is sniffing your crotch or peeing on your patch of grass. Not that you even feel like growling or launching an ICBM, but if you did, you'd think twice anyway because nude romping is so much fun that you wouldn't want to lose the privilege.
So: Middle East. Take off the leash. It's simple, free, and if it can reconcile an 18 lb. Mexican-Welsh pound mutt with a 150 lb. purebred Rottweiler, it can definitely bring together a couple of monotheistic Semitic distant cousins.
So you thought I was crazy with that fan-breeze-connection hypothesis. So...you were right. I thought I was on to something, but hey, even Einstein didn't get e=mc2 on the first try. Starting yesterday evening I felt one of those breezes, I was enjoying it, and then I thought. Hey, I'm near a fan! What if I moved away? So I did...and the breeze continued, in fact, it's still going nicely as I type. Even when I went outside, where there are absolutely none of those weird blowing things, breeze heaven. So I still have no idea what those weird machines are for, but there are a lot of human inventions (clothes, toilet, war) I don't get. Thanks for the suggestions though, all who wrote in.
But what I really wanted to write about today is foreign policy. I've been reading the newspaper this past few days and everything is about the current conflict in the Middle East. I know I'm no diplomat or policy wonk or anything, but I feel that my own experiences might be helpful here, and since nobody else's ideas seem to be doing much good, I'm going to put my two paws in.
I'm sympathetic to territorial conflicts. I too often get irrational and agressive when other dogs get on my turf. In fact, I have gotten into quite a few scrapes over land to which I felt historically entitled. I'm not proud of it, but yes, innocent fur flew, puppies and bitches were harmed. I feel bad in retrospect, but at the time, I just couldn't control myself.
I have gotten over this, though. The key is: take off your leash. For some reason, the pulling and the yanking just makes everyone well...hot under the collar, and diplomacy doesn't have a chance. But take it off, give yourself a little room to romp around collarfree, and soon you won't even mind that a Dachsund/Wolfound/Jew/Arab is sniffing your crotch or peeing on your patch of grass. Not that you even feel like growling or launching an ICBM, but if you did, you'd think twice anyway because nude romping is so much fun that you wouldn't want to lose the privilege.
So: Middle East. Take off the leash. It's simple, free, and if it can reconcile an 18 lb. Mexican-Welsh pound mutt with a 150 lb. purebred Rottweiler, it can definitely bring together a couple of monotheistic Semitic distant cousins.
Monday, July 17, 2006
First of all, whoever called these the "dog days" of summer was not wearing a permanent velvet bodysuit. Or perhaps was a cat.
Secondly, I'm on the verge of a big breakthrough here. I haven't quite figured it all out, but here is what I've observed thus far:
1. My mom has these big contraptions in the room which make a sort of low humming noise. I have no idea what they are there for, but there are more of them lately.
2. (Now you are not immediately going to see the connection here, but bear with me.) Lately I'll be in the room, NOT sweating my ass off (a major prototype design flaw), when this lovely breeze will float over me. My ears go back, my eyes squint, and my mind turns to pleasant memories of puppyhood and Frosty Paws. Sometimes I will feel this breeze on a regular basis, like once every 4 seconds. Very comfortable, makes you forget it's 100 degrees in the shade out there ("so get out of the shade!" to quote Roy Blount Jr on this week's Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me). And I figure, why settle for 99% comfort when bliss is a possibility, so I head over for a Dale massage or a bigger pile of laundry or maybe a snack...and the breeze ends.
So anyway, the insight I'm on the point of having here is that: these two phenomena may be connected. There is some sort of Matrix-like synergy that they don't want us to know about here. Call me crazy, call me a conspiracy nut...but my instincts tell me I'm on to something. These are the same instincts that found the mostly uneaten hamburger hidden behind the bushes in the park this morning, so I'm going with them.
Further updates as I continue to ponder. Would welcome any thoughts and insights.
Secondly, I'm on the verge of a big breakthrough here. I haven't quite figured it all out, but here is what I've observed thus far:
1. My mom has these big contraptions in the room which make a sort of low humming noise. I have no idea what they are there for, but there are more of them lately.
2. (Now you are not immediately going to see the connection here, but bear with me.) Lately I'll be in the room, NOT sweating my ass off (a major prototype design flaw), when this lovely breeze will float over me. My ears go back, my eyes squint, and my mind turns to pleasant memories of puppyhood and Frosty Paws. Sometimes I will feel this breeze on a regular basis, like once every 4 seconds. Very comfortable, makes you forget it's 100 degrees in the shade out there ("so get out of the shade!" to quote Roy Blount Jr on this week's Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me). And I figure, why settle for 99% comfort when bliss is a possibility, so I head over for a Dale massage or a bigger pile of laundry or maybe a snack...and the breeze ends.
So anyway, the insight I'm on the point of having here is that: these two phenomena may be connected. There is some sort of Matrix-like synergy that they don't want us to know about here. Call me crazy, call me a conspiracy nut...but my instincts tell me I'm on to something. These are the same instincts that found the mostly uneaten hamburger hidden behind the bushes in the park this morning, so I'm going with them.
Further updates as I continue to ponder. Would welcome any thoughts and insights.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
I'm in love!
I don't understand why Dale got all shocked about it--it's not like I see her having much more than a once-every-four-years love life. Clearly, I just have high standards. And when I saw that gleaming white, impeccable and yet tousled, black-eyed, pink-tongued, Spitz today at the park, I knew I'd made the right choice all these years of feigning total sexual indifference to those Pugs and Yorkies and run-of-the-mill Lab mixes. I have standards, and I was saving my DNA for a canine Brad Pitt. And there he was. Everything got fuzzy, I lost all sense of time, suddenly there were no other dogs there except me and him, violins were playing, pheremones were flying...
And I got a little confused. It's been a while. I mounted him. Her. We were both female. And spayed.
I don't want to talk about it.
I don't understand why Dale got all shocked about it--it's not like I see her having much more than a once-every-four-years love life. Clearly, I just have high standards. And when I saw that gleaming white, impeccable and yet tousled, black-eyed, pink-tongued, Spitz today at the park, I knew I'd made the right choice all these years of feigning total sexual indifference to those Pugs and Yorkies and run-of-the-mill Lab mixes. I have standards, and I was saving my DNA for a canine Brad Pitt. And there he was. Everything got fuzzy, I lost all sense of time, suddenly there were no other dogs there except me and him, violins were playing, pheremones were flying...
And I got a little confused. It's been a while. I mounted him. Her. We were both female. And spayed.
I don't want to talk about it.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Okay, I'm a little embarrassed to be discussing this over the internet, but I have no one else to ask for help.
Um.
Wow.
Okay, fine, here goes. There's this...thing...that has been happening to me a lot lately. I go to the dog park with my mom, or we meet some other dog while we're on a walk and....well let me just say first that I swear I am not provoking this. I wear my fur and tail very conservatively and I cannot think of why this is happening to me. Anyway, I meet somebody new and...they try to sniff my ass. I am not making this up! I have tried to be polite and ignore it, usually I just sit down to discourage the behavior and--and this is really bizarre--I look at Dale like, "hello, do you see what's happening here? Aren't you going to say something to this guy?" and not only does she not do anything, but she looks at me like this is totally normal. It's not like she doesn't see it, it's like she sees it and thinks it is appropriate social behavior. I'd like to see what she did if somebody she didn't even know stuck his nose in her butt!
So anyway, has this happened to anybody else? Any suggestions for what I should do?
Um.
Wow.
Okay, fine, here goes. There's this...thing...that has been happening to me a lot lately. I go to the dog park with my mom, or we meet some other dog while we're on a walk and....well let me just say first that I swear I am not provoking this. I wear my fur and tail very conservatively and I cannot think of why this is happening to me. Anyway, I meet somebody new and...they try to sniff my ass. I am not making this up! I have tried to be polite and ignore it, usually I just sit down to discourage the behavior and--and this is really bizarre--I look at Dale like, "hello, do you see what's happening here? Aren't you going to say something to this guy?" and not only does she not do anything, but she looks at me like this is totally normal. It's not like she doesn't see it, it's like she sees it and thinks it is appropriate social behavior. I'd like to see what she did if somebody she didn't even know stuck his nose in her butt!
So anyway, has this happened to anybody else? Any suggestions for what I should do?
Monday, July 10, 2006
Posted by Dale:
Hello, all. I'm assuming no one will ever read this. My main purpose in creating this blog is to give my friends some relief from my constant obsession with my dog, Sancha. At times I think my feelings for this dog are completely abnormal (no, nothing perverse). I just love her more than I can handle sometimes. I look over and she is so adorable and sweet and funny and velvety...I imagine that people with children know what this feels like. I have tried to philosophize more deeply as to what I love so much about dogs--I think it is mostly how easy it is to make them totally, blissfully, uncomplicatedly happy. All I have to do to send her into complete euphoria is grab the leash, take out the dog food can, or get distracted near a dropped chicken wing when we're on a walk. Her joy is so complete and uncomplicated--or at least that's how I like to project it. She may be having deep complicated ambiguous emotions, but I don't want to know.
Also, and this is pretty egotistical (and why I probably shouldn't have children), but I love how openly she (sometimes) needs me. Like when there's thunder and she tries to achieve maximum square inch body contact. Or how happy she is when I come home, which is just about the most stereotypical compliment of dogs, but come home after a hard day to a house of cats and you'll know that it can't be underestimated.
I took Sancha to the dog park the other day and there were a bunch of owners talking about their dogs and the tricks they have for training them, swapping advice about trainers and tricks and rewards and punishments...and it occurred to me that all these people have a totally different relationship with their dogs than I do. They are like parents and kids, a clearly hierarchical relationship. I imagine this is how it is "supposed" to be--establishing the pack order, alpha male and subordinates, blah blah blah. I don't want to be an alpha anything. I see Sancha as a colleague or a spouse (again, nothing perverse). I think about her feelings when I make decisions, I talk to her, she considers my thoughts and feelings (at least in my projections of her thoughts about my thoughts). I don't want to teach her to shake or sit. I didn't plan this all out when I named her, but it really is like the relationship between Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, at least as I read it. Nominally Don Quijote is the master and Panza the servant, and yes, DQ gets the horse and SP the mule, yes occasionally DQ reminds SP of his place in life...but 99% of the time, especially when nobody else is around, they are inseparable friends.
At least if my relation with Sancha makes me a nutcase, I am in good literary company. (What moorish historian might be blogging about us right now?)
--Dale
Hello, all. I'm assuming no one will ever read this. My main purpose in creating this blog is to give my friends some relief from my constant obsession with my dog, Sancha. At times I think my feelings for this dog are completely abnormal (no, nothing perverse). I just love her more than I can handle sometimes. I look over and she is so adorable and sweet and funny and velvety...I imagine that people with children know what this feels like. I have tried to philosophize more deeply as to what I love so much about dogs--I think it is mostly how easy it is to make them totally, blissfully, uncomplicatedly happy. All I have to do to send her into complete euphoria is grab the leash, take out the dog food can, or get distracted near a dropped chicken wing when we're on a walk. Her joy is so complete and uncomplicated--or at least that's how I like to project it. She may be having deep complicated ambiguous emotions, but I don't want to know.
Also, and this is pretty egotistical (and why I probably shouldn't have children), but I love how openly she (sometimes) needs me. Like when there's thunder and she tries to achieve maximum square inch body contact. Or how happy she is when I come home, which is just about the most stereotypical compliment of dogs, but come home after a hard day to a house of cats and you'll know that it can't be underestimated.
I took Sancha to the dog park the other day and there were a bunch of owners talking about their dogs and the tricks they have for training them, swapping advice about trainers and tricks and rewards and punishments...and it occurred to me that all these people have a totally different relationship with their dogs than I do. They are like parents and kids, a clearly hierarchical relationship. I imagine this is how it is "supposed" to be--establishing the pack order, alpha male and subordinates, blah blah blah. I don't want to be an alpha anything. I see Sancha as a colleague or a spouse (again, nothing perverse). I think about her feelings when I make decisions, I talk to her, she considers my thoughts and feelings (at least in my projections of her thoughts about my thoughts). I don't want to teach her to shake or sit. I didn't plan this all out when I named her, but it really is like the relationship between Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, at least as I read it. Nominally Don Quijote is the master and Panza the servant, and yes, DQ gets the horse and SP the mule, yes occasionally DQ reminds SP of his place in life...but 99% of the time, especially when nobody else is around, they are inseparable friends.
At least if my relation with Sancha makes me a nutcase, I am in good literary company. (What moorish historian might be blogging about us right now?)
--Dale
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Introductions
Hello, cyberspace.
Woof.
Yes, this will be a bilingual blog, for my canine friends who are undercover and for my buddies home alone and free to speak English, order takeout, chew on things, and of course, blog. I myself am awaiting the take-out sirloin steak I just ordered from FreshDirect, and have some time on my hands. Normally I would nap, but the thought of the steak is keeping me awake.
Anyway, a little about me. I am Sancha, I live in Brooklyn, New York with my partner of 4 years, Dale. I run the show, but I like the girl. I put a lot of effort into making her happy, and I think I do a pretty good job. Sometimes it's exhausting being so cute and well-behaved all the time, but it's worth it--as long as she thinks I'm her submissive, dependent, adoring pet, it's all play and no work for me. If she gets a whiff of this blog, I'm afraid it's the end of the rent-free, full-service era for Sancha, so keep this quiet. Based on our conversations at the dog park, I know a lot of you are in similar situations.
Ooh, I hear a truck parking somewhere within a 5-mile radius. Might be my steak. The drool is getting into the computer, which might not be so good for the CPU (deduction based on observing Dale pour an entire cup of coffee into it and then having a hysterical fit) and also might give my presence here away to Dale when she gets home.
So chow...I mean ciao for now. Dale is back teaching so I should have plenty of time to talk soon.
Woof.
Yes, this will be a bilingual blog, for my canine friends who are undercover and for my buddies home alone and free to speak English, order takeout, chew on things, and of course, blog. I myself am awaiting the take-out sirloin steak I just ordered from FreshDirect, and have some time on my hands. Normally I would nap, but the thought of the steak is keeping me awake.
Anyway, a little about me. I am Sancha, I live in Brooklyn, New York with my partner of 4 years, Dale. I run the show, but I like the girl. I put a lot of effort into making her happy, and I think I do a pretty good job. Sometimes it's exhausting being so cute and well-behaved all the time, but it's worth it--as long as she thinks I'm her submissive, dependent, adoring pet, it's all play and no work for me. If she gets a whiff of this blog, I'm afraid it's the end of the rent-free, full-service era for Sancha, so keep this quiet. Based on our conversations at the dog park, I know a lot of you are in similar situations.
Ooh, I hear a truck parking somewhere within a 5-mile radius. Might be my steak. The drool is getting into the computer, which might not be so good for the CPU (deduction based on observing Dale pour an entire cup of coffee into it and then having a hysterical fit) and also might give my presence here away to Dale when she gets home.
So chow...I mean ciao for now. Dale is back teaching so I should have plenty of time to talk soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)