Archive for August, 2011

We were planning to go to Galveston for a week, a long, HOT trip for the dogs, so I decided to have Angel clipped to a “summer cut.” She’s been groomed so many times I didn’t really worry about it and went to help my cousin with her computer after I dropped her off, but I kept my celphone with me…just in case. Nobody called, so when I got home and my lady’s wet eyes told me there had been a problem, I was STUNNED. I mean…grooming? How many problems could there be?
Turns out it was a bad one. When the groomer-lady was working on her face, Angel suddenly jerked and the clippers SPLIT her lower eyelid, producing pain, fear, and a lot of blood. Before we get any further, I have to say that lady has done a BEAUTIFUL job many, many times before. She’s compassionate and devoted to the animals in her care…so I don’t blame her. It was an ACCIDENT, but by the time I was brought into the picture, Angel was ALREADY in surgery! Angel…my Angel…in SURGERY…it tore me up…and I didn’t really know what to do.
I mean…Angel, my SPECIAL friend? We’ve shared so many walks together, so much time in the evening, our souls touching and meshing perfectly. My God, Angel…surely Lord, NOT HER! The vet did a beautiful job; I know…I checked it carefully, but he sent her home in a “cone of shame,” which she HATED. He called it an Elizabethan collar, a huge, horrible thing she could barely carry around, but all I could see within it were her sad little eyes…one traumatized, asking me, begging me to tell her what she had done wrong…and I could do nothing but weep.
When she saw how much it was hurting me and my dog, my lady IMMEDIATELY took that damnable thing off…and Angel drank, ate, and happily ran outside to do her “business”. Since then, we’ve watched her obscessively, but she doesn’t even seem to know there’s anything wrong with her right eye. Now, our only problem is Baxter, who constantly wants to play with her. I keep slapping a rolled-up newspaper in my hand (which he’s TERRIFIED of) to remind him, and so far at least he seems to be getting the message.
Of course, I called the lady at By the Sea Condos in Galveston, and told her about our misfortune. There’s NO WAY we could go, but you know what? She was WONDERFUL about it all and happily rescheduled our vacation. I discussed the situation with Angel and my lady, and we decided to leave all the bags, cases, and what not in the parlor…just like we were leaving tomorrow. Somehow, that makes the whole thing less painful to all of us…except maybe Baxter, who’s OBLIVIOUS to almost everything going on at home.
The funny thing is Angel’s all worried about ME. She knows I’m upset and has NEVER been more compassionate or supporting, quietly following me around and when I’m sitting in my chair in the den, jumping up and covering me with those wonderful, slobbery kisses. My morning ritual is to crack open a Starbuck’s Frappuccino, gather up the morning paper, and watch the news on TV, and as always, Angel is right there with me, usually tucked at the edge of the lounger peaceful and happy. It’s strange, but even Baxter seems to understand we need that time together more than ever right now.
My lady and I are WRECKS, while Angel seems to think nothing much has happened, but guilt is hard to dodge.  Dogs are so pure, so innocent, and so trusting. I HATE it when what we do to try and make them more comfortable hurts them…like I EVER thought it might, but just now, I feel like I owe Angel much more than a walk in the gathering twilight.
I owe her an apology…for trying to help her and failing, for HURTING her, however inadverdently, but I can easily see what Angel thinks about all this…lounging at home with the people she loves, comfortable, happy, and free from that collar…cut eye be damned! She forgives me…it’s obvious…if she EVER blamed me…which I doubt. I just wish I could forgive myself.

UPDATE 8-25-11  I’m feeling better about things.  Young as he is, Baxter seems to understand what’s going  on, while Angel still seems to have no idea there’s something wrong with her right eye.  To tell the truth, it’s hard to tell where the repair was, and I’m planning to bring the torture collar back to the vet tomorrow.  Today in the bedroom we watched Julia Child, whom we ALL love, on the Cooking Channel…with the AC and ceiling fan going full blast, Angel at the foot of the bed in her usual place, Baxter in the crook of my arm, and my lady next to me.  I went to sleep (not a whole lot interested in what the French have to say about pizza), and when I woke up, Angel was still there, and Baxter, and my lady, all waiting for the final “This is Julia Child. Bon Appetit!”  Now, I know we’re all going to survive this and have a WONDERFUL vacation in Galveston in September, with Angel barking at waves and retreating when they come crashing in, eyes alert and bright as always, and Baxter probably digging TONS of sand somewhere, but most of all I need to thank God…for helping a lovely and complete innocent heal…and for showing me what’s REALLY important in the end.

Final Update 09-02-11  Today Angel got her stitches out, and I gotta say.  The vet, Dr. Richard Broussard, did a PHENOMENAL job!  You can’t even SEE where the cut was…and I KNOW; I studied her eye through his magnifier.  I was in there when he anesthetized her, and it kind of got to me, watching her like that…all limp with her tongue stuck out, my Angel, my friend who was harmed only because I wanted to make her more comfortable.  Of course, I asked him whether the anesthesia might suppress her breathing, but he said it wouldn’t…and he was right.  When I went to pick her up, the tech said, “She’s STILL pretty groggy; it may take a couple of hours before she’s normal,” but when she saw me, she jumped into my arms, curled up and started kissing me.   And when she got home, she ate, drank, and went outside to do her thing, then came back with me into my man-space computer room…where she slept it off at my feet.  At this point I don’t REALLY know exactly how I feel about all this.  I feel guilty, of course, but she IS more comfortable, though TERRIFIED now about going to the vet.  The funny thing is…she doesn’t really seem to CARE about any of it…just an inconsequential hiccup…at least to HER.  She’s still my Angel, my friend, and she still loves me.

A Painting by a Friend of Mine in Med School

I went to medical school when I was nineteen, and I’ll never forget my first night in New Orleans. A Cajun from the hinterlands alone in an immense city for the first time in his life, I found a fire escape in one corner of my apartment building and stood there eight stories up trying to make sense of the lights, sounds and smells attacking me from every angle, so different from the simple quiet peace I had grown up in and held dear.
Having lived in a small town all my life and attending college in Lafayette, which is really just a big small town at heart, I was POSITIVE I’d never adjust, a lost stranger in a confusing foreign land. Just getting anywhere involved a major effort, the city a seemingly endless patchwork of angled streets, expressways, and overpasses, so I took to riding busses and streetcars, knowing full well if I got lost I could get on another one going the other way.
I had a car, an old Dodge with about 300,000 miles on it, but my father absolutely FORBADE me to take it to New Orleans. At the time I resented his order because it condemned me to riding public transportation or walking, but in time I had to grudgingly agree with him. My car wouldn’t have lasted very long, nor was it very reliable, and I’d probably have gotten so lost I’d have to abandon it anyway and get on a bus just to find my way back.
I think walking served me best. An avid jogger, I had the legs and often walked all the way to the French Quarter, a good twenty blocks, and ultimately found an Italian short-order restaurant serving the best meatball po-boys I’ve ever had in my life. Not only that…the owner’s wife was one of the most beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen…and she LOVED medical students. Sitting there munching on my sandwich, sometimes with a glass of Chianti, and enjoying the scenery, I slowly began to realize there actually WERE worthwhile things in New Orleans.

A Painting of Cajun Life by Earl Hebert, A Superb Local Artist

Back home, they never said New Orleans; it was always The City, like there was only ONE in the world, and It took me a long time to understand how right they were. New Orleans gradually became THE CITY to me, too…and I hadn’t even seen Mardi Gras yet. At Christmas time I went back home, and dad presented me with a new car, a small Ford. Powder blue, good gas mileage, brand new…God, it was beautiful! By then, as he no doubt knew I would, I had learned the city pretty well from my walks and city transit rides, and I could pretty much get where I wanted to without using a map…although I always kept one handy in the glove box.
I used to play tennis at City Park and grew to love the quiet water, the lilies, and the moss-laden oaks, just as I loved the tree-lined streets and avenues getting there. At this point, I HAVE to share a little story with you. It may not seem like all that big a deal to you sophistocates, but to a guy from the boonies, it was HUGE. I was in pretty good shape…not overdone…functional, and I worked hard to keep things that way. Of course, to the city guys I was a clueless bumpkin, which…to tell the truth…I WAS, but one day all that changed.
There were a lot of airline flight attendants in our apartment building, and all the guys were ENDLESSLY trying to attract their attention. I didn’t blame them; they were GORGEOUS, but as an outsider to city life, I knew better than to try and follow their example. One day when I was returning from a hard-fought tennis match…all sweaty and dishevelled, standing with a bunch of med-school guys waiting for an elevator, one of the stewardesses walked up to me…ME SPECIFICALLY! Thank You, God, for that little kindness.
Shoving a piece of paper into my pocket, she said, “I want your BODY…anytime…anywhere…any way you like! Call me,” but it was her misfortune to have propositioned me the month we were studying venereal diseases…so I did NOTHING. Okay, maybe I treasured that phone number for a couple of years, but I knew when I was outclassed…and who knows who that lady had slept with? Venereal diseases can be scary…and embarassing…and damaging…and hard to get rid of. Med student…REMEMBER?
Thank God I had the presence of mind to answer, “Sounds like fun, but right now I got a few exams to worry about before I can call you.” She smiled, stroked my unshaven chin, blew me a kiss, and floated into the snack shop, but the good news about that story is my stock soared through the roof inside the med school. I could tell from their sly looks and smiles; they KNEW I was a player…which I knew I absolutely WASN’T, but apparently it looked good enough to fool THEM.
I think I got a testosterone kick out of that encounter. At any rate, the sky seemed more beautiful, the air sweeter, and the environment much less threatening, and in time I became very comfortable in the city I’d live in for ten years. Of course, each year, everything turned topsy-turvy when Mardi Gras hit. To those who haven’t been there, it’s hard to explain; the whole city goes kind of crazy…happy crazy. The parades begin, and people who are normally staid and respectable find themselves willing to KILL to recover a handful of worthless glass beads.
My first Mardi Gras, I had a date with a New Orleans native, a lovely girl, usually quite proper, but when we got to the parade route, she suddenly said, “A LITTLE GIRL IN A WHEELCHAIR! Let’s stand next to her; they gonna throw a lot of beads her way!” We stood where she suggested, and sure enough, they threw BUSHELS of beads. When we were leaving, my date asked, “Where are your beads?” “I gave them to the little girl in the wheelchair,” I answered, to which she responded, “Are you crazy?” That’s Mardi Gras in a nutshell…mass insanity with no concept of reality.
In time…when I became a resident…I lived on Nashville Avenue when I wasn’t at the hospital, and I think that experience gave me my most enduring memories of New Orleans. I remember getting up on a crisp Sunday morning and walking to the corner where a cart held mountains of fruit fresh from the docks, other Sundays sitting outdoors at a breakfast place enjoying the best food you could imagine with wonderful chickory coffee to wash it down.
Eventually, I had to give up jogging…just didn’t have time for it, but I craved some sort of exercise and decided to get a bicycle. I loved riding through neighborhoods or along the river road and sometimes on top of the levee. One day, I was happily pedaling along when a gigantic ship passed me in the canal between the levees. Stunned, I stopped and watched it go by, towering above me, then I looked at the neat subdivision about thirty feet below on the other side and became strangely uneasy. The city of wonder was protected from massive flooding only by simple, earthen levees and huge, constantly active pumping stations. It was living on the EDGE!
A lot of the wonder is gone now. New Orleans no longer SPARKLES like it used to; Katrina saw to that, making real the threat I had sensed that day on my ride. Watching the destruction of my city from our den in Lafayette, comfortable and safe, I WEPT, and my lady understood because she had lived there, too, until we got married. The sad fact is that we lived in a beautiful place when it was at its prime, numbered among the last to taste its irrepressible joy. They’ll repair and rebuild, of course, but to someone like me who soaked it all in when the city was whole, it won’t REALLY be the same.
You see, I LOVED that city, from the flambeaux carriers in parades, to the guy who sold the best hot dogs imaginable on a carefully chosen corner, to the perfume of night-blooming jasmine on summer evenings, to the smell of coffee everywhere in the morning, to the incredible spectacle of a Mardi Gras ball, through the bitter sting of cold air in November, all the way to those wonderful people, black and white, who gave it life.  I loved New Orleans; she was EASY to love, but these days, when I think of her, I always think of a King Alphonse.  You could get one in any bar on Bourbon Street…coffee liqueur with cream on top, dark liquid mixed with white, tumbling and swirling in its little glass…just like New Orleans…endlessly active, stirring, and enchanting…brash, quiet, sweet, bitter, and loud…staid, irreverent, tacky, and tasteful…but gone much too quickly, leaving only evanescent memories.

When we’re very young, our world revolves around the concept of ME, what I want, what I like, NEVER what I need…curbed only by the superior wisdom and physical strenth of our parents. Different kids move out of that phase at profoundly different rates, producing a spectrum of evolving awareness that the REAL world is all about give and take…if I do this for you, will you do that for me? And once attained, it remains the hallmark of all MATURE individuals.
Of course, some children never grow out of the self-indulgent stage, carrying on like a baby throughout their lives, and they’re called BRATS. You see a lot of them these days…in their formative stages…in movies, at the mall, and my favorite, at the supermarket. The other day I saw a kid pick a piece of bubble gum out of a bin and tear it open. His mother carefully looked up and down the aisle before she quickly re-wrapped it and returned it to the bin, leading me to decide today’s “permissive parenting” has skewed demographics in their favor.
If I’m right, there are going to be a lot more of them gumming up the works everywhere, and I feel sorry for those nascent brats because it’s a rough row to hoe in the long run. For the most part, society is INTOLERANT of such behavior, and when they grow up, they endlessly run into stone walls in their relationships, their work, and their lives in general. A few get the message, but most of them just keep banging away, never really understanding why people don’t like them or why they never ever seem to succeed.
My concept of raising children is keeping them alive until they get good sense, but what if they never do…you know…get good sense? From watching the antics of congress this past few weeks, I’ve decided most of those run for political office. It’s incredible, but what ELSE am I to think? What happened to give and take? You never lose that way of dealing with the world once you attain it, so I’ve decided those guys in Washington never had it. In a word, our government is run by BRATS, self-indulgent, hopelessly self-centered, totally immature BRATS!
Believe what you will, but the concept of COMPROMISE is anathema to those brats in Washington. Interaction to them is YOU giving ME what I want, not me giving you something to arrive at a common goal. They don’t think at that level. It’s as alien to them as the deadest language on the planet, and if I were you, I wouldn’t hope for some glimmer of inspiration to change them. They’re INCAPABLE of it…once a brat, always a brat. At least, that’s been my experience so far.
“He who knows and knows that he knows is a leader. Follow him.”
“He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Awaken him”
“He who knows not and knows that he knows not is ignorant. Teach him.”
“He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him.”
My quandry is…how do you shun an ENTIRE branch of government? Just exposing them does nothing; they’re PROUD of their bratty shenanigans. We have the interesting problem of having seasoned and mature individuals on the outside and powerful but ugly brats on the inside calling the shots. I’m hoping some of them are only FAKING brattiness, but I agree…it’s a long shot.
Somebody over there has got to realize you can’t play CHICKEN with a country, but I’m beginning to think the only way to bring sanity to Washington is to winnow them out as quickly as we can. Keep electing new people, I say, and if they turn out to be brats, kick them out next time and try again. If they are mature and responsible, keep them in, but if they start getting bratty urges, turn them out, too. I know it may take at least four or five generations to give reason and maturity a fighting chance up there, but right now, that’s the only dim light I can see at the end of this tunnel.
If NEITHER political party is capable of producing a true statesman, let’s give them an unending round of musical chairs to see if we can at least attract their attention, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high. Brats think they should ALWAYS win…no concept of compromise…remember? They’ll only think we’re being jealous, or cruel, or stupid. When you ACTUALLY believe you’re the center of the universe, why would you think anything else? Thank you, permissive, self-centered parents.
We live on the only inhabitable planet in our solar system and in a country I believe to be the best hope for mankind, created by the tolerance, wit, intellect and wisdom of noble GIANTS. Yes, we’re fractious, multicultural, a little xenophobic, often confused and torn, and some of us the descendents of slaveholders, but overall, the roadmap they left us has worked out pretty well in the long run…after a few disagreements like the Civil War, which I personally consider just and formative.
The way I see it, too many good people have given their blood to see that this country succeeds and prospers, way too many, but it can again…if we can figure out how to get rid of those who don’t understand what’s REALLY screwing us up. Shakespeare said, “First, we have to kill all the lawyers,” but I say, “Don’t kill anybody…just get rid of the BRATS. For God’s sake, give us a fighting chance!”