5/3/2011 - good to be home. . .

For the past couple of days, Grr acted like that kid who went off camping, stayed up late, and had immeasurable amounts of fun with a seemingly endless supply of energy.  And just like that kid, he came home this morning after two days of constant companionship (of both the human and canine variety) and promptly fell asleep:

Not that I blame him.  My mom said he barely napped at all yesterday; how could he, between investigating every little noise in the house, wrestling with Elliot, and hamming it up for my aunt who made an impromptu visit after hearing that Grr was in town? 

And after two nights of nothing but canine companionship, which basically means heavily interrupted sleep and particularly early mornings, I am looking forward to falling asleep myself.

My parents took great care of the two of us during our stay, and Sam, too, while he was there; I would go as far as to say that Grr had the time of his little life.  But with my own bed waiting for me, a partner who will tend to Grr's nighttime needs, and the knowledge that vacations are again a possibility for us after securing two loving and willing doggysitters whom Grr loves to be around, it is good to be home again.

5/2/2011 - a bad person. . .

I know a lot of people are tiptoeing gently about the death of Osama bin Laden, cradling their reactions in their arms--should I feel joyful that he is dead?; should I condemn the killing of a man, regardless of his deeds and nature?  It's a polarizing question, and thanks to the wonders of social media, I can already see much of the dissention on how we all should, and shouldn't, process this event in the name of decency.

So I will take this opportunity, go on record, and say this:

I could not possibly want to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden more.  Thank God it happened, and that it happened without any American casualties (at least in this specific strike, anyway).  Thank God the fight was brought to his 'home,' met with him face to face so he could see it coming, see his inevitable demise crashing through his walls, unstoppable in spite of however many wives he tries to throw in its way.  I hope it hurt.  I hope he suffered. 

I'll admit, I may be wrong in thinking this way.  Maybe this is just an example of how deep my flaws run, or maybe I am simply less evolved, less enlightened, than those who say that every human life has value.  But really, can we honestly hold bin Laden, the same one who claimed to rejoice at the sight of those bodies, sometimes only parts of bodies, plummeting to the ground on that sunny morning of September 11, 2001, in the same classification, the same species, the same genus as you and me?

So there you have it.  President Obama was right; it is a good day to be an American.  I am happy we got him, killed him decisively and unwaveringly, and though I should probably hold these thoughts closer to my heart and further from my mouth (or in this case, my fingertips), what can I do?  This was honestly how I felt when I received the news last night on TV, still how I felt this morning after sleeping on it, still after reading countless Facebook posts from friends who rebuke any feelings of joy one may hold at this historical moment. 

And it truly is a historical moment for America, for all the people who died on the planes, in the Pentagon and the towers, for their families and loved ones who might, just might, finally, after 10 years, feel the beginnings of closure. 

I just can't help but think back a decade to that morning when I woke up and saw those two towers burning like candles, how I was convinced for much too long that it could not be real, could not be terrorism; real buildings don't crumble like that.  It must be some horrible mix-up, a movie shoot, maybe.  I remember how the world seemed to have stopped on that day--traffic moved slower, stores were emptier--and how the world was changed every day thereafter. 

If feeling not an ounce of anything besides happiness at how bin Laden's death singularly has done more good than his entire cumulative life, if feeling joy at this American victory, this karmic comeuppance, makes me a bad person, then I am further from being good than I thought.  I'll just have to find a way to live with that.

5/1/2011 - the storm before the calm. . .

I expected Grr to be excited about our trip into the suburbs and visiting with his little cousin Elliot while we stayed with my parents for a couple of days.  I just failed to predict the scale of his excitement.

From the moment Grr charged through the front door of their house as if he owned the place, I could see a look of bewilderment in his eyes: space to roam, plushy carpeting, another dog to antagonize, and a quiet cul-de-sac outside with nary a bus or motorcycle, barely even any motor traffic at all.  This was everything he wanted: his Eden, his Shangri-la, his Vegas.

Because going outside to pee or poop does not equate to facing an onslaught of sights and sounds, Grr now absolutely can not get enough of the friendlier, quieter outdoors.  He purposefully drinks so much he waterlogs himself, then sits by the door, needing to go out every 20 minutes, at which point he'd pee, but also mill about, chew on sticks, and generally goofs off until I chase him back into the house.  Heaven forbid I hesitate or flat out ignore the request; the consequences are dire.  Grr definitely has the upper hand in this one.

Where Elliot is concerned, Grr acts like the little brother you wish would just leave you alone and develop a life of his own.  Where Elliot goes, Grr follows closely behind.  Not content with mere proximity, however, he would also bite at her heels as if to herd her, or nip at her cheeks, only to recoil and go into what Sam has coined the "puppy stance" when she responds: butt in the air, front legs down, and a face full of youthful exuberance while awaiting the craved-for attention. 

I've always thought that Elliot was not-so-secretly annoyed with Grr, yet if he loses interest or finds a new shiny thing to focus on, Elliot would sashay across the room with a ball in her mouth, sometimes right in front of him, which is more than enough to entice him.  Then they'd be off again to the herding, the nipping, the puppy stances and the growling. 

In an effort to curb the at-home chaos, Sam and I took them both to a nearby dog park where they chased after balls, each other, other dogs, and riled themselves up to a point where they could barely keep their eyes open during the car ride home.

Of course, as soon as we barely took two steps into the house, they both miraculously recovered, eager to begin another round of their endless game.  While they played, all Sam and I could hear were dog tags jingling, guttural growls, and gnashing of toenails on the hardwood floor.

I sat on the couch and marvelled at the sheer collision of dogs.  The frenetic energy was just about all I could bear when miraculously, Elliot jumped up beside me and Grr did not follow suit.  Instead, he trotted over to the rug, paced in a tight circle and plopped himself down.

And then it was quiet.  Unfathomable peace, as if the last half an hour was the storm before the calm.  I looked at Sam, not quite believing that we could actually exist in the same room with these two and still hear ourselves think and breathe.

I risked disrupting this delicate balance by sliding down on the couch and laying down.  The silence just begged me to take a nap in it.  I propped one leg gently on Elliot's back, smiled, and woke up an hour later to Sam saying, "Check out this video of three sleepy pups!"

4/30/2011 - quality, immersive bonding time. . .

Though not nearly as biblical in length as the last time, Sam and I are returning to my parents' house for an extended stay today.  Because Sam is off to yet another business trip, where last time I luxuriated in the subsequent solitude, silence, the spaciousness of our bed, I now have to consider how Grr fits in with all of that.

And after some thought: not well.  He has some separation anxiety; everywhere I go in the house, I hear his two little tags clanging against each other.  If I can't see him, I immediately wonder what kind of trouble he could get into.  And he's a total bed hog.

At first, I thought I would take Monday off from work in order to stay home with him and mitigate any of his loneliness and bodily function disasters, but my big project launches early next week, so my presence, though probably not critical, is likely much appreciated, at the very least to the same extent my absence would be noted.

I also have my Rapid Transit rehearsal Monday night in Oakland (i.e., across the pond), so Grr would essentially be left to his own devices all day.  His own devices terrify me.

I considered the doggy hotel down the street, but like a parent sending his children off to their first day at preschool, I just can't imagine how Grr would fare without a familiar face for such an extended amount of time.

So what better opportunity, then, to bring him to my mom and dad's for some quality, immersive bonding time?  It certainly worked when I brought Sam home while we renovated our loft.

Like I said in a previous post (which, as of yesterday, is also posted here [today's post is not a shameless plug for that, by the way <a shameful one, maybe>]), the 40 days and nights we stayed with them were really quite wonderful, if for no other reason other than the better understanding of each other we all left with afterwards--a greater appreciation, at least from my perspective, for the relationships, romantic and familial, I shared with each of them.  And of course, we were also very pampered, treated like adults, but cared for like children, with the perfect balance of attention and independence.  During, I was completely embroiled in construction drama so I couldn't take the time to think of much else, but afterwards, I really do think back and consider it to be one of the greatest few weeks in recent years.

I don't need my parents to bond with Grr the same way they did with Sam, but I do need to know that someone will look after him in my absence, and I'm certain that my parents will bestow upon Grr the same amount of care they did with me and Sam.  Yes, it will only be for one day, but why send Grr off to strangers when I know there are two people who will bathe him in affection for the duration of his stay?

I won't have to worry about Grr sleeping on the cold, unforgiving ground in a cage of a kennel.  If my mom had her say, Grr's feet would never touch the ground, ridiculous as it may seem given his size:

When Sam and I left their house late last year and moved back to our newly renovated home, we both said that it was so much better staying with mom and dad.  If our feelings were any indication, I suspect Grr may never want to come back to the City either.

4/29/2011 - old Bollywood movies and a Backstreet Boys video. . .

Last night, in honor of National Dance Week, Sam and I attended a free bhangra class at the Oberlin Dance Collective studios just down the street from our house. 

Bhangra is an Indian-style of dancing traditionally done in the fields to celebrate the harvest season.  Of course, on its way to the western world, it picked up various influences, most prominently pop and hip-hop.  It now resembles something like a hybrid of old Bollywood movies and a Backstreet Boys video circa 1999.

(Two of my favorite things, of course.)

The room was packed when we arrived, and we managed to squeeze ourselves into a little space in the back corner.  I wondered how I would be able to throw my arms around and twist and turn like the dancers I've seen on TV screens at my favorite Indian buffet in Fremont.

Luckily, I didn't have to worry about it, because the choreography was hard enough just standing still.  When the class began, I realized that this was everything I wanted it to be and more: a lot of cupped hands, twisting wrists, and shoulder shrugs, all done to music that had a similar east-meets-west aesthetic.  From the back, I could see the entire room moving in convincing unison.  As expected, some moved with more of a fluid grace, but overall, we all shrugged when we should, threw our arms up together, and generally aped the lust for life the instructor tried to show us.

Toward the end, we were put in lines and led across the floor with repeated phrases of movement.  During this exercise, I got to watch Sam, who found himself further back in line behind me.  For the most part, he understood the moves; cerebrally, he knew to kick his left foot out after extending his right arm into the air, that he had to throw his shoulders back as his feet inched forward.  I could tell.  But something was just kind of off, kind of white, about it.

I found myself rushing to complete my movements so I could stand to the side and watch him.  Not to criticize, not to laugh, not even to compare how we were doing relative to each other (as we can be competitive).  Really, I just wanted a moment to take in the sight of him dancing, something I had seen him do countless times before at home (he can do a robot that I will never get tired of watching), but never to an organized set of choreography.  He stumbled some, rushed to make up for missed moves, put his hands up when they should have gone down.  But he never stopped trying.

Every so often, though, he'd get it, hit the beat at exactly the right time, throw his head up to the ceiling in just the way we were shown.  If he knew I was watching, he'd look over at me with a smile, and I wished that I had more time to do just that--stand there and watch him dance and struggle and express--with a camera to immortalize what I saw when I stood in that corner and asked myself: could I possibly love this person any harder?

4/28/2011 - a vortex of sound and fury. . .

As I ate my breakfast this morning, Sam told me the best story, a victorious saga that began with: "Grr faced down his nemesis today."

I mean, really, don't you just love it already?  Seven AM, and I had already missed a showdown.

Apparently, Sam had taken Grr out earlier to do his business, and from afar, Sam saw the street sweeper round a corner and barrel toward them.  Grr cowers from many things, from the innocuous (a paper bag) to the slightly less innocuous (motorcycles and busses), but one of the things that strikes fear in his little heart like no other is the street sweeper.

He's probably only seen one a handful of times, but they left quite the impression.  On some mornings, he will growl and bark into the darkness of the loft when he hears the rumble and swish of the vehicle pass by our window.  Unlike his other phobias which baffle me (a door stop--really?), I can understand this one.  To a puppy, the street sweeper, a giant tank of a vehicle with various brushes and appendages attached to it, must seem like quite the behemoth.  Couple the relative size of it with the flood of noise it generates, I imagine Grr must drown in sensory overload.

When Sam saw one heading their way this morning, he hoped that they could finish up and be home by the time it got too close.  But Grr, still blissfully unaware, wanted to poop, started zigging around a patch of grass with his nose to the ground, searching for whatever sign he needed in order to find that perfect spot.

Then he saw it.  He wanted to get away, but Sam and I were told by our dog trainer to keep him as calm as possible at times like these without coddling him or enabling his fear.  We needed to teach Grr that as long as he was at our side, we would not let anything harm him.  Grr tugged, tucked his tail in preparation for flight, but Sam stood firm, gripped the leash harder and sent a little prayer of bravery out into the air between them.

The sweeper swirled closer, a vortex of sound and fury.  Grr sat on the frigid sidewalk, wide-eyed and trembling before his greatest fear, like Robin Williams in The Fisher King, when the Red Knight would materialize and beat him down.  The sweeper crawled toward them slowly.  Grr sat frozen, ears pinned back.  As the sweeper approached, Grr lifted his head to it.  They were face to face; it could have swept him up and swallowed him whole.

But it didn't, just moved on and continued sweeping down the street, around the corner and down that street until the drone of its vacuum, the hiss of its bristles disappeared and left Grr alone, intact and unharmed. 

Now, I don't know how any of it actually happened; I was sound asleep upstairs fighting my own battle of deciding whether or not to go to the gym.  Sam's account of this modern day David-and-Goliath story was sparsely decorated and much, much briefer, but I took some creative liberties, filled in the blanks for myself, and swooned.  I couldn't help it.  I pictured my little pup as a lowly warrior who went to battle against his greatest enemy, maybe with an Ennio Morricone score swelling in the background, faced annihilation itself and came out triumphant.

4/27/2011 - a $6 burrito and a $100 phone. . .

To save money, I usually bring my lunch to work.  Sometimes, I get lazy and just can't be bothered to slap together two slices of bread with whatever meat product I have in the refrigerator at the time. 

Yesterday was one of those days, so I ventured out into the Financial District to my favorite burrito place.  For $6, they hand over an overstuffed burrito with rice, beans, chicken, and pico de gallo.  Nothing compares to that first bite after painstakingly unwrapping it from its multi-layered tin foil.  Sure, all subsequent bites taste just as delicious, but that first one, even after having quite a few of their burritos over the years, is incomparable, like the overture to a best-loved symphony--simply the beginning of something you know will be wonderful.

After my burrito was made and I pulled out my credit card, the cashier told me that their machine went down earlier, and they could only accept cash in the meantime.  Which, of course, I did not have.  The cashier, a woman with a sweet smile even in the chaos of the lunch rush, pointed to an ATM in the dining room, the kind that levies a charge just for looking at it.  I told her that I'd run to an actual ATM down the street and be right back.

"Just pay later," she said.

"Yea, I'll be right back.  My bank is just around the corner."

"No, mijo, the burrito will get cold!"  She had meant for me to take it and just come back in the afternoon.

"Are you sure?" I asked, almost apologetic.  With a smile, she gave me my burrito in a brown paper bag and waved me off. 

Though I was hungry when I walked in, starving after the restaurant's aromas wafted over me, I didn't want to leave this debt unpaid, leave the woman, likely an owner or stakeholder in the store, wondering for long if she had misjudged me.

"Ay, mijo!" she said when I walked back in five minutes later with an uneaten burrito and a crisp twenty.  Still, I felt much better.

You'd think that this would be the end of this post, that I would be grateful for her faith in me, a virtual stranger, and that I walked away believing that people still trusted one another.  And while those things might be true, the story itself didn't exactly end there.

Later that afternoon, Sam and I took Grr to the park (the same one just a week ago he loved, but now inexplicably finds foreign and terrifying).  As we walked back to our car, a woman in a beat-up sedan going in the opposite direction stopped in the middle of the road, rolled her window down a sliver, and beckoned for us.  Sam ignored her like a good, hardened urbanite, but I handed him Grr's leash and approached the car.

She was supposed to meet her friend on Diamond, but she forgot the cross street and left her phone at home; could she use mine?

In the split second I had to respond, I surveyed this scene as best I could: a disheveled woman in a still-running car; a sullen and aloof man slouched in the passenger seat; a car that had seen better days with a window that she apparently could not (or just would not) open more than she already had, which conveniently was just the right amount of room for me to slide my phone through.

"Sorry, I don't have mine with me."  God, I was a horrible liar, worse since I was fairly certain she could see a phone-shaped bulge in my pocket.

"What about your friend?  Does he have his?"

Who, Sam?  The one who is pretending that you and I aren't even having this conversation right now?  "Sorry, I don't think he can help either."  Not exactly a lie.

"Alright then, nevermind," she said as she sped off to her still-unknown intersection.

When I got back on the sidewalk, Sam handed me the leash.  "So what did Crazy want?"

I told him.

"Oh yea, as if she doesn't already have a glove compartment full of other people's phones!" he said.

Maybe, but what if not?  I couldn't help but think back to my lunch, to the woman's face as she handed me my burrito and encouraged me to eat it first while it was still warm, full of faith that I would return with payment.

"But a $6 burrito and a $100 phone are not the same," Sam retorted.

True, but maybe she really just needed to make a quick call, fell victim to Murphy's Law when she thought that she probably wouldn't need her phone this afternoon.  I guess I'll never know now, but what I am still sure of was that I had been presented with an opportunity to help this woman, lost on Diamond Street, but I failed to give her the chance to prove my doubts about her wrong.  Even worse, just five hours prior, the tables were turned, and I had been shown exactly how to give her that chance.