And, Again Protection

At Join Together the California Drug Czar has a suggestion:

Mandated Drug Testing
Non-punitive random drug testing is the best tool we have to prevent substance use and abuse and get kids to adulthood intact, where science says they should never have a problem with drugs. Almost all addiction starts with kids, so if the answer to cutting the level of substance abuse is to protect the kids. If we protect the kids, we will protect the nation.
***Even if politically sensitive, the results from universal, non-punitive random drug testing for all students would be so astounding in terms of saved lives, dollars and creation of productive young people that in short order all parents and taxpayers would demand this protection.

One more intrusion of unconstitutional search and seizure, this time with the excuse that it is protection that parents would demand. Like a car seat, perhaps. Let me take away your child's rights and I can protect the nation. Yes, indeed.

I flew back to Alaska from California a few years ago seated next to a man who represents a drug testing firm. He was telling me that each test developed results in people developing ways to get around it, which leads to development of further tests which leads to . . . Reminded me of the Morton Salt girl. An infinite regression that leads to profit for the drug testing firms and surely, surely "When it (testing) rains, it (money) pours." (And, when I mentioned this article to my office mate, who also works in underage abuse prevention, her immediate response was, "Sounds like he owns some drug testing stock." Doesn't it just?)

I knew then that this one industry alone had too much of a stake in drugs being illegal to allow anything like a rational discussion of legalizing if they could prevent it. Multiply that by the prison guards and staff, the firms building prisons, the stores selling the products that cheat the test (I was told by several teens that you just have to ask the clerks at one national chain and they will steer you right to it), the lawyers prosecuting and defending drug users and you have a lot of people with a financial interest in drugs being illegal. Personally, I'm just enough of a cynic to believe that drug cartels make campaign contributions to politicians who fight the drug war.

The other thing, of course, is that this is not the only industry that is growing rich off of convincing parents that their children need to be treated like criminals. (Actually, I wouldn't treat many criminals like that.) There are so-called mental health facilities that market heavily to the parents of teens, who they then abuse horribly. When one state closes them down (and even Texas has closed some of the worse ones down) they pack up stakes and move to another. Same corporation. Same management. Often, same staff. At times staff you wouldn't hire to clean your toilets, staff who can't pass criminal background tests.

They say to follow the money. And it's easy to do -- just follow the yellow brick road.

Friday Cat Blogging

Brothers at Play

Merry and Pippin are best friends, and have been since they were small kittens. Here they are exploring the wonderful world of bubbles. Every cat owner should have bubble soap -- watching them bat the bubble and see it disappear is delightful. Once they have become blase about that, blowing the bubble full of smoke is a new variation. When they hit the bubble, the smoke hangs in the air for a few seconds, which they are not expecting. I haven't done that with a cat in over 30 years, since I stopped smoking.


They also loved the rocking chair when they were small. These days they are so big that it isn't as much fun, but in the early days they climbed the back and batted each other through the bentwood and peaked at each other through the caning.




This wonderful blue ring was a gift to the Hooligans from Maya. It provides hours of entertainment. When they stop playing with it, I put it away for a few months and then when it comes out again it is, once again, novel. They don't forget it, but they do become interested in it again.



In this picture the laser light is crossing the ceiling. Merry is tracking it, Pippin has lost sight of it and is searching for it. The light on the wall is a night light, which my apartment is full of due to the long, dark, winter nights.







Here they are playing with a shoe string that Merry has carried to the top of the scratching post. All of these pictures were taken before the Kitty Condo was purchased.










And here they have pulled the shoestring down to the bottom of the scratching post. Soon Merry carried it back up again, and the play started all over.

Needless to say, these two always sleep soundly.

Welcome Arches

Modesto, where I graduated from high school, is one of the central valley California towns that used to be agricultural and are now bedroom communities for the San Francisco bay area. Like many cities in California, Modesto has an arch over what was once the main road into town with the town motto on it. "Water Wealth Contentment Health" it reads. But, that was actually the second place entry in the 1911 contest which was originally won by "Nobody's Got Modesto's Goat".

Redwood City, where I lived while attending the College of Notre Dame for my Montessori credential, has one that reads "Climate Best by Government Test" which always caused me to wonder what level of government, when, and what the criteria were. I'm certain that the Redwood City Assembly would have been more favorable in this judging than the U. S. Congress. Although, during the time I lived there, Redwood City did, indeed, have a very pleasant climate.

Some welcome arches, like this, simply announce the name of the town. Apparently the good citizens of Weed feel that is sufficient for anyone to know. Here we are, it seems to say, needing no claims or embellishments. Although, why would anyone name a town Weed, do you suppose?

In my misspent youth, I used to wonder if one could score marijuana in Weed, which would make a certain amount of sense.

Many, like this one in Fairfield, give you a little more information concerning the status of the community. This is an important town, one imagines, with a courthouse and county offices -- perhaps its own weighing station on the freeway, as other county seats I've known in California have.


Or its proximity to some place of greater fame. To be the gateway to an entire mountain range is a proud thing. What more could a city wish? Or, what else does Clovis have? It is enough. It declares an identity that the community is proud of, it welcomes visitors, it fulfils its function. Apparently there was a great fad for welcome arches, as they are called, during the beginning of the 20th century. They vary in many ways, going from this rather stark example that isn't really an arch at all,

to the Lodi arch, which is stucco with Spanish tile over the pedestrian gates. After this arch was built, with mission bells in it, the California bear was placed on the top. Very clearly, this arch belongs in California, although so far as I know there were never any Spanish missions in Lodi. It is more of a German community. Lodi, like Weed, feels a need for no embellishments. It is what it is. Here it is being refurbished.

Many are still in a central part of town, but many are like the Fresno arch, which has been left behind and is now in the warehouse district. Fresno, you will notice, claims to be the "Best Little Town in the USA". Again, I have to wonder how that was determined? I know that it is a part of the Central Valley of California, some of the richest agricultural land in the world. They grow raisins in Fresno. In the 60s it, like Modesto, was a place that people wanted to get away from. Too countrified.


They aren't restricted to California. Las Vegas has one, Denver has one, even Ketchikan has one, as you can see from this photo identifying the city as both the salmon capital of the world and Alaska's 1st City (by which they mean, the town furthest south). They were the rage. Communities considered the face that they wanted to present to the world and built an arch to immortalize it. And then, they went out of style and you don't see many new ones anymore.

Cherry commented that there is a new arch in Pleasant Hill, which she can't find a picture of and neither can I. However, here is a picture of the Pleasanton arch. The Wikipedia photo shows a banner beneath the arch, but whether there is a motto on it or not I can't tell. However, the town has been known in the past as "The Most Desperate Town in The West," which I don't imagine is on the arch and really wish was.

As long as I'm adding this one, you might as well see the burl arch in Nome, Alaska which is the furthest north welcome arch in the U.S. The arch reads "End of the Iditarod Dog Race" rather than the town motto, "There's No Place Like Nome." One is kind of sorry about that.

The Water We Swim In

In the late 80s, Julie had gone off to San Francisco and Richard and I were living together in Stockton. We had two tanks of fish -- one 20 gallon tank of mixed tropicals and one 35 gallon with two massive goldfish. I had been lazy and let the big tank go a little too long (they were my fish, and so my job to clean the tank), when I had to go to Southern California to do a training. Since I was going to be gone for a week, I asked Richard to take care of the fish tank before I got back.

When I returned, I opened the front door and the first thing I saw was the still dirty tank, with two fish floating on the top. Knowing that the thought of my dead pets was going to bother me until I dealt with it, I put my suitcase down, got the net, removed the first fish, and dumped it into the toilet. Just as I reached to flush, the fish revived and started swimming strongly. So, I put him in a pot of water, added his bowl mate, and cleaned the tank.

What made me think of this today was this entry over on Echidne of the Snakes.

Finally the M-word has been pronounced in the mainstream media. Finally. Here is Bob Herbert on the school massacres and their real nature:

In the widespread coverage that followed these crimes, very little was made of the fact that only girls were targeted. Imagine if a gunman had gone into a school, separated the kids up on the basis of race or religion, and then shot only the black kids. Or only the white kids. Or only the Jews.

There would have been thunderous outrage. The country would have first recoiled in horror, and then mobilized in an effort to eradicate that kind of murderous bigotry. There would have been calls for action and reflection. And the attack would have been seen for what it really was: a hate crime.

None of that occurred because these were just girls, and we have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that violence against females is more or less to be expected.

My fish were trying to live in water so toxic that the toilet was preferable. It hadn't started out that way, it had happened slowly but steadily. Americans are now living in an atmosphere that is so toxic with hatred for women that we don't even see it. We don't notice the great preponderance of stories about violence that concern female victims because it has crept up on us a little at a time. Slowly but steadily our national atmosphere about females has become more toxic than the toilet.

Protection Is Always a Racket

Life changed forever on September 11, 2001. We were attacked on our home soil, and for the public at least it was out of the blue and shocking. Planes were grounded for days, which was really noticeable in Alaska where much of the state is reachable only by air and people couldn't get mail and groceries into the villages or people with medical problems out.

While we were still reeling from this blow, the administration set out to protect us by passing the Patriot Act. This piece of legislation, which was produced much too fast for me to believe that it wasn't cobbled together from a wish list just waiting for a disaster to attach it to, was too big and shoved through Congress too rapidly to be read before it was voted on and gave the administration new powers -- some protect us, most protect the government from us. There was such an assault on our civil rights that

Amnesty International is concerned that the USA PATRIOT Act:
Creates a broad definition of "domestic terrorism" that may have a chilling effect on the US and international rights to free expression and association.

Allows non-citizens to be detained without charge and held indefinitely once charged.

Permits the government to scrutinize peoples' reading habits by monitoring public library and bookstore records, without notifying the suspect. It also allows for "sneak and peak" tactics such as physical search of property and computers, wiretapping and monitoring of email, and access to financial and educational records, without providing notification.

These activities contradict the right to be free from arbitrary interference with individuals' privacy, as protected in the US Constitution and the ICCPR.

Since then we have had Patriot II, which further broadened the ability of the government to interfere in the lives of its citizens and ignore the Bill of Rights and, indeed, common law that goes back centuries regarding trials and privacy.

The President admitted using warrantless wiretaps and instead of censuring him, the Congress passed a retroactive law to make his infringement of our rights legal.

Now we have the newest abomination, allowing the President to declare anyone an enemy combatant and have them locked up indefinitely without recourse to habeas corpus or any other protections, tortured, and forgotten if he so wishes. There is no clause that forbids him to move in on your maiden aunt in this manner, and indeed he is even allowed to delegate this identification of status to anyone he desires.

Now, out of South Dakota comes the latest news in the abortion ban. First the legislature passed a law outlawing abortions except to save the life of the mother. The goal was to have the law challenged and take it to the Supreme Court, where Bush's newly appointed judges could use it as an excuse to take down Roe vs. Wade. The people of South Dakota were having none of that, and put a referendum on the ballot to allow the citizens to vote on this issue directly.

The forces in favor of the ban are trying a new tactic. They are claiming, with some 70 pages of findings based on pseudo-science at its best, that women must be protected from abortions. They do not know what it is that they want. They are not competent to decide these issues for themselves, and if allowed to do so will be pressured into abortions by unprincipled boy friends and abortion clinics, which will result not only in breast cancer, but a lifetime of regret. To support this, the report makes some amazing claims about the nature of women straight out of the heart of sexual stereotyping -- that the mother has a connection to her unborn that is greater than her perception of her own interests. Her biology knows more than her mind. Her impending motherhood is more important than her current circumstances.

Isn't it interesting? When they claim to be protecting the citizens, they use it as a cover to take away our civil rights. When they claim to be protecting women, they use it as an excuse to take away our reproductive rights.

It reminds me of a story I heard about Golda Meir. There was a move to declare a curfew for women, keeping them off the streets of Israel after dark, and thereby keeping them safe from attack. Golda Meir's response was to suggest that since it is men who attack women after dark, the curfew be passed to restrict them. No more was heard of the gender specific curfew.

Somehow, protection is always a racket.

Sometimes Living In a Small Town Sucks

There are lots of things that I love about living in a small, isolated community. We have some 30,000 people in the entire borough, about 12,000 of them living downtown where I live. We have no road out of here; we depend on boats and planes. This makes for a low crime rate (imagine stealing a car when you can drive it only 45 miles or try to get it out on the ferry), we mostly know each other (a few years ago a young man went into a convenience store to rob it [we don't get many of those, either] and the kid stocking the shelves called out "Hi, Jim"), our idea of a long commute is 14 minutes, and you personally know most of the local and state politicians.

However, when it comes to clothes shopping! Limited choice in limited sizes. Once in a while they open a shop for larger women, and it always fails. I can't understand that, as we have lots of larger women. Otherwise, my sizes are carried in Fred Meyer, which also carries motor oil and groceries and plants and fertilizer and DVD players and . . . Not a place I'm liable to buy clothes.

Here in Alaska we get a dividend every year for living here -- a governor and legislature years ago invested money in the stock market, and now we get a little cash out of it. October is PFD (Permanent Fund Dividend) month. The last two bits of non-paycheck cash that had come my way had paid off a hospital bill and one credit card, so although most of the PFD went for paying down the other credit card, I set some aside for some new clothes. Not a lot.

My last pair of blue jeans had died, so I ordered four pair (one orchid, one indigo, and two stone washed denim) from the same catalog, same style, same brand, and since the old ones still fit, same size as those. They came, the sizing has changed and I have to mail them back and exchange them. The two blouses I got with them fit nicely, but the camel blouse that was supposed to replace the blouse I got unremovable stains on, isn't exactly the same color, no matter that both were called camel and the color in the catalog matches the color in the pants I bought them to go with. They are just enough off that I can't wear them together! The caftan I ordered turned into pajamas somehow and I don't wear pajamas. So, since the caftan didn't come from the jeans place, that's two packages I have to do up and mail back (paying postage on) and meanwhile I still don't have a pair of jeans I can wear.

It would be nice to go into a store and try something on and buy it. It would be nice to be able to whistle, too.

The Nesting Box

One year, Linda and Bobby and their dog Alex noticed that their neighbor, Jim, was putting up a nesting box in a tall tree near their property line. When they ambled over to the fence to talk to him about it, he said he was hoping to attract a pair of owls to help keep the squirrels in line. Linda and Bobby agreed that owls would do the neighborhood good.

Well, the first year a pair of woodpeckers came and nested in the nesting box. They were a very industrious pair, building a warm nest and laying eggs and then working hard, hard, hard to find enough insects to feed their young. They would sit on the side of a tree and listen with their very best ears, which are much better than our ears, and they would hear the insects under the bark. Then the woodpeckers would peck rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat at the bark, and drill a neat hole. And there would be the insect! Oh, how wonderful. Then Mama or Papa Woodpecker would grab that insect and fly ever so fast back to the nesting box. When they got to the nest, the babies would all be there with their mouths wide open, screaming"I'm starving!!! Feed me!!! Feed me!!! I need it, I need it, I need it." Then, Mama or Papa Woodpecker would shove that insect in the closest mouth, or in the widest open mouth, or in the loudest mouth, and fly off to find another. All day long (and the days are very long in Fairbanks in summer, when the sun stays up for over 20 hours) they would fly back and forth with insects in their beaks, feeding babies just as fast as ever they could, till they almost dropped with exhaustion. Finally, those babies got just as big as their parents, and then an amazing thing happened -- because the babies were sitting pretty still and being fed, and the parents were hunting and pecking and feeding and flying, the babies got fat and the parents got skinny, and for a while the babies were bigger than the parents. Then the babies learned to fly, and that took so much energy that they lost all that fat and were just the same size as their parents. So, before the short northern summer was over, Linda and Bobby and Alex couldn't tell which woodpeckers were the Mama and Papa and which were the babies. In the fall, they all flew away and winter came with the snow, and the yard was remarkably quiet.

Now, the following year the woodpeckers returned and raised another family, but the third year, just as they were cleaning the old nest out of the box and getting ready to set up housekeeping, along came a pair of kestrels and chased them away. The kestrels built their nest in the nesting box, and laid eggs, and when the eggs hatched they had babies with open mouths to feed. But, kestrels don't sit on trees and listen under bark for insects. No, indeed they don't, for kestrels don't eat insects unless they can't get anything else. Kestrels are small hawks, and they hunt voles. So, that summer the Mama and Papa Kestrel hunted voles through the woods, screeching as they flew to scare the voles. When the voles are scared (or, at least this is what Linda and Granny think happens) they pee as they run for cover. And the kestrels (and this part Linda knows is true) can see a purple line where the voles have peed, just like the woodpeckers can hear the insects under the bark. So, the kestrels follow the line of purple to where the vole is hiding, and wham! Then Mama and Papa Kestrel take the vole back to the nest, where the babies are acting just like the baby woodpeckers, screaming "I'm starving!!! Feed me!!! Feed me!!! I need it, I need it, I need it." And Mama and Papa Kestrel shove that vole at the babies and off they go, to find another. All the long day (and remember, it is a very long day) they work, hunting, flying, feeding. And, just like the baby woodpeckers, the baby kestrels get fatter than the parents. Then they leave the nesting box, and hop from tree branch to tree branch, calling "Here I am! I'm starving! Feed me quickly, quickly, quickly!". And Mama and Papa Kestrel hunt, and hunt, and hunt. They fly to each baby kestrel with a vole in their feet, and stick it on a twig for the baby to eat, and then fly off to find another. And those babies just scream for more and more and more. And they eat every one that they can get. When the baby kestrels are old enough and fat enough they work hard, hard, hard and learn to fly. And then, just like the woodpeckers before them, they are the same size as their parents and Linda and Bobby and Alex can't tell the parents from the babies. After a few more weeks, when the Mama and Papa Kestrel teach the babies how to hunt for voles to feed themselves, they fly off to the warm south, and winter comes, and the yard is all white with snow and quiet again. Then Linda and Bobby and Alex don't sit on the porch any longer, because it is too cold. They light a fire in the living room, and wrap themselves in quilts, and stay warm.

Richard Takes Things Apart

One night, when Richard was five, after he and Julie were in bed, I took a bath and when I went to open the door, the knob fell off in my hand. There I was, locked in the bathroom. I called and called, and the kids just slept on. Luckily it was a summer night and my neighbors were in their bedroom with the window open. I was able to get them to call my landlord and have him come and let me out. So embarrassing.

I was renting from an older couple who had raised a number of sons, and so after he released me from the bath, we went around and tested all of the door knobs and cupboard handles in the place. Sure enough -- Richard had discovered the screwdriver. I tightened down all the loose screws, and the next day used my Montessori training to deal with this. The solution was to have 100 screws driven into a wooden square and give that to Richard so he could screw around all he wanted to. I began gathering stumps for him to hammer nails into and pieces of wood for him to plane and sand.

As he grew older, he began to branch out from carpentry to appliance repair. For his sixth birthday, one of his presents was six used wind up clocks from the Salvation Army store for him to take a part. He got them one by one. The first he got apart and partially back together -- by number six, he was taking it apart and putting it back together easily. Of course, when we would visit other people, they would hide all their small appliances, since he was reknowned for dismantling them.

He used to take his tricycle apart. Forrest would come to town to visit me, put the trike back together, Richard would ride it, and before Forrest was back on the freeway, it would be in pieces again. We would put them in a box and wait for the weeks or months until Forrest returned. Richard never complained about not having a trike. Forrest never complained about Richard having taken it apart.* Forrest would come, Richard would watch him put it back together, and it would all repeat. Until the day came when Richard could put it back together himself.

He dismantled his bicycles. (Scared me that he would be riding a bike without brakes.) Eventually, he built himself a bike from spare parts that he found around.

Does it surprise you that he takes computers apart for a living?

* When my mother married my step-father, I was nine and Forrest was four. In the mornings, Mama would get us breakfast, get Daddy off to work and me off to school, clean up the kitchen, and then make the beds. She would notice that there was sawdust at the foot of Forrest's bed, but then she would clean the rest of the house, feed Forrest lunch, garden, fix dinner and by the time Daddy got home, she forgot to tell him we had termites. Until one day it happened on a Saturday. Turned out that since four-year-old boys don't have a lot of clothes that hang up, Daddy was keeping his tool box in Forrest's closet, and Forrest had been taking the plane to the footboard of his bed. Daddy's solution was to get Forrest some boards to plane and to store his tool box on a higher shelf.

Something Odd

An hour ago I was looking at my blogroll and I noticed that something odd had happened to it -- most of it was gone. It went down to Dilletante's Progress just fine, and then it said "Dri". What?

So I went into my template and everything on my template after the Dri for Driftwood Inspiration was simply gone. I know I didn't do it. I know you didn't do it. I haven't a clue how it happened.

Anyway, by going to the blogs left on my truncated roll and linking and copying from there, and by doing a couple of google searches for things I could remember but wasn't finding on other peoples rolls and by tracing back some from comments, I have most of them back. However, since I had divided my roll into groups of 10 and no groups with either more or less, and now I have one with 12, I know I haven't completely rebuilt it. If you are suddenly off, I will figure that out soon and put you back on.

Meanwhile, anyone who has any idea how that could have happened, I'd like to know. I'd like to guard against it happening again. And I'd like to know how my template could be messed with.

State Dependent Learning

One of the interesting things I learned about when I was in Sitka for the alcoholism training is state dependent learning, which basically means that things you learn in one state are often dependent on being in that state to remember/perform. If you were always high when you practiced guitar, you would need to be high to play at all well. If you learned to flirt and date while drunk, you need to be drunk to flirt and date.

Because many people begin various kinds of substance abuse at an early age, and one of the reasons for doing so is a feeling of social awkwardness, those people tend to learn their social skills in that state. In turn, having the skills restricted to the state they were learned in tends to reinforce returning to that state -- getting high not only feels good, but it is the only way the person knows to interact with the opposite sex.

I've been thinking about how this translates to other states as well. I've mentioned that I belong to an on-line support group for women who have given up dieting. One of the things that comes up there is the experience that many women have that when they are fat they don't date. We discuss whether it could possibly be the weight -- and since there are very fat women (some of them in our group) who do date and marry and slender women who don't, we know that isn't the only factor. Related to that, some women are afraid to be thin because when they are, men won't take no for an answer. And yet, there are thin women who can say no and fat women who can't.

This has been a real puzzle to me in my own life. I know that I have the skills to attract men and the skills to keep them at a distance that I'm comfortable with, and yet these skills have seemed to be dependent on my size. And what do you know, that is it! Not because of whether I look or feel pretty or sexy or confident, but because of state dependent learning. I learned to notice when men are attracted to me (which I don't do when I'm fat) and to respond to that when I was thin.

I learned to not see that attraction and hold men in the pals category when I was fat. It is almost impossible for me to do one in the other state. (Interestingly enough, my mother has this same split, but for her the states are married or single [widowed]. When she had a live husband, I could watch men knock themselves out to attract her and she wouldn't see it at all.)

And the other thing I learned is that the skills won't transfer to the other state, as I have always thought they would. "If I get thin," I've told myself, "I can just continue doing what I'm doing now." Except, I don't know how to do that thin. What I have to do is relearn! I have to make the behavior conscious, and then practice it in the other state, should I ever achieve the other state. So, what I know now is that I will not ever find that I've lost weight and can effortlessly hold all men in the pals category. Nor will I ever find that I'm effortlessly noticing and responding to men in the fat state. Which explains why every time I've changed size I've ended up reverting!

Fascinating stuff. Absolutely fascinating stuff.

I Have a Little List

For a number of years now my friends have been amused at my Publisher's Clearinghouse list. This is the list of people I am going to hire a hitman to take out when I win the Publisher's Clearinghouse. Since I never enter, no one is in any danger, but it gives me a good way to blow off steam.

When I was working with parents to reunify with their children in foster care, I would often hear a horror story about spousal or child abuse, and I would mentally put the name of the abuser on my list. In my on-line support group, someone will tell an awful story about being mistreated and someone else will say, "Joycelyn had better put that name on her Publisher's Clearinghouse list."


There are just some things that people do for which there is no answer other than to put them on my list. The current administration is on my list, one and all. Al Qaida is on my list,one and all. The Dems who buckle and vote with the GOP for the most reprehensible things, like expanding the powers of the self-declared "war president" during his self-declared war are on my list. The press that has allowed him to lie his way into a war we can't win and a national debt our grandchildren are going to have to pay off are on my list. The attorneys who bend the law to allow the suspension of habeas corpus are on my list. The lawmakers that compromise on allowing torture and warrantless wiretaps and the trashing of the Constitution are on my list. The lawmakers that earmark clauses into other laws that grant ever larger concessions to the religious right in the forms of exemptions from taxes and regulation are on my list. The forces behind the militarization of our nation to enrich the corporations are on my list. All holders of the mindset which allows the average citizen to bear more than his share of the cost of running a country while the big guys shelter their money offshore are on my list. The folks responsible for the desertion of New Orleans and the cover up of the Foley affair are on my list.

Actually, I have a very long list these days. If I actually wrote it down, it would take several steno pads, with no repeats at all.

Knocking for Life

Yesterday we discussed having cats fixed and Short Woman commented about having cats in an apartment and how you had to limit the number you took in because

soon you're banging the hood of your car before you start it up lest you kill 3 kittens trying to leave home.

Which reminded me of the time Richard and Julie and I lived in a house next door to an empty lot, which had mice. One day I opened the dish washer door and out flew a terrified mouse. A plumber explained to me that mice can fold in their ribs and get into dishwashers easily and being next to an open field, my house was going to be prone to it.

So, after that we had a little routine. Rinse dishes before they go into the dish washer, so they don't draw mice. Get the dishes unloaded while still almost too hot to handle, so the mice haven't walked on the clean ones, and whenever you open it, knock on the dishwasher so you don't sling one across the kitchen when you open the door. It worked for us. Usually worked for the mice, as well.

Hobbes, Take Two

Yesterday I wrote about when Richard found Hobbes, then a very small kitten, huddling in the pouring rain and crying for rescue. When Richard picked him up, dried him off, and tucked him into the front of his jacket, Hobbes cuddled and purred.

Yesterday morning I was thinking about that and it hit me all over again. Hobbes cuddled and purred. That means he was used to human contact -- a feral kitten would have run away from Richard, and even if he had been caught, would never have cuddled -- he would have spit and fought. So, if he wasn't feral, that means he hadn't wandered off from his mother. He had been thrown away, to live or die as luck would have it. To be carried off by an eagle or torn apart by dogs or run over or, considering the weather that day, to catch pneumonia or even drown. At the very best, if no one had found him and taken him in, to starve. One minute, part of a litter, cared for by a loving mother; the next, out in the rain to make it on his own however he might.

Because someone was too lazy or too cheap to get their cat fixed. Probably thought having just one litter would be good for her or that seeing kittens born would be good for their children or maybe just liked having kittens around for a while. And then, they couldn't find homes for all of them, and Hobbes was thrown out into the rain.

I think that when you have a pet, you have responsibilities. One of those is to deal with the issue of reproduction. You have a few honorable choices: get the animal fixed (either sex), find homes for the young, keep your animal completely away from others of its species, or raise the young you can't find homes for yourself. I can't think of any others.

Allowing your tomcat to roam is not one of the choices, which someone certainly did in Hobbes's case. Allowing your cat to have kittens and then abandoning one or more of them is not one of the choices, which someone else certainly did in Hobbes's case.

It's not that I am pure here. I once, in my younger and less aware days, had a fluffy white tomcat who impregnated half the neighborhood and I was proud of all the fluffy white kittens I saw in the surrounding blocks. I've had females who I allowed to have kittens. But I only had to take a kitten to the pound once and be told that they would put it to sleep to convince me that I would get that kitten fixed, take it home, try harder to find it a home, and get its mother fixed.

But, throwing a kitten out in the rain is in a whole different class. It is cruel. It is heartless. If a person will treat a helpless animal, the offspring of the cat who curls up in their lap and purrs, like that, how do they treat people? For, we are consistent in these matters. Psychologists know that the first step to child abuse is animal abuse. That the distance between being callous to kittens and being callous to children is very short.

And, if we are allowing the cat to have kittens for the good of the children, what are we teaching the children? That life is cheap? That loving, trusting, feeling animals can be mistreated with impunity?

Hobbes

Richard was walking to work one morning in July. It was 5:30, and because it was summer in Alaska, it was light out. Granny can't say the sun was out, because actually the sky was full of clouds and the rain was coming down in bucketfuls. Richard was very glad that he had such good rain gear, and that his boots were waterproof, because the rain was pelting down, and the wind was blowing, and it was altogether a day when you wouldn't want to be caught out without warm, dry clothes. Richard hadn't had breakfast yet, and so he decided he would stop at the store on his way and pick up something to eat. Because he wasn't going directly to work, he was walking down a path that he doesn't usually walk down. He was leaning into the wind, and holding his hands in his pockets, and in general working pretty hard to keep as warm and dry as he could.

Because it was so very early in the morning, Richard didn't see anyone else walking. Only an occasional car passed him as he walked. Because it was raining so hard, Richard didn't even hear any birds singing. And then, he did hear a sound. A small, sad, lonely, frightened sound. "Miu. Miu. Miu." Richard knew that sound. It was the sound of a very young kitten. It was the sound of a very lonely and unhappy kitten. So Richard started looking carefully around -- where was the kitten who was making that tiny little sound? There it was --— huddled against the side of a building, trying to get dry and warm. It was the most bedraggled little cat Richard had ever seen. Wet. Cold. Miserable. Unhappy. Lonely. Scared. Hungry. Tired. All alone. Richard picked up the kitten, and dried it off as best he could, and he could see that this was a very young little cat, all orange stripes, with a very sweet little face. "Well," said Richard, "what are you doing out in the rain all by yourself? Where is your Mama? Where do you belong?" And the little cat said, "Miu." So, Richard knew that the little cat didn't know where its Mama was. It was lost and alone and wet and scared.

"Well," said Richard, "I can't leave you out here. You need to be warm and dry and fed." So Richard tucked the little kitten into his jacket to keep dry and warm. Oh, the kitten loved that! The rain couldn't get on him, and being between Richard's warm chest and jacket made him feel warm as toast, and the sound of Richard's heart beating "lubba, lubba, lubba" was very comforting indeed. The kitten was dry and warm and safe. There was a person holding him. Now, the kitten liked the way things had changed, and he wanted to make sure that Richard knew he liked it, so he purred, and purred, and purred just a loudly as he could. And when the kitten purred, Richard knew that he liked being where he was and Richard also really liked the sound of that purr just for itself.

"So, I hope you know that I can't take you into any stores," said Richard, "I hope you appreciate the fact that I am skipping breakfast in order to rescue you." And the kitten did indeed appreciate it. So, Richard took the kitten to work with him, and when it was late enough that Kathy would be awake, Richard called her and asked her to bring the cat carrier and come and take the kitten home. It was very lucky that Kathy was car sitting for a friend at that time, so she didn't have to take the kitten home in a cab. When Kathy came to get the kitten, she and Richard decided to name it Hobbes, after their very favorite tiger.

Later, Kathy took Hobbes to the vet so he could be fixed and get his shots and to make certain he was healthy. This was very important, because Kathy and Richard already had a cat, Abby, and they didn't want Hobbes to make Abby sick. The vet said that Hobbes might have a disease, and they would have to run another, very expensive test. Until they got the results of that test, Hobbes shouldn't be near Abby. So Richard and Kathy took Hobbes home and kept him in the bathroom with the doors closed. They went into the bathroom often to play with him and love him. When the vet called to say that the test was negative and Hobbes didn't have the disease Kathy let him out of the bathroom and he made friends with Abby. But, to this day, he loves to go into the bathroom whenever Kathy or Richard go in. He thinks it is his special place to be loved.

And today Hobbes is a very big cat indeed. He loves to chase the laser light, and beg for treats, and tease Abby. He likes to sit in the front window and watch the crows on the electric wires. He loves to sit in the side window and watch Kathy work in the garden. He loves to chase string. When Richard is working on his computer, Hobbes loves to sit on his lap and purr and purr and purr. Hobbes wants Richard and Kathy to always know that he is so glad to live with them and be loved by them and he is very grateful not to be out in the rain, all wet and cold and afraid. Oh, it is nice to be dry and warm and loved and safe.

Ginny's Apron

When Granny's mother was a little girl she lived with her parents, Lillian and Percy, and her younger sister, Florence; they called her Ginny, because her name is Virginia.

Well, when Ginny was as little as little and as young as young, but still able to walk and talk, her Mama and Daddy were pretty young themselves (why, Percy was so young he still had hair). Ginny was 2½ when this story happened.

So, one day, Percy and Lillian were sitting at their kitchen table with their best friends, the Maddoxes, drinking coffee and talking about the things grown-ups talk about, like the weather and the crops and children and taxes. Ginny started out in the kitchen with them, but when they got to talking about taxes, Ginny got very bored. She couldn't think of anything less interesting to talk about in the whole world (although, now that she is a grown-up, she can talk about them at great length, herself). So, Lillian and Percy and the Maddoxes continued to talk about taxes, and Ginny left the kitchen to entertain herself. Well, this talk about taxes was so interesting to the grown-ups that they didn't even notice that Ginny had gotten very, very quiet. Usually grown-ups know that when little children are very, very quiet they (the grown-ups) had better go check and see what they (the children) are up to. But on this day, all of that talk about taxes just kept their attention (and as I've mentioned, Lillian and Percy were still very young themselves.) Then they started talking about crops and the possibility of frost, and that was also very riveting.

This had been going on for a while, and Lillian had refilled the coffee cups twice, when Percy noticed that Ginny was walking back and forth beyond the kitchen door. She would walk from the bathroom to the pantry at a regular pace, but when she went back from the pantry to the bathroom she walked slowly and she held up the hem of her apron oh so carefully. It looked to Percy like she was carrying something in her apron on her trips to the bathroom. So, Percy watched Ginny do this three or four times, and then it occurred to him (I said that he was still young, but he was growing older by the minute) that what is kept in a pantry is food, and in no way did that belong in the bathroom. Also, Ginny was doing her carrying back and forth in that very quiet way that means a child is doing a scientific experiment, trying to find out how something works. And, Percy knew, sometimes when a child tries to find out how the world works grown-ups are dismayed by the particular experiment they set up. So, Percy said to himself, "I had better go and see what that child is doing." And so he did.

Percy got up and followed Ginny into the bathroom. He got there just in time to see her take a potato from her apron and put it in the toilet. Oh, my! There were very many potatoes in the toilet --— so many, that the water had run over and was making a puddle on the floor! Percy was very impressed. Ginny had been doing an experiment in water displacement. She had been finding out what happens when you add a solid thing (in this case potatoes) to a container of liquid (in this case, a toilet with water). She had been finding out that the more potatoes you add, the higher the water goes. How fascinating! She had discovered that if you add enough potatoes, the water will run right over the top of the toilet and make a mess for your Mama or your Daddy to clean up!

Carousin'

Some nights those cats just have a ball
As they go ripping down the hall
And round the room and down the stair
To cupboard tops, just everywhere!




Then Pippin leaps, that silly soul,
Into the condo's top most hole.
And in and out he twines himself,
While Merry sits on the bottom shelf.





He's up! He's down! He's out! He's in!
And peeking back with silly grin!
Then fling themselves into a heap
Of pure exhaustion, and so to sleep.

Romeo Meets His Match

Now, once upon a time at the turn of the millennium, Granny had a friend who lived in Fairbanks named Marie, and Marie had an Australian shepherd dog named Annie. Now, Annie had auburn hair and big, brown eyes, and the sweetest face. She was a very good dog, a very well behaved dog, and all of her ancestors had been bred to herd sheep. This meant that when she saw a group of creatures, she thought of them as a flock of sheep. Didn't matter if they were people or geese or ducks or moose -- if there was a group, then Annie thought of them as a flock of sheep, and wanted them to behave like sheep. Indeed, because she had such good sheep herding genes, she believed it was her job to make certain that they did behave like well tended sheep.

So, one evening Marie decided to go and see an outdoor production of Romeo and Juliet and she took Annie with her. When they got to the play, Annie was very impressed. There were benches for the people to sit on and a stage for the actors to act on. There was even a creek right beside the stage. Oh, having a play outside was a very good idea! There were a couple of other dogs at the play as well, because in Fairbanks people take their dogs almost everywhere they go. The other dogs, a rottweiler and a Doberman, lay down quietly at their people's feet and slept. Not Annie. Annie watched the play.

Oh, it was so exciting. People moving about. People shouting. People doing strange things while other people sat on benches and watched them. Annie was intrigued. Annie was fascinated. Annie was trying to figure out whether or not this flock was going to need herding. Perhaps they did -- here they were, there they went. Around and about. No stillness to it at all. Annie kept waiting for them to settle down and they didn't. Annie watched very carefully -- were they going to need her to round them up or were they going to manage on their own? Once in a while, Annie would look at Marie, but Marie never gave her a signal to control this unruly flock, so she stayed where she was, but she never relaxed her vigilance.

Then the flock became more unruly. There were young males all over the place, challenging each other with strange sticks! Annie knew about dominance fights among flocks, but she had never seen two groups go at it like this. And with sticks! Didn't they know they were supposed to butt heads? This was a great puzzle to Annie, because this flock didn't know how to behave at all. It didn't even know the right way to be unruly.

Now Annie was very alert. She might be needed at any moment! Oh, she watched and she watched. Her head moved from right to left and left to right as she watched this unruly flock dancing about with the strange sticks. Many of the people in the audience were watching Annie as much as they were watching the play --— they had never seen a dog watch a play before, they were used to dogs going to sleep and ignoring it. Annie was a new thing to them, just as the play and the strange sticks and the odd unruliness were new things to Annie.

One of the flock with the sticks seemed to be more important than the others. Many of the others watched what he did and listened to what he said. He seemed to be a very dominant flock member, and the others called him Romeo. Romeo challenged first one and then another. He was all over. He even jumped over the creek! Then, he came out into the audience and he started jumping over the heads of the people who were sitting down. Annie was amazed! She had never in her entire life seen such a thing! A sheep leaping over the heads of the others. Oh, surely this was not allowed. Annie looked to Marie, but Marie didn't direct her to control him! Amazing! Romeo leapt over a man, "Oh, man!" he said. Then, he leapt over a woman, "Oh, woman!" he said. Then, the most amazing thing of all -- he leapt right over Annie, "Oh, dog!" he said. As he leapt over Annie, it was more than she could tolerate! This unruly sheep was completely out of control. This could not be allowed. And so, with all of her ancestors standing behind her and guiding her actions, with all of the good sheep dog heart that she had, Annie took a little nip, just a little nip, such as any good sheep dog would give any unruly sheep --— not enough to hurt, just enough to herd. Right at Romeo's backside as he sailed over her head, Annie aimed her nip. And, just by a silly little millimeter, missed. And all of the people, who had been watching Annie and watching the play, laughed out loud with delight. And Romeo never knew how close he had come to adding, "Oh, pain!" to his lines. And if Annie had connected, Granny would have called this story Nipped in the Bud.

A Ray of Hope

I was in Sitka for a training on alcoholism last week, totally cut off from computers. I flew out of Juneau on Sunday and returned Thursday night. The training was eight hours a day, with homework. I read no newspapers, watched no news shows, and since the hotel didn't get Comedy Central, didn't even have the news to be gleaned from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Got up Friday morning and read the paper. My Gawd! I leave town for a few days, and the world falls apart! School killings (and one since I returned), Congress passed a bill making torture something the president can authorize, Mark Foley has been preying on Congressional pages and the GOP leadership has covered it up for five years, the Religious Right has pulled off the gloves and admitted that they want to outlaw contraception, the deficit isn't as bad as it was predicted to be due to the fact that the government is using less than honest accounting methods, Republican candidate (Illinois) Peter Roskam accused his Democratic opponent Tammy Duckworth, who lost her legs in Iraq, of wanting to "cut and run" . . . The list is seemingly endless. It is a list calculated to make almost anyone cringe.

And then, on Saturday, I went to breakfast with The Saturday Morning Breakfast Club. We have four members at the moment: three progressives, one died-in-the-wool Republican who supported George W. Bush in all he said and did. Since we long ago decided that our friendship was worth maintaining, we just don't talk about politics. But this week, the Republican brought it up. Stated that she was changing parties because she can no longer vote for the GOP. Expressed her disgust with the way "Bush has betrayed the American people" listed the WMD that weren't there, the connection of Hussein to 9/11 that was a lie, the outing of Valerie Plame and on and on and on.

So, I say, if my friend can see these things so clearly, there is hope that others are seeing these things so clearly. I left the table on Saturday with a great weight lifted off my shoulders.

Groucho

When Granny first moved to Juneau, before Maya was born, she didn't work and live downtown like she does now. No, in those days, she worked in the valley, and she lived in the valley. Granny's office was in a small building, and she had to climb stairs on the outside of the building to get to it. There was a balcony with a railing that went right by Granny's office windows.

One day Granny was sitting at her desk, doing her work, when she heard a rather sizable thump outside her window. "Goodness me," she said, "what is that?" She looked out the window, but she couldn't see a thing that could have made that noise. Then she stood up, walked around to the other side of her desk, and looked out the window in the other direction. There, sitting on the railing, was the biggest, blackest, most handsome bird! It was a raven, and it looked most clever and interested in the world. "Well," thought Granny, "what a beautiful raven!" But, of course, as soon as Granny saw the raven, the raven saw Granny, and off he flew.

Now, Maya must understand, Granny really likes ravens and she has for years and years and years, ever since Maya's Uncle Richard was a little boy and her Mama was a little girl and they lived in Fairbanks and first met ravens. So, Granny wondered how she could encourage this raven to land on the balcony railing more often, and if she could encourage him to sit where she could see him while she was sitting at her desk. She thought and she thought and she hatched a plan, and then she carried it out.

First, Granny started bringing extra food in her lunch everyday. And she would put the extra food on the balcony railing. She started putting the food where the raven had landed on the first day. Once the food was on the railing, and Granny was sitting at her desk, she would hear him thump land on the railing. She would not get up and look out the window, because she didn't want for the raven to be scared and fly away. But, later when she went out, the food would be gone, so she knew he was eating it.

After the raven got used to Granny putting out food everyday after lunch, she started putting the line of food closer and closer to her window. Day by day, the raven had to walk closer to her window to get to the last bite of food. Finally, one day, he had to be right in front of her window to get that last bite. That was very scarey for the raven, because he did not understand about glass. He did not know that there was something between him and Granny, and that she couldn't just reach through the window and grab him. Well, he hesitated and he waited and he thought about it. But, in all those days of bringing him food, Granny had never hurt him and he had learned that it might be safe to trust her a little. So, he moved to the last bite of food, keeping a very careful eye on Granny to make sure she didn't jump through the window at him, and keeping his wings ready to fly off in case she did. He snatched that last bite and off he flew.

For several days, Granny put just the last bite of food where the raven would have to be right in front of the window where she could see him. Pretty soon, the raven would stay on the railing and eat that last bite right there. Then Granny knew that he trusted her more than before, and now she changed tactics. Now she put all the food where she could see the raven while he ate. And, what do you know, he had learned to trust Granny completely, because he would land right on the railing and eat while she watched him, and as long as she didn't move he wasn't scared at all. Pretty soon, Granny decided that this raven needed a name. She thought about what to call him, and she thought about it, and she thought about it. Finally, one day she was looking at him and he was sitting on the railing and looking at her and the wind was blowing hard and the feathers over his eyes were all rucked up and they looked like eyebrows and he looked just like Groucho Marx. So, Granny named him Groucho.

Everyday, when Granny would walk to work, Groucho would watch her. After lunch, when she put out the food, Groucho would watch her. He knew who she was, and he knew she fed him and he could trust her. One day, as she was climbing the stairs to her office, Groucho started talking to her. He used the same voice ravens and crows use to court each other; a soft, little cooing sort of a voice. Then Granny knew that Groucho trusted her just like he trusted his raven mate, and that made her feel all gooey with emotion. From then on, whenever Granny was outside of her office and Groucho was there (and he wasn't always, because sometimes he flew around doing other things) he would make the courting raven noises at her.

One day, Granny put deeply, richly colored jelly beans out for Groucho, and an eagle flew down low to check out what they were, but she didn't land and eat any.

And after a while, Groucho started bringing another raven when he came to eat on the railing. Granny thinks the second raven was his mate. After that, Granny could watch two ravens sit on the railing and eat, although the second raven was never quite as brave about it as Groucho was.

Now, after a while, Granny had to go to work downtown. Her office wasn't in the valley any longer (although the building was still there, just Granny didn't work in it any longer). She didn't see Groucho everyday anymore. She didn't put food out on the balcony any more (because she wasn't there to do it). Granny really missed Groucho and his wife. But, still to this day, sometimes Granny walks by her old office building, and Groucho makes the courting raven noise at her. And then, if she can, Granny goes into Family Grocer and buys something to feed Groucho. She doesn't put it on the railing, but she scatters it on the sidewalk, and Groucho comes and eats it all up. So, even though Granny can't see Groucho everyday any longer, still they remember each other, and still they recognize each other, and still they love each other, all these 13 years later.

The Night Thor Tried to Eat GrandmaCopyright 1999, Richard R Ward

My Part
Today we have a guest story teller, my son Richard. I once wrote this story down, but I didn't do as good a job as Richard has, because I wasn't there for the most important part of it. So, with his permission, I am going to tell you my part of it and then allow him to tell you his. Originally, I was going to do it in the reverse order, but when I tried to do that I realized that Richard's ending is perfect and for me to add anything at that point would just be stupid. However, I can do a little prequel. Mostly his details are right. It wasn't winter, but that doesn't matter, there was still snow on the ground. And, the parrot did not have clipped wings -- it is just really hard to fly in a small, confined space when a dog is after you.

My friend Tom invited me to dinner for my birthday. I know that you will think my child care arrangements were casual at best and negligent at least, but remember that this was Alaska in the 70s, when the worst thing that could happen to a responsible child of ten left alone for a couple of hours was freezing, and that's not possible in late April, no matter what the song says. For about three months before the influx of unemployed, single men who had come up a full year early to work on the pipeline had begun, I had been leaving the kids (10 and 8) together with the neighbors notified and a list of phone numbers for a couple of hours without concern. I considered a babysitter for that night because of the changed circumstances, but both kids were mortified at the thought, so Tom and I devised the clever idea of copying Peter Pan and using a Saint Bernard as a nanny. Obviously, neither of us gave a lot of thought to how that had worked out for the Darlings. Tom had this huge Saint named Thor who the kids knew and got along with well from visiting his house; the idea was that with Thor in the yard, no one would even think of trying to get into my house. So, Tom brought Thor over, we established him in the yard, left the kids and other animals in the house, and drove off for dinner at the Octagon restaurant. Tom and I hadn't considered that I had a parrot and he had a dog that was trained to flush birds; actually it hadn't occurred to either of us that Thor would ever get into the house.

We had a great meal and in due time headed back home. About three blocks from my house, we could hear a dog barking frantically; before long we recognized it as Thor. Then we began to hear Grandma, the parrot, screaming his favorite word "Rape! Rape!" By the time we got to the house, we were terrified about what we were going to find. We could see that Thor had been tied up outside the window and was lunging against the rope to get in. By now the noise was truly amazing. Our imaginations were painting very ugly pictures. We rushed into the house, and there we found -- two living, breathing children -- no blood, no guts, no death, although they did look both exhausted and frazzled. The living room was chaos. Bird seed all over the floor and furniture. Dining room chairs knocked over. Lamps and cushions and ornaments and books and records scattered from one end of the room to the other. Obviously, something fairly dramatic had transpired. And then they told us what had happened. Yes, we did laugh. But, it was only partly for the reason I later told Richard. Mostly it was out of sheer relief that the horrors we had been imagining had not happened. And, yes, I know I shouldn't have laughed. And I really shouldn't have laughed nearly as hard as I did. But I did, heartless wretch that I am, and I still do.

Richard's Part
You ever have one of those nights where you sure the world is going to end and there is nothing you can do about it? At the tender age of ten I had one of those nights. The night Thor tried to eat Grandma.

So, when and where did this piece of childhood trauma take place? The when was early winter, 1973. The where was Fairbanks, Alaska.

1973, the Trans Alaska Pipeline insanity was in full bloom. Hundreds of out-of-work oil workers, eager to get in on the employment boom that was sure to come, were pouring into Fairbanks every month. Right behind them were every form of con-man, hooker, criminal, missionary and other assorted scum attracted by the promise of over-paid young oil workers.

The population exploded from around 18,000 to over 60,000 in less than a year. The crime rate rose by some 3,300 percent. The small town where people left their doors unlocked for years at a time was overcrowded and overrun with lowlifes and scumbags. The perfect setting for what was about to transpire.

My mother had decided to go out to dinner with her boyfriend, Tom. They decided that just telling the neighbors that she was going out for the evening, making sure I knew the number for the police (911 did not exist in Alaska at that time) and leaving Samantha, our overly friendly black lab dog in the front yard was not quite enough to make them feel safe leaving us alone for the three hours they would be gone.

So, Tom brought over Thor. Thor was a huge, but friendly St. Bernard. Unlike Samantha, Thor tended to bark at people he did not know. They felt we would be a lot safer with such a huge dog so prominently displayed in the front yard.

And the US Marine Corps taught Lee Harvey Oswald how to shoot a rifle.

My mother and Tom left for their evening of dining and relaxation and they thought that everything was under control. And why shouldn't it be? Sure, the lock on the front door had no key and didn't work anyway, but there were two dogs in the yard and the neighbors knew my mom was going to be out for the evening. Besides, I was ten and I knew how to dial the police.

Not ten minutes after they left all hell broke loose. It seems that Thor had spied my mothers parrot, Grandma (a gift from some vengeful demon, no doubt), through the living room window and came crashing through the door like a berserker in full battle rage. In seconds the living room was a shambles as two children tried to wrestle a 140 pound, insane dog away from a screaming and panicked parrot.

Together my sister and I managed to shove the psychotic monster out the front door and get it closed behind him. Did I mention that the lock didn't work? Well, without the deadbolt the 1930's vintage door latch was no match for a crazed St. Bernard on a mission of death and destruction.

Before Julie and I could get our breath back and try to get the freaked out parrot under control the damned dog had burst through the door again. This time the beast managed to upset the large, and I mean large parrot cage, freeing the poor bird to fly up to the top of a high bookcase, but not without losing all of its tail feathers to the jaws of Thor. Seems that parrots with clipped wings do not fly that fast.

Again we wrestled the beast out of the house and closed the door behind him. By this time the cats were hiding in a corner screaming their damned fool heads off, adding to the din of barking hellhound, screeching parrot and crying children.

Realizing that the door was not going to hold the beast back for very long I shouldered the door and told my sister to get something, anything, to drive this insane mutt back out of the house. She ran across the living room and retrieved the first thing she saw, a plastic Breyer horse, one of her most prized possessions.

As I pushed against the door with all the strength I had, Julie beat that stupid mutt across the nose with the horse, like an eight-year old St. George, wailing away with all her strength to drive the cursed beast back out into the cold winter night and away from the poor parrot.

We decided that Thor was stronger than both of us and that we would soon lose this pushing match to the beasts' single-minded determination to eat the goddamned parrot. It was decided to tie Thor to the fence, as far away from the front door as possible. Knowing that Thor listened to women more than he did to men we decided that Julie should go outside with the rope (or was it a leash, I don't remember) and tie up the deranged creature.

Now, the judgment of an eight-year old girl is not the best in the world, and neither is that of a ten-year old boy. Julie had tied up Thor as far away from the front door as she could. That ended up being the corner of the fence right outside the window facing the now restored parrot cage. Thor could see the bird and the bird could see Thor. Needless to say, Thor continued to bark his damned head off for the rest of the evening. Neither one of us thought to question this decision.

By the time Thor was finally tied up my sister and I were exhausted. We staggered back to the couch and just stared at the wall, too tired to clean up the disaster that was the living room. Too tired to even think.

At some point in the distant future, my memory says it was days, perhaps weeks, but I know it was only about 7:30 pm that same night, Tom and my mother got back from their date. They walked into the room and asked, incredulously no doubt, what the planet of hell had happened.

Crying and shaking with fear and exhaustion we told her the story I have just told you. My mother and Tom laughed. They laughed because, as my mother would tell me years later, they had left Thor there to protect us and it turned out that the only thing we needed protection from was Thor.

If looks could kill they both would have roasted in boiling lava. Julie and I were absolutely incensed. I don't think I had ever been so angry with my mother. When your kids have survived the closest thing to a life-threatening experience that most sheltered, middle-class white kids will ever see, you don't laugh. Even if it is funny. Act somber, damnit! Laugh after the tykes are asleep. Jeez, why my sister and I didn't grow up to be serial killers is beyond me.

Well, twenty-six years later I can see the humor in it. It was kind of funny if you can detach yourself from the panic that gripped me as the night unfolded. I can, for the most part. But deep inside is the kid that thought the dog had gone insane.

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

Happy October. Scroll down for more.

Shadow & Shaver

Once upon a long time ago, when Maya's Mama was a little girl called Julie and Maya's Uncle Richard was a little boy called Richard and Maya's Granny was a young mother called Mom, Julie and Richard and Mom all lived on a homestead in the woods outside of Fairbanks.

On this homestead, there were fourteen dogs (some grown and some pups). The dogs loved living in the woods, and they wandered freely about and explored the world and had a great time. Julie really loved it, because there were always lots of dogs to play with her when she wanted to play with dogs.

Now, there were also lots of ravens who used to hang around the homestead and share the dog food with the dogs. And one spring, a young raven named Shadow started hanging out with the others. Shadow was a very large, strong raven, and he really liked dogs. Shadow particularly liked puppies, which were just little white balls of fur that ran about and played and barked. One of the puppies, Shaver, made special friends with Shadow, and whenever Shadow would land on the ground, Shaver would play chase with him. First Shaver would chase Shadow, and Shadow would run on the ground for a while and then fly up into a tree, and then Shadow would chase Shaver, and Shaver would try to fly into a tree. But, because Shaver didn't have wings, he could never make it off the ground at all. Finally, Shadow took pity on Shaver, and because Shaver was just a very young puppy and therefore very small, when Shadow chased Shaver he would fly over him and grab Shaver by the scruff of the neck and lift him eight or nine inches off the ground. Shaver loved it! It was just like flying! Shadow liked it, too. It made him feel so strong to lift a puppy into the air!

Well, summer came and all of the ravens left the homestead to do whatever it is that ravens do in the summer. Shadow didn't come to visit for months and months, and during those months Shaver grew and grew until he was a full grown dog.

In the fall, the ravens came back to the homestead and there were now fourteen full grown dogs. All of the dogs were as white as white and as fluffy as fluffy and they all looked almost alike. And all of the ravens were as black as black and as smooth as smooth, and they all looked pretty much alike. But even though all the dogs looked alike, Shadow immediately recognized Shaver. And even though all the ravens looked alike, Shaver immediately recognized Shadow. Oh, what a joyous reunion! How happy they were to see each other. Shadow ran along the ground, and Shaver chased him and then Shadow flew into the tree. Then Shaver ran and Shadow chased him, but when Shadow grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and tried to lift him off the ground, Shaver didn't budge a single inch! Over the summer Shaver had grown too big for Shadow to lift. Shadow tried and tried, because he could remember very well that he had been able to do this before and he really wanted to do it again. But it didn't work. And Mom (who later became Maya's Granny) watched and laughed and laughed.