Puppy Shadow and I stop in at nearby Petco . . .

December 27, 2023

 

So. This morning, puppy Shadow and I stopped into our nearby Petco, to replenish his 16-year-old body with daily vitamins. Or is he 17? Possibly. He’s old. Likely as old as I am, at 81, and supposedly aging faster. We walk three to four miles daily. Here he is, a few minutes ago, post-walk.

 

So this morning, on our return, we stopped in at Petco, a behemoth corporation . . .

. . . which, however, sources its in-store pet offerings (cats) from nearby Brown County Animal Rescue. Good for them! We got our friendly feral ferocious cat Tiger from Petco three years ago, and had no idea just what an astonishing archetypaal being he would turn into. We no longer have rats; even a rat terrier was afraid of the rats . . . here he is, sleeping on my bed this morning, after the usual frozen December night out on the hunt.

Petco also has a great place for grooming; the young women who work there are wonderfully kind and caring animal lovers.

My son Sean and I (he drove in on Christmas Eve from Colorado to visit with his still paralyzed brother Colin for two weeks) were out to dinner last night, when he suddenly remarked: “I don’t know how people who live alone do it without animals!” I agreed, wholeheartedly. Even when you don’t live alone, in this disconnected, increasingly chaotic former culture, animals connect us to our instinctive animal nature, so that we’re not just pie-in-the sky machine minds. He prefers dogs to cats. I like them both, equally. Cats demonstrate independence, and dogs demonstrate connection. As humans, we need both, if we are to have any hope of re-membering how to be ourselves while getting along.

Okay, all the above is to introduce a story from this morning’s visit to Petco. While there, I came across a woman, middle-aged she appeared, who had stopped by a watery, glassed in realm, and was communing with its ever-curious turtle. I stopped to ask if she knew where the dog vitamins were. She did not, but was waiting for a clerk to come back with crickets, which she needs for her juvenile bearded dragon.

“Wow! How long have you had your baby bearded dragon?”

“Got it just last Friday. And, I’m going to pick up a baby python tomorrow evening . . .”

“Geez.”

“And they both better get along with my dog and two cats . . . not to mention the six cats my housemate has . . .”

But, about face! Then she told me she’s moving out of that house in two days — with her dog, baby bearded dragon, baby python, and  “getting rid of the cats.”

(Me, in my mind, surprised: “Does she really disrespect cats? The language she uses makes it seem so.”)

Me, out loud: “And do you have a place to go?” — assuming she did!

“I’m working on it” . . . she says, cheerfully,  as if no big deal, on this sunny, very cold, late December day in the northern hemisphere of planet Earth.

 

 

Christmas Weirdness 2023

December 25, 2023

 

When I was a kid, back in the ’50s, I would count the days until Christmas every year. Very exciting, to think that Christmas would come again, with its season of celebration. I could feel it! The extreme difference between the Christmas season and the rest of the year.

As a young mother, in my early 20s, the Christmas season depressed me; the memory of how wonderful it was when I was a child contrasted terribly with how I felt then, what my life had become. Depressed; and guilty, in despair: that I couldn’t offer my own kids that same seasonal joy. Every part of getting ready for Christmas, especially decorating the tree, felt like pretend. I was faking it, trying, and failing, to feel joy, for them.

Gradually, as the years passed, my seasonal depression lifted, and Christmas took its place as a likely time when the deep state would likely roll out something ghastly when we weren’t paying attention, like was done December 23, 1913

Yesterday morning, on Christmas Eve, puppy Shadow and I went for our daily 3-4 mile walk at Switchyard Park, an elongated wonderland, its trails bounded on one side with a thin layer of forest. This park is relatively new, only completed in past year or so.

Here’s the map.

Here’s a stock photo, likely last summer.

 

Okay, so Shadow and I were walking there early morning on Christmas Eve, remember? Supposed to be a time of joy and celebration. What did I see? Homeless encampments, all sorts of them, within the voluminous forest edges of the long, narrow park.

At one point, in one of the encampments, I saw a blond, middle-aged woman outside one of the tents, and of course, wondered who she is, what is her story? A few minutes later, she comes along behind me, pulling a cart with, I presume, her stuff. She is not obviously “dirty;” she’s wearing “presentable” clothes, but yet, somewhat, somehow disheveled, as if she had lain down for a minute in a pile of leaves, and tried, but failed, to brush them all off.

She passed me, not saying anything, even though, as usual, I looked her way and smiled. A hundred yards later on, she came across another woman, this one with a massive pit bull, and the two stopped to greet each other. They obviously belong to the same tribe.

I thought about the encampments. Each with three or four tents and messy paraphernalia. The beginnings of tiny villages. Are they demonstrating, for the rest of us, the beginnings of decentralization?

At another point, I passed a young woman, dressed all in black, with rings in her nose, otherwise very “presentable,” but she was sitting on a bench, her head cocked way back and severely twisted, looking up at something. What? There was nothing up there . .

She continued her twisted upward stare. Completely still, not moving a muscle. This went on for at least a minute as I approached. Then I saw her eyes, without her head moving a muscle, pivot to me, malevolent. Part of me was glad; she wasn’t a mannikin after all, she was real! Another part of me grew instantly fearful. But just at that moment, her head swiveled back down to normal, and I passed uneventfully.

VERY weird.

Yes, this is a very weird Christmas, especially considering all the background purgation we have been undergoing.  Bob Moran is the cartoonist who, as usual, best captures the mood.

Meanwhile, here’s an interesting post by someone who has managed to overcome his own adult depression at Christmas.