We Find the Oddest Things

Indeed, we call this place Junk Thief, and that is a spirit we take. But is it junk thievery if it's discarded junk, just waiting to be rescued? And is it junk? Having two rescue basenjis (who are the opposite of junk), I think about all the treasures out there waiting to be rescued. Some of the most curious items in my home are "pound art" and "shelter furniture". I am forever picking up pieces of paper, discarded baskets and other pieces on the street that often go into collages and assemblages.

Shaka and Audrey often weigh in on my finds, and they realize that just as -- sadly -- there are shelter animals that are not adoptable, the same holds true with junk. The morning after the Fourth of July, we happened upon this oddity. Clearly, Audrey was still stressed from the previous night's fireworks, but she was quite clear that this was one that "will probably have to be put down" and suggested that we just move on.Some days, such as this morning, we happen upon things that are so odd and intriguing, you just wish you knew the whole back story. We came across this triptych on a single sheet that boggles the mind. It starts off a bit morbidly. Is that really a dog or a frog? And was the one on the left scratched out because the one on the right was more realistic?

Okay, now the story gets a lot more upbeat, Though much smaller, I can buy that this really is a dog. Though I hate to quibble, it looks like the dog is not enjoying "a" cookie but four. Or maybe he enjoyed one, and the other three were yucky. We may never know for sure.
And, finally, it gets mystical. I buy that it's a billygoat and that those are rocks. He ponders them? And why? And what happens next?

We may never know the conclusion of this story. We may never know who the artist and author were. (I'm sort of assuming they were the same person.) It's all mysterious, but then it may be next summer's blockbuster movie. But then, I've never been able to stay awake through an entire Star Wars movie and fell asleep during the opening credits of one of the Spidermen movies on a flight to Newark. However, I can sit through five hour documentaries about 12th century Catalan art without blinking an eye.

We do find the darndest things in the Mission.

Spherical Abberation

Just Breathe

Who's the Boss?

Factory Direct Wigs in the Mission

Dropping Judgment, the Search for the Perfect Green, and Adrift in the Universe

Do you check your Myers-Briggs or ennegram type regularly? I forget where I am on the latter, but I consistently come out either INTJ or ENTJ. I've always been told that I am over the top on intuitiveness. The highest possible ranking.In the days before I had to say goodbye to Bow, my level of judging (the signature J of INTJ and ENTJ) was over the top. Since she departed, it seems to have dropped almost completely. I find a tolerance for the most tedious of personalities that usually grate on me. I also seem to have a heightened awareness of the color green. In the wake of the winter rains, all plant life is either blooming or emerald green.
I've always been fond of this building at 20th and Valencia, but it seemed to be even closer to the perfect shade of green tonight.
It and many other green things seemed to be calling out to me this morning.
The afternoon I saw the life leave Bow's body, I felt I saw my own life leaving with her. I say that not in some mournful, tragic or even regretful way. My life as defined during my two and half years with her seemed to be departing with her as well as everything that had come up to that point in my life. With Bow gone, I knew that I could not return to who I was before she entered my life.
When the life exited her body, I did not feel a need to linger. I knew that she was walking out of the vet's office with me. Like all basenjis, Bow always wanted to be clean and odorless, and it seemed so appropriate that her remains be cremated.
In a few days her ashes will return. I keep saying that in this interim, I have trusted her to be watched over by the Universe until her sacred remains return. I feel that I am out there in the Universe right now. I have felt grief, but more I have felt that I am in transition, waiting for her sacred ashes to return and to be in their eternal resting place.
When I got in tonight, I got a message from one of Bow's first foster moms who said that she had been verbally and physically abused for years before she came into rescue. I knew she had a difficult life before she came to me, but I never knew this. The fact that she was always such a loving, trusting, obedient girl when she was me was a reminder that we may put too much stock in the impact of the past. She was able to let it go and be a very different creature with me. I am thinking about that tonight as I feel that I am trusting the Universe to watch over her and me until we are reunited. We had a past together, and I feel that she will be there in some way in the future.

Fresh!

The Morning After

I don't know how I made it through the first night without Bow. I just managed to do it. The many messages of support from so many quarters helped. Most were virtual messages not phone calls which helped. I needed to be alone, feel the emptiness. Having lived with illness for over a year, that emptiness was both agonizing and a relief. Bow was gone, but so was her suffering.

My sleep was calm, and I rose before 6:30, amazed by how okay I felt. My instincts told me that I needed to keep to our routines. Twisted as it may sound, I readied like any morning, but her collar in my pocket and began to walk our usual two mile route. Immediately I felt comforted to know that while her physical presence was not there but all the familiar things were. Life does go on. I felt that I was going to be fine, agonizing as it might be.

At the end of the second block, the little girl that greets us every morning must have seen the top of my head from her window and called out "Good morning, Bow. I love you Bow." For the first time since it happened I wept. I am not sure they were tears of grief. Having lived with her cancer for over a year, I feel that much of that time was filled with grief and dread of the eventual passing of my beloved.

As I walked further, I passed many familiar neighbors and their dogs, not able to make eye contact. Many had commented on how concerned they were about Bow and me in the previous weeks, and it had been more than a month since she could make it past the first few blocks. In that moment, as I could feel people sensing my sadness as I walked I felt her with me, felt the way she touched so many lives in this neighborhood. Someday I will walk this same route with another basenji, and as it pulls on the leash and I know what to do, I will feel Bow with me. I will know what to do because of her, and in that moment I will know that she is there living within me.

Friday Night Twirling on Valencia

Now You Know

¡Ay, las Baby Swing!

What We're Seeing in the Mission

New Daddy

Jersey Shore: Pimped Up for the Mission

Sage Advice

Dada Dog Walk in Dogtown

Bow and I went to our class with Emma last night in Dogtown and saw this reminder. We're very true to dada and always clean up after ourselves.

Today in Passive-Aggressive Marketing - For Sale or Not for Sale

Where Can He Be Now?

Exotic Elda in Evanston stares into the abyss, waiting.
Haughty Hedda in Hartford lets heartfelt tears fall onto her henna locks as she waits.
They both wait for his phone call that has yet to ring in the dark.
His wife Wilma in Wilmington waits numbly, a routine that has rendered her weary.Even lovely lonely Lulu lingers in the nursery.
While her baby brother stares in the dark.
Where can that man be? And why does he torture each of them with this waiting?
Is he off on his latest vehicle?
Or was he drawn to some equestrian dalliance? These questions dance aimlessly in the wind like a winning lottery ticket heading toward the storm drain.

Reed and Richmond in the Mission

When local TV anchorman and legend Dennis Richmond retired two years ago, an artist at 24th and Osage set up a shrine outside his window. He has since added Lou Reed. I felt lucky to catch him at work on his next canvas today while walking by.
(Be sure to "embiggen" the photos by double clicking on them. I'm really amazed by the details in the artist's apartment, including the Bud sign and portrait of the woman behind him.)

From Needy to Kneady

Further evidence that our little neighborhood is quickly becoming the next Valencia street was this week's arrival of the overly cutely named Local (Mission) Eatery. I'll refrain from passing any judgment until I actually try it, but I wonder if American Apparel is next on 24th Street.