SSSAD at Summer's End

I've coined a new term, which shall henceforth be known by its acronym (like there aren't enough acronyms on the www) SSSAD: School Starts Soon Affective Disorder.

Those of you who actually take precious time to read this may think, Oh, boo hoo; their three-month vacation is almost over. They only have eleven days until they go back to work--which is about how much some people get each year!

Okay, okay: I hear you. I sympathize with you, friend. Why, I once had a job that allowed no vacation the first year and only two weeks in the second year. And it was hell to contemplate, I tell you, during the nine months I actually stayed on the job. (The amount of time it took to grow and birth a baby, which is another sort of employment, but here I refer to the kind where you exchange your on-site services for a paycheck).

What can I say? The sky is blue and so am I. There will be expectations, demands, confusion and peanut-butter sandwiches. I know; I know: there will also be people to talk to, pleasant surprises, and fresh coffee, with cream, in my office. On verra bien.

Snapshot of the Blues

Cosmo had a fantastic time in NYC in May with his school. They saw Lion King, went to the Top of the Roc, visited Ellis Island, and, maybe most memorably for C, saw the Blue Man Group. He even got a photo of himself with a Blue Man, who placed a blue hand on his face, Sauron-like. Cosmo was a proud Blue Man Uruk-hai.

But he lost the camera at the end of the trip.

I Feel a Rant Coming On...

...and since I can't say it over loudspeakers, like the effing Tea Partiers, whose rally is going strong two blocks away, I'll say it here, even though my lonely blog rarely has visitors. The effing Tea Partiers have parked on a public street in front of my house, gathered in the public park, and thrown their trash in the public trash bins to hold their protest. Hey, I pay taxes for all that! What gives them the right to...oh, yeah; I forgot. They pay taxes too.

I guess that's what you call irony.

Harley Come Home

For a couple of years, Harley lived inside a pen about twelve by eight square feet. His owners—our neighbors—had a regular yard, in which their other dog, Snoopy, a manic little Schnauzer who bears no resemblance to his laid-back namesake, was allowed to roam.  Most of the time, Snoopy hung out in the house, where he perched like a little tyrant king on the back of the couch, surveying his paltry kingdom through his picture window and barking obsessively at the indifferent citizens who dared walk past. Meanwhile, Harley sat in his pen, through rain, snow, and hail, freezing nights and scorching summer days. He had a doghouse but barely fit in it. He sat in his pen, which the owners cleaned infrequently, and waited for something to happen.

Harley, a big black dog, had a namesake, too.  His owner—let’s call him Tom—wanted a Harley Davidson, which are very expensive, so the family gave him the dog as a surrogate. It was a funny story until Tom got a motorized Harley, and our furry friend became redundant.

One side of his pen bordered part of our property. When a chance for human contact arrived, he’d put his front paws on top of the old wire fence, which swayed with his weight and gratitude. Then his paws gripped the arm that reached over; his tongue flapped at the hand that scratched his handsome head and the white blaze on his chest. It was only a passing visit, though, and he knew it: when you withdrew your arm he gripped it more tightly, desperately wanting to keep you there. Because otherwise it was just a pen full of shit, and his owner may have provided food and water but he left Harley empty.

What could we, should we do for that dog? Daily, we walked by Tom’s open garage, where he kept his Harley Davidson, all shiny black. Oddly, the radio was always playing a classic rock station, as though to keep the motorcycle company, but we hardly ever saw Tom. When we did, we were friendly. We didn’t mention that Harley was being terribly mistreated. What would we say? Would you please let him in the house once in a while? Would you clean up his shit? Would you treat him like a living creature and not an old tire? I didn’t have the courage to speak up.

Another neighbor, who fed Harley a warm hot dog every day, got Animal Control to come out and have a look, but as long as he had shelter and food and water, they said they couldn’t do anything.

One day, suddenly, he was gone. Soon after, his pen was cleaned out. I missed him and worried about him. A couple days went by and I didn’t see Tom or his wife, so I called the shelter, but they didn’t have a recent record of a black dog with a white blaze. I drove to the shelter to look for myself; I drove to the pound. There were plenty of dogs needing a home, but no Harley. Eventually, the hot-dog neighbor passed on the news: Tom had given Harley to a friend, presumably someone who would take better care of him.

I was glad his story had a happy ending. However, I wish I could rewrite my part in his story—my own shabby negligence, that is. I wish I’d knocked on Tom’s front door and asked him if I could take Harley for walks once in a while. Like twice a day. What’s the worst that could have happened? I’d have been embarrassed and Tom might have been offended, or he’d say “No” outright, or our neighborly relationship might have soured and we’d avoid each other from there on out (cringing if we took our trash out to the alley at the same time), even possibly never speaking to each other again—but wasn’t a dog’s welfare worth that?  

I wish, in fact, that I’d said to Tom, “Hi, how are you? Say, can I have Harley? I mean, for keeps?” Never mind that Harley wasn’t housetrained, that we’d have had to pay for vet bills and food, that we’d have to give him lots of exercise and find a place to board  him when we left town. The fact we already have a dearly loved older dog, who expects and deserves our undivided attention, would have posed a more compelling reason not to rescue Harley. Still. I’d liked to have said that at least I tried. I’d like to think that next time I’ll know the way, that I’ll just jump in. Shoes and all.

"But Why Is the Rum Gone?"

My computer crashed the other day. I thought that only happened to hapless students, but it turns out I was wrong. And everything was gone. Wiped clean as a blackboard on Friday afternoon. As an analog TV without a converter. Tabla rasa. Two-thirds of a brilliant novel I had just about finished; photos of Hillary and me yukking it up over a beer; Grandma's prize-winning recipes; records of my secret bank account; and a PowerPoint outlining how to cure global warming.

In a word: ______ .

Even if I put it more realistically--that I lost a substantial chunk of a third-rate novel I've been messing with for a long time (and especially this summer), photos of vacations and of Cosmo on Halloween, and a geology glossary that I've been adding to for several years--it's still a bummer. (Does anyone still say that? I'll have to ask my students.)

My first reaction was fatalistic: I guess I wasn't meant to write that novel after all. The second was more mercenary: I lost a good ten hours' worth of work translating geology documents from French, which I will have to redo, without pay. And third: Crap.

I'm not crying, but I could be.

Yahoo bookmarks, favorite apps, preferred wallpaper. Software for Office, the printer, and DSL all has to be re-installed--not a big deal, but time-consuming. (Ten hours of translating! And 60 student papers to grade! A drafty house to winterize!)

MP3 downloads.

Not a catastrophe. Not even a calamity. More of a bother, a nuisance, an inconvenience. (See, I got my thesaurus back!) In any case, at least there's always more music out there. (And Pandora's back on my favorites bar!)

Yours in cyber-ness,

Lost at Translation, or, Crazy Little Thing Called "Truc"

Visualization exercise. As you read the following words, develop an image in your mind, as detailed as possible. Ready?

· dial anvil
· lift pillow manifold
· square to round fan tin
· TC harness (not to be confused with a TC reader)

What did you get? Flowers? Clothes from Melrose Ave.? A peculiar family ritual?

Me neither. And yet when a local company asked if I could translate, from English to French, a shipping list full of such things bound for Morocco I said, “No problem.” The Grand dictionnaire terminologique is an awesome specialty dictionary, but even they couldn’t come through. Google? Nope. Because guess what? Some of these are unique to the company, which manufactures them.

I considered just using the word for “doohickey,” perhaps varying that with “thingamajig” and “whatchamalcallit.” (For the record: “bidule,” “engin,” and “truc” will serve, in no particular order; that's bee-DOOL, on-JHAN, and trook, roughly, for those of you who believe that pronunciation is useful if you actually want to make yourself understood.) I was sent some photos, so that helped, although I’m still wondering if you can find that TC harness on Melrose.

Hillbilly Dawg

I’ve always sort of admired those dogs that hang out in the front yard without having to be fenced in or chained up. Just the way they acknowledge you with mild interest as you walk by, then go on with their contemplation of the grass growing or the shadows of the trees moving. They are one with the house and garden; their Buddha nature is touching.

And now I have a dog like that: not a new dog, it’s still Kayla, but she has a new habit of wanting to lie out on the front grass or the porch. Bill likes to call her a hillbilly, I guess because she’s not like them city dawgs that have to be on the leash all the time. I like to leave the front door open for some fresh air, and Kayla is free to wander in and out. The trouble is that flies also tend to wander in, but they don’t wander out so easily. And I’m not sure Cosmo is as proud as I am to own a front-porch kind o’ dawg.

So yesterday Bill and I put up a screen/storm door to keep out the flies and (in a few months) the cold wind. We (mostly Bill) worked all afternoon and the thing actually works! I mean, you never know: old house, a slightly wonky door frame, an imperfect world. But the window slides down smoothly; the hydraulic closer whooshes quietly and keeps the door from slamming, and the latch clicks in with factory precision.

That didn’t change things for the dawg, however. Her circumstances may have gone upscale, but she is true to her nature, loving lots of fresh air, friendly neighbors, and flies. So when you have some time, be sure to come on by to say howdy and sit a spell. Life is good on the porch.