Shar-Pei, Chow needs a home!

This will be part one in the story of Jack. I fear it will be a sad story, but perhaps not....
In a hopeless attempt to convince myself that I am a Good Person, I have in the past taken dogs from the pound and found homes for them. Last Tuesday I got Jack from the pound. In our community you just get hold of the animal control guy and he gives you the dog with no formalities. Jack is a SharPei Chow cross, and he is a great dog. He is more affectionate than my Chow mutt. The two dogs got on OK and even played together for one day then Jack decided it was his mission in life to kill my dog. This was not a wise move on his part. I got Jack fixed and given his shots and sent my dog to stay with friends for a couple of days while Jack recovered. Unhappily for me, during that time I bonded with Jack. I took him to a kennel because my own poor dog was traumatized by all this. I put Jack on the state pet finder site, put him on a local radio station and stuck up flyers at all the vets in town. The only response came from an African gentleman in Connecticut who sent an email to a lot of people besides me saying his daughter needed a dog. Hmm.
I guess everyone wants a little dog here, except the people who think its the height of cool to have a dangerous pit bull on a short chain in their back yard. Jack's a fighting breed, but without the cachet of a pit bull I guess. Not that I want him on a short chain behind a partially collapsed trailer, he's way too good for that.
Today I was on the radio with a bunch of other people talking about the state of the arts in this area. Hearty laugh. Oh well. I bought two paintings yesterday for a buck each. They are what I call Mexican Primitives. Acrylic on board with extra stick-ons. I really like them. I'll put them on my next blog. Is there someone out there who will make a home for Jack and buy my Mexican Primitives for a hundred each??????

Anna Lucasta

Some small treasures are things you see - like this kid on his hi-rise bicycle. Why?? A little bit of show off, a little bit of just for the fun of it. Made me smile anyway!
I have been drowning in movies. First I went to a real movie theatre and saw Memoirs of a Geisha which I liked, but I soon found out that for all sorts of reasons I wasn't supposed to. I don't care about the nationality of the actors or the lawsuits of the writers, I do not care if the movie is inauthentic, all I care about is it held my attention without resorting to Special Effects and Massive Violence. Then I finally got my hands on the 'white' version of Anna Lucasta with Paulette Goddard and John Ireland instead of Eartha Kitt and Sammy Davis Junior. I saw the 'black' version when I was a child in England, and I had often wondered about it. Then I found a book called Best American Plays of 1941. It had an article about Anna Lucasta. It was first written for a Polish American cast, but the writer could not get it produced. Then he found out that there was money available for a play with a black cast, so he did a few modifications and lo and behold it was produced. I think the 'white' version of the movie preceded the 'black' one by a couple of years. You can't beat Eartha Kitt and Sammy Davis Junior for pure charisma, but both movies told the same story about bad girls gone right.... or did they? I'd bet neither Anna would last more than a couple of years on the farm. And then the geisha...... at the end she gets her guy but complains gently that she can never be more than companion, never wife to him. What is she complaining about? She's missing all the boring stuff like money and housework and kids and obligatory sex. She gets the nice bits and gets to wear pretty clothes.
Then I swooped on the dollar video rack at Walmart and came home with a treasure trove. I think Stage Door Canteen has to be a priceless historic document. It was knock down drag out propaganda with tons of celebrities doing their bit for the cause. Katherine Hepburn, Ethel Waters, Ethel Merman, Gypsie Rose Lee, Helen Hayes, the Lunts, Harpo Marx, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and was that Peggy Lee? Xavier Cugat, real Russian Sailors, including a stunning and scary looking woman, fake Chinese airmen, Australian Aborigines, Brits and even a rare black American soldier. It knocked me sideways! I also got Orson Welles, Edward G Robinson and Loretta Young in The Stranger and EGR in Scarlet St on one dvd, Rod Steiger as Al Capone, Liz Taylor, Donna Reed and Van Johnson in The Last Time I Saw Paris, a movie about trying to stop destruction of the redwoods called Big Trees with Kirk Douglas, sharing a DVD with Dear Secretary. I managed to stop snatching at these treasures but not before I grabbed a couple of Roy Rogers movies. Nine movies for six bucks! I haven't made a dent in them yet.

Small Treasures 5

Went scrabble-scrambling in the desert today, investigating caves and rim rocks and getting into rather unwise situations. The moral is that two old ladies and their dogs should stay on the trail. We did have a nice quiet meditation except I kept worrying that the dogs would run off which interrupted my quest for perfect emptiness.
I found this piece of wood that I think was part of a two by four, and this heart shaped piece is where a couple of knots were. When we returned to civilization I tried out my Christmas present air card at a coffee house and it worked! I would have felt really cool and chic except I was powdered with dust. Also J kept singing along to the music they were playing. She has what you might call a strong contralto pretty nice voice. They brought us free dessert. We were talking about raising children and one parent families etc and they played 'Teach Your Children Well' and that really set her off! Beautiful strange clouds in the sky today.

Small Treasures 4

This small treasure is a bag I pulled out of the Orkhun River in Mongolia. It was muddy and smelled a bit fishy, but I washed it as well as I could and dragged it all the way home. It is big and quilted. I turned it inside out because the lining was prettier than the brown outside. I do actually use it. I saw Mongol horsemen with bags like this. I think they keep their lunch inside their coats, so the bag must be for other stuff.
Another good small thing this day is a clear cancer check! That makes thirteen months. On the way back from the Dr I saw Don Quixote riding in the desert. He was riding an apaloosa mule. Was Rosinante a mule? Don was wearing a beat up black cowboy hat and a yellow slicker though I swear it hasn't rained in decades. He was skinny and had a face as beat up as his hat. Probably a car salesman taking a day off.
I'm reading a book about the Glencoe Massacre. Boy am I ashamed of being 7/8 Scottish. What a bunch of ruffians! Does anyone still have the surname of Og? Angus Og. I think I'll take it as my nom de plume.

En Famille

I love my family. But there are so many of them. They are so loud. After two weeks I fled. I drove straight through. The length of I-5 then East on 10 out of the rain and good coffee and Trader Joes to the waste land where liberals hide out in the mountains and good food is McDonalds. But the sky is blue and the sun is gently warm and for now that is enough. I did learn how to have a virtual sword fight with Darth Vader. I also had the brilliant idea of making holders for the scores of new i-Pods that were getting lost all over the place. Then I saw them advertised in the New Yorker. $350. Leather of course. I was thinking quilted silk myself. I drove for 36 hours on coffee and peanut brittle and catnaps once in a while. Probably I am too old but in a way it felt good. Sailors get sea legs. I got road legs. Soon I will re-equilibriate........