Every. Single. Day.

Saturday, mar. 28, 2009   |   0 comments

Sometimes it seems like Daisy wants to go outside.

the pug boat has landed!

Wednesday, mar. 12, 2008   |   0 comments

We've lucked our way into pug Zelda for the week, thanks to friends Amy and Greg being called out of town on SXSW duty. And now our standard early morning walk has become this most unruly circus on earth...

...with Piggy and the Pug lurching and twisting left to right, back to front...

...their leashes tripping and toppling and slicing me into pieces like I'm a giant block of cheese.

Does anyone remember the bulldog in the leather S&M cap and his...donkey?...sidekick, a puppet duo who made their fame doing commercial breaks during early afternoon television in the Bay Area in the 80s?

Anyone? Update: Kind JennieB just sent a memory nudget that the puppets -- a bulldog and HORSE -- were named Charlie and Humphrey, and they were a Channel 54 standby throughout the 60s, 70s, and 80s. See why the Pig and Pug made me think of them?

In the afternoon, the pug o' war begins, and the house is overcome with the rainfall of dog toenails on hardwood (the floor in the kitchen and hallway) alternating with the thunder of small furry bodies making tight turns and rolls on carpet (the floor in the living- and bed-rooms).

Dodge...

...and weave.

Pugs and kisses!

Pork Chops and Applesauce!

When Marco got home yesterday, he took Zelda and Piggy into the backyard; en route, Zelda took a small detour into the dojo martial arts training center next door, surprising a class full of karate kids. Piggy tore in right on Zelda's heels, and -- like a scene straight out of The Pacifier -- the two dogs raced circles around the squealing children as Marco and the Sensei tried to herd them back out onto the sidewalk.

At dinnertime, a small fist of a face hovers on the horizon, carefully watching our every move:

And at night, Zelda is reduced to a puggle of soft ears and chubby uncoiled tail-ness, and the house fills with the gentle sawing of small, smash-face snoring. And Marbles the cat finally emerges from her hiding place in the closet. (Hey, look at our new pillow! A happy spillover from Brian and Sandra's recent move!)

See more pugnaciousness at Marco's Flickr hole.

I could just gobble them up!

Monday, mar. 3, 2008   |   0 comments

I got my very first sighting of the last two remaining wild wild Oakland Rose Garden turkeys around Christmastime. It was twilight, and the garden, already an unexpectedly magical and tidy place, was extra cinematic in the blue light, with its gently babbling waterfall fountain and stark branches holding on to just a few precious last-minute roses. It felt like a very lucky place and time to be, and I think I may have even been whistling when suddenly this gigantic turkey loomed into my path. Its partner trailed a few feet behind, looking as huge and strange and un-city-like as its mate. And bringing up the rear was a clucking good Samaritan, a nice woman who was gently trying to herd the turkeys deeper into the gardens and away from the car-lined street leading up to the park. “Sometimes they get a little lost,” she said to me, and we exchanged giddy smiles over how much sweeter life is when you throw random wild turkey sightings into the mix.

A few weeks ago, I saw them again. I was walking to work when I spotted a bird-like shape up ahead; without my glasses I at first thought it was a pigeon, but as I kept walking and the perspective failed to shift, I realized it was a much larger affair. I stopped and squinted and finally made out the shape of Turkey One, standing on the sidewalk in front of the dry cleaners and looking very lost and uncomfortable. A horn blasted off to the left, and I saw that Turkey Two was actually scuttling around in the middle of busy, four-laned Grand Avenue. Oh! Another pedestrian and I rushed out into the road, which only caused the turkey to flutter deeper into traffic. We froze and exchanged looks of alarm with the drivers of the stopped cars as we all just stood in place and watched as the turkeys darted and lurched and ultimately got themselves back to the sidewalk and pointed in the right direction for home.

And now, suddenly, the turkeys are everywhere. I came downstairs yesterday morning to find one of them standing at the bus stop, like some kind of dazed, impatient commuter – I called Marco and told him to come down with his camera:

And then this morning, the turkeys had managed to work their way into the route the dog and I take for our morning walk. Daisy was thrilled by the appearance, her bloodlust going from zero to kill within .00002 seconds of our spotting them. To avoid disaster, I was forced to curtail our walk by ducking down a shortcut. And as we did so, I busted myself feeling a touch of resentful irritation that the turkeys blew us off course. The magical turkeys, now an almost everyday occurrence, had lost some of the thrill that before would have made me happily divert my day.

But it wouldn't do to start taking those dumb tender turkeys for granted. Just like love! Because if they were ever to come to a sticky end, meet the wrong end of a Nissan Sentra or deep fryer, I really would be so very saddened by the loss. Wild turkeys! In Oakland!

so self-help me, god

Wednesday, feb. 7, 2007   |   0 comments

If ever I publish a series of self-help books (and if you’ve spent much time reading this site, you know that’s exactly where things are headed), this is the photo I’m going to put on the cover:

And here’s what the title will be: If a Dog, a Cat, and the Meanest Turtle That Ever Was can Share a Patch of Sunlight, Why Can’t You [X], Where X=Dress Age-appropriately? Or Learn Where to Stand? Or Dance Like Everybody’s Watching?

the pig and the squirrel

Wednesday, nov. 15, 2006   |   0 comments

I took the Pork Chop for a sad old-lady walk-jog around the lake today, and apart from trying to kill me by repeatedly lurching under my feet (and then glaring at me when I stepped on her toes), she was a very good dog. Until we got to the final stretch, a particularly tree-y section, and Piggy lost her mind. She reared up on her hindquarters and pogo-ed up and down, screaming her other-worldly scream as she boinged and boinged. There was a squirrel, you see. And “squirrel” is the magical key that unlocks this particular dog’s mind and sweeps her off to a planet of complete unhingedness. I tried calling her name, all her names. I tried to make eye contact, tried to pull her back to sanity with a tug on her leash. But it was just, “Piggy’s not here right now. If you’d like to leave a message….”

And…that’s it, the end of the story. The squirrel ran up, up and away, and slowly Piggy’s brain reattached itself to her body, and she fell back into step beside me. And now she’s lying in the crook of my knee, fast asleep, her little toes twitching and her jaws clacking. Get ‘em, Piggy!