Tilly

She was a dork.

Weimaraners are supposed to be cool. Sleek, athletic, fast and smooth. Hunting dogs. Otters with long legs and flappy ears. Tilly was not like most weimaraners. She was a dork. A silly, uncoordinated, unthreatening, over-friendly, decidedly un-sleek ninety-pound chunk of weird-smelling grey fur who once lost a staredown with a groundhog. She couldn’t swim, despite coming pre-packaged with webbed feet.

She was not great at being a weimaraner. But she was the best damn dog.

She had more quirks than a Zoey Deschanel convention. Her tail wasn’t docked properly, so it was a little too long and had weird twists and bends, like an offensive lineman’s fingers. She had some sort of permanent hernia that left a nickel-sized bubble hanging off her pink belly. She was always a little greasy, even right after a bath. She was terrified of little dogs.  

She was expensive.

She had a facelift when she was a puppy. Her face skin had been so loose that it folded in, allowing her short, sharp fur to poke her eyes, leaving a constant trail of crusty tears. On Mother’s Day of 2008, she ate an entire pack of gum with Xlitol, which is supposed to kill dogs pretty effectively. She was fine. The following Mother’s Day, we came home from breakfast to find her rear-end covered in blood, with bloody geysers spurting out every few minutes, like the elevator scene from The Shining only grosser. We rushed her to the dog ER an hour away. She’d eaten some coyote shit and gotten a bacterial infection. She was fine.

Unattended food immediately became attended by Tilly’s belly.

She was stubborn and persistent and fancied herself a lapdog. Which meant that on nights I just wanted to stretch out on the couch and watch TV, I had to deal with an annoying dog staring me down from four inches away. Or deliberately pacing in front of the TV. Or thinking she was a ninja and oh-so-slowly easing herself over the arm of the couch. She always ended up spooning on the couch. Always.

Her breath was terrible on an Old Testament level. It smelled like rusty pennies dipped in blood. ALWAYS.

For some reason, her favorite place to poop is the middle of the goddamn road.

She wore her heart on her ears. Which is to say you always knew when she’d done something wrong. Her “guilty ears” hung low on her head, and they were so cute that they almost distracted you from the unpacked garbage can, the puddle on the floor, or the fact that she was just standing on her hind legs and eating out of the dirty sink.

She would take every single item out of the trash and lick it clean. We'd come home to find a trail of trash-crumbs leading to a low-eared Tilly, cowering in a corner.

She would lean into ear scratches until it hurt your fingers. Moaning in ecstasy the whole time.

I once clocked her at 23 MPH. So I guess she was kind of athletic.

At night, she’d relentlessly pace the house, flap her batwing ears or nose me awake to let her out to pee. I’m convinced she was just bored.

Her goddamn ROO-ROO-ROO bark was terrible and beautiful.

Tilly was the people-dog’s people dog. She loved snuggling, and when we weren’t available, she’d force her older sister, Tulip, to snuggle, usually by sitting in her and falling asleep. She hated being alone, and once when Airika took Tulip to the vet, Tilly broke out of the house and tracked the car down the road. Seth and I caught her just as she was following her nose onto the busy highway.

Tulip died a few years back, and Tilly was never the same. She’d never been alone in her life, and now her constant companion was gone. She got super-weird around other dogs, so getting a replacement pal was out of the question. She’d try to dig her way out of the house when we went to work. We put her in a kennel for her own safety, but she’d bite and bend the bars trying to escape. For months, we had to give her Xanax when we left the house.

Eventually, she calmed down, but she still didn’t like being left alone. She had the run of the house, but she wore holes in the arm of the couch as she stood vigil at the window, waiting for someone, anyone, to come home.

Tilly got old in a hurry after Tulip went away. Her hearing left completely and, while she'd never been svelte, she got fatter and fatter. She slept 23 hours a day. Still, she was happy to snuggle and give gross, full-tongue kisses. We thought she was finally ready for a buddy, so we brought Beans home. He helped a little, and his relentless desire to play was awfully Tilly-like. It certainly perked her up at times, even if her method of “playing” these days was to bark incoherently while Beans chased a tennis ball for an hour.

A few weeks back, her back legs stopped working for a while. She could walk, but she couldn't stand on her own. I had to carry her up and down the steps at night. We thought it was the end, but then, Tilly being Tilly, she recovered. She's like the dog equivalent of the end of Lord of the Rings.

She woke up Friday morning dizzy and unable to walk, drooling terribly. But, stubborn Tilly being stubborn Tilly, she kept trying to get up and pace around. I shudder to think what would have happened to her if Airika wasn’t home to keep Tilly from hurting herself. The vet said that the condition might go away in a few days, but would probably have lingering effects. It wasn't that she'd need constant care. It was that a dog should be able to move around when she wants.

It was time for Tilly to go. Our active, persistent, annoying, needy, stinky, pacy, loving girl needed to go find herself again.  And so she did.

But she’ll never truly be gone. Our dorky German is pacing behind me right now. I can feel the wind from her flapping ears. I can smell wet pennies. 

A great referral

Last night before bed, Airika was helping Gus change into his PJs. As he stood there naked from the

waist down (Donald Ducking, as we say around here), he shouted, “Honey! Where are my pants?”

The line is a direct reference to The Lego Movie, and if you didn't know that, something is wrong with you. Seriously.  Go see The Lego Movie. It’s great. (No, I mean it. Go now. You’re only hurting yourself.)

As Gus morphs from useless lump to useless baby to amusing toddler to little boy, he does a lot of things that make me proud to be a parent. Says his first word. Stands on his own. Recognizes the alphabet. Pees in the potty. These are all great milestones and wonderful memories.

But nothing makes me happier than when Gus uses pop culture references properly. He’ll be four years old in about a month, and he’s dropping references like a pro. I've coached him on many of these, like when he responds to a yes-or-no question with, “That’s a negative Ghostrider.” These instances are amusing for sure, but they don’t bring the pure joy that comes when he drops one all by himself, or recognizes MY reference and jumps in (Me: “That’s a fake laugh!” Gus: “IT’S REAL!” Seriously. Go see Guardians of the Galaxy).

It’s not that I want Gus to take after me in this regard. No, being able to quote Top Gun verbatim or worm Arrested Development quotes into a business meeting isn’t exactly something that gives me a strong pride-boner, especially when my brain can no longer complete simple math problems or remember that ONE thing I went into the kitchen for. (Although, when some rando marketing drone realizes you just quoted The Sandlot and throws you a bro-finger, it is somewhat gratifying.) But when a four-year-old kid does it...that shows a certain level of cognition, right? Independent thinking? The ability to piece together long-term word puzzles?

Maybe I'm just telling myself this to convince myself that it's cool to remember every last detail of the original TMNT movie. Either way, everything is awesome.

Goodbye, Tulip

My best friend is wrapped up in a black plastic tarp, tucked away in a frozen corner of the barn, locked in the kennel where she spent so many afternoons. Hopefully, her lonely, lumpy body will be safe from the dirty goddamn raccoons until I can figure out how to carve out a Tulip-sized hole in the permafrost that is my backyard.

I plan to bury her under the maple tree that I'd love to say she loved, but, truth is, since we moved to this house and finally gave her a doggy dream-yard to snorfle around, she hasn't had much of an appetite for exploration. Tulip was an old dog, and new ground wasn't something she was much interested in breaking. And now here I am, trying to do nothing but break a hole in that very ground for her. Heh.  She’s been gone for three days and I miss her terribly. I honestly don't know how people deal with this shit.

I am 35 years old and I’ve never experienced loss.

Due to either an unprecedented run of stupid-good fortune or a strict policy of keeping my circle of loved ones tight, I've never lost someone I'm even remotely close to. I realize only now how extremely lucky I am in this regard, and I also realize that, brother, there's some angry weather coming. But until that storm of funeral dirges facing every middle-aged cat comes in, all I have is this seeping ditch in my chest where a little brown dog used to live. It stings more than it should.

I’m fine, and then I’m not. I’m happy she didn’t suffer, and then I wonder if she suffered too much. I think she’s in a better place, and then I realize that there was no better place than across the room from her family, battened-down on her own private love seat. She damn well better have people to ignore wherever she is right now.

Tulip wasn’t a cuddly or needy dog. She’d give you 15 seconds of (probably condescending) happy-to-see-you tail thumps, a chaste kiss on the chin, and then she’d carry on not wanting anything to do with your pats, your doggy-talk and certainly not your lap. Any furniture that you weren’t on was perfectly fine with her, thanks. She was kind of like a cat, only more aloof and without all the sarcasm. Her lack of interest in most people was alarmingly like her old man’s. She called me The Boss.

I’ll miss using my ‘Tulip voice’ the most. I think I might just have to retire from making my animals talk to me. It hurts too damn much when there’s no longer a motoring tail to anthropomorphize.  On the other hand, maybe I won’t have so many complete conversations with a damn dog.

She wasn’t a huge fan of Gus and all his babyness, but she tolerated eye-gouges, fur-pulls and surprise elbow drops like an AKC-registered champion Ghandi. Gus won’t remember her, but I like to think she helped shape him, if only a little bit. Don’t give people too much, but give them some. Your Aunt Tulip taught you that, little man.

I feel the worst for poor Tilly. In nine years, she’s never been alone. Now that her best bud is gone, I’m sure it seems to her that all she is is alone. Every time she sniffs at Tulip’s spot on the couch, my heart will break all over again.

Tulip didn’t hunt, she didn’t cuddle and she stopped even considering fetching anything a long time ago. She cultivated a pretty distinct lack of interest in most dog-like activities, actually. And despite all that, because of all that, she was the best dog.  She was the next-better thing to a human, and I’m missing her more than I can ever imagine missing most people. But thanks to her, I at least now have a little experience in missing the ones I love. Hopefully, it’s a skill I’ll never have to use.

I’m grateful that she hung on long enough to give us four months to enjoy our new home by the stream with her. I know she loved it here.  There will always be someone to plant tulips on her grave and her old pal Tilly will join her one day. I only wish our little Tulip would have held on until spring. Some spring a long time from now.

The Memory Remains

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 52
22:25
07/10/10

If it had just been a raccoon or a possum, or a rabbit or even a goddamn badger, I could have reached down with my frog net, scooped it up, chucked its ass into the woods and gone about enjoying the last hours of my holiday weekend.

But no. It was a skunk.

When I found Tulip the Dog growling (thankfully – and maybe, MAYBE, rather intelligently – from afar) at a deep and hidden window well late Monday afternoon, I swept aside the brush to find a skunk nestled against the window of our spare bedroom. He appeared to be wounded and wasn’t moving and for all I knew he could have been trapped in that little area for two weeks and had already gone to stank heaven. Secretly, I hoped this was just a matter of careful exhumation.

And then he twitched. Fuck.

Here’s the thing: I don’t have it in me to let an animal suffer. I could probably smother an old woman with a sack of Quickcrete (if, y’know, she owed me money) before letting something furry linger in pain. So I had two options here: kill the skunk or perform an intricate and possibly disastrous rescue operation. Now, the skunk looked hurt, and I figured that he probably brained himself falling headfirst into the bones of some other animal that had dipshitted its way to a slow, starving death in this window well of doom. So I really did consider just grabbing my .357 and ‘rescuing’ Mr. Skunk into the lands of 72 stanky virgins. But then it occurred to me that while the skunk didn’t seem to smell too bad right now, the impact of a slug from short range might, er, alter that situation a little.

A little bit about this small-animal graveyard. I guess it’s some sort of law here (maybe everywhere?) that basement bedrooms have their own means of egress in case of a fire. Makes sense. So, our two spare bedrooms each have people-sized escape hatches. This particular bedroom’s escape window is a solid four feet off the floor, so you really have to stand on a chair or something to get to it. Once outside the house, you’re standing in a 3X3 vertical tunnel with the ground (and sweet freedom!) right around eye-level, and there isn’t a stepladder or a whole helluva lot of wiggle room. You have to drag yourself up with whatever traction you can find on the corrugated metal that forms the walls of the well. It ain’t easy, even for a full-grown adult with opposable thumbs. In short: A small child sleeping here will likely still burn to death.

Luckily, the only thing that lives in this bedroom is ALL MY SHIT. 30,000+ comic books, toys, big-boy books – essentially all the cool stuff I’ve spent my life accumulating. And now the only thing separating my lifetime supply from small-rodent napalm is a thin pane of cheap glass. No, I couldn’t risk riling up the skunk’s natural musk with bullets. A rescue operation was in order.

But how do you rescue a skunk without becoming skunky yourownself? Of course it was a holiday, so no conservation officer or professional pest remover was even near a phone, let alone returning voicemail. Nope. All up to me. So I made the skunk a ramp. Yeah, due to the tight space, it was a steep ramp. Like 70 degrees at best. But skunks are just giant, stinky ferrets, and I know from experience that ferrets can escape ANYTHING. Like, I’ve watched a ferret climb a bare window and skitter across the ceiling like that chick in the Exorcist III. I MIGHT be misremembering that particular instance, but I know that weasel-based critters are quite adept at getting out of tight spaces. Even ones who seem kinda groggy and maybe a little injured should be able to use a ramp. Right?

Whatever. Dr. Stinkynuts would either liberate himself using the tools provided, or he’d stew there till the morning when I could talk to a professional. He didn’t seem to be bothering anything. I did my part.

Fast-forward three hours. It’s getting a little dark, and starting to rain. Airika, the dogs and I are sitting on the porch, relaxing the weekend away. I’m starting to smell skunk. Like, REALLY smell skunk. Grab the flashlight and go check PePe. Oh, he’s awake and apparently not very injured. He’s bustling to-and-fro, standing on his back legs, clearly agitated about his predicament. But he isn’t using his ramp. Of course he isn’t.

He’s not spraying, but the whole area – porch, yard, fucking basement – is getting awfully skunky, and we have to get this little prick out of there NOW. Quick Googling: Skunks aren’t climbers. And they really won’t climb something smooth, like a finished board. However, skunks are kinda blind (stupid) and they apparently fall into window wells all the time, so there’s a tried-and-true method of extraction. Throw some stinky cheese into a kitchen-style trashcan, tie two ropes around the can, lower the can on its side into the infected area, wait for skunk to fetch cheese, spring your trap and elevator-the little bastard to safety. And run like hell.

So we do as Mighty Google commands. And of course the skunk won’t go NEAR the can or the cheese, which is somewhat of an impossible feet considering the space constraints. By this point, the mosquitoes are blanketing the area, which means the bats are out in force, which means at any given time either one of us could take a bat to the face, make a false move and trigger the increasingly active skunk’s cocked-and-rocked asshole, get bled to death by the rampaging horde of vampire insects, slip on the wet grass or just break down with despair.

After seeing that the skunk is clearly mobile and able, I get the bright idea to staple chickenwire to the ramp, and slap some skunk-friendly vittles to the top. Make it as easy as possible for this him to waddle out on his own. It’s all I got left. By this time, the smell is so bad you can chew it. It’s recalling being at the comic shop on a hot Saturday afternoon. Horrid.

Of course I can’t find my chickenwire. I rifle through the entire garage three times and then I remember that I tucked it away in our shed, which is WAY across the dark backyard, which is teeming with bats. Our backyard at dusk is like that bridge in Austin. Horrid. So I put my hands on my head and stumble-run through the rain to the shed. Only got buzzed twice, and I got the wire, which I find stapled to a bunch of fence posts. Nothing is ever easy.

Of course I’m out of staples. Nothing! Ever! Easy! So now I have to NAIL the goddamn wire to the wood, and I have to have it pretty flat to the surface or the skunk won’t even try to climb it. If you’ve ever tried to nail old, bent chicken wire tight to anything under the BEST of circumstances and kept your sanity, you deserve a fucking Nobel prize. Doing it in the rain, in horrible light while wearing a mosquito jacket and dodging flying rats nearly broke me.

The whole time I’m hitting my own thumbs with the hammer, Airika is trying to coax the skunk into the can. And failing. And absorbing a certain aroma. Heh.

Anyway. I finally finish the new tractiony ramp and lower it into the hole. We stick some cheese and pepperoni on the end. It’s all we can do. We get back inside, and when I take off my skunk-saturated clothes, Airika gasps. I’d been bitten by so many mosquitoes that my entire back, from ankles to neck, looks like Kevin Spacey in Outbreak.

The entire house, inside and out, reeks of skunk. You know how when you drive past a dead one, you can sometimes still smell it on your car when you park? Imagine having one alive and fresh stuck to the side of your house. I’m writing this a week later, and I STILL smell skunk. And Airika’s hair? Still a little skunky. But don’t tell her I said so.

Really long story short: The skunk was gone in the morning. But the memory remains. Oh, Jesus, does it remain.

A misanthrope's guide to summer fashion

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 51
17:50
06/04/10



Guys. Guys. I’m just going to be blunt: Your outfit is ridiculous.

Look. I live in Minnesota, where the truly nice weather shows up late and checks out early. In fact, I had to warm my car up at least one morning this week. And it’s goddamn JUNE. So I don’t think it’s really out of line for me to say that I understand the need to worship the sun better than most.

But I also understand that I don’t have to look like a jorts-wearing douchebucket to do it. Seriously. I get that right about now, that sun is enticing you to start showing off the goods. I get it. I do. After all, I have calves that BEG to be displayed. Seriously. You see these things and you want to lick mayonnaise off them. But do I rub them in YOUR faces? That’s a negative, Ghostrider. So here’s the thing: If I can button my shit up for these scant weeks of summer, even though I clearly need all the vitamin D I can suck up, I think the rest of you fellas can manage to not dress like an eight-year-old at a pajama party.

I mean, really. Does losing the bottom 18-inches of your pants REALLY cool you on some monumental level? Does exposing those pockmarked shins all day save you from that dreaded heat stroke you’ll surely snag while loping around the mall, ogling the goth girls slouching in and out of Hot Topic? Shorts should be worn in exactly two environments: the beach and the athletic arena. As such, there is ZERO need for fucking DRESS SHORTS. Hey, buttpipe. You want to be ‘dressy’? Extend those khaki legs all the way down to the ground. If I can see your gross goddamn spidery leg hair, you ain’t dressy. And tucking your shirt into the shorts? Ain’t helpin’ bub. Turns the pot into a cauldron, if you know what I mean. Eff-why-eye.

And sandals. Oh, I wasn’t aware that the tops of the feet were such hotspots for sweltering air-current activity. I mean, simply by exposing those hobbity bastards to room temps you lower the old body temp by 12 degrees, right? Whatever, asshole. I don’t want to sniff your fuzzy toe knuckles any more than I want to see the bootleg Calvin & Hobbes tattoo on your ankle. Sandals are to be worn in two venues only: the beach and the gay bath house. Because you don’t want to get ringworm while you're juggling some grizzly bear’s lap potatoes. What I don’t need is a waft from your hobbity hoofparts assaulting my face while I’m trying to enjoy my goddamn Sbarro. Cover them yellow nails, kid.

Boys, I’m certainly no fashion expert. My standard uniform is work boots, jeans and either a nice button-down or a t-shirt sporting a smarmy catchphrase. It’s simple and easy because I’m too lazy to put a whole helluva lot of thought into it and still want to hit the food court without looking like I just got done mowing the lawn. Sometimes I’m underdressed, sometimes I’m overdressed. And somehow I manage to look halfway respectable and make it all the way through summer without pulling a Korey Stringer. THIS CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED IN LONG PANTS. (And if you’re going to go through the effort of wearing a button-down shirt, for the love of Jeebus, wear long sleeves. Unless you’re actively trying to look like the Geek Squad.)

We all want to be comfortable. But can’t we do it without looking like roadies for a fucking Grateful Dead tribute band?

*Two notes, here. Around your own house? Shit be OFF. Anything goes. Comfort is king. Balls need to be easily accessible at all times. This is understood. And ladies? The only rule: show off them shoulder blades. Golly, I love me some shoulder blade.

Greener pastures or bluer shores?

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 50
16:47
05/17/10

*Author’s note: I wrote this like three weeks ago. Pure laziness is the reason it hasn’t been posted. Deal wit’ it. *

Let me preface this by saying that I LOVE my current habitat. My setup in Minnesota is the ideal place to live, die, run dogs, raise kids, etc. It’s not a home, it’s an environment. If I kicked it tomorrow, you could chuck me to the coyotes and turkey vultures and I wouldn’t have anything to complain about.

But…


When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was live in a big city. Move to NYC, get a sweet studio loft and basically become Kevin Bacon in Quicksilver. Seemed like a sweet way to live.

Over the years, I’ve outgrown that idea. As my antisocial tendencies grow, my need for elbow room and seclusion grows, and the thought of spending every instant amongst the people and pother and pigeon shit doesn’t seem like such a hot idea. But then I spend time in a place like San Diego where you can just amble to any of a million places to eat, drink and be entertained, and for the first time in years I question my decision to set up shop 60 minutes from the nearest book with a price tag.


As I write this, I’m leaning against a tree on the edge of San Diego Bay with the bulk of my week’s stay in the rear-view, and my old desire to try the city on for size is forcefully announcing its long-forgotten presence. After six days of bumping around the coolest place I’ve been in a long while, I can’t help but plot ways to spend more time here. From where I’m leaning, I see seven dogs, three aircraft carriers, two bigass pelicans and about 50 sailboats, and it’s all framed by azure water and a heartbreaking skyline that hides more treasures than you can ever know as an outsider. All those childhood wants are once again tap-tap-tapping my pleasure centers.

Obviously, a week with no responsibilities makes every place taste a little sweeter. I’m well aware that vacation life and real life are two separate beasts. Once you factor in a job and grocery shopping and an annoying upstairs neighbor, the dream fades and you realize you’ve left your wife for a high-priced whore. I know that I live where I belong, and the enticing mistress that is downtime in the sun ain’t THAT alluring.


Still. The breeze is warm and carries the smell of fresh seafood and the sounds of the city –of culture, happening RIGHT NOW – and all I can think about is how I’d like to live here, if only for a little while.

*I took as ASSLOAD (technical term) of pics whilst drifting around San Diego. Seals, dogs, Padres and a POSSIBLY tipsy Airika. They're all here, if you're interested:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vangoat/

Gifts and skinning tools readily available.

Hey, if you're in the market for either A) cool gifts or B) weapons with which to sacrifice a struggling animal to your Pagan deity, check out my sister's site. All this stuff is handmade and very cool. You know you want a sword. You KNOW it.

http://www.themetalcraft.com/