Saving Curtis

This story has a happy ending. It just takes a little while to get there.

Last Monday, I made a borderline evil decision. It was born out of frustration, fear and exhaustion, but it was also somewhat necessary and not made lightly. I ran my options by a number of people and most concluded that this was the best possible choice.

But the fact remains. Last Monday, I sentenced my dog to die. 

I'm not looking for absolution here. That decision will haunt me forever, and I deserve to have it haunt me forever. But in the moment, there were sound reasons. Today, that moment makes me want to puke.

Curtis has never been an easy pet. He is a coon hound, after all. And on top of his stubborn, persistent, hound dog tendencies, he has had major allergy issues most of his life. Despite near constant treatment, I don't think he has every been fully comfortable in his own skin. Literally.

He is trained. He knows commands, and once upon a time, he listened to them. But sometime when he was around two years old,  he remembered that he was a hound dog and pretty much decided to do what he wanted, when he wanted. He starting running away the second he was off a leash. He started stealing any morsel of food that fell within his expansive reach. It was like his life's mission was to do things he wasn't supposed to do.

But, he's mostly a big lovable goofball, so we managed. He loves the kids, and they love him. So even when he started getting aggressive at unpredictable times, we managed.

And then last Saturday, he bit Patterson in the face. I do not blame Curtis for this incident. Curtis was sleeping on a bench, and he was a little under the weather. Patterson hit him with a book and Curtis, startled, woke and lashed out in the only way a dog can lash out. Patterson is three years old and Curtis weighs 80-something pounds, and they were pretty much face-to-face when it happened. Patterson is perfectly fine, but it was a terrifying few minutes. I heard the bark, ran downstairs to find Airika cradling a screaming Patterson. She had blood on her face, and he had a LOT of blood on his face. I like to think that Curtis, mid-bite, realized who it was and pulled his punch. He really could have killed the boy if he wanted to. Patterson had teethmarks on his EYELID.

I truly believe that any dog will bite in the wrong circumstances, and that an incident like this is not necessarily (if ever) a sign that a dog is a bad dog. I just think that sometimes, dogs bite. End of story.

This is where I disclose that Patterson is the fifth person Curtis has bitten, and that this is not the scariest incident.

I realize how fucking dumb I sound typing out that we have a family dog who has badly bit multiple people. Well, I realize this NOW.

Like I said earlier, Curtis is a good pet. Yes, he is always up to something and yes, we are ALWAYS telling him to stop doing something. But he loves the kids. He loves people. Gus wrestles with him on a nightly basis, and even though Curtis is a “biter,” I do not fear him being around the boys. He is surprisingly gentle with Patterson, and always has been. He bodies Gus like a best friend should. When he is conscious of his surroundings, there is no problem.

But a couple of years ago, he had gotten the lid off of the trash and was happily going to town. I walked up behind him and barked “What are you doing!” and he whipped around and came at me like that video of the cougar chasing that hiker. He didn't bite me, but he would have. It was a 5-second incident, but it was fucking terrifying. He's a big boy!

At the time, I chalked it up to me kind of intentionally scaring the shit out of him, combined with Curtis being aware that he was doing something wrong. Just a bad mix of things, and it wouldn't be repeated.

But then one day he was barking at the FedEx guy so intensely that I feared he'd break the window, so I grabbed his collar. And he whipped around and came at me again, teeth first. This time, he backed me up against a wall and got my forearm in his mouth. Not a good time! I got a little shredded, but no stitches or doctor's visit. And the second he realized who he was attacking, he backed off and seemed deeply remorseful. I am told that dogs don't feel remorse, but I'm not sure I believe it.

It was right about here when I started thinking we should find a new home for him. We had a 1-year-old and Gus was still barely out of toddling. But, he's Curtis! He would never hurt anyone intentionally.

Then he got Airika in a similar incident. Nipped her in the belly. It was time for him to go. But finding a home for a stubborn coonhound with a biting problem, let alone a running-away problem and a severe skin allergy, wasn't going to be easy. And, he's Gus's dog. How do you take your kid's dog away from him? I casually looked for options, and let it slide away when nothing popped.

He was trying to eat something out of the sink. Gus came galloping into the kitchen to get some milk. Curtis attacked him. Another belly bite. I am so goddamn stupid for not getting rid of him here.

Airika's dad caught him with his head in the dog food container. Curtis bit him in the hand. This was probably the worst incident and could have been a trip to the ER. That was a few months ago. But still. He looks at you with those big brown eyes and knocks something over with his flapping tail, and it all eases away.

And finally, Patterson last week. It took five bites and a handful of other warning signs for me to do what needed to be done. Curtis could no longer be in this house.

But like I said a little while ago, finding a new home for a dog like Curtis is almost impossible. I spent all last weekend working the phones, calling shelters. Most wouldn't even consider taking a biting dog. It’s not a cool thing to be told by the fucking HUMANE SOCIETY that euthanasia is the best option. But I kept trying.

But even if I could get him into a shelter, how long would an expensive dog with a biting history sit there in that cold, lonely kennel? Forever, if I somehow placed him in a no-kill? But my issues were deeper than that. What if he got adopted? Or if I found a perfect no-kids, fenced-yard situation, got him placed...and then he bit someone badly anyway? Could I live with that? More importantly, WOULD he?

I've been telling myself that Curtis's behaviors are manageable, that if it was just adults in the house, we could manage to avoid these “hot zones” and keep him and everyone else safe. I wanted to believe it, because except for this handful of incidents, he is not a mean dog. He is not a biter. He just happens to bite sometimes. But I guess no dog is a biter except when he's biting. And walking on eggshells around a big dog is not fun for anyone. Factor in little kids, and you really don't realize that you're always afraid until the scary thing happens.

Anyway. I did not want to put another person in the situation that we were in. More important, I did not want to put Curtis somewhere where someone might not treat him as well as we have after these incidents. I don't want someone to drag him out and shoot him because he reacted poorly to being startled. Of course, I also didn't want some kid somewhere getting hurt because I couldn't do what needed to be done.

So after a long, sobbing call with our amazingly patient veterinarian, I made the decision to have Curtis euthanized. At least he would go out with me hugging his big, silly, stinky hound dog ass. I am sickened to report that at the time I made the appointment, a palatable sense of relief washed over me. The indecision was over. The fear of a Bad Incident was over. And part of me really thought that Curtis would finally be relieved of being itchy his entire damn life.

But just a couple hours later, I realized I couldn't do it. This dog does not deserve to die because I couldn't manage him. Because I didn't know what I was getting into four years ago when I brought a goddamn coonhound into our lives, he had to die?

Even though I was now near-constantly throwing up over the decision, I didn't cancel the appointment. I just didn't have any better options. But after I told this rotten story to a friend, she sent me a link to Home For Life, an animal sanctuary on the Wisconsin side of Stillwater. It...looks like heaven for a dog like Curtis. Fenced-pastures to run and play. A full-time staff, including an on-site vet and groomer who could manage his allergies better than we ever could. Couches to sleep on. And no kennels at all!

I spent a few days begging the director to take him, even though I think they are at full capacity. Home For Life isn't a rescue shelter; they don't adopt these animals out. This is a permanent home for animals with nowhere else to go. The director seems to realize the potential in Curtis, and agreed to take him on. I truly, deep in the bowels of my heart, feel like this is the best possible place for him. Home For Life is nestled in a wooded, hilly nook in the Wisconsin countryside, and it looks like a nice place for him to live out his days. He will be happier here than he ever was with us.

Gus and I dropped Curtis off a few hours ago. Even though we can visit him whenever we want (after a settling-in period), walking away from that dog crushed my heart in ways I don't fully comprehend yet. Gus’s howling wail as we pulled away squeezed  out any remaining pulp left in the pump. Even knowing it was absolutely the right thing to do, I'll always feel like we gave up on him.

But seeing 30 other dogs happily and freely run down that hill toward us as we pulled up made me picture Curtis doing the same thing, something that he has never done in his life. Be free. So maybe we should have “given up” a long time ago.

Goodbye, Curtis. You were a pain in my ass from day one. I would have lived with that pain forever if I could have.

One of my earliest memories is of blood and teeth spattering on the hood of a brand new white Chevette. I was seven or eight years old, and my dad had just punched a guy's face in at 2am under the florescent glow of an Elm Road gas station. 

This was back in'84 or '85. At that time, the Warren Tribune Chronicle was a daytime newspaper during the week, but converted to early morning delivery on the weekends. So, after working all day on Friday driving hundreds of miles each to deliver close to a thousand copies of the day's news, Mom and Dad would catch a few hours of sleep, then load us three kids (sorry, Lizzy, not yet a glimmer), bedheaded and grumpy-eyed, into the hatchbacks of whatever rust-buckets we were currently holding together with duct tape and twine, and we'd head to the dock in Warren to pick up the night's bundles.

On the way, we'd usually stop at this all-night convenience store/gas station (I think it was called Valley View?) on Elm Road for gas and coffee. And if I was lucky, Dad would lurch pack into the car with a Snickers bar or a pair of Reese's Cups for me.

This night, I was half-asleep in the front passenger seat of the only new car we ever owned, a sparkling white Chevy Chevette. Why Mom and Dad decided to buy a brand new one instead of another of the $400 bungee-cord warriors that usually dotted our driveway, I cannot fathom. But this one was shiny and chrome, and I was curled up and dozing in the little bucket seat. At least until this weird bearded guy woke me up by slapping the bumper with both hands while spitting his ruined teeth and blood all over the hood and windshield.

I don't remember being scared, though I'm sure I was terrified. What I DO remember is my dad pounding through the glass doors of the Valley View gas station like the god damned Terminator, coming to finish whatever job he'd started inside the store. The guy, some creepy biker, had said something shitty to Mom, and Dad caved in his face in front of the coffee station.

But that's not the story.

See, when Dad T-800ed into the parking lot to end this now-toothless asshole who'd threatened his wife and was now gobbing useless porcelain on the new car where his three kids snoozed, he found himself surrounded. Mom rushed out on his heels to maybe talk some sense into him -because maybe killing a man with your gnarled-but-quick fists in a public place that probably had security cameras was a bad idea, especially when you'd recently been wrongfully sued for breaking a different guy's jaw while he was trying to bust into the place where you were working as a security guard- and they found themselves surrounded by five or six of Toothless's biker pals.

But that's not the story. This is the story.

So, my dad spins this bleeding deviant around by the shoulder, setting to Tyson his ass into hell and he finds himself side-by-side with Mom, their backs to the Chevette, a by-God actual motorcycle gang with revenge in their eyes now in front of them. By this time, I'm in the driver's seat, my face pressed up against the glass. My little brother and sister are stirring in the way back.

This was not going to go well, and Dad knew it. And even though the window was closed, I swear to this very second that I could hear him sigh as he pushed my mom behind him and raised his fists. He might go down -probably WOULD go down- hard, but he wouldn't be the only one.

It's what he did. It's what he always did. Protected who he had to protect, did what he had to do, no matter the inevitably shitty outcome.

Anyway, just as he was getting ready to go down swinging, a cop rolled into the parking lot. The bikers dispersed, and we went to deliver the Saturday morning news. No further violence that night ensued. But I remember looking at the congealed blood splatters on the hood of that Chevette the next morning for a very long time.

There's some sort of moral there, but I'm not unpacking it now.

He was a crazy person, my old man. Fierce and crazy. And I like to think that all four of us kids absorbed all the right parts of that crazy fierceness.

Later, old man.

The first spring after Airika and I bought our house, I built a chicken coop. This isn’t a huge deal; people build things all the time. But this beast was outside of my comfort zone by about 12 of the country miles we now owned. Miles that we bought almost entirely because of how I was raised.

Because of my dad, who never met a neighbor he liked. 

I’d ordered a kit. This had to be a large, secure structure. It had to keep 25 really dumb birds safe in the summers and warm in the soulless Minnesota winters. I’d built plenty of things before and fixed plenty of others, but I’d never tackled anything with this scale; nothing with structure.  So I ordered a 12x12 shed kit that I’d adapt for the needs of Our Filthiest Bird™. A kit would give me plans, cut and marked pieces, maybe even some pre-assembled bits. Things that were vital for my success.

What I needed was a kit. What I got (three weeks late, I might add) was a bigass pile of 4x8 plywood, a bunch of 2x4s, and some shingles. No plans. No pre-cuts. No markings of any sort. You might as well have dumped me in the Amazon rainforest with a handsaw and said, “Survive.”

Apoplectic, I nearly called the company to come get this pile of raw materials and give me my money back. I was simply not equipped mentally, mechanically or emotionally to spin a plank pile into any sort of dwelling. Two things kept me from making the call. 1) We had a lamp-heated cardboard box filled with 25 chicks who would soon need a proper home; and 2) my dad.

Dad’s shadow -like all dads’ shadows, I imagine- greys the natural light over everything I do. When I buy a piece of clothing, a tiny part of my brain rises up and asks “Would you wear that in front of Dad?” This is why my white-collar, professional self still almost exclusively wears jeans, workboots and flannel. People say I dress like a hipster, but I assure you that this is laughably and diametrically wrong. I’m a grown-ass man who still dresses like his daddy.  Which is why my nipples have never grazed the inside of a polo shirt.

That shadow colors everything in my life, for better and worse. Even when I’ve made peace with the fact that sometimes, Dad’s way isn’t the only way, I still feel a tug, an unseen finger that I’m caving and doing it the easy way. Tires, for instance. Every time I drop a couple hundred bucks on new tires (always the cheapest I can get), I feel stupid. There are perfectly good tires sitting in every junkyard in America, and I could have them for almost free if I just wanted to go pull them off a junker and re-mount them myself. I’ve been paying cash-money for new tires for 20+ years, and it still always feels like the coward’s way out. The lazy man’s way. Literally the last two words you’d use to describe my old man would be “cowardly” and “lazy.”

Back to the coop. Phone in hand, I stared at this pile of gibberish, preparing to abandon the whole project. Maybe the chickens could live in the basement? But then I felt that tug. That subliminal disapproval from 800 miles and 25 years away. “Disapproval” isn’t exactly the right word. I don’t think Dad was truly ever anything but proud of all his kids. So he wouldn’t disapprove of my cowardly choice, exactly. But he would ask the question, as matter-of-factly as you’ve ever heard: “Why don’t you just do it?” As if learning the basic tenets of housing structure was something you could just DO.

But it WAS something you could do. If growing up with our lunatic father taught us anything, it’s that everything is, quite literally, possible if you have a book and some gumption. When I was 8, our house had some major electricity problems. Hire a pro? CACKLE. No. Dad got a book from the library and he rewired the entire house with a toddling assistant. Not long after that, he decided to turn our giant cinderblock garage-type structure into a workshop. So we wired THAT for largescale power tools, built 17 giant worktables, insulated it with that satanic pink fiberglass in the heart of August, installed a furnace. Skills he didn’t have when he started. Etc and etc., forever and ever.

So I’m there staring despondently at this 6-foot pile of sticks and thinking about my dad. At the time, he was still somewhat active, despite being pretty much crippled by arthritis. He’d relatively recently decided that he needed to make his own metals. I’m not sure the exact impetus for this decision; the cost of lead, the scarcity of pewter at the time, boredom, whatever. He had his fingers in a lot of projects, but he had a milling machine and time on his hands, so WHY NOT learn metallurgy? WHY NOT build yourself a smelting pot, scour junkyards for wheel weights and other scrap metals, melt them down to their component parts, then use the relevant compounds in exact ratios to create, like, a harder version of pewter (because it has more antimony in it or something)? This was Dad in a nut(ty)shell: Fuck it, why not?

I mean, the dude once built a radio-controlled shark fin only to convince a 5-year-old that there was a monster in the pond out back. He once planned to build a jet engine that he would mount on a go-cart frame (he didn’t do that one for some reason, but he did learn how). He built multiple upside down bikes (google it). He adopted a baby raccoon AND a baby possum. He watched every program about bears that were ever programmed. He taught himself oil painting, and was pretty goddamn good at it. For reasons that will forever remain a mystery, he thought that shooting handguns with his natural left hand wasn’t useful enough, so he sort of taught himself to be ambidextrous. Why? Why not?

If you have the tools, why not do it?

Well, I had a saw. I had a nailgun. I had YouTube (something Dad didn’t have until it was too late to really use it). Why not just build this fucker?  Dad would.

“Dad would.” I moved out of the house when I was 18. I have lived at least 75 miles away from him for my entire adult life, and 750 miles away for the last decade. We’ve been in the same room together MAYBE 10 times since 2008, and every one of those times he was more withered than the last. More stooped. Lesser. But the shadow never faded.

The last time I saw him, just days before he died, he was barely there but he still seemed like he was up to something. Plotting his next project.  Tired and barely hanging on, his shadow remained as thick and tenacious as ever. And not just to mom and us kids.  When people found out he was sick –people who have never met him, mind you- they spoke of his legend. This happens somewhat regularly anyway, but more so of late. “Hey, isn’t your dad the dude who punched out that biker for saying something rude to your mom at 2am in an Elm Road parking lot?” they’ll ask. “Was it your dad who made those wooden monster feet so he could leave tracks all over the place and scare the neighborhood kids?” “Was he the guy who taught all his kids and grandkids to dive for cover if an empty beer can rolled into their midst JUST IN CASE IT WAS A GRENADE?”

Yeah, we had grenade protocols. We STILL have grenade protocols.

He’s gone now, but his legend lives on. His shadow is more like a golden hue, coloring the lives of a lot of people. It will always color mine.

Build the fucking chicken coop. Dad would.

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/

Check your balls at the door

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 49
19:30
01/25/10

As punishment for dragging Airika to an afternoon of soggy pond hockey, she drug me to an orchid show! Huzzah!

Some observations about orchids and their 'people':

- Many of these crackers smell like they've been playing in the dirt just a little too long. Of course, that may be just the actual flowers. Some do, in fact, smell like rancid horse piss. AND THIS IS A SELLING POINT.
- Orchid salesfolk seem like they had to make a decision early in their lives: Cats or flowers. I see some of these old broads sitting around the house, watching Idol in the tropical climate that is their apartment, spritzing the overheated air with chemical water, or flat Faygo, or old Sanka, or whatever it is that these plants eat, while muttering about the color of Ellen's new teeth-caps, waiting for a response from Maya the Guatemalan suneater...AND GETTING ONE.
-Some of these goddamn plants look...ominous. I'm not saying they're meat eaters, but I'd like to see how many stray rodents are hanging around the typical orchid farm. Methinks there's at least one Little Shop of Horrors lurking out there.

Luckily, orchids make for some nice photographin'. There are a ton more vaguely dirty flowers on my Flickr page.

Assimilation

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 48
17:24
01/24/10

Becoming a true Minnesotan involves more than just moving north and bitching about the cost of propane. There are certain things you have to do to actually be from here.

-Buy a 4WD vehicle.
-Prepare a winter emergency kit for said 4WD vehicle.
-Eat and enjoy fried cheese curds.
-Use the phrase ‘Holy buckets!’ in casual conversation.
-Catch a show at First Avenue. The band doesn’t HAVE to be originally from Minny, but it certainly helps.
-Participate during the winter in what sane people from other lands consider summer activities. You know. Fishing. Hiking. Going outside.
-Wear a hat with ear flaps.
-Make a declaration with an upward lilt, so it sounds like you’re actually asking a question.
-Hockey.

In our year and a half in Damn Near Canada, I’ve managed to knock out most of the list whether I’ve wanted to or not. This weekend, I checked hockey off the list. The U.S Pond Hockey Championships take place in the Twin Cities every year. They pick one of the bigass lakes, rope off a bunch of rinks, and let 150+ teams play 4-on-4. The Gus Macker meets Mystery, Alaska. It’s kind of a big deal.

Minnesota in January is the perfect place for pond hockey. Unless Mother Nature decides to dump a week’s worth of Ohio weather on you. Seriously. We had 5 days of 40+ degree weather leading up to the tournament. And then it poured all weekend. Being out on a frozen death trap is unnerving enough when it’s 15 below zero. When it’s melting before your eyes, covered in 2 inches of standing water and you’re sharing it with a 500 yoked-up hockey yahoos and 1000 spectators? FROZEN HELL.

Still. Broke the hockey cherry and did not drown or freeze to death. I’ll consider that a success.


Want to see a near-panic attack? Airika is not a fan of the ice.


The 'warming tent' was...moist.


Players on some of the rinks had to wade through 2 inches of standing water and slush. Not the best or fastest hockey.

Soon I'll be watching Two and a Half Men

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 47
0722
01/08/10

Sigh. I used to be such a fast reader. Once upon a time, I averaged a book+ a week, but now I'm lucky to finish one in a month. In the three years I've been tracking what I read every year (yeah...does anyone else do this? Please tell me someone else does this.), my annual number has decreased every year. 42, 33, 28 1/2.

I'd like to blame the steady decline on the fact that I had much more free time back in the day, but, jaysus, I used to go to school full-time, work full-time and drive an hour both ways to work, and I still managed to knock out at LEAST five books a month. I'd like to blame it on the fact that I'm reading more 'substance' these days, learning more and taking time to reflect on what I've learned. But shit like Men With Balls and all the random sci-fi on this list blow that argument out of the water. I'd like to blame it on the fact that I live in a natural wonderland and I spend all my time Enjoying Nature and Being Active. Yeah. That's the ticket.

I'd like to blame it on a lot positive, progressive reasons. The real answer? Comic books. I hammered back damn near 100 graphic novels this year, in an attempt to catch up on everything I missed last year. Hey, words is words, right? Right?

It's either comic books, or I'm just getting dumber. Valid arguments could be made in either direction. Anyway, here's the list of book-type-books I bagged in 2009. BECAUSE I KNOW YOU GIVE A SHIT.

A Year in the Main Woods, Bernd Henrich
Beat the Reaper, Josh Bazell
Dear American Airlines, Jonathan Miles
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
How I Became a Famous Novelist, Steve Hely
In the Lake of the Woods, Tim O'Brien
Men With Balls, Drew Magary
Minions of the Moon, Richard Bowes
Mr. Clarinet, Nick Stone
Old Man's War, John Scalzi
Population: 485, Mike Perry
Prince of Thieves, Chuck Hogan
Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk
The Book of Basketball, Bill Simmons
The Book of Joe, Jonathan Tropper
The Digital Photography Book 1, Scott Kelby
The Digital Photography Book 2, Scott Kelby
The Longest Winter, Alex Kershaw
The Lost City of Z, David Grann
Understanding Exposure, Bryan Peterson
Walking Dead, Greg Rucka
Wastelands, Anthology
White Jazz (reread), James Ellroy
Whitetails, Erwin Bauer
Winterbirth, Brian Ruckley

Partial reads
Black Echo, Michael Connelly
Drama City, George Pelecanos
Dune, Frank Herbert

Warm holiday greeting

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 46
12/31/09

I hate New Year’s. Just hate it. This crap-ass holiday depresses me more than reading The Road while watching Mystic River. After two weeks of festive good cheer, parties and presents, fireplaces and holly, you wake up January 2 and Everything. Just. Sucks.

All those Christmas decorations – glimmering symbols of fun and warmth just a week ago – now serve as reminders that you have to get back to work. Get your ass up that ladder and pull those lights down, bitch. You spend two hours sweeping up the evergreen splinters that your Christmas tree – now nothing more than a dead and brittle fire hazard – so kindly deposited all over your house when you finally evicted its rotting corpse, but your feet will still resemble that dude from Hellraiser until March. You suddenly go from having worked maybe 2 full weeks in the last 6, and now you don’t get a day off until what? Good Friday? New Year’s Day is nothing but the first of 365 Monday mornings.

And you kid yourself with these ‘resolutions.’ Let me enlighten you here: If you really need some contrived reason to do something, it ain’t gonna happen. You either want to do it or you need to do it. Making a promise to yourself just because the picture on your calendar changed isn’t the best motivation in the world. I’m the perfect example here. A few years ago, I started wearing a flab suit made of neoprene for the express purposes of hiding all my fabulous muscle definition. I really need to take it off. Problem is, I can only do that by moving my legs at a ridiculous speed for minutes at a time. Jogging. I hate jogging. HatehateHATE. Yet I live in a place seemingly custom-made for jogging. And if I haven’t been able to get off my ass and do it in the spring, summer and fall, in the middle of this land of parks and scenery, I sure as shittin’ won’t start doing it because I made a promise in the dead of winter to a baby in a golden sash. Or Dick Clark. Who do you make resolution pacts with?

Here’s an idea. Maybe we need some incentive to keep these resolutions. Say you break one. What if Dick Clark showed up in the middle of the night and showered you with stroke drool? Good god, I want to go for a subzero run just thinking about that scenario. But if the only motivation is a promise made to yourself while slurping down sauerkraut and watching Ryan ‘I am a pimp’ Seacrest, guess what? You will stay fat. You will remain at your desk. You will keep smoking. You will continue killing hobos and wearing their flesh. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with these things. I’m just saying we should all stop kidding ourselves.

Anyway. I love the holidays. Had a very nice month sequestered here in Minny. Saw some good people, got some great gifts and gave some better ones. But the holidays are over. We can hope that 2010 sucks less than 2009. But we can’t count on it. Happy New Year. Back to work.