85% cocoa and Caramel

There was a tiny bit of chocolate in a baggie in the freezer. It probably fell out when they had to remove the doors to move the fridge. It's so bitter that few humans like it, but Carmelita loved it. It is her custom to take her treats and rawhides and eat them on the couch, she did likewise with the chocolate, which she lay on and therefore had a chest full of melted choco and not a bit of a guilty face.We were worried about a possible toxic reaction but apparently she has the constitution of a goat. Yesterday she stole my lunch, spicy hummus on crackers; this AM she stole my cheeseandbread twice! And we were worried that she was too skinny. Poor baby is used to living out of garbage cans and stealing food.
Today is another gorgeous day and taking Coral's advice, I'm running away but only as far as the dentist.(Hooray, I get the car!) I'm lucky in that despite the inherent horror, the office is a warm nurturing family affair and I really love the people there.
Jerry the contractor brought me some yellow Asiatic lillies and some day lillies too, from his garden for me to plant in mine, which I can't get to easily anymore, but it was sweet of him. Jerry is Italian, Martin is Guatemalan, Roberto is Colombian, the new electrician is Romanian, the old one is Haitian and they all speak their native tongues. I have a great op to use my crappy language skills. Evidently, going to Israel and trying to learn Hebrew drove all the Spanish out of my head. Que lastima! I gotta get some fun out of all this. This is all making us crazy, I lay in bed at night with dimensions running in a loop in my head (and a color chart in the background). I'm glad for the stuff I've read and all the "this old houses" I watched. At least I know what they are talking about, otherwise my head would explode. We certainly do have a lot of house problems, ours is old and decrepit and my Mom's can't be sold. Seems someone would want a house by the beach. C'est dommage.
I'm too nutso to read the paper (!!!!) but I do scan the headlines. (ugh) Today's semed like deja vu until I realized they delivered yesterday's paper again. The universe is really doin' a number on me. I feel like Ingrid Bergman in "Gaslight".
Everything is in the wrong place Steve( the Charles Boyer character) and the crew keep moving stuff and Caramel moves my stuff all the time, esp shoes. I can never find my slippers. Believe me when I tell you that I don't need help in the befuddlement department. Hey! That's a good name for a blog.

Jerry, Roberto, Martin and Robert

They my boys, my crew! My construction crew, that is. Jerry, the boss is a little obsessive (to our grateful benefit I might add) and quite the character. Mike, the plumber comes on Wed and I'm a little nervous; he disapproves of our plan for a 1/2 bath, thinks we won't fit in it. He scares me. Another scary scenario:last week at the dentist ( I seem to go every week) as I was about to get the needle, he asked me, as most dentists do, to open wide. I was stoned on gas and kibbutzing with the assistant so I widened my eyes instead. This cracked us both up till Dr D said, perfectly deadpan: there is no comedy in dentistry. Ah, good times.
So today is a perfectly gorgeous Spring day! Caramelita and I had a carefully planned (we thought) playdate this AM at the dog run where she promptly attacked the other dog. I was so freaked out I couldn't react correctly; when I finally got it together to shout "stop" she did. Immediately, to my surprise and relief. The other dog, poor, sweet Phoebe wasn't hurt, Caramel had bit her fur with only her front teeth, the ones she uses to delicately pick stuff up with. I on the other hand totally lost it, shaking and crying, which is unusual cause I'm pretty good in a crisis. It's in the aftermath of a crisis that I collapse.There have been many mini-crisises (crises?) lately and I guess I've reached my capacity for disaster management. Or, now that my hand is healing more, I have post traumatic shock from when I got bit. Or, maybe I'm stressed by demolition and decisions, too many decisions. And now that the kitchen is demolished, they are doing the basement and the news is very ungood. Suffice to say: water damage,mold and mildew, crumbling cement, rotted wood. More decisions. And we haven't even picked out a floor or doors or fixtures yet. I'm up here on the puter cause every time I take a peek, Jerry shows me something else bad. Poor old house! If I were 96, I'd need a lot of work too. (Oh, that reminds me to call my Aunt S who will actually be 96 next month) Also, I'm afraid to see what they have done to the garden, where all the debris was put. What kind of sentence was that? Grammar out the window, rawhides in the bed, eating on paper plates, dust and mold ( the Terrible Two) everywhere. I'm going to Hell in a handbasket! Why do terrific and terrible have the same root? Why the hell is that?
One very late night this week, as I couldn't sleep, I heard a man's voice from the street calling. Charlie, where are you, over and over for about 40 minutes. It was so distressing. I sure hope it was not a kid he was calling for.
Carrie and I have been going up and down the whole creation and I've walked places in this neighborhood I didn't know existed, including a mini-High school. We walked past the riding stable and she was freaked by a pony on the sidewalk. My what a large dog! Our adventuresare good for her and it's great for me too; we both need a lot of exercise or we chew things.
Weird, my Aunt just called me. Very witchy, the womens in my family.

Kudos: Companion Animal Network Television

This is the org that rescued Carmelita and their latest newsletter. You can click on their link and if you scroll down you can see her in a video demonstrating how to humanely trap a dog. She was a star from the beginning!
She was rescued in the October trip to New Orleans. Garo and all these people are volunteers and really wonderful. They go down monthly to bring back animals, then house and socialize them before they are adopted. I don't have cable TV so I've never seen the show, but it's on Animal Planet (duh). Tune in!
Companion Animal Network Television

Having completed our successful transport of 34 dogs and 9 cats in March from the New Orleans outer region animal control agencies in March (50% of which have already been adopted out and all the TV and print news reports are now on our home page at www.CompanionAnimalNetworkTV.org-) we returned two weeks later to look into the possibility of monthly transports.

Between April 4-11 we met with the Directors of the animal control agencies which surround New Orleans. We met with the directors of animal control of St. John’s Parish, Ascension Parish, Terrebone Parish, St. Charles Parish, Plaquamines Parish, as well as several no-kill private organizations in these parishes. We also had telephone conferences with the Directors of animal control of Lafayette Parish and Jefferson Parish. Our partnering local organization, the Humane Society of Louisiana was immensely helpful as usual, as none of this could have been accomplished without their collaboration.

We found every single one of these government run agencies to be operated by the most wonderful, compassionate, and competent people we had ever met. Sadly, almost all of them are forced to euthanize some of their animals (as many as 75% in some instances), especially now as a result of the 25-50% per capita increase in intakes as a result of the coattail affect of Katrina. Yet, they all make every single effort imaginable to save every single life they can. They use every resource to provide veterinary care, hold as long as possible, reunite, and adopt out every animal which comes into their facility. They accomplish miracles on limited governmental resources.

The purpose of our latest trip was two-fold: 1) arrange monthly out of state transports to save those animals’ lives and 2) to get the New Orleans and surrounding area animal control agencies, who have for decades had one of the highest per capita euthanasia rates in the country, to begin operating under Maddie’s Fund guidelines. The long term plan for the New Orleans and surrounding region, as we see it, would be to make a formal Maddie’s Fund grant application after two years. If successful, in two years time, Maddie’s Fund would then bring in millions of dollars of funding for the following 7-10 years to assist the region to go low or no kill at their animal control agencies. For the more immediate future we are hopeful, after meetings and conversations with major national organizations who have stepped up to the plate in the past, that they will financially support the region with such regularly scheduled transports.

We urge you and your organization, shelter, and humane society to join in this effort to help transition the New Orleans area to low or no-kill. We recognize that your area is probably not a no kill area either, however, the goal of reaching no kill in a region of the country can only be reached if one region at a time is transitioned in a collective effort. Due to the horrific catastrophe of Katrina New Orleans is in the position of either re-creating what existed before….one of the highest, if not the highest, per capita kill areas in the nation or, the region can take the bold and exciting step, with the collaborative effort of the rest of the country, to create a low or no-kill community.

One by one all communities in the nation must assist one another to reach our goal of ending the killing of pet animals nationwide. If you help the New Orleans area now by arranging the transport of their animals for adoption to your region (even if you only do one or two transports a year or one or two animals a month) your community will likewise receive national help when your area is ready to make your own Maddie’s Fund grant application to bring no-kill animal control to your community.

The colonial settlers of our country worked collectively, with the entire village working on building each family’s house, and then the next family’s and the next. We can learn a lesson from our forefathers on how to create something out of nothing….by working collectively on each one of our homes at a time.

The next step is ours. We can either do what we know works or stay stagnant and complain that government kills our beloved pet animals.

We at the Companion Animal Network will always choose the former and we hope you will too.

Garo Alexanian

Executive Director

Adding apples and insult to injury

I'm tired and stressed. I needed emergency root canal Wed.This time it was tooth#19, a live tooth and therefore much more painful. I can't chew, even today. It certainly is an effective way to take my mind off the pain of the dog bite which is inhibiting my ability to move shit out of the way for the contractor. Also this week, there are some ugly and duplicitous realtors we are dealing with in selling Mom's house, but we are sending them packing after much distress like losing the keys to the house. Three times! And then they asked us for money in order to be released from the contract! As if. Trous des balles!
Our darling Carmelita does not do well in stormy weather. Yesterday, we went to look for windows for the new kitchen, we were gone less than an hour. There was a bowl with 4 apples on the dining room table. We came home to find two uneaten apples, upstairs on the bed and one one the couch. And a poop on the rug which is very unusual. And she doesn't even like apples! I think it was a security thing.
The buddleia and the pyracantha we transplanted into containers are dying, I don't know why. I'm late in planting my seeds and now it's supposed to rain for 40 days and 40 nights. But, all this low pressure means my sinuses are open and I can smell, even though things smell distorted, it's thrilling. Coffee, olives, laundry and ice cream! It helps to dispel my acute and pervasive grouchiness. I've been having to take my pain pills this week, which make me very tired and spacey, but thankfully I've been able to muster enough energy to be able to bitch about here cause why should I suffer in silence?
Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers! It's a dirty job but someone has to do it.

of demolition and dog bites

There are new men in my life! We got a contractor! In the space and time I occupy, it is bewilderingly necessary to have a personal referral in order for a building contractor to call you and even then you need to be lucky. Our last prospective contractor kept us waiting a total of six hours each time he came over. Too much stress. Three strikes, he's out. I have a fear and dislike of contractors, medical personnel and mechanics. We are at their mercy and their timetable, rendered clueless and submissive, impatient and in a state of high anxiety. And overly dramatic. Nonetheless, we have engaged such a personage to re-do our kitchen; a big and messy job sure to take at least a month. We are putting all our faith (and lots of money) in Jerry, who is prompt, and very professional, and has trustworthy eyes. We also have many decisions to make. What kind of floors, what tiles, what fixtures, what lights, what color, doors, windows, cabinets. We cannot order cabinets till demolition begins and we can see how many inches of space we have. We are planning a 1/2 bath which the plumber says is too small, but he's a really big guy.We are hoping to avoid more wall-cutting. All will be revealed soon, along with the guts of our 96 year old kitchen. Oi!
In Carmelita news, we were on our way to pick up Chinese food Sat when she got into a contretemps with another dog and I stupidly got into it too, sticking my hand where it shouldn't have been resulting in her biting me pretty badly. My hand is OK, it was terribly quick, but shocking and painful. She had no idea what happened, she was on her leash going for a leashed dog. I put out my hand to stop her as she reared up and she caught the fat part between thumb and forefinger. Caramel is very unpredictable with other dogs esp on the block or in front of the house. She is very protective of her territory and has recently started marking (peeing) around the boundaries of our block, which means she's settling in but also getting territorial. There is no rhyme or reason for her dislike of certain dogs and her love for certain others. I know that when she was rescued, she ran with a pack and had to fight for her food. I'm hoping that with time she will feel secure enough to love all her furry friends. Needless to say, we have since switched over to her choke collar for walks and postponed our plans for a cat. I was rather freaked out but am recovering, After all, she is a really wonderful dog and I am just a dumb impetuous human. Years of teaching made me react protectively. She's not a kid, she's a dog. She's Caramelly Smellybelly.

La Tierra Del Libre

You know how people forward dopey emails up the wazoo but never write a personal word? This was my relationship with a Florida friend for many years. She sent me 1 or 2 boderline emails in the past which I ignored but a recent email, calling for nullification of the "Mexican boycott" on May 1st, really pissed me off and I needed to respond. I told her I was insulted and it was hardly just about Mexicans, May 1st was about action for all immigrants. To call it The Mexican boycott is deliberately insulting. I am stunned at her defensive response and her need to justify her racism which included bile against several more ethnic groups as she defended her bigotry. I can accept that there are many who have different beliefs than I, but shouldn't one know one's audience before one starts proselytizing? Did she think I went bigot too? She knows we live in Brooklyn and and that we made a conscious decision to live in a culturally diverse neighborhood. Did she assume that I'd agree with her just by virtue of the fact that we are both white? A lot of people make that mistake, whether I know them or not, and drop racist remarks like one-liners. Not funny, not right. Why is this is still an issue: racist remarks are not OK, deameaning remarks are not OK. It used to embarrass me in my youth and I'd change the subject uncomfortably, but I'm old enough so I don't have to listen to or take that kind of crap anymore.

I'm loving this whole national anthem in Spanish business, it sure will endear Jorge to the Hispanic vote. There were some great letters in the Times for and against. Many felt that it should be translated into many languages, as it should, so all might understand the words. Some felt that everyone should learn English in order to live here; one said, " who can imagine La Marseillaise being sung in English?" Well Ma'am, I sure have heard it in English along with Hatikvah and other National Anthems.
The best letter, I will show in it's entirey:
"Regardless of what language the American national anthem is sung in, it is nearly impossible for anyone to dance to the tune." A sage comment.
You know, when I was just a little b, in school we sang the national anthem weekly. I had no idea what most of those words meant, and they were never explained. It's incredibly difficult to sing- even a mediocre performance will elicit waves of applause - it doesn't even make a good poem and the imagery sucks. We should just get rid of The Star-spangled Banner altogether and replace it with America, the Beautiful, which says it all and then some: "and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea." Which due to global warming will soon be the Midwest. We will be in close quarters. We better learn to get along.