Category Archives: Dogs

Aging, Asia, Dogs, Health

Feeling the Burn

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Spring                                                        New Bee Hiving Moon

As the day draws to a close, many of the matters seem to have come to some resolution.  My brother will be coming here to live with us for awhile.  We’ll see what he needs when he gets here.

I’ve figured out a way to calm the doggy waters with crating two dogs, letting the others in or out, then crating the others.  Sort of a shell game, but it does the trick and has prevented any more teeth baring episodes.  We’ll see how it works tomorrow.

After the episode where I got bit, my adrenalin was so high I had to sit for a while to calm my body back down.  I haven’t been that far into fight or flight for a long time.

Tai Chi has begun to burn.  My thighs.  The lesson tonight, Guard Left, involves co-ordinating several parts of the body and some of my body parts resisted the lesson.  I’ll get it eventually.  I’ve needed, for some time, a physical discipline, one beyond the resistance and aerobic work I do just to stay healthy.  Tai Chi will teach me, I can see now, better balance, flexibility, body awareness and grace.

The old Burch pharmacy at Hennepin and Franklin in Minneapolis is empty now with Art Smart art work by kids and adults hanging in the windows that used to advertise drugs and cosmetics.  Over the pharmacy is a warren of rooms, offices for the Nancy Hauser Dance Studio, another for another dance company, an odd shaped room with various couches and chairs, some comfy, some designy, a threadbare carpet, windows with no blinds and a small digital sign overlooking Hennepin.

There is a dance floor, made of a composite material screwed to the floor in 4 X 8 panels.  It has a pinkish pastel pearl cast and serves the two dance groups, a Karate club and the The Great River Tai Chi school.  Tonight as we practiced a dance rehearsal was underway across the hall, so music with a big beat kept intervening with my Taoist serenity.

This is the city at its finest.  A decrepit building put to good use, providing creative space and space for strangers to meet and try out new activities.  I’m reading a book about cities now and it wants, so far, to celebrate cities for just this, people jostling up against one another, offering their passions to others, ideas sparking and new institutions being born as old ones die.

When I walked out past the Lowry Hill Liquor store and saw the lights of downtown and felt the Walker just blocks away, I agreed.

Dogs, Family

Then Bang, Things Happen

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Spring                                                               New (Bee Hiving) Moon

You know how things go along for a long time and nothing happens, then bang, things happen?  Sollie and Rigel got into it again and in breaking them up Rigel bit me.  Not bad, a scrape really, but it bled, around and below the right side of my right knee.  I had been using the knee to separate the two.  This is out of hand at the moment and I’m not sure what to do next.

In addition I have a family member in crisis, a faraway crisis, so it’s difficult to tell what’s exactly going on.  That means trying to do my part from 12,000 miles away.  My family, and I may have not mentioned it here before, my mother’s family to be precise, has a history of bi-polar disorder.  One of my Aunts was hospitalized most of her life, another for several years and a third in essence starved herself.  My mother never showed signs, but she died at age 46.  Although afflicted from time to time with melancholy, I’ve never manifested the bi-polar symptoms, nor, at least up until now, has either my brother or my sister.  That’s not to say that we haven’t had struggles of various sorts, the kinds brought on by life, but deep depression, no.

This may be a referented depression; that is, one occasioned by a definite external circumstance, but it’s so difficult to say without being there.  And even then…

When I was in analysis, with a Jungian, we discussed nuclear families and John, my analyst, said, “You have an atomized family.”  It was true.  After my mother died, our lives began to spin apart from each other.  I left home first and eventually moved to Minnesota.  Mary next, ending up after a stint teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, in first Kuala Lumpur, then Singapore, where she has lived now for many years.

Last of all Mark left home and moved first to San Francisco, then in 1988 took off on a round the world trip.  After crossing Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway, working on a kibbutz in Israel and harvesting olives in Turkey, he found his way to Southeast Asia, too.  Bangkok.  He has been there ever since, more or less, teaching English as a second language.  We have ended up far apart, physically, and distance imposes its own psychological barriers.  It’s just not as easy to see each other, help each other.

Now that both Mom and Dad are dead, we have our own worlds, Mary at the National University of Singapore, me here in Andover and Mark in Bangkok.  Once in a while Mary comes home, I’ve been over there once, but it’s difficult to stay really connected.

Now something is wrong.  And I’m not sure what to do in that case either.

Aging, Dogs, Humanities, Politics, Writing

Habitus

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Spring                                                                   New Bee Hiving Moon

The dogs, that is, Sollie and Rigel, still have energy for the fight.  Damn it.  I’ve not yet figured out a foolproof strategy for keeping them away from flashpoints.  I will.

Kate called and she says both Ruth and Gabe have had a change in habitus.  That’s pediatric speak for body change.  Gabe is taller and thinner.

Ruth’s face has begun to elongate, moving from pre-school to school age.  This means, Kate says, that Ruth will hit puberty early.  Uh-oh.  She’s already lost a tooth.  This is stuff that usually happens around 6 and she was still 4, turning 5 on Monday.  Ruth is bright, athletic, blond and blue-eyed.  Can you imagine that combination in junior high?

Meanwhile I have a quiet weekend to devote to the novel and to Latin.  Novel first, then Latin.  Probably a trip to the grocery store and definitely another go at seed starting.  I still have some tricks.

A conference call at 5:00 pm about making a Sierra Club endorsement in a special election, the seat, Senate District 66, vacated by Ellen Anderson when she took a position on the Public Utility Commission.

Dogs, Garden

Big D

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Spring                                                                Waning Bloodroot Moon

The weekly let down after my round of Ovid has set in, exaggerated by the two day drive-a-thon to Lincoln, Ne and back.  Let down may not be the best phrase.  An easing up, a lull, a caravan serai.  All better.  An internal nod to the energy of the week and the things accomplished, a time to enjoy, not focus.

The Sollie-Rigel wars have not yet fully waned, but they will.  Rigel rolled Sollie over on his back last night in the living room.  I thought that would settle things, but not wholly.  Dogs love to defend passage ways, a door, a cage entrance, a passageway around the couch, a gate.  Sometimes that defensive trigger gets punched and restraint soon flies away, giving way to bared teeth, raised ruffs and lots of snarling.  Very primal.

It is, I noticed, much easier to step into the midst of a fight when the contenders all weigh 100 pounds or less.  When the Wolfhounds fought, Tor and Orion for instance, it was 180 pounds against 180 pounds.  Puny human of not much account.  That’s the time for buckets of cold water.  Works surprisingly well.  When I got tired of the posturing last night, I barked myself, put a hand on Rigel’s collar and another on Sollie’s and finished it.

My leeks and herbs have not started.  Not sure what I did wrong, I might have fouled up on getting the potting soil wet enough.  Or something.  But, I have to start over at any rate.  A weekend task.

Each domain, vegetables, dogs, perennials, bees, Latin, art, politics, friendships, family has an inexhaustible number of lessons to teach us.  Staying open to learning is so important.  And sometimes pretty damned hard.

Dogs, Travel

Travel Agent? C’est moi.

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Spring                                                      Waning Bloodroot Moon

As travel agent for our house, I make reservations, check on them, plan itineraries and handle changes to travel plans.  Like several of my domestic responsibilities I have these duties because of misspent time over the last couple of decades + learning how to use computers, then the web.  Mostly I find it makes life easier, quicker, broader and deeper.  Once in a while, like this morning, it takes more time than a comparable activity would have a few years back.  When I made Kate’s travel plans for her upcoming birthday junket to Denver (Ruthie’s 5th!), I inadvertently clicked on an incorrect e-mail address, charlebellis@gmail.com.  I made this mistake years ago, but somewhere in this infernal machine, it helpfully brings back all my past sins against perfect computing.  So, I had to call the airlines to get them to resend the info.  Talking to a real person.  How 20th century.

We fed five dogs this morning:  Rigel, Vega, Kona, Sollie and Gertie.  We’re used to this, but each collection of dogs has a different personality and require different food arrangements.  We’ve not got this one perfected quite yet.  But we will.

Gotta go now.  A China tour to prepare and a legcom agenda to flesh out.

Dogs, Family

There and Back Again

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Spring                                         Waning Bloodroot Moon

My usual method of travel is mosey.  I like slow travel, paying attention to the countryside and stopping when an interesting site shows up.  I’ve never understood the folks who drive straight through, as if travel was only about making it to a destination, for me travel is the destination.  Except for yesterday and today.  I drove to Lincoln, Nebraska yesterday and came back today.  It was  doable.  I only stopped to put gas in the truck and once to grab a hamburger, otherwise I ate food packed by Kate, a wonderful road food preparer.

(Above:  Nebraska Capitol.  R. Iowa Capitol Building.  I saw it from I-235.)

My destination was a Motel 6 just off I-80 north of Lincoln.  Apparently Motel 6 and pets are friendly.  I don’t know because we don’t travel with our dogs. I met Jon there.  He drove east through slushy snow while I drove west on clear roads with sun yesterday and back with cloudy but clement weather today.  Sollie and Gertie are now in their crate in our upstairs entry way after an evening of sniffing and being sniffed, a couple of tussles over doorways and such.  To be expected.

I got three-quarters through a long audio book and have arrived back home as if I never left.  Didn’t feel like travel to me.  Felt more like long-haul trucking.  Which it was, I guess.

This is family stuff, the sort of things families do for each other, even if separated by many hundreds of miles.

Aging, Dogs

Go West, Old Man

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Spring                                                        Waning Bloodroot Moon

Tomorrow I take off for Lincoln, Nebraska to pick up our two grand-dogs, Sollie and Gertie.  They will stay with us while Jon and Jen’s house has renovation work done, adding another room, a new roof, much needed closets.  Sollie has been on a hunger strike for the last six months so we’ll see how he responds to a new environment.  He’s begun gaining weight just recently, so I hope the new digs don’t throw him off.  Gertie has a canine temperament much like Rigel and Celt, our first Irish Wolfhound.   That means she’s an adventuress–read, tries to escape all the time, territorial, mischievous and damned cute.  I have a hunch she’ll met Mr. Electric Fence soon after arriving here.

We have plenty of space for them and we have had, at one point, seven dogs, so managing this many is not new for us.  Besides this’ll be just five.

Though I enjoy long drives by myself this will be a marathon.  One day to Lincoln.  Spend the night.  One day back.  This is because I don’t want to handle Gertie and Sollie in a motel.  I don’t want to lose them, after all.  I got a couple of audio books for the journey, so I’ll just settle in for  several hundred miles and listen.

Spent more time today translating Ovid, a bit of time with Wheelock and then got back to work on Missing.

Aging, Bees, Dogs, Family, Garden, Writing

Home Is Where the Garlic Is

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Imbolc                                       Waxing Bloodroot Moon

This journey has begun to bend toward home.  I”m more eager know to go home than I was to come here when I left.  That seems good to me.  Home is the place you know you’re away from when you’re gone.  No place else on earth has that lodestone attraction for me.

Home is where the heart is, yes, and my heart is with Kate, with Vega, Rigel and Kona, with the raised bed and the garlic, the asparagus, the strawberries, with the bees and the grandkids play house, with the flower beds and the woods, with our house which, in exactly the same way a church is sanctified, has become sacred.  The life and the love,, our history there, has made it a sacred realm, a realm of the heart and a sanctuary for our life.

I have two yellow pads, one full, the other on its way, scribbled with this story of another world and these people I’ve come to know over the course of writing it.  Brag, Constance, John, Aeric, Gullen, Arton, Isaac, Cern.  Well, maybe a couple of these are speaking animals and one is a god, but they’ve come alive for me over the months I’ve spent on Missing.  Their journey, I see now, has only just begun, will only finish its first phase as this novel draws to a close in another 30,000 words or so.

This writing is and has been such a strange act for me, virtually solitary save for Kate, who has stuck with me in my up and down moments, my more confident moments and, most important, in my melancholy.  Otherwise, I’ve written these novels, these short stories and they go in a  file or in a box and sit, George Plimpton once called an unpublished work of his, A Monster In A Box.  This will be my sixth or seventh monster.

Not complaining just observing that’s been strange.

Aging, Dogs, Garden, Humanities, Hydroponics, Memories, Writing

Walking and Talking

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Imbolc                                        New (Bloodroot) Moon

Took a walk along the road that goes around the Monastery.  A beautiful day with a blue sky and sun.  The sun has, like me, been on retreat this last week, and it seems to have returned bright and shiny, ready to get on with its job of sending us truly elemental energy.

While walking, I talked to Kate.  Cell phone reception is fine outside the Monastery, but inside, nada.

It’s rare for a person to find someone whose life and lifestyle fit so well as Kate and mine do.  At least I think it’s rare.  We both enjoy time alone and we enjoy being together.

She says the plants, the dogs and herself are doing well.  The dog are outside and  have been nearly all day.  She’s been sewing and made grandson Gabe a new shirt, this one with trains.

Today I finished writing early, still putting out about 6,500 words.  I tried to go further but the well was dry so I’ve been reading Conspirata, the Robert Harris novel about Cicero’s Consul  year and his life immediately after.  Cicero is a favorite of the conservative classes, but he seems more pragmatic than conservative, at least as Harris portrays him.  It might be his deep suspicion of populist politics that gains their favor, but that seems more complicated in this fictional biography.

Just as I was in a Chinese phase last summer, I’m in a Roman phase right now, learning Latin, reading Roman novels, translating Ovid.

If our plans for a fall cruise congeal, at some point I imagine I’ll turn toward South America and its ancient and contemporary history.  Read a few travel books on various ports of call.  We’re leaning toward a 37 day cruise that starts in NYC and ends in Rio, passing through the Panama Canal and traveling around South America through the the Straits of Magellan and Cape Horn to Buenos Aires and Rio.

My lunch table  today had Hoosiers, monks from South Bend, north Terre Haute and Indianapolis.  We talked about the old home place, Wabash College, Indy, the crazy time change rules.

Dogs

Scottish deerhound is best in show at Westminster

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Imbolc                                                                Waxing Bridgit Moon

NEW YORK – A Scottish deerhound that loves to chase wild animals caught his biggest prize yet, winning best in show Tuesday night at the Westminster Kennel Club.

What a gorgeous dog.  Reminds me of a combination of Sorsha and Celt.  The Irish Wolfhound is a deerhound, too.  The discovery that they killed the wolves hunting the deer led the Irish to shift their use to guarding their valuable cattle.  The Scottish Deerhound and the Irish Wolfhound are very similar.  The Deerhound is more slender and weighs less, but in temperament and in appearance they are similar.  Hats off to to Hickory!