Dogs!

There I was pedaling away the pounds on my Elliptical Strider, almost watching a Biography Channel show on the Oklahoma City bombing - I say almost, because I pretty much knew the details and my mind was wandering - when a couple of dogs appeared amidst the rubble. Dogs, for some reason, grab my attention almost as fast as willowy brunettes. They are both near the top of my Fondness For list. The dogs on this occasion were leashed and sniffing about the bombing's debris trying to find survivors. After some early success, the show's narrator tells us, and as the hours dragged on with only dead bodies discovered, the dogs began to exhibit signs of depression and apathy. They were going about their task in what we would describe as a half-hearted manner. Seeing this, the dog's handlers coaxed several firemen to hide at the site so the dog's could find them...alive. When the dogs did so, they immediately perked up and went back to sniffing with renewed enthusiasm. This five minute segment of television so warmed my heart that I moved dogs past pizza and the red wine/dark chocolate combination on the aforementioned Fondness scale. Until, that is, this morning.

Not too long ago at Woowoo Charly's insistence we visited a new Ropa Americana store here in Boquete. "Dogs have to have toys" she told me, "and Bookworm Bonnie says they have a whole tub of stuffed ones here in the store."

"But," I protested, "they make such a mess when the dogs tear them open."

"So what" she countered, "it's not that big a deal to clean up and they have so much fun."

We took home six used and abandoned teddy bears of assorted sizes.

I opened the door to the yard and let the dogs out at 5:58 this morning. I mention the time to emphasize that it was not yet 6:00, an hour that one might more or less reasonably suggest as a time to rise. As 5:58 was lacking the necessary two minutes to actually be 6:00, I decided to go back to bed. On the way there I kicked a stuffed Teddy or two out of my way. Now if you have dogs you know that an inert toy does not get much of their attention. One on the move, though, is fair game. I was vaguely aware as I pulled the covers over my shoulders, that a scuffle of some kind was going on in the next room. No matter, I thought, and then sleep was upon me.

It's true what Woowoo Charly said about the eviscerated toys not making too big of a mess. The large clumps of white cottony stuff that most are filled with are easy to pick up. We learned this morning, alas, that not all stuffed toys are filled with that material. As I reemerged among the living at 6:30, I noticed small, nickle sized clumps of orange matter whose origin was clearly not of this earth. I had never seen anything like it before. Scattered on the floor throughout the house - I doubt that there was a six inch square area that didn't contain at least one piece - and on several pieces of furniture, the little chunks looked something like the debris left from a pumpkin explosion. I should say here that I was not amused, the cockles of my heart were not warmed, and my dog love was being severely tested.

Usually, for reasons I can't describe, I take some pride in being a madrugador, an early riser, the first one up. Not so today. I knew that Maria, our once a week limpiadora (cleaning lady) was due in two hours and I could not in good conscience leave this mess for her. So, of course, I mean what would you do?, I set about, piece by piece, picking and sweeping up the tiny, shredded, orange chunks of teddy bear insides.

The dogs, I probably don't need to mention, were no help at all.

Watchmen and the Tea Party

There's a certain stillness to be had after an early morning rain. I'm having it now. It's as quiet in here as a silent prayer at the bottom of a grave and even the ubiquitous bird noise beyond my window glass seems subdued. I can see raindrops dripping from bush and bower out there, but that too is a soundless affair. The sky above bird, bush and bower is the color of a chalkboard after the formula for world peace was accidentally erased. It's easy on the eyes, heavy on the heart. The real world, the one outside my head, is either gone or still asleep; hard to tell right now.

Last night after watching the movie "Watchmen," which was a cinematic rendition of the graphic novel of the same name with the only difference between the two being that the novel took a couple of hours to read while the movie went on for...I don't know, what's today's date?, a long time, Woowoo Charly said at its conclusion, "Awesome!" I wanted to second that, but I couldn't because I didn't agree. I thought that a 47 hour movie like this one could have been tighter, but then I understand that the director wanted to be true to the novel, a complex, complicated and intellectual tome. I doubt that the flick could have been a success at the box office with its running time being just short of an average life span in Botswana, but I could be wrong. It has happened once or twice before. Besides its length, the film required one to think, which is an activity foreign to movie-goers who have "Dumb and Dumber" on their Top Five list and they make up a goodly sized portion of the ticket buying public. The concept of thinking to understand came up later that night as well, when I fluffed my pillows and settled down to read a book and await sleep.

"Bananas", subtitled "How the United Fruit Company Shaped The World" is the book I'm currently perusing and enjoying. About half way in I discovered the following passage gleaned from Edward Bernay's book "Propaganda" written in the 1920s. Its concern was the group mind. "The group mind doesn't think," Bernay's wrote, "Instead it has impulses, habits and emotions. The key is for some force to harness them. The force is propaganda or 'the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses.' This process of manipulation is an 'unseen mechanism of society' and those that make use of it are an 'invisible government' and the 'true ruling power of our country."

I no longer wonder how the Tea Party got started.

Singing in the Rain

"On the day that I was born the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true. So they sprinkled car rust in my hair and gave me tricky underwear, to rue. That's why you, so want to be, close to me."

Ah, ya gotta love the old songs.

I was going to mow the lawn or mew-dee-loan as the French say, but it is going to rain or lluvia, which is not, as you might think, a female body part, but rather, what the Spanish say. I say it is good to be poly-lingual. It's probably even good to BE Polly Lingual, but then you would have to ask her.

So, what was I going to go on about before the Monkeymind, having written, moved along?

Beats me. (Yeah, I know, you're saying somebody ought to.)

I'm serious about the rain, though. The sky is so low this morning... (How low is it, Zendoc?) the sky is so low this morning it is lower than James Earl Jones bottom note on a-frog-in-his throat-day. I'm talking low. I can still see the big tree in front of our house, but beyond that the world is misty gray. Misty Gray is a girl I dated in high School. She was so wide I couldn't see beyond her either. Lawn mowing is out of the question, I don't remember what the question is, but lawn mowing is definitly out of it. Before you kick me out of the cab, I want a mobile shout-out. "Hey buddy, what is the question?" "To be or not to be. That is the question." God, I hate smart alecks almost as much as I hate dumb alecks.

Now I have two more hours of this day to fill I hadn't expected...to have. What shall I do with them? I could turn on the television and watch a movie, but I did that yesterday and saw ten minutes of a Will Ferrell flick that sent me screaming from the room. I mean, what if the movie is still there? I just can't risk it.

And now here it comes. The rain I'm talking about. It's gentle so far, I can hear the birds singing through it. "You're in the mood for love, simply because you're near me." Another one of my favorites.

I should end there because, you know, I've tied in the first paragraph to the last one...until now. Now I've lost my chance at any continuity whatsoever. Story of my life. It's all out-of-context. You can't just take parts of it and show it to me one day at a time. I want to see the whole thing all at once. You know, the Big Picture. This one day at a time stuff just confuses me. If I knew how it was all going to come out, I would know better how to act now. Here I am having to deal with today and its two extra hours without knowing what's going to happen tomorrow. I mean, what if it rains again?

"Don't know why, there's no rum up in the sky, horny leather."

There. That's better.

Census Silliness and the Importance of Horror Movies

The census taker was a serious young man who insisted on speaking English even though it was clear in the first five minutes that our Spanish was better than his English. I'm sure he thought this was a great opportunity to practice, but his inability to bite down on his consonants made him a kind of a yodeler and difficult to understand. I responded to his questions in Spanish because, well, I could, and doing so I thought, would speed the process a bit. Naturally some confusion arose. At one point after discussing financial matters, he asked, "Sons?" with a very hazy "n" and no "s" at all. Not realizing he was moving on to a new section, I thought he was asking for a sum. The answer then would have been tres mil (three thousand) which is what I said. The guy's eyes widened and then went blank. Woowoo Charly was the first to understand. "No Doc" she said, "we don't have three thousand sons!" We all laughed then, including the census guy, who made some comment about me being a pretty impressive dude and, poor Charly. After that it was back to being serious. But being serious, apparently - I can't say for certain because it is a condition rare to me - doesn't necessarily make one error free. The census guy came back three hours later, having forgotten an entire section concerning RTGFKAR.

In the Boy Scout fashion of being prepared, we had printed out an English version of the census forms. There were some interesting translations and intriguing questions there. My favorite of the former was this: "Then it plunges the whole of persons for sex and note down the numbers in the respective pigeonholes." Alrighty then, I'll get right on it!

Section 23 was entitled HERE OR IN ANOTHER PLACE: SOME OF THE PERSONS WHO LIVE IN THIS HOME. Hey, some of the persons living in this home are often in another place and even more often, without even leaving the house.

Under section 7 WHAT TYPE OF MENTAL DISABILITY DO YOU HAVE?, was the choice "Mental Delay." Most days I've got that in spades. I didn't check it off though because I didn't think of it quick enough.

Under section 5 WHAT IS YOUR MARITAL STATUS? one of the choices is "15 year old minor?" I'm not sure how that quite relates to the question.

Under section 22 IF YOU DID NOT LOOK FOR WORK LAST WEEK, WHY? one of the choices is, "I got tired of looking." Hey, I can dig that. (We did not have to answer these type questions.)

And here is my personal favorite: WHAT PLACE DO YOU USE IN THIS HOUSING WITH MORE FREQUENCY TO POOP? Actually, I'd most like to know what your second choice would be. That way if I'm at your house, I could avoid stepping in something.

I was happy to note, though, that under GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS Section 2, SEX there were only two choices.


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So there I was contentedly watching "Bloodrayne 2", a vampires in the old west saga with Billy the Kid being the worst of the bunch, when a surprising bit of philosophy was passed along by one of the guys still filled with blood at the end of the flick. This tidbit is so good and so right on a couple of levels, I feel it incumbent upon me to pass it further along as many of you were likely to have missed "Bloodrayne 2", an eventuality I'm sure you will regret the moment you have read what's next.

Life is like a penis.
When it is hard, you get screwed.
When it is soft, you can't beat it.

Go ahead, argue with that.

RATAVA

For those of you handicapped by only being able to read from left to right, the title of this post is AVATAR spelled backwards. Before I get into the implications of the storyline, I want to say that this is the most visually stunning film EVER MADE to date. It surpasses the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Ironman, Batman, Monkeyman and you name it. It even out shines Abbott and Costello Meet the Transformers and the Transsexuals. This film is so spectacular to watch, it will affect your dreams. In fact you well be asking of them, "Is that all you got?" And I'm saying this having NOT seen AVATAR in 3D! My comment to RTGFKAR and Woowoo Charly during the film is that it was like watching a million Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta paintings one after the other. If you don't know who these cool artists are, you will have to look them up on your Funk and Internet.

I'm thinking James Cameron, the writer and director could have named this flick Avatar and Avarice or, to be clearer, Democrats vs. Republicans. There were the planet(Pandora)loving and protecting environmentalist species, the Democrats, but herein referred to as the Navi, pitted against the war mongering, profit seeking, planet resource sucking corporate Republicans, herein referred to as the Bastards. The movie, is of course, a fantasy, so the Navi win and the Bastards lose which makes it fun to watch. In real life we know the Bastards win on a more than regular basis which accounts for this movie's premise, ie: Earth has been used up and now its greedy Bastards are off to steal whatever it needs from other planets. The use of force to do so is permitted. The thrill for we Tree Huggers in the audience is seeing the Bastards get their comeuppance, and, additionally, seeing the personal issues of the protagonists resolved. Here here, cheerio, good show, great flick.

Today's movie review was brought to you by the makers of D and L and T and K and D. Good Navi all.

A Horse Of Course

Two minutes before the earthquake rippled our bed, Raffi began barking in his kennel. What's wrong with that dog we wondered. Two minutes later we knew. This occurred shortly after five in the morning. Two minutes before six, Finnegan achieved maximum decibel level barking from the kitchen where he was prowling about for reasons of his own. "Now what?" I growled as I drug myself out of bed. I hadn't really slept since the quake and my hopes of returning to dreamland were rapidly being crushed. Oda Figaramous Pegaloomer.

I pulled on my sweats, climbed into my Crocs and headed for the kitchen. I was hollering to Finny to hold it down, get a grip, and to "SHUT UP" as I did so. I was bee-lining to the coffee pot in the semi-conscious fashion that is my usual state of being first thing in the morning. There I could hit the "ON" button and start the heavenly drip of the sweet smelling, bitter tasting wonderfulness that is my blend of Cafe Ruiz' French and Italian roasts. Finny was still going berserk and I was in the middle of my own loud SHHHHHH when I noticed the horse standing outside our kitchen window. "What the? Ha!" and "That explains it." all rushed to my mind. "Good boy Finnegan, it's okay, calm down it's no big deal" came next. I alerted Woowoo Charly to the situation and told her to come have a look. "Yup, that's a horse all right" she said and headed back to bed. That wasn't going to happen though, the little dogs were now fully awake and filling the air with piercing yaps to be let out of their kennels. I couldn't get out the front door because Old Girl was sleeping and leaning against it and I didn't want to wake her. Old Girl is a neighbor's dog who hangs out at our house on a regular basis. At some point - I was still not fully functional so a precise time-line is not quite available. I mean I hadn't actually had my coffee yet - I managed to grab our camera and shoot a quick picture of the horse through our bedroom window. Moments like these need to be documented. I then unlocked and went out the back door, walked around the house and approached the horse. It had a long lead attached to its rope bridle, so I just walked up, took the lead in hand and said good morning. I was pretty sure the critter belonged to a neighbor of ours down the road. My guess was that it had been spooked by the earthquake and run off.

I hollered to Charly to throw my jacket over the back fence - there was an early morning chill - and then I set off with the horse in tow. We had a nice conversation along the way and I told him he could visit any time, but that he ought to call first so the dogs wouldn't be so upset when he arrived. When I got to the neighbor's house, there was no one up and about. I opened their front gate and let the horse into the yard. A portion of fence surrounding their property was down, probably from recent high winds and rain, but the horse now seemed content to stay put. He was happily munching his owner's lawn.

"Talwaygo" I said, waving. and then I headed home. The coffee was ready and waiting.


Addendum: The horse picture shot through the window was too dark to show. Also, horse may be a white mule. It's hard to tell.

Television Anyone?

Strolling through the living room where RTGFKAR sits watching mainstream television, I pause a moment to check out the images on the screen. Has anyone else noticed that most of the shows consist of close-ups, very close-ups and one face damn near fills up the entire screen-ups? RTGFKAR watches NCIS, CSI, and probably other shows featuring initials in capitals like, say, MSG or IUD, while I watch shows with the initials NBA, NFL, PGA, etc. The difference is that my shows feature distant camera work and unknown endings, while RTGFKAR's focus on human heads larger than beach balls - he has a very big television - dialog and a scripted conclusion. Both viewing choices are worthy television fare and I make no judgments here - to each his own is my motto and I learned that from The Platters in 1958 - but those giant heads do fascinate me. Is it for financial considerations - sets don't have to be very elaborate if heads obscure the backgrounds - or is it just a directorial style trend? When I think back to shows that I did watch, Cheers, M*A*S*H, innumerable westerns, and Kolchak The Night Stalker a show that was clearly television's finest hour, I can't envision them being a series of talking heads. There was just too much movement to dwell for long on a single face. Oh well, I suppose that once more I am "out of the loop." Someday, I'm going to find that loop and jump right in so I can see what that feels like. For the moment, though, I'll just stand apart and make my comments as I see it passing by.