Puppy Love

I suppose these expressions on my face (see above) encapsulate what most women feel like when they hold a baby--a human one, that is. Me, I'm missing the mom-gene. Never longed for children, never imagined myself pregnant, never stuffed a pillow under my blouse and pretended I was carrying precious cargo.

Oh, I like kids. Other peoples' kids.   

But show me a puppy or kitten or calf or doe or any other baby animal and my heart absolutely positively explodes with a ferocity of seismic proportions. Like this baby pygmy goat I'm holding in the first photo: three-month old Queenie. She was a part of the petting zoo that came to visit our preschool last week. As I held her, she nuzzled her little head under my neck and I could feel the two rough spots where her horns would one day grow. I inhaled her delicious scent of milk and hay and found myself contemplating, "She's not that big, she could play with Olivia and fit through the doggie door, plus I have nice patio garden...."

Seriously, folks. What would I do with a goat? Holding Queenie made me lose all perspective.

As with Bella, the puppy Mt. Bernese in the second picture; she was doing her best to teeth on my necklace and I was so enamoured with her sweet puppy breath and velvety fur, she could have been trying to devour diamonds around my neck and I wouldn't have noticed. I didn't care that Bella would eventually weigh 150 pounds and have the potential to take up roughly one third of my living room. All I could think was, "I SO want this dog."

On second thought, maybe I do have the mom-gene. Just for the four-legged variety.

Words To Live By

"Today me will live in the moment unless it's unpleasant, in which case me will eat a cookie."

~Cookie Monster

Retirement and Tomatoes

If I spent as much time studying and monitoring and pruning and observing and tending to and fawning over and checking on and obsessing about my retirement fund as I do my tomato plants, well....

I could have retired when Duran Duran was still a Top 40 band.

My neighbors must think I'm a nut job. I'm on my bedroom balcony morning and night, following the progress of my four plants no less lovingly than if I'd birthed them myself.  I'm making sure the heavy vines have adequate support, pinching off dead stems, and watching for invasive bugs or hungry birds. The cherry tomato plant is already producing, but it's the heirloom ones that I'm lusting over. Come to mama, babies, come to mama.

As for my retirement fund? Gulp. According to the slightly crazy financial guru Suze Orman, I'm about 20 years behind the eight ball and can retire around the same time that North West is old enough to legally change her name. And so I've given Robin, my financial advisor, full reign to manage what chicken feed I've squirreled away. She's been a busy gal: I'm getting almost daily notices alerting me that she's trading here, swapping there, selling this and buying that. 

I just hope she's better at managing my meager monies than I've been these past few years, otherwise I'll have to plant more tomatoes. 

They may be all I have to eat. Come to mama, babies, come to mama.

Taking a Break

Back in July!

Dog Day Afternoon

So yeah, I'm back in the chemo ward for another dose to treat The Blood Thingie--a blood disorder that my doctors describe as "a major bummer, but it won't kill you." 

They suggested another round of chemo in an attempt to halt the progression of nerve damage that has numbed my feet and is gradually creeping up my legs. They're even hoping for possible nerve regeneration as some patients with similar conditions have recently experienced through an ongoing, low-level chemo maintenance program.

Whatever it takes, folks. Whatever it takes.

After my first infusion Friday, I returned home not feeling all that great. Rituxan isn't the hair-loss-sick-as-a-dog type of chemo, but I did have to take a few drugs to prevent a possible reaction and the cumulative affect of everything left me a little queasy, lightheaded, and exhausted. Now would be a good time to take a nap.

I had just closed my eyes when Olivia came to the side of my bed and stared at me. She never joins me on the bed despite my encouragement that it's okay, girl, really. Jump! Jump!  Instead, she prefers her oh, so deliciously smelly pillow on the floor. 

This time though, to my surprise, Olivia jumped on the bed, towering over me and still just staring. She methodically sniffed my body up and down, up and down, sniff sniff sniff. Then she circled two or three times and spooned my side, resting her knobby little head across my chest. With my arms wrapped around my dog, smelling of oatmeal shampoo and froggy breath, we drifted off to sleep until a ringing phone woke us up three hours later.

Olivia's nose, that canine marvel equipped with more than 220 million olfactory receptors, told her that something was off. Something was coursing through her human's veins that didn't belong there. Something had to be done to comfort her human.

And that's just what my sweet girl did.

Remembering Elvis

Even now, 15 months after losing my sweet Elvis, I still hear from readers who loved a dog they only knew from my newspaper column.

This week, a reader sent me a photo of one article (see left) that he's kept posted on his refrigerator since it was published in 2007. He wrote:

"Today, I re-read your article about Elvis for the first time since 2007 and it made me smile once again, just as it did then. I decided to contact you to see how Elvis was doing and of course, upon searching for your contact information, came across the article about Elvis passing last February. Needless to say, I started crying right at my desk...."

And yesterday, on Facebook, somebody else posted: "Just got swarmed by greyhounds at the GG Meet & Greet. Love love love. Thinking of Elvis, the one who made me love them."

Everybody thinks that their dog is special. And everybody would be right because in their eyes and their hearts, their dog is indeed special. But there was something about Elvis that enabled people to see what I saw: a sweet and gentle spirit who came to represent the face of racing greyhounds.

How I miss my lovely, loving boy. And how proud I am of his legacy.

Footsteps Part Two

If you read my Pet Tales column in the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday, you know that lately I've been hearing "footsteps" behind me when I'm walking Olivia.

After being stumped and confused the first few times I heard these footsteps, I've come to believe they belong to my mom. She's with me, walking alongside me just as we used to do when we'd walk our dogs together before her sudden passing in 2009. Oh, how I miss her. 

Now I know what you're thinking: maybe missing my mother has me hearing things, right? Well, let's ask the dog.

Yes, the dog. Because I walking Olivia around our quiet neighborhood last week, doing the usual woolgathering about really important stuff. You know, like what to have for dinner and if "Nashville" was a repeat tonight, when once again I heard the footsteps. As always, not thinking about it, I stepped aside to let the person behind me pass before I realized that--yet again--there was no one there. Nothing but air, just like the other half dozen occurrences.

This time, however, Olivia reacted. With her perked ears looking like two little pup tents, she put on the brakes and stared behind us. She clearly saw something that wasn't visible to my myopic eyes. I crouched down on one knee so my face was level with hers and followed her gaze. Was there a flirty squirrel somewhere? Maybe a stray dog, injured bird, or crazed stalker hiding behind a bush just waiting to slash my throat?

What was holding my dog's attention?

Nothing. At least nothing that I could see. The only movement was the leaves gently rustling in the soft spring breeze. No cars. No people. No animals. I waited a few minutes to see if something--anything--materialized, but it didn't, so I tugged at Olivia's leash. "C'mon girl," I said. "Let's go."

But our walk was interrupted because Olivia was intrigued by whatever she was seeing. For the next half mile, she kept stopping and twisting her neck to look behind us. This dog couldn't have been more preoccupied if there was a barbecued pork chop trailing us. Each time I followed her gaze and again each time--nothing.

Nothing to the naked eye, that is. If I questioned the footsteps before, Olivia confirmed that I'm not imagining things. Call it what you may, but one thing is for sure: we are not alone on these walks.