Category: dogs

Busload of memory

~ Chris ~ 1 Comment

In grade school, my friends and I would take one of those long yellow school buses that picked us up at the bottom of our street. The interior of the bus was lined with green leather benches — they fit three kids, to hell with seatbelts — and it smelled funny. A little sweet but musty, like diesel and kid funk.

The bus driver was an amiable but firm 50-ish woman named Mrs. Pelton. She had short dark hair and wore a yellow polo shirt everyday like a school-district uniform. 

I don’t know what her pants were like because she was always sitting down in that lone, boxed-in driver’s seat, the one with the huge steering wheel and hissing, hydraulic lever that operated the folding door we kids clambered through.

I don’t recall Mrs. Pelton ever hollering at me to settle down and be quiet or anything like that, but once she alarmed me in a way I can’t forget. She was driving down a sloped street and something happened — what, I’m not sure. She didn’t crash or swerve or brake hard. 

But she was shaken, and she said, “I’d rather hit a dog than a child.” A cannonball hit my belly. I couldn’t believe it. Rather hit a DOG than a child? I was stricken, my callow little head not appreciating the value of human life. Like now, I was partial to animals, loved and worried about them unabashedly. 

“Rather hit a dog than a child.” I suppose I thought she should run down some snot-nosed kid instead of a poor, innocent pup. What a guy. That moment has followed me all these years. It’s the biggest thing I remember about Mrs. Pelton, who has surely passed on by now, unless she’s like 250. 

Memories, good and bad, are strange like that — random, sticky. I have a storehouse of them, and many seem to pop up daily. Like when Tom Rainbolt peed all over my back in the boy’s bathroom in third grade, or when I learned to ski, or when I kicked a hole in our hallway wall (so busted), or when my best grade-school friend, reckless Gene, hurled live shotgun shells into a bonfire, or working at the exotic dance club or landing my first newspaper job, or …

Often, when whacked with insomnia, a dusty reel of life memories unspools in a long, disjointed movie of the irrepressible past. Some of it’s joyful, a lot of it’s painful. The things done right and the endless bruising regrets. It’s the id unleashed. (Of course everybody does this.)

I have a strong memory muscle — I recall much of my childhood in blinding Technicolor — marred by minor spells of amnesia. It’s not like I forget who I am — though that would be tremendous (temporarily) — but more like I’m not as mindful, drifting off. This is bad. Memories are magic, if I can be any cornier, a pass key to the past, illuminating the present (lessons learned, etc.). Attention must be paid. OK, the homily is over.

Beyond the life-molding experiences — playing in bands, fizzled romances, getting peed on — it’s the people from the past who stand out: Mom, Dad, first-grade teacher Ms. Brose, Brandon, Janice, Roxanne, high school English teacher Mrs. Condon, Guen, Sativa, Nettie, Shannon, Laura, Nicky the dwarf — and, of course, ole Mrs. Pelton, who’d rather hit a dog than a kid, bless her sweet, sensible heart. With those few words, she locked a place in my long, crowded bus of memory.

Wet hot American summer

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And suddenly, a violent cloudburst. It has doused the hot rays of a 90-degree day, literally out of the blue, and hammers rooftops and streets with angry, percussive cascades. It is gray. It is thunderous. It is beautiful.

Windows are being slashed and gutters rush. Steam-genies dance off the sidewalks. The dog is whining and restless, unsettled by the climatic lurch. I calm him and he looks at me with the anxious eyes of Toto when he’s about to be snatched from Dorothy. 

And then, like that, the rain stops and a vengeful fireball shines again and all the fun burns away. Another summer bummer, a Zeusian tease that will come again, probably when I’m walking across town in shorts and a t-shirt, umbrella tucked in my sock drawer.

Already the ice cream truck tools and tootles by and the dog yelps and grumbles. Either he’s being ornery or he really wants a Fudgesicle. The rain has passed, gone. Children chase the ice cream man, splashing puddles along the way.

Living in a vacuum

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Housesitting at my brother’s place and the biweekly cleaners are whirring, whooshing and wizzing their arsenal of electrical contraptions, a cacophony of vacuums, dusters and busters. 

It’s a racket, and the animals shudder and hide. I won’t see them for a good two hours. Then they’ll re-emerge with bristled fur and indignant scowls. The word balloon above their collective head will read: You S.O.B.

Who, after all, is partial to the rambunctious suckery of the vacuum cleaner? It’s a veritable monster, roaring, devouring.

I’m more a Swiffer guy. That gauzy glide across wood and linoleum, affably gathering dirt and dust, soundlessly, like cotton candy. But rugs and carpets demand plugged-in hardware, and there goes the neighborhood.

Right now, a cleaner is banging a handheld duster against the wooden window blinds and it almost evokes Latin percussion. A drummer, I’m tempted to pull out my cowbell and a tom-tom and fashion some dance jams. But suddenly there are multiple flushes from the bathrooms and a buzz has been decisively killed.

Obviously I could split this joint, go to a cafe to write, see a movie, vandalize some Teslas. But it’s too warm and I can manage the madness for a couple noisy hours. 

Yet I feel a little odd sitting about while they clean around me. On an ancient episode of “Seinfeld,” Jerry riffs about being home when the maid comes and gets all embarrassed that he just as well have cleaned but, you know, you’re here and all, and he offers a wincing apology and a pained shrug.

This isn’t like that. This is my brother’s abode and I’m but an innocent bystander. I’m on good, first-name terms with the lead cleaner, Delsy, and we banter a bit and joke about the animals. Then she hits the “on” switch and my brain rattles in its tiny pan, and I either leave or tolerate it. Today was the latter, as noted. I don’t know where the hell the pets are.

Delsy is cool. A young mother from Guatemala, petite with a helium voice, she once polished the wood floors so well that I slipped on my ass and about broke in half. That’s a compliment. She’s good. And when I’m there, she’s sweet as can be. She has the laugh of a cartoon elf. 

She runs a mean vacuum, scouring the carpets and attacking the stairs. She even sucks the sofa with that terrible tube. It’s all good, if benignly violent. 

And then it’s over and Delsy and crew politely exit, while the animals skulk out of hiding, wanting nothing more than to bite me. 

Stuff, etc.

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

One of the cats died recently. He was kind of the rotten cat, the one that shreds up the carpet, craps where he feels like it and was extra aloof, like an Aviator-wearing rock star who hates giving autographs. Anyway, we’re saddened and miss the ornery fellow. I’m not sure what to do with his ashes: urn them nicely or chuck them over the fence at the squirrels. 

I don’t trust social media as far as I can spit. If I had a girlfriend, I’d ask her, quite nicely of course, to get off that shit.

Voyeurism is the opiate of the masses, not religion. Think about that for about four seconds.

Just guess who I think embodies all of these descriptives: racist, greedy, venal, petty, megalomaniacal, misogynistic, heartless, rankly sophomoric, vulgarian scum. Bingo.

I’ve planned a trip to Mexico City for November, but I’m so traveled-out right now, the whole thing sounds terrible. Five months is far off, so I should be refreshed by then. Thing is, the weather runs in the mid-70s to 80 in November and I’m barely any good over 70. I hate the heat; I’m a San Francisco wuss. I read that t-shirts and shorts are frowned upon in Mexico City, and I’m not a fan of them either. It sounds like when I was in sweltering India and everyone was swaddled in jeans and long sleeves. I wore jeans with t-shirts and I sweated like swine. Drenched. Two showers a day. I don’t want any of that crap. Maybe I’ll push the trip to December. Or January. Or never.

What I’m reading: “Demon Copperhead,” Barbara Kingsolver’s gritty, funny, unsparing ode to Dickens’ “David Copperfield.” The novel won a Pulitzer last year and rollicks with knockabout wit and wisdom and with more than a dash of social commentary about the sorry state of many of our states (opioids, poverty, detox). The damn thing’s a cinder block so it’s taking me forever to plow through, but it’s worth it. The title character, a teenage boy, both tart and talented, is one for the ages. He’s like a super smart Pig-Pen from “Peanuts”: brilliant but with a cloud of flies and dust buzzing around him. It’s his lot. But he’s one wily fighter, a scrappy, red-headed hero (hence “Copperhead”) in a bedraggled, Dickensian wasteland.

The cat died; the dog thrives. Cubby the wonder mutt needs a bath and a haircut and those crunchy, coagulated eye boogers extracted, but otherwise the aging fella is in fine fettle. OK, he’s been doing the occasional “revenge pee” in the dining room, meaning when he feels abandoned he’ll whizz on the rug when no one’s around. Stealth urine is as bad as any urine, but it’s worse, because you know the scruffy rascal’s doing it with a puckish glint in his eye.

Guzzling round the globe

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“Drink well and travel often.” — Anonymous 

Read, write, gab and guzzle — those are my priorities when I hit the bar scene on my world travels. I do this often, with gusto and curiosity and, of course, thirst. 

Bars, lounges, pubs, with their discrete quirks and personalities, present windows into a country, its culture and people. Dim and cozy, they are places in which to unwind after long days of investigation and staggering amounts of relentless walking. Drop on a stool, plop into a banquette, the body at rest. Let the slurping begin.  

In my travels I become quite the barfly — using the excuse, Hey, I’m on vacation! — bopping between the dive and the divine, the joint with the jukebox, brews and “Pulp Fiction” posters and the immaculate, high-design haven where cocktails shimmer in candlelight. I won’t deny a fine old-fashioned pub. There, Guinness is god, soccer roars on a Times Square of screens and that aroma is deep-fried you name it. I smell nirvana.

Teetotaler or tippler? Dry January — keep it. This is drenched January, considering how my brother and I behaved on our recent jaunt to Hong Kong. We drank not to excess, but often, be it at a bar, a restaurant, a hole in the wall, like the Japanese-themed joint with 10 seats next to our hotel. (We adamantly don’t do clubs. We’re not teenagers.)

Drinking is a spiritual event — spirits abound. Getting wasted is far from the point and is the poor man’s demolition of brain cells and his dignity, not to mention his liver. (“The liver is evil, it must be punished.” — Anonymous) Drunk? No, just buzz me in.

I like bars that allow dogs. They’re good company and rarely slur their words. 

Soccer may flicker on screens in some bars, but people-watching is my spectator sport. If luck abides, it can lead to meeting locals and fellow travelers, which I’ve done countless times. Some of my acquaintances remain email pen pals years on. They hail from Turkey, Vietnam, France, Japan, Lebanon, India and Spain. 

I’m not the most people-ly person, but these contacts are nourishing, even edifying. There was, for instance, lovely Lina in Beirut, a non-drinker who wound up driving me up the coast of Lebanon for a full-day tour that I never would have managed on my own. No strings attached.

I’m a promiscuous sipper, be it bourbon or beer, though I prefer my cocktails on the sweet and sour side, a little sting. My brother prefers the bite of bitters and high-proof browns. Gin and tonic is my go-to, but I enjoy perusing, and sampling, an inspired cocktail menu, and quality lagers are always an option (IPAs, not so much). I had a gin drink, the Pickled Cucumber Gimlet, at the suave, view-dazzling Avoca bar in Hong Kong that featured pickles and “fire tincture.” It was delicious — sweet, sour, a zap of spice. I ordered it again.

The stylishly casual bar in the Château Royal hotel in Berlin boasts of its “artistry, dedication and genuine hospitality,” and it earns those bragging rights. My brother and I liked it so much last October, and became friendly with the servers over six days, that we even had our morning coffee on its velvet barstools.

And that’s the thing. What makes a bar extra special, what makes you yearn to go back, are the people tending it, from the wildly tattooed and the wisecrackers, to the terse, humble and the tidily dressed, who (hopefully) have an impish twinkle in their eye.

Chatting with them you learn their names, where they’re from, how long they’ve worked there, and what, if any, are their day jobs (usually it’s something admirably offbeat and artistic). And it’s a mutual, symbiotic relationship. “You wanna be where everybody knows your name” goes the song. Well, yeah.

You might think these dimly lit haunts are precipitants of mortality, death’s lubricants. I counter they are refuges of relief, little saviors on life’s pocked avenues, pitstops of pleasure, at best taken in moderation. I drink, therefore I am.

Those great bars, whose names, courtesy of coaster and cards, we always remember. And those great bartenders, real heroes whose names we always get, and always, alas, forget. 

“Drink. Travel. Books. I went broke, but I had a hell of a time.” — Anonymous 

A fantastic bartender at the great Hong Kong restaurant Ho Lee Fook (a pun, say it slowly) serves me a zesty whiskey sour. She also created her own cocktail that she serves in tiny glasses gratis, a nice post-meal touch. We liked it so much, she joined us in another swig.
Knockout gin and tonic in Paris. A little frou-frou, but yum-yum.
Mixing our drinks at famed Italian restaurant Carbone in Hong Kong. That spread of food is the dessert cart.
Alkymya is a sublime little bar in Naples, Italy. That extravagant plate of bites is complimentary, and all the more amazing for it.
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Tiny bar in Tokyo — maybe eight stools — that I haunted often. Fun bartender on the left, and the colorful owner.
This friendly guy in Berlin makes his own top-notch gin — the name of it eludes me, but the recipe includes coffee — and he’s concocting a superb G&T for me.
At this lesbian bar in Hong Kong, The Pontiac, the signature cocktail is the Hobnail — blended Scotch, ginger, Averna, bitters and orange oil. Excellent. That what she’s making.

Wine tasting — look at the size of that “tasting” pour! — in Goreme, a small town in the region of Cappadocia, Turkey.
Our heroic bartending crew at the hotel bar at Chateau Royal in Berlin. True pros. True mensches.
Wonderfully friendly and accommodating bar gang at the barely year-old Socio in Hong Kong, which focuses on libations from the South Pacific. They gave us a generous sample of a unique Australian whiskey when we asked about it. Great drinks, lovely people.

Very cool bartender pouring my drink at Avoca, on the 38th floor of our Hong Kong hotel. He’s only been bartending for three months. Already he’s a master.
Owner/bartender at Bar Jake in Tokyo. The tiny place is a liquid tribute to “The Blues Brothers.” It’s goofy.

I’m dreaming of a white … well, sort of

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Overnight, unexpectedly, snow fell, making for a delightful slush-fest this afternoon, one that I have to brave in order to walk the dog and neither one of us is gleeful about it, especially me, who can’t find his snow boots and must stroll in wee leather sneakers, ha ha, squish.

The snow, it’s not so bad, a solid inch and half or two, and the sun sliced through before I had to actually pull out the shovel and clear the sidewalk, the kind of toil that kills hundreds of hale men via heart attacks each year. (There’s no way I’m dying from shoveling snow. Manure maybe, snow, no.) Yet, as noted, it’s slushy out there, which beats crunchy. That stuff sticks for days and mocks you as you scrape windshields and, yes, shovel like a chain-gang prisoner.

Snow on Christmas Eve — how can you complain? While this powder is so slight that it won’t really make for the dreamy, coveted white Christmas — get ready for tomorrow’s brown Christmas — it’s still a tiny treat that shouts seasonal sentimentality. I’m getting misty already.

Friends are flung cross-country, from California to Florida, and the immediate family absconded to a Cancun resort for the holidays in order to swim and sweat. So I am, once again, a solo character in this festive narrative. It suits me well.

We opened presents on Sunday and a fine bounty was had, including a giant bottle of my beloved Monkey 47 gin, which goes down smooth if you ignore the price tag. My brother loves 19th century Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, so I got him a finger puppet of him as a stocking stuffer. It was that kind of Xmas exchange — practical and comical.  

So snow. I get it. I got it. The tree is lit. Tonight I’m going to either rewatch the classic ‘70s noir “Chinatown” (I’m reading a book about the making of it) or pop a gummy and watch “The Wizard of Oz,” which seems positively made for gummies. Cubby the dog will be my companion. And I will pour a Monkey 47 and truly have a Christmas on ice. Cheers to all.

Berlin boogie

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

So there we were, rambling the hip Berlin sidewalks, hopscotching crumpled cigarette packs whose contents the locals so blithely puff, and glancing at the endless walls of colorful graffiti that looks like so much bubble-lettered gobbledygook, when we stumbled on a little shop that sells porcelain pups. Yes: glazed Great Danes and shiny Schnauzers. My brother and I peered in the windows, pointing, laughing, pining. Too bad the damn place was closed. We moved on, slightly crushed. Onward.

Berlin is a beaut. It may not be the prettiest or most charismatic city I’ve been to — you win, Paris, Istanbul and Tokyo — but it is relentlessly amicable, stylish, pulsing. The city, from which I just returned, has a big determined heart, still pulling itself out of the twin muck of Nazism and Communism, that makes it both a little staid and also, wildly, weirdly, the techno-rave dance capital of the world, a pent-up human energy explosion.

It’s an offbeat charmer, animated by a vibrant polyglot and a diverse people, be it leather-clad Eurotrash, Arab falafel slingers, or well-heeled bougies and their primly groomed doggies. It presents an alluring jumble of history and humanity, culture and cuisine, with a dash of decadence and the pesky ghosts of a bleak past that’s shudderingly recent.

We spent six full days stamping the streets, alleyways, museums and squares of this relatively young metropolis, whose US-backed west and USSR-backed east didn’t reconcile till the Wall came tumbling down in the great thaw of 1989. Much of the architecture looks shiny-new, replacements for the rubble left by ferocious Allied bombings during WWII.

Berlin was also rocked by rock ’n’ roll. We took a tour of  the city’s grungy, arty, DIY underbelly in a vintage 1972 Ford Econoline van driven by the shaggy founder of the Ramones Museum Berlin, which is really just a funky bar strewn with punk artifacts. It’s cool. The tour was happily heavy on David Bowie and Iggy Pop’s ‘70s stint in Berlin, which forged a collective creative milestone in rock, including Bowie’s wondrous “Heroes.” We can be heroes, just for one day. Or, in our case, six days.

A side note: For all its diversity — the Turkish and Arab worlds exert strong stakes — Berlin has blind spots. I saw fewer than three Black people in six days, and that’s troubling and hard to fathom for a US visitor. I googled this and read that most of the Black population lives in the so-called African Quarter, an area I’m pretty sure we didn’t hit and whose existence rather unsettles. Ignorance may place me out of my depth here; facts are elusive. And yet.

And now, a smattering of visuals — alas none of those porcelain pups that so capture the whimsy, artistry and dog-love of the bounty that’s Berlin … 

Berlin Cathedral with the famed, kitschy TV tower of East Berlin

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe — stark, contemplative, abstract

My bed at the lovely Chateau Royal Hotel, with mystifying skeleton-emblazoned canopy

The Tiergarten park, a 520-acre urban oasis in West Berlin, where I sipped a stein of lager in a leafy biergarten

Tiergarten

A bar I wish was open when I passed

Cafe Frieda, my favorite restaurant in Berlin, swathed in that glorious graffiti

Some of the bar staff at our arty hotel, a fantastically hospitable crew, slinging mean, creative drinks
Guinea fowl dinner at my second favorite Berlin restaurant, Eins44 Cantine

The iconic Brandenburg Gate, doing its thing, just sitting there, from the 1700s

One of my new Berlin buds

Pet sounds

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The animals have it made. They just don’t know it.

Oblivious to their Edenic existence — room, board, vet care, treats, belly rubs — they try my charity and patience with animal trickery, inbred cunning that might serve them in the wild, but I doubt it. Tossed outside, the dog and two cats would eat twigs and weeds and cry for their mommies. That scratching at the door? I’m sure I don’t know.

When they’re not noisome they’re noisy, yawping dissonant arias that would make Yoko Ono reconsider her entire career. Every so often I am startled by the sound of hell’s maw bellowing tortured damnation. It’s just the cat.

While the cats whine constantly, the dog often breathes with the labored wheeze of a Sleestak, the reptilian humanoids from the “Land of the Lost.” He sounds about 100 and sneaks Pall Malls. And he barks at strangers with a fury so committed, you want to reward him with a meatball. But you don’t, because his outbursts are teeth-clinchingly annoying. Told to shut up, he replies: yap!

The male cat in particular, gray and greedy and shameless, is an air-raid siren of plaintive meows, begging for food then stealing that of his push-over sister. The other day I Frisbeed a small plate at him and missed. He gave me the stink eye and stalked haughtily to the other room, where he probably contemplated murder and mackerel.

Cubby the curly mutt is my pal, a boy and his dog and all that. We get along with a fellowship of such purity you could throw up. We’re like bros, even though I hate bros. He doesn’t know this.

The cats are another deal. They’re sweet and affectionate, but it’s hard to get close to creatures that prefer aloof entitlement to purry snuggles. One cat hibernates in the attic all day, zonked, and the other one is on call strictly for food, any food. (This is flagrant feline stereotyping, I know. My ex and I had a cat named Jesse who would play fetch with bottle caps and sleep on your head.)

Watching the animals in repose, on their back or curled up like a large ball of yarn, must be what it’s like when your small child finally falls asleep after a day of tantrums and slobber. Suddenly there’s a still angel in your midst, halo shimmering, mouth miraculously shut. Shhh.

Oft-seen shot of Cubby, blissfully at rest.



Back in black

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After an unintentional hiatus of chronic brain farts, here are a few bite-size entries:

Tripping over trips

I bought a flight to Chile. And scrapped it. I bought a flight to Toronto. And scrapped it. Fickle? Right. Even after planning and paying I decided neither destination would slake my thirst for culture, art, food, action. So I scotched them in favor of the capital of the European Union’s most populous nation, that mad beehive of historical and cultural abundance, Berlin. Chile would have happened this month, Toronto last month, and Berlin, well, it’s a ways off — October. Yet as with any trip, I’m already committing vigorous reportage, booking tours and meals, boning up on the history and italicizing gotta-see sights, from the fabled Reichstag and remnants of the Wall (now vibrant murals) to Hitler’s bunker (that fetid suicide pit) and the enticing Museum Island — five museums colonizing a mid-city isle on the lovely Spree river. Sounds great, I think. Equally terrific: I got full refunds for the Chile and Toronto trips. Did I mention my brother is coming along? Fine company, he’s also a crack navigator, which is perfect for me who gets hopelessly lost the second I step out of the hotel. I’m the guy holding a huge, creased paper map upside down, battling fluttering winds.

Doggy style

I don’t laugh out loud very often while reading, but I did, a lot, soaking in Miranda July’s new novel “All Fours,” a warm, warped, touching, unashamedly naughty and riotous love story that goes places you’re never quite prepared for. It’s a joy. The story follows the romantic zigzags of a 45-year-old artist who’s a married mother but stumbles upon unlikely love with a much younger man who likes to dance. Sex, perimenopausal panic and motel redecorating ensue. It’s conventional until it’s not, both bawdy and bizarre, with just the right touch of July’s signature kookiness. Never has the writer — who’s also an actress and filmmaker — been more in control of her habitual twee impulses. And never has she been so seamlessly funny.

Doggy style part II

Cubby the magical mutt is, I’m afraid, getting old. The guesstimate age for this chipper rescue pup is seven to eight, solid middle-age in human years — paunches and ear hair, janky joints and jowls, gray and grumbles. Yet while he can be a bit creaky scrambling up the stairs and some tiny warts have mushroomed on his compact body, Cubs still plays chase with his stuffed Yoda and barks with shattering verve at the random car horn and rumbling UPS truck, more than ever in fact. But he’s also more neurotic than he was in his slavering, carefree youth. Sometimes if landscapers are extra noisy or the wind rustles the trees in violent whooshes the dog will quiver and hide under my legs or behind a chair. Also, his outside duties (doodies?) seem harder to coax out of him. Otherwise Cubby’s a hale old boy, snapping up treats and begging for belly rubs. He sleeps well, too, though his snoring can register 7.5 on the Richter scale. Those little earthquakes are a thing of most assured comfort.

His head looks enormous.

Pet peeves

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Between the cat eating the house plants then vomiting greenery all over the place and the dog expressing his anal glands by scooting his butthole across the cream-colored carpet, the animals are just asking for a one-way trip to the pound. 

I jest, but it’s true that pets is only one letter away from pests. Love them as I do, these free-roaming (if housebound) creatures are high-maintenance, not quite like human children, god forbid, but demanding and nerve-wracking nonetheless.

Oh, what’s this adorable chunk of indescribable disgustingness? Just another hairball upchucked from my favorite feline. Thanks, Tiger Lily, you charmer!

Any responsible owner of pets knows the aggravation of keeping animals. That’s why I’ve owned so many pet rats over the years — low-maintenance while being cleaner than cats and smarter than dogs. That’s a truism that happens to hold water. And the rodents may just be funnier than cats and dogs, and more affectionate to boot. Plus they have a life-span a little longer than the common house fly, which actually drop-kicks your heart.

Rats always like to play and snuffle around. They are great explorers, endlessly curious and insatiably social. They hoard. They drink beer. They dig in the plants, climb all over you, squeak during belly rubs and, yes, even giggle with joy. Then again, they nibble anything in their path, from electrical cords to your favorite book.

Pets aren’t perfect. People aren’t perfect. And while my girlfriend isn’t going to express her anal glands on my light-hued carpet, she might dog-ear the pages and break the binding of my favorite book. Infallibility — let the Pope bask in that rarefied delusion.

So as I write about these pet peeves, the dog goes ballistic over the arrival of the mail. Screeches and door scratches, head nearly exploding with the notion of territorial intrusion. The dog is bored. Let him fulfill a sense of purpose for 20 seconds. Though, thanks to the hyperactive scratching, the front door needs a fresh paint job.

The dog, Cubby, grumbles as he comes off his hissy-fit. He relaxes, peers out the window for more invaders, then curls up in a ball like a sowbug on the couch. (He’s dark gray, charcoal, and small. Like a sowbug.) The cat … who knows where she went. She vanishes like the Cheshire Cat, but leaving no toothy smile in her wake. How come cats rarely smile? Entitled, they are, seething with grave self-importance.

Last week the dog shat on the dining room rug, an impressive tower of leaning Lincoln Logs, a bonfire yet unlit. The cat barfed out something bile-colored — an intoxicating shade of yellow, beige and lime green — and I, ha ha, got to pick it all up. Rascals!

The price of pets is worth it. They cost time, money and exasperation. They get sick. The dog needs grooming. The cat tears up the carpet. Then there are the Sea-Monkeys, which live in a miniature saltwater tank. Let’s not get into the Sea-Monkeys.

Pets are gems. Strange animals strolling the halls, licking themselves obsessively, barking and meowing the call of the wild, oozing reciprocal love in our gorgeous, fantastically maddening peaceable kingdom. Sit, Cubby, sit. Thatta boy. 

The cat’s seething self-importance