Good Morning, my Baby,
It's one of those mornings when I am thinking about you extra-specially, when I wish I was meeting you for lunch, sitting by you at the piano in the afternoon or evening. I always wish for those things, but sometimes they really pull at me. I have a couple of sore clients today. We didn't go on our usual morning dogwalk because both Pearl and The Kobester have sore backs. I chalk it up to the first cold weather of the year, "cold" used relatively, as it is the dreaded L.A. Cold I am referring to, when it gets cloudy and rainy and down in the low 60s. We only had one day of it, yesterday, and today it is nice out once again, but I think it was enough to cause the muscle soreness in both Pearl and Kobi. Pearl still wants to go to her hair appointment at 11:30, though, so I will be back-and-forth from 11:15 until about 1:45 or 2pm. Then I will be back here until 4:15.
I will just imagine us together in the meantime. I Love You So Much, Elizabeth. :):)
2:10pm : Yeah, my doggie Shemp. He was a big, black Lab that we got as a pup in 1977, and no matter what we did, we just couldn't keep that dog in the house. We had a white picket fence bordering our backyard, which was elevated a few feet higher than street level, but if you let Shemp into the back yard unsupervised, he'd launch himself up onto that fence and then pull himself over and jump about six feet down to the sidewalk. He loved trash - garbage - and his destination was usually the nearby Alpha Beta supermarket, which was about a quarter mile from our house. To get there, he had to cross a six lane boulevard - Nordhoff Street, which fronts CSUN, so it's usually full of traffic. Every time Shemp escaped, I worried that he wouldn't make it back, but he always did. His objective was a trash dumpster in back of the market. I don't know if stores still do this, but back then, they always threw out the expired produce, bread, dairy products, etc. Shemp had somehow discovered this fact, and that dumpster was like a goldmine to him. His favorite things to take were always bread and cheese. Dumpsters are fairly high off the ground; I knew how he got in, because there was a ramped loading dock at the back of the store that was level with the dumpster. My guess was that he'd run up the ramp and then jump down into the dumpster. Getting out must have been a little harder, but then he could jump over our back fence with little problem, so I suppose the dumpster wasn't too big a challenge.
I never got to see it, but I can just picture him jumping in to that dumpster, rummaging around in that happy-go-lucky Labrador way until he found a nice loaf of bread or piece of cheese, then putting it in his mouth and jumping back out of the dumpster so he could bring it home. He always brought his dumpster food home to enjoy. And to get back home, he had to again cross those six busy lanes of traffic. So the way he did it - and I did witness this a few nerve-wracking times - was to wait for a break in the traffic, and, if the break was long enough, he'd simply cross the street. But if it was only a short break, he'd do the same thing a driver would do when trying to make a left turn in heavy traffic - he'd cross halfway, then run down the middle of the street, parallel to the cars in the space between the double yellow lines.
Here would be three lanes of cars going in one direction, and three lanes of cars going in the other direction, and there would be Shemp, running right down the middle in the direction of home. And with a big piece of cheese in his mouth, or a loaf of bread. When there was another break in the traffic, he'd cross the rest of the way over, then he'd come home and "knock" on the front door to be let in. He must've had a Guardian Dog Angel watching over him to never get killed crossing that street. We even tried putting barbed wire on top of the white picket fence, but it did no good. Shemp would just go right over it, and you'd find little chunks of black fur in the barbs.
He also knew when it was trash day on our street, and many times I'd awaken on Wednesday morning and go outside to get the paper, only to see that all the trashcans, all down the street, had been knocked over, their contents scattered about. "Gee, I wonder how that happened"?, I'd think - NOT!
More than a few times, an angry neighbor would come to the door: "Is that your dog"?, they'd ask.
Me: "Well, I........um........you see.......um......sorry about that".
But Shemp was unstoppable. You just couldn't keep him in.
And you couldn't catch him, either, at least not on foot. Shemp knew this, and if he saw you coming, on foot, he'd just stand there, kind of taunting you, until you got close. Then he'd run away. What you had to do was chase him down in a car. He'd run a little bit, but then you'd pull up right next to him and he'd know the gig was up.
But the thing with Shemp was that he was so loveable, and so cool. He loved Metal, for one thing. We got him in 1977, and in 1979 I got my first guitar and amp. I used to practice to Judas Priest and Motorhead albums, and when Shemp heard the music, he always came and "knocked" on my bedroom door, wanting to be let in. Then he'd lie down right in from of my amp, cause he liked the vibrations. He must've really liked my Marshall, with it's low bottom end.
Shemp was generous, too. When he wasn't running up to Alpha Beta or knocking over the neighbor's trash cans, he would go up and down the street early in the morning and find the houses where the local dairyman had left a delivery. Then he'd take a half-gallon jug of milk, and carry it from their porch to ours. And he'd leave it there for us to find, like "look what I brought you". Neighbors got pissed about that, too. :)
But nobody could stay mad at Shemp, and nobody could control him. He would follow my Dad onto the bus. One time he followed Dad into the library. "Is that your dog"?.........
Shemp was our dog, for sure. He lived to be almost 11, then died of natural causes after living a full and fun Dog Life. I wanted to get another Lab right away, because Labs are such fun; so sweet, and they have a sense of humor. And, they are big and like to Do Stuff. Fun stuff.
But after Shemp, I swore off male Labs. I wanted the same Lab Loveability without all the hijinx. Shemp was one of a kind, but one Shemp was enough, haha.
So, we got Alice. She was even bigger and stronger than Shemp. I called her The Super Biggie. She liked to show off by picking up a tree stump and carrying it around, by a branch on it's side that she used as a handle. Alice's thing was to carry tennis balls around. Most doggies wanna chase one ball, but Alice would want me to throw three, so she could pick them all up, one in the back of her mouth, one in the middle, and one in her teeth. But with Alice, you could even leave the front door open and she wouldn't run away. She never knocked over a trash can, or ran down the middle of Nordhoff Street. She did love music, but maybe not as much as Shemp.
But best of all, when Alice was only 18 months old, she gave us Trixie, her half-lab beautiful blonde daughter. Trixie was a gorgeous doggie, with the look and disposition of a deer.
Alice and Trixie were my mother-and-daughter doggie team of Labs, and I had them until 1997. We lost our house after the earthquake, and I've been living in apartments ever since. I don't have enough room now for a dog, but when I do, I wanna get another Lab.
Oh, and they also like cats. Alice and Trixie lived with as many as five of 'em. ;)
(back in a little bit) :):)
4pm : Tonight is movie night at CSUN, and this time I will be home later than usual because the film, Fassbinder's "World On A Wire" is........... 3 1/2 hours long. Oy. But, I'd like to see it, and I've sat through a few ultra-long films before. So, I won't be home till about 11pm my time. You certainly don't have to stay awake on my account, but if by any chance you are awake (and even if you aren't), I'll be back on this same blog, to say goodnight.
I wish you were coming with me.......
I Love You! xoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
(back about 11:00)
11:15pm : I am back, my Beautiful Angel, and I made it through the whole thing. It was actually a good movie, if not a great one (due to it's length), and as a science fiction film it was certainly a precursor to "The Matrix" and possibly "Blade Runner" as well. I think Fassbinder influenced a lot of directors, and there was definitely no one like him.
I saw your post, and it's a riot. I didn't actually try entering my phone number. Is that part for real, or it is a joke? I guess there's only one way to find out, haha. I'll tell ya, as you know, I am not real political anymore, but this group of people in the Congress right now is the worst we have ever had, and we've had some bad ones. Tea Partiers, imo, are the worst of the lot, but the rest of the Repubs and Dems aren't much better. And I'm not a Libertarian, either, so don't get me started on them. Good Grief, I can't stand most politicians. Not all, but most. I said to Pearl yesterday, after I heard that soldier's families weren't getting death benefits, that I am not gonna vote for any of those people, meaning my California reps, in the next election. They are the absolute worst.
So I'd better not drunk dial 'em in real life, lol. As George Bush the Elder used to say, on Saturday Night Live : "Not gonna do it - wouldn't be prudent"!
I'll tell you what I do like, and that's thinking about you. All day long, Elizabeth, I wished I was with you. Just to be together and do things together. As I always say, they could be big things or little things, grand or simple, but to do them with You.........
In the Monet painting, of the Artist's Garden, there is a couple in the distance. That's us.
You and Me, together in such a garden, loving each other, sharing life.
I Love You my Darling Elizabeth. Sweet Dreams, and I will imagine you in my arms and hold you there and in my heart all night long, and then I'll see you in the morning.
My Love...... :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment