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Purple Car

There are loose dogs here a lot. They wander through, like tourists, discussing their travels with Falcor, through my fence. Sniffs and tail wags, maybe a little fence running, and then on they go.

Recently there has been a brown and white spotted pit bull mix, a male dog with his equipment intact. Very sweet and friendly. He's been around for several days. It drives me crazy when they keep showing up, because I don't know whether they are abandoned, or just on walkabout.

There was a white pit bull mix a few months back, also very friendly. He parked himself in front of my house for a day or so. Turned out he was getting loose from a house across the street, that is for sale. Some human associated with the house had been trying to park the dog there.

"He won't stay," I heard the human say.

There are three houses across the street currently in transit. A woman owns one of them. The people she rented to were unfortunate, and eventually went away, and she hired other, perhaps more fortunate humans, to clean out the house, and pile gravel on the yard again. I don't know why she pays to pile on the gravel. Not everybody likes gravel. The first people hauled it all off again, but the later people after that probably weren't the same people. The last one played some pretty good guitar on the front doorstep, looking lost, before he, too, finally departed to other pastures.

She drives a purple car. I've seen her around for years, but I don't talk to my neighbors more than I can help because then they get to know me and they don't like that.

So I was venturing across the street to the cluster mailbox, which I do either when it's dark or when no one is around usually, and she drove up and addressed me as m'lady and asked whether she could speak to me, very nice, and I thought what, that woman who clerks at the grocery store calls me m'lady, and now there is another one?

I worked out later that this is probably the same person. Meanwhile, I did what I usually do these days when confronted by inexplicable behavior, and acted like we are actually people who know each other. Usually works.

She told me about a grey pit bull, who had been abandoned by whoever was ultimately living in her rental house, and how she'd kept the dog for two weeks, and she already had two dogs, and just couldn't keep her, and she knew the grey pit bull was friends with Falcor, and wondered whether I would like to adopt her? She was going to have her spayed this week.

I was left wondering what Falcor had been up to when I wasn't paying attention, because I sure didn't remember a grey pit bull. I said no, I wasn't in the market for a dog right now, sorry.

The director of our animal shelter here, Angela, whom I admire no end, has told me that most of the pit bulls who come in abandoned, and there are a lot of them, are really sweet. And she and her staff probably have to kill more pit bulls and mixes than any other breed, because there are just so, so many.

I thought about this as I said no thank you, I don't want your dog, and felt bad for this sort-of-neighbor, doomed to be stuck sending this dog to the shelter where her chances would be dim, with only a ten or twelve percent adoption rate, and rescues not good for pit bulls either, though Angela spends her day off driving dogs all over this part of the country to rescues, so they won't have to kill so many.

I was out selectively line trimming the easement today. I cut selectively, I only kill those who are too out of hand, too unattractive, too prickly. I get cited if I don't cut it at all. The culture forces us to make bad choices.

My purple car acquaintance drove by and stopped. "I found the dog a home!" she yelled.

"Great!" I yelled back. "Good work!"

And she sailed off, in her purple car, optimism intact.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Miep's picture

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Stay on track. Stay in lane. Don't throw rocks.

pfiore8's picture

enjoyed it and phew... glad for the happy ending.

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“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"

Miep's picture

I try to focus on stories I can spin upbeat. I like to look at how positive outcomes and perspectives happen, what allows them to happen. But mostly it's a matter of illustrating them when I see them and let the story take it from there.

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Stay on track. Stay in lane. Don't throw rocks.

Alison Wunderland's picture

That was a pleasure to read, Miep. I would say "heartening."

And in return...

Did Bernie Camp today. The weather was absolutely shitty. Couldn't decide if it was going to be rain, sleet, or snow. No matter; zealotry requires hardships to build commitment, right?

Got to the address and couldn't find the place. Had to walk around the block to find the door. Signed up, then in typical AB fashion, suggested they put a bigger sign on the door that could be seen from the corner. The gang of young earnest full-time volunteers began their presentation: tutorials on how to become emotionally invested in canvassing, as though people who's braved a snowstorm were not prepared to endure high water or hell to plug away for the B-man. It was sweet to see such enthusiasm. Of the 40+ who'd signed up, only 18 showed up. The age range varied through the full gamut. Then came lunch: pizza and pop.

After lunch, a bit more training.
"Does anyone want to go canvassing?"
"Sure!" said the one who's been where Angels fear to tread more often than not.

Got my list of doors to knock on. It looked like a rural phone book. WTF? Turned out to be three sets of my route. Phew.
Then they couldn't round up a partner. It really helps to work in teams--one to do the schmoozing, one to fill in the paperwork. Meanwhile, I'd loaded my pockets with buttons, and my knapsack with bumper stickers and window signs.

Then reality set in like the wet smack at the end of a hard fist. Rain, solo, route a mile away, and on perusing the little map of the target, the realization that this was what is colloquially known as a "very bad neighborhood." So, I packed it in, promising to pick up the gauntlet in earnest tomorrow (today, actually) when conditions would be more favorable, (and hopefully enlisting one of my neighbors to assist.)

Now comes the good part. Rejoice.

After waiting for the bus in the rain for half an hour, I hop on the bus. I had already prepared for my foray by festooning the shoulders of my down coat with Bernie buttons--two on each shoulder. The bus was almost empty. There was a young, white hipsterish mam a couple of seats away, a young black guy of dubious repute a few seats back, on the other side of the bus, and a hefty, older black woman directly across from me.

The white kid eyes my buttons.
"Feel the Bern?"
"You bet." he says.
So I hand him a couple of buttons.
Then I look at the black woman across from me.
"Bernie?"
She smiles.
I hand her a couple of buttons.
"This is a revolution! And this time we're going to win." I say. (I was probably having a flashback.)
All the while, the young black guy has been fiddling with something in his knapsack. He's been quietly watching our little scene. When he's done, he displays his orange watch cap... that now sports his Bernie button.

I hop off the bus at my stop, slightly euphoric, and meander back to Chateau Bidet. Halfway to home, I see a young woman who seems vaguely familiar, in that sort of subliminal way you recognize neighbors whom you don't know. I smile. She smiles back.

"You for Bernie?"
"Absolutely!"
"Hi, I'm Alan."
Hi Alan, I'm Julia."
(I hand her a fistful of buttons.)
"I've seen you before. You live nearby?"
"Yes. My husband, 7-month old son, and I live right down the street here."
"I live in the big house there on the corner. Pleased to meet you, neighbor. Would you be able to volunteer for Bernie?"
(Forgot to email her earlier, just emailed now to see if either of them can help out today.)

Then I went door-to-door to my immediate neighbors and spread out my signs, stickers, and buttons.

[Smile]

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Miep's picture

Thank you.

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Stay on track. Stay in lane. Don't throw rocks.

Unabashed Liberal's picture

We need more like that . . .

Cool the way you worked the 'purple car' into your title, too.

Mollie
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Visit Us At Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)
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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

Miep's picture

It's a metaphor for politics as well, in that people who make things happen don't listen to people who say they're hopeless.

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Stay on track. Stay in lane. Don't throw rocks.