THE LOVE SEAT

A living room at last

I'm not a nester.  I have always watched with baffled curiosity as my friends transform their living space into comfortable and attractive homes.  Fortunately I have a friend, Michael, who has stepped in whenever I've moved and done amazing things with whatever sticks of furniture I happened to have.  Alas, Michael lives in the Pacific Northwest in the islands and hasn't yet come to visit me in the Delta.  I'm on my own.

Amber chewed up the sofa we had in Oxnard--that was during her puppy days; she hasn't chewed on furniture recently.  It would have been too large for our little cottage anyway, so I thought that what we needed to create a living room would be a love seat, the two seater version of a sofa.  But my search for such an item had not met with any success.  The consignment stores that had anything at all were asking prices in the range of $300 to $400, which was not that much less than what furniture stores were asking for new love seats.  I was willing to get a new one, and visited several furniture stores, only to find that there seems to be some sort of competition to see which manufacturer can produce the ugliest sofas, great lumpy overstuffed things in dismal patterns.

Jacob suggested Craig's list, and there it was: the love seat of my imaginings in a town called Acampo.  A phone call determined that Acampo is on Highway 99 just north of Lodi.  Nellie volunteered to take me there in the van on Saturday.  We left about 10:00 a.m. so we could stop at the dog part in Lodi, which we did.  Amber had a good run and then we set off for Acampo.  The love seat is leather, in perfect condition, and just about exactly the same shade of tan as the wainscotting.

The family was selling it because the son, his wife, college age son and a toddler and an infant were moving into the small house with his parents and they needed every inch of space.  Outside in the yard was an extensive yard sale in which prospective buyers examined furniture, clothing, tools, and all the other artifacts of a household that no longer held.  The yard was also full of police cars and policemen since the son, himself an off duty policeman, had shot a pit bull belonging to one of the neighbors.  The dog had evidently come charging into the yard and was deemed a danger.  In the midst of all this the father and a fourteen year old son loaded the love seat into the van.  On our way out of the yard I got five blouses and a purse.  It is not possible to leave the house any more without encountering amazing examples of the collapsing economy.  Direct experience indicates that the situation is far worse than even the news media indicates.  Would we take to the streets if we knew how bad it is and how there is little or no chance of it getting anything but worse?  I doubt it since people are making such heroic efforts to carry on: moving in with relatives, living in cars, working two or three minimum wage jobs, selling their belongings.

We drove back to Rio Vista where Jacob met us at our house, and one of the young men from the 'hood came running over to help move the love seat into the living room, which now actually is a living room.  Two rocking chairs and a coffee table just weren't convincing as a living room.  You need to have at least one sinfully comfortable place to sit, which we now have.

Maybe I should think about curtains?

RECOVERING

Amber and I have been sick and doing very little other than taking pills and naps, so little blogging has gone on. She is better now, in fact quite full of her usual wickedness and inventiveness.  Her high spirits have at least gotten me out of the house and into the fields with her so she can pursue rabbits and thus siphon off all that energy.  I am determined to get a video of a jackrabbit breaking cover and bounding across the field with Amber bounding after in full cry.  So far no luck.  I have probably seen this occur several dozen times, often spectacularly with the rabbit leaping directly toward me or crossing close in front of me with Amber in pursuit.  Alas, on these instances the camera is in the car, or I can't fumble it out of my pocket in time.  Sooner or later I'll get that shot.  Meanwhile, here's Amber looking for rabbits:

 When we're out in this field near Poppy House Road, we often encounter other dogs off leash with their companion persons.  This rambunctious white charmer is six years old but with the impulse to play of a puppy.  She has perfected the play bow, the invitation to play that consists of placing the front legs flat on the ground while the rear end is elevated.  The two of them had a good run.

DOG ETIQUETTE

Imagine, for the sake of illustration, that we humans live on another planet under the care and patronage of an advanced race of beings. The other humans I’ve met here and I are very content with this arrangement, for the most part.  These beings who care for us and love us, who see to it that we are fed and sheltered are so good that our chief joy is in pleasing them.  Sometimes it seems to me that they like us humans better than they like others of their own kind.  Maybe they know too much about each other.

These beings who care for us are silent.  They communicate without any spoken or gestured language, evidently with a direct transfer of thought and emotion.  I can’t be sure of this, of course, since I cannot communicate with my being.  He can communicate a little with me, however.  When I please him he beams this warmth and pleasure at me.  And when I displease him that wonderful feeling is simply gone, and a sort of cold emptiness is there instead.  It’s hard to describe, but very real.

I said that we humans are content for the most part.  But we are still humans after all, and we like to have the company of our own kind some of the time.  Our caretakers are aware of this and frequently make arrangements for us to be with other humans.  There are special places they take us where we can meet other humans.  But these beings don’t like the way we humans communicate.  The noises we make, our talking, is distasteful, even disgusting to them.  When we try to talk, just a few words to exchange names, maybe tell each other where we were from on earth, the beings are embarrassed and try to separate us so we can’t talk. And I feel that coldness of disapproval from my being.

I wonder sometimes why they can’t understand how important our way of communicating is to us.  What does it hurt them, after all, if we make our noises that are the only way we have to know each other?  Couldn’t they just wear ear plugs if the noises are so disgusting to them?

This is what we do to our dogs. What we term “private parts” are public parts for dogs.They know and are known by sniffing each other’s butts and sharing spots of urine to smell.  Their friendly greetings, their smiles and handshakes and how-are-yous are embarrassing to us and we try to prevent them from happening.  But what does it hurt us after all if some detailed butt sniffing takes place?  Why not just turn away and look somewhere else? 

 Amber and boxers being polite

PHILADELPHIA

Rocky statue viewed from the top of a tour bus

Although the wedding was in Swarthmore, Jacob and Nellie and I stayed in the El Meridien Hotel in the middle of Philadelphia, right by City Hall, to avail ourselves of touristing opportunities.  On Sunday, after the brunch on Rittenhouse Square, we took the Big Bus sightseeing tour, which included (I quote from their brochure) 24 hour ticket, expert local guides, hop-on hop-off, 21 stops.  Our expert guide told us of the travels of the Rocky statue, which had been dedicated to the city by the film company that immortalized Rocky Balboa's training sprints on the formidable steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum.  It seems that the statue was first placed at the top of the steps where Rocky's expansive gesture was made in the film.  The museum's board, however, got sniffy over the question of whether the stature was in fact art.  The statue was moved to some other location, but it turned out that it was the biggest tourist attraction in this venerable city and the tourists followed it.  The art museum board then had second thoughts and brought it back, although not to the top of the steps.  The Rocky statue now holds court off to one side on ground level--thus is a truce between popular culture and high culture maintained.

The Philadelphia Art Museum, among the largest in the country with an excellent and extensive collection, was one of our hop-off the bus places.  We were there for about two hours, which is a bit over the time I can productively view art.  After that I just shamble along like a stunned ox without really registering much.  Fortunately I got to the American collection before that happened and was struck by how similar the work of Homer and Eakins are to Repin and the Russian Itinerants although they were not contemporaries.

Jacob hopped off the bus again at the Four Seasons, but Nellie and I continued on along the Delaware River front and then to the core of the historical district at Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.  We just had time to see the Liberty Bell before catching the last bus of the day back to our starting point at Love Park, home to the Love Statue, which I hadn't known was a statue.  Jacob and Nellie took the second half of the tour on Monday before we went to the airport to head back to the Delta.

Me with the Liberty Bell, which was smaller than I had imagined and cracked on the other side.

WEDDING

William with his father and sister

Frances with her father and mother         



                                                           









Last Thursday, July 7th, Jacob and Nellie and I flew to Philadelphia to attend the wedding of my niece, Frances Tate, to William Gardner.  The wedding was held at the home of the bride and groom in Swarthmore, a suburb of Philadelphia.  Tate and Gardner parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters and their children assembled at an Italian restaurant, Tre Scalia, on Friday evening for the rehearsal dinner.

The wedding ceremony was on Saturday afternoon at 4:00 in the back yard of the couple's home.  A few close friends of the bride and groom attended, but it was primarily a family affair for Tates and Gardners.
After the ceremony a reception dinner was held at a restaurant midway between Swarthmore and the city.
On Sunday morning a few members of both families had brunch with William and Frances at the Park Restaurant on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia.

Ceremony.  We have little of it left; the rites of passage with which we mark the transitions of our lives have eroded until only a few fragments remain.  But from these fragments a couple can create an experience uniquely their own, which is what Frances and Will did.  And in the process they provided their families with the opportunity to celebrate an emotional continuity that we only rarely pause to acknowledge.  Frances wore the wedding gown her mother had worn in a much more elaborate and traditional church wedding, and the album of photos from that wedding was on a coffee table in the living room.  All the careful choices, those that conformed to tradition and those that departed from it, preserved the essence of ceremony without cliche or triviality.

BEAGLE MEET UP

Point Isabel Dog Park in Richmond with San Francisco across the bay

Serious heat has returned to the delta, so Nellie and Amber and I headed for a beagle meet up that meets on the first Saturday of the month at Point Isabela.  The breeze off the bay cool enough to make a sweatshirt feel good; the misty skyline of the Bay Bridge, San Francisco, and the Golden Gate Bridge; rolling hills dotted with shade trees; and dogs, dogs, dogs everywhere...what a great place!  We arrived late and started looking for beagles.  Reports from people we passed on the many paths indicated that there were beagles ahead, and after reaching a fenced perimeter, crossing a bridge, and starting down the narrow peninsula on the other side, we finally encountered a group of about a dozen beaglers and beagles.

Amber does not seem to recognize any kinship ties to other beagles.  From what I have observed, this seems to be generally the case: dogs are interested in other dogs irrespective of  breeds.  Affinities and aversions are as inexplicable between dogs as they are with humans.  Who can explain why suddenly that person across a crowded room seems so attractive?  Or that curly haired, lop eared dog half way up the hill? Amber did find one of the beagles congenial.  Dolly, who was about the same size, also liked a good game of chase-and-be-chased, and also liked to sound the beagle chasing bay.  Otherwise Amber picked playing friends from a variety including pomeranians, bull dogs, poodles, and retrievers (and quite surprised the beaglers by plunging into the water with the retrievers--none of the other beagles cared for swimming).

Among the amenities at Point Isabel are restrooms at either end of the long park, a gift store featuring dog items, a bath house for any dogs needing a shampoo, and a snack bar that Nellie and I discovered had excellent sandwiches.  All in all it was a splendid outing before driving back into the heat of the delta.

Three beagle girls and a curious lab