At my amazing wife's incredible suggestion, we watched "Turner and Hooch" the other night just after another bout with various moving pains. It's been high stress lately.
But it turns out that "Turner and Hooch" is all about a man moving from a small town to the big city. That, plus moving boxes, plus mastiff, (minus Tom Hanks "tighty blackies) and I felt kindred with the flick.
It also taught me where all those classic movie montages go to get a clip of a wet dog shaking off.
Speaking of dogs, my final two stories for the paper were the culmination of a few weeks of kicking a really ridiculous story down the street before finally completing it as my swan dog song.
First, there's "A beagle named buddy," a story that came on the heels of a database workshop I attended in Washington D.C. It seemed like a good way to get some practice playing around with data. And it's about as fun as it gets reporting a small town feature. The people I called were bewildered and happy. As part of the dog package, I also wrote this feature: "Behind the doggles," which has been shared 132 times via Facebook (that's a lot for our little operation). It tells the story of a Harley-riding dog named Harley.
Otherwise, in the time since Chase left the paper, it's been mostly courts and breaking news at the paper -- a full-circle sort of thing, recalling to mind my early days with the paper. My most recent work is all here.
Next, it's off to Nashville to find a place to live.
The pillow on the chair behind Max reproduces a painting by Toulouse Latrec. Latrec had a disease where his legs didn't grow past the age of nine or something like that. He's Max's hero.
Max is a two year old long-haired Dachshund, a "red" as they say. He's got himself some goggly peepers and he's quite licky and often.....imposes on intimacy. But he's a keeper.
Vanessa left Beirut La Pita, a local Belleville dining spot, for an appointment, while I stayed behind to box the uneaten food and pay the bill. While walking to her car, this happened: Vanessa fell in a pothole and lost her shoe. While recovering, dusting herself off, replacing her shoe, etc. (she did not just stumble, but actually fell down... all the way down), a woman approached her with a religious tract. Still stooping to put on her shoe, Vanessa explained that she was a Christian and suggested the woman keep the tract to save paper. It was a sizeable tract (filled, no doubt, with good advice alluding to the good-Samaritan, who would, no doubt, help a sister should she stumble...or fall into a pothole.) The woman responded, "How do you know?" This conversation went on for a few moments, as Vanessa's shoe was now in place and she felt comfortable enough to defend her faith to an absolute stranger. Finally, the woman conceded the point: "Yes. You look like a Christian." The encounter was abruptly terminated by an African-American woman honking her horn, as the two were apparently blocking her exit from a parking space. Also, Max (that's our Dachshund), peed in Vanessa's side of the bed this morning: a gesture expressing his frustration at our marital intimacy. He peed on it; it's his now. Given the previous story, I am much more inclined to accept this form of societal structuring.
Let's be undecided, let's take our time And sooner or later, we will know our mind We'll be on the outside, we won't care Cause we're together, that's somewhere
And there's a big [dog] coming, about a mile away There's a big [dog] coming, I can hardly wait
Let's wake up the neighbors, let's turn up our amps And we know we're used to without a plan We can play a Stones song, sitting on a fence And it'll sound pretty good, til I forget how it ends
I woke up early, couldn't go back to sleep Cause I had been thinking of where it all would lead So I made you wake up, I said, "Let's take a walk, I wanna hold your [leash], we don't have to talk"
