Feliz cumpleaños, cariño

Today is the Capt's birthday and I noticed that he still looks as good to me as he did in April 1989 on our first date. We actually met on St Paddy's Day and he gave me his phone number, but when I called, his sister (visiting from New York) answered the phone and Oops! I thought she was his wife. Took a while to straighten that out.

Here he is playing Red, his guitar.

At the moment I'm baking a cheesecake, his favorite, and the fragrance coming from the kitchen tells me it's almost ready. We haven't done anything spectacular for his birthday today, but I took him out to lunch (he wanted a hamburger). This morning we had a rehearsal for a show we're going to play Saturday, and it went well.

For a musician that's a very good day.

Father's Day gratitude list

He's been gone most of my life, but today I'm remembering some of the things I loved about my dad, Henry (besides the fact that I thought he looked like Humphrey Bogart).

• Regularly taking the family to Padre Island,  the most beautiful beach I've ever seen
• Teaching me to swim
• Taking me on a fishing trip and protecting me when the outboard broke down and we had to be rescued
• Driving me to the skating rink every Wednesday evening for three summers
• Teaching me a couple of words in Dutch (though, sorry, I've forgotten them now)
• Very patiently teaching me to ride my bike without training wheels
• Giving me driving lessons in his old push-button Dodge
• Letting me help him plant a garden
• Explaining to me the function of every tool in his meticulously-kept toolbox
• Telling me, on the evening of my first junior high school dance, that I looked "beautiful"
• Allowing me to live with him and his new wife when my mother and her new husband asked me to move out
• Never, ever, yelling at me. And I know I gave him plenty of cause.

My dad never had a lot to say to me. I don't remember a single in-depth conversation with him, but I believe he did the best he could to be a loving father as he saw it. He didn't have a good role model. His own father, after bringing the family of eight over from Holland, seemed to regard his three boys as potential farm hands and resisted any efforts to make anything else of themselves. He never saw his Dutch grandparents, numerous aunts and uncles again after the age of six, so there were no other adult men to guide him. Under the circumstances, I think he did a pretty good job.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy.

Love and Seatbelts

If you know anybody who refuses to wear a seatbelt, send them this.

Desert dog

Norma, an artist who owns a coop gallery here in town, was on her way home to Miramar on May 28 when she saw a small brown dog trotting along the lonely road. There are no neighborhoods in the vicinity, only open desert and beyond that, the sea. When she pulled over, he came right to her and she was shocked at the gaping wounds on his side and chest. He was dehydrated and emaciated as though he had been out alone without food or water for a week or more.

He was taken immediately to Vanessa, one of the two vets here in San Carlos, where he stayed for three days' observation, given vitamins and infection-fighting drugs. Then Norma took him home, with the hope of finding the owners or a new home for him. She posted flyers and an announcement on the local internet forum, Viva San Carlos.

He's a dachshund mix, with the golden brown brandy color common among dachsies but his legs are a little longer. His eyes are the exact same color as his coat. Norma tentatively named him Chiquito for his admission to the vet's office, but she had no plans to keep him, having already a large dog and two cats. One must know one's limits, she says.

And this is where I come in. I support the concept of fostering dogs, particularly since the canine refuge where I volunteered closed at the end of May (a long sad story better addressed in another blog) and fostering is all that's left here for dogs in need. But my small condo doesn't offer much space for a large dog and there's no question of keeping one outside, especially as summer arrives. But this dog is the same size as my Maltese, Chica.

Chiquito is my first opportunity to learn the skills of fostering. How hard can it be, right? It's just like taking any dog on a permanent basis...EXCEPT the fostered dog often has issues (physical or behavioral) and just when the issues are dealt with and overcome, it's time for him to move on, into his "forever home," as the foster folk call it. It's a bittersweet situation, but most people I've known who foster take great pleasure in knowing the dog's life was vastly improved by their intervention.

So Chiquito came home with me last night. His issues are definitely not behavioral: he acts like a well-trained house dog other than the fact that he's not housebroken. His first act on entering the house was to cock his leg and pee on a t-shirt the Capt had left lying on the floor. This morning he mistook a tower fan for a small tree. But I'm taking him out with Chica frequently, and she's showing him the ropes.

He doesn't bark. When Chica barks, he sometimes makes a "Mmmmf-mmmmff" sound, but that's all. I'm thinking that out in the desert he learned to keep a low profile. He has a innate dignity you often don't see in small dogs.

His meds are finished, except for an ointment I dab on his sores morning and night. Norma tells me one of them was so deep, she and Vanessa could see bone, when he was first examined. I'm profoundly grateful I wasn't there for that. He'll need his shots when he's a little stronger, and then neutering. When he's ready I'll work on arranging an adoption for him. It could be weeks, or months.

He follows me everywhere, sleeps under my side of the bed and seems very anxious to please. I imagine  what he must have been through out in the desert,  how frightening it must have been, and I have to admire the spirit that kept him alive along enough to find that road, and Norma, and me.

Working girl

He was quick, he was sly, but I finally spotted the mouse living in my house. I think he's holed up in my stove, using insulation for nesting material, because I never use my oven (well, I'm not going to start now!). This is exactly what happened in my last house. He probably thinks insulation is cozy, but his poor little nestlings are not going to be very comfy in that stuff. Not my problem. My problem is that my oven is going to become unusable.

I have a possible solution right here at home if I can figure out how to utilize it. Akira, a Yorkshire Terrier practically lives with us. I keep her all day while my neighbors are gone (Mom's a teacher, Dad's the principal, the whole family stays at the school 8-12 hours a day). Officially, she's a Silky Toy, the smallest Yorkie you can get. The Capt, out of curiosity, Googled Yorkshire Terrier and found out that they are not foo-foo dogs after all, but were bred to catch mice in English clothing factories. This was way before clothes with holes were considered a cool thing.

Akira — not a foo-foo after all

All I have to do is teach her how to do the thing she was bred for: catching mice. It may get a bit bloody in my kitchen, but we could win this little war. Now, how do you teach a dog to hunt vermin? It should be hardwired in her tiny brain: running mouse = lunch. Do I need to buy pet-store mice for training purposes? Make a stuffed toy mouse, attach it to a string and pull it in front of her? Naah, it needs that mouse smell...

Weather wuss

Empalme was an important railroad town, and trains still pass by. This antique steam engine marks the entrance to town.

The biggest and best tianguis of the week is every Sunday morning in Empalme, on the other side of Guaymas, and this week we both were on missions to find specific items. Tianguis is a Mexican version of a swap meet/farmer's market, held on the street. We meant to make an early start this morning, but events seemed to conspire to slow us down. I forgot my cell phone, and that meant we couldn't go our separate ways, so we had to go back for it. Then we tried a new route and got lost in Empalme, which is amazingly spread-out. By the time we arrived it was after 10 am and scorching hot.

From the beginning, I wasn't exactly driven by shopper's zeal, and soon I was feeling irritable, not much interested in anything I saw and sweating by the quart. I found a jar to hold utensils on my new shelf, and by then I was ready to start back, shopping for produce along the way. I never buy veggies until I'm on the home stretch, they're much too heavy to cart around. I called the Capt, arranged to meet midway at the ice factory, and started back.

Produce is by far the best deal at tianguis. Bags of just about everything can be bought for less than a dollar, and I was already lugging bananas, zucchini and tomatoes by the time I reached my favorite veggie stand right next to the ice house, run by a friendly fellow named Giapetto. I was collecting peppers, broccoli, pears, a fat pineapple... Suddenly I was feeling dizzy, my vision seemed to telescope down to a pinpoint, my skin was clammy and I had to lean against the counter to keep from falling. I told Giapetto I needed to sit down and one of his helpers brought a couple of crates for me. Then my hands became numb and tingly at the same time. I had a bottle of water to drink, and I probably should have put my head between my knees, but I was already embarrassed enough.

The Capt appeared after a few minutes, and gallantly went to get the car when I told him I probably couldn't walk. Giapetto kept a worried eye on me, until I got up and started shopping again... after all, he had strawberries and apricots, not often I find those this late in the year. This will probably have to be the last tianguis for me until October, I told him reluctantly, so I made the most of it.

In the car, I was shocked at how red my face was, and remained, for the next hour. At home I Googled my symptoms and found it was most likely heat exhaustion rather than heat stroke, but if I hadn't had access to shade and water, if the Capt hadn't been on his way to meet me, the outcome could have been a lot worse.

My friend Susan tells me she has had ten episodes of heat stroke in the past few years, and they seem to come faster and with less warning now. She stays indoors in air conditioning whenever the temperature tops 85 degrees. One might call such caution thermophobic, but having after today, I'm inclined to agree with her.

Today it got up to 105.

A moth in my ear

Today is a domestic day. I'm inspired by a new wrought-iron and wood shelf unit with hanging hooks our gardener Octavio made for me out of a beautiful shelf the Capt had made a few years ago for our old house. I made a drawing, submitted it to Octavio, and he created exactly what I had in mind! How often does that happen? I love the colonial look of it, and it's so strong, the Capt says I could stand on it (if I were 1-1/2 feet tall). Note that he made a lip on the front and sides to help secure stuff, open at the corners for easy cleaning.

You know what's next, of course. I'll have to scour the bottoms of all my pots and pans.

So I'm cooking, cleaning, moving things around for more efficiency, scrubbing out the fridge (tossing moldie oldies) and all the while listening to The Moth, my new favorite podcast. It's all personal stories, some really hilarious, delivered without notes. (I could never do that...could I? That would be harder than singing without lyrics!)

First I listened to Lewis Lapham, who worked as a cub reporter for the Oakland Examiner in the wild and wooly Fifties. His job started every day with the acquisition of a flask of bourbon for his bosses. Then he would go out with the staff photographer on assignment. If a woman was involved in the story, the photographer (Seymour Snare, "the original Dirty Old Man") would talk her into removing her clothes, no matter how grim or inappropriate the details of the story. Once he persuaded a woman to change into a negligee and pose next to her boyfriend, who was dying of four bullet wounds. This was tame...the narrative gets more outrageous from there on. I share this just in case any of you out there still think morals have gotten any worse in the last 75 years...

Next came Deborah Kiley, famous woman sailor, with a terrifying shipwreck story, complete with booze-fueled stupidities, shark attacks and saltwater mania. Uh-oh...Just when the Capt and I are once again talking about cruising in our spiffy boat.