Pets on Skateboards

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Threw my one-legged dog in the pannier on the back of my bike. We were going out for one of our rides. He loves to go along with me. I know his emotions because they show on his face—and in his tail. I don’t read his mind. I’m not a dog-mind reader. I just read his body language.

In any normal situation, his tail goes pretty fast when he’s excited. When we ride, his tail goes the speed of light, which is just about the fastest speed there is. His tail moves back and forth so fast you can’t see it. His ears perk up too. They stand up like little quivering antennae, trying to catch every possible sound in the vicinity.

I wonder if he can hear anything at all with the wind passing by so fast. Does he hear some of what’s going on? Oh, for sure. One time he was about to jump out and chase another dog he heard barking off in someone’s yard. I stopped him with a warning. “Hey! You can’t chase it with only one leg! Sit back down.”

He sat down.

We rode on.

One other time, we stopped at my friend’s house. He was out in the driveway teaching his rabbits to ride skateboards. He used to have cats, but he trade them for rabbits. The rabbits were all getting really good at it. I noticed one of them was goofy-foot. It was the best of them all. Don’t make the mistake of thinking anyone is lesser-than because they shoot left-handed, or left-footed. In fact, a lot of times, in sports, the left-handers have the advantage.

While we were there watching the rabbits, my friend’s neighbor came over and told him he was crazy. He said something ridiculous like, “Silly neighbor. Skateboard tricks are for kids, not rabbits.”

In sync, my friend and I both said, “Pffft!” and waved him off, so he left.

There are only two kinds of people in this world. One kind are the kind who spout chestnuts all day. The other is the kind who come up with clever, original things to say like, “Pffft!”

And before this story degenerates into clever anecdotes about life and how to be, I’ll relate the last time I ever saw my one-legged dog.

He was in my backyard whining. He didn’t often whine. He was toughened by life. It didn’t really matter what happened to him after he had lost his legs. Everything was just like, “Whatever.” You know? He didn’t whine about anything else after that. Except that one time. He was sitting in the yard, next to his house with his name on the door: Squatty. His bowl was on the ground, full of food, and bearing the name of my previous dog: Mustain. I never bothered to remove that name. I figured Squatty couldn’t read it anyway. How would he know?

His tail wasn’t wagging that time. His ears were perked up, but it wasn’t other animals he was trying to hear. He wasn’t listening to me, even though I tried to reassure him, “Calm down Squatty. I’m here.” It was something bigger, more ominous. It was something coming our way. Not just his. Ours. Only I didn’t know it yet.

It was a death toll from below. It was an earth-shattering earthquake. You see, dogs have senses different from ours. They know when earthquakes are coming long before we do. So pay attention to your pets. If they start worrying about something, you better start worrying too. The earth opened up and took Squatty that day. I should have taken him for another ride. He would have been safe in the pannier probably. But I wasn’t fast enough. And Squatty wasn’t fast at all. He just whimpered and fell in the crack that opened up, took him, and closed again. My solace is that he’s no longer suffering the torment of being a dog with no run. He can run after other dogs in dog heaven. Thank God.

As for me, I couldn’t handle the pain of watching him disappear like that, so I curled up in my pannier the rest of the day and waited for aftershocks.

Dichotomies are Enemies?

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To present it simply, dichotomizing is the practice of trying to divide the human race into two categories. If you try to separate the human race into two distinct groups, you’re dichotomizing.

You’ve heard it before. Someone says, “There are two kinds of people in this world: ______________and_____________.” Fill in the blanks with the current trends. Does the person saying this think a human couldn’t possibly be something in between, or, even harder to believe, further along the abstract spectrum?

Some examples of dichotomies are these: Aborigine/Immigrant, Idiot/Maniac, City/Country, Common/Extraordinary, Sane/Psycho, Patriot/Traitor, Moron/Genius.

I’m sure you can look at these examples and see that there are not only degrees between the two, but also separate possibilities that break the so-called mold. Not everyone fits in an oversimplified stereotype. In fact, some people manage to live their whole lives outside of these categories.

Dichotomies tend to be oversimplified and illogical. They’re not always about people. They don’t generally benefit an argument. Avoid using them in a debate because they’re highly transparent.

Politics and political debates are saturated with dichotomies. For instance, if you tell someone you’re not a Democrat, what do they think you are? A Republican! As if there couldn’t be any other way. How do politicians and the media rate a state? It’s either a blue state or a red state. Why can’t there be green states and purple states? Because the people who rate them are so limited in their views. Limited thinking is the antecedent to limited vision.

Dichotomies are enemies to lucid, critical, logical, and especially creative thought. Isn’t that what we need more of these days? Creative thought? Our leaps in technology didn’t come from people being stuck in a funk about “impossibilities”. The leaps came from people believing there was another way. Then they sought and discovered the other way. Don’t we need more flexible thinking in our police departments and our judicial systems? If everyone judges by the fake limits of a stereotype, or a false dichotomy, then we’ll be doomed to repeat the misjudgments of the past. Couldn’t we use more creative thinking in our politics? We can quote the politicians of the past because they had creative notions on life. Today? Not so much.

Dichotomies are difficult to avoid, because they’re everywhere. Sometimes we use them without knowing. It’s not impossible to remove all of them from your everyday words. If you’re careful and selective you can eliminate most of them from your presentations and conversations. Point out the illogical dual divisions for others, so that they’ll see them too. Eventually we may get the whole world to make sense. Sound ideal? So, you’re either an idealist, or you’re not. And that last bit, well, that’s between me and my psychotherapist.

Kitchen Items for the Culinary Impaired

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Number One: Instant Pot. This device is apparently the go-to appliance for anyone with lots of desire but little talent. You don’t even have to turn the thing on. It’s automatic in every way. You don’t have to gather the ingredients either, they appear instantly, like on Star Trek. For me: Oreo cookies + Cookies ’n’ Cream Ice Cream = Dinner. Wait. Is that even something you’d put in an Instant Pot? Maybe you’re supposed to actually cook stuff. I don’t know. I’ve heard chili is good. Some sort of swift shrimp stuff too. Sounds interestingly instant. How about Minestrone? No problem. You think it and it appears in the pot—instantly!

Number Two: The George Foreman Grill. It drains the fat for you. You can cook any kind of meat on this baby and you never have to drain the fat because the grill is slanted. The best location, according to the owner’s manual, is on a window sill. Then you just drain the fat outside. You don’t even have to try to get the fat into a trash bin, or worse down the sink. Sometimes when you try to wash the meat grease down your sink it turns back into meat. It’s like there’s a whole cow down there plugging up the drains.

Number Three: The Ninja. This insane machine can be used to make everything from guacomole to gravy, applesauce to banana smoothies, pudding to yogurt. It’s called a ninja because it has a tornado of blades inside. It will chop anything into fine mush, assuming you put enough liquid in with it. I tried doing just ice to make my own Slurpee, and it wouldn’t work until I put a little bit of water in with the ice. Ninja swords have to be lubricated, I guess.

Number Four: The Auto-Open Trash Can. These are more fun for the children than adults, because the little ones can be entertained for hours waving their little hands in front of it and watching it open up like the jaws of a mechanical animal.

Number Five: NutriChef Vacuum Sealer. This is that device that will remind you that you could be vacuum sealed and stuck in a freezer. Then they’ll wake you up in 2095 A.D. You’ll feel just like a preserved chunk of chicken. Seriously though, this device isn’t big enough to vacuum seal a whole human. You better just learn how to eat right and stay healthy so you don’t have to be frozen.

Number Six: The Quesadilla Maker. No kidding, they market these! You really, really, really have to be impaired in the kitchen to need one of these. If you can’t make a quesadilla, you’re probably challenged by toast as well. And making a bowl of cereal, forget about it, you can’t even follow the recipe for one of those.

Number Seven: 3-in-1 This is not necessarily for the culinary-challenged people out there; I thought it looked fun, so I included it in this list. It’s called The 3-in-1 Breakfast Station by Nostalgia. It’s a coffee maker, griddle, and toaster oven—all in one! Coolishness and cooliosity! Give it to me now. I want it, and I don’t even drink coffee. I suppose if they put one of those Instant Pot things on the side instead of a coffee pot, it would be the complete kitchen. They could change the name to ∞-in-1.

Patience and Regrets

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“I won’t wait ’til tomorrow.”

Is there anything wrong with this policy of life?

Oh right. There’s the problem of being unprepared. Add to that the problem of being naive. And then there’s the problem of timing. Each of these can be compounding problems.

If you’re unprepared, it means you don’t have the necessary tools and supplies to carry out whatever it is you won’t wait to obtain. If you’re naive, it’s pretty much the same as being unprepared except it’s mental. You’re mentally unprepared for the thing you want so immediately. You won’t be able to handle it and in many cases you’ll lose. If you lack good timing, it may mean you’ll suffer the same problems again and again. You’ll repeat the mistake.

Better to learn after the first mistake, but how many of us humans ever do that? It usually takes us four or five times of pain and punishment, self-inflicted and otherwise, before we even start to recognize the pattern of a downward spiral.

How many people do you know who got so drunk they immediately went out and got themselves a tattoo? Then later, of course, the hangover had to wear off and the “tattoops” had to be removed.

“Wrong name. That wasn’t my girlfriend. Not the image I remember. How did that get there? Wrong location. (It wasn’t as embarrassing to bare that body part when I was under the influence.) I swear I’ll never drink again.”

Yeah.

Get a clue now. Learn patience. Recognize the patterns of life to collect fewer regrets.

Sour to Sweet

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The cumulative effects of a week can make you sour.

My own experience is that by Friday of a work week I can be super irritable. But the weekend can erase my bad mood.

As long as I get some time off, I can be fine by Monday. Are you the same? You just need some time with fewer obligations, and then you’re amiable again?

And Mondays aren’t really all that bad. They’re dreaded because they’re the beginning of five days of trudging through the sludge. If you weekend right, you can actually be in a good mood on Monday morning.

You may have different work than I do, but it helps sometimes to hear about other people’s troubles, so I’ll tell you mine. Like listening to the Blues; you feel better by comparison.

My job is to follow the elephants around with a bucket and a shovel.

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I have a “gas mask”—it’s my T-shirt, which I pull up over my mouth and nose.

I wear rubber boots so I don’t go wading through anything offensive. Or at least I don’t collect anything that can’t be hosed off easily.

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That’s not all I do. I help set up the giant tents. Nothing less than physical labor. It can be satisfying, no doubt, to see the tents when they’re standing tall, waving flags from their every corner, to see that I’ve put up something to help other people.

I used to get sad that it’s all so temporary. I wished people could get their entertainment all the time, have their worries washed away continually.

Of course, if it happened that way, would your senses be dulled to the entertainment? Would entertainment continue to be a relief if you had it all day every day?

I’m thinking, with too much entertainment, you’d yearn for something to do, something more labor intensive, some sort of change of scenery and change of venue.

Even though my work is rough and I’d love more relief from it, I think limiting the time off makes the time off that much more sweet.