You will read this and feel like, super wow! I am in the boring pen too!

Let's pretend you have dogs that are used to going on a long, fast run every single morning. And every single night. Maybe sleeping all day in the boring pen at work isn't so bad because they dream of the run they just had and the run that's coming up. And tennis balls and little rubbery plastic bones. And a-frames. And writing songs about whales and banjos. But then you make them spend longer hours in the boring pen. And shuttle them off to boring super early and keep 'em there super late. And they are used to hiking a couple mornings before boring pen and practicing agility which makes the dogs' minds work as well as their muscles and cardios. But instead, you just stuff 'em in boxes in the car and stuff 'em in pens and back in the boxes in the car and you do this for one week.

You're all, muscles, ha HA, be gone and cardios, ha HA, be gone and happy zen minds of nice dog thoughts, ha HA, be gone, and you just stuff 'em in a box because it's boring o'clock and you are LATE.

And when you are home they are running around with the balls but you are all, hypothetically speaking of course, "Knock it OFF! Knuckleheads!"

Only you say it like this. "Knuckle...HEADS!!!"

Only louder. "KNUCKLE HEADZZZZ!!!!"

And then it's night and it's sleeping and then it's awake and the whole boxes and boring pen again and so forth and repeat until night.

And that's just all there is.

Westside is the best side.

Westside Santa Cruz is know for many things. Surfing. Skateboarding. City Council meetings featuring citizens of other realms of space and time. Really expensive real estate. Surfing. Did I mention surfing? Farmer's markets where people wear unusual garments. I may have already mentioned surfing.

So I started counting people on my fingers, and realized that the Westside is now an agility hatchery. Residents of the Westside doing dog agility used to total exactly 2. Me and my dog agility pal who is also a famous professor that writes books that I can't read. Last book she wrote she gave me a copy but told me not to even try to read it until Chapter 8. And I have a Masters Degree. In our whole county there were just a handful of us.

Now, just on the Westside, we have me, Donna, Mary, Kim, Marion, Michael, Deirdre, Deb. Most of us within walking distance of eachother's houses. With all our dogs, 4 DAM teams worth of Westside is the Best Side. Not to mention a little contingent of beginners who are patiently teaching contacts and working on weave poles. We have beaches galore, organic peaches, and hemp lip gloss, yet no one has a backyard big enough for a dogwalk. I believe you are all familiar with the term coined here, Driveway Agility.

And cross the river or drive up through the forest into the valley, holy smokes. Agility folk everywhere. Is Santa Cruz the new hotbed of dog agility? Surf City gone to the dogs?

Just remember. You heard it here first.

The time that the Team's agility got taken over by the ponies.

Usually, you do not hear about work here. Because I like to cultivate the image of a life of leisure, where I just take dogs to the sea and the forest and spend hours and hours and hours training them every single day. And drinking mai tais. How real agility champs are made. When made equals can I have another mai tai?

Ha HA. Did I fool you?

And then the pony campers came this week and the poor team has no life outside of going to work then coming home from work and then going back again. The upside of this is that the pony campers LOVE taking dogs on walks and having dogs sit on their laps during storytime. And it is just pretty darn cute. The downside of this involves glitter glue and there is basically no time for fast running because, hello Martha Stewart horseshoes and hello, glitter glue. Everywhere. And actual work that are actual horses that are not the ponies but which somehow must get done during the time when it is not the ponies.

Whew.

Team Small Dog hopes to regain a life again when pony camp is over. See you then.

Everybody's birthday is complete and they are older and is it ok for dogs to have mai tais?

The one thing I wanted to do for my birthday was take the dogs out on a knock down, drag out forest walk. And go get mai tais at Hulas until I was knocked down and dragged out. Before we went to the forest, which was on the schedule just before the mai tais, I was thinking about this one thing. Since Gustavo has been such a bright shining agility star, in my mind if nowhere else, we haven't been running amuck in the forest quite as much. I was wondering about this. Let me describe how it goes deep in the forest. Ruby is always right there with me. Otterpop, might be running amuck but you holler "OTTERPOP!" and she appears by leaping off cliffs, out of trees, and so forth. Gustavo, sometimes just doesn't appear for a few minutes and when he does, it's sort of with a glazed, somewhat not of this world where humans exist, look on his face. This is a look we in the agility world do not so much enjoy viewing on our dog faces.


Right little buddy? I run this theory by him before we go, and he's all, "HOLA!" and I guess thinks we're off to the nursing home until we get to our top secret illegal parking place for really good forest walks. When he goes all glazed catatonic monkey scream to GET OUT and INTO FOREST.


Once we're in the forest, he's running with Otterpop. Ruby is with me. If I want to see the dynamic duo, I call them and Otterpop always appears instantly by, like I said, leaping off some cliff or flying out of some giant redwood tree at 100mph, and Gustavo, sometimes comes right in, sometimes not. Sometimes is the detour of up this cliff and across this creek and then back in where everybody else is laying down, Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.


The theme of forest walk is, HEY GOO STAH VOE!!!!


He was up there on the high log across the creek with Gary. He's too little to spot.


There he is. You can usually find him in water. Actually, he was pretty darn good. Ran hard and came in almost all the time. Just could not sit at all still for any photo ops. If he bats an ear to his name and comes running in, that's fine. Doesn't have to pose on the stupid mossy log with the cool lighting with the trained dogs. I'll take it.

Welcome to Much of Team Small Dog's Birthday.

Some (uh, relatively speaking, because, you know, Universal Healthcare!) important facts about my birthday:


It is also Ruby and Gustavo's birthday. They are respectively, 9 and 3 years old. We are all 3 Leo's. And if that wasn't weird enough, it is also Mick Jagger's and Susan Garrett's birhday. That makes ALL of us Leo's. And me the only one of us 3 humans that doesn't wear spandex. At some point in me and Ruby's and Gustavo's party last night, guests clamored for a dogwalk. These are my kinds of party guests.


Otterpo's dogwalker has pink hair and crocs. That is what all the 7 year olds are wearing right now. Otterpop is the only member of Team Small Dog that doesn't share the same birthday. Her USDAA card says November. I think it's on Thanksgiving.


Mary was a party guest. She did not attend the dogwalk portion.


The first best present ever was Gustavo. Gary got him for me 2 years ago. Something like that. Then the next best present was Maia gave me a whole family of her own personal Breyers from when she was a kid and they all had tiny party hats and little halters. Total OMG gift. So also, just so we have it on the record, Gary said, "I was thinking of getting you a border collie but I thought you would want to pick it out." Total OMG gift of the future.


I was sort of too busy at my party to take many pictures. We had 14 guests, and we have 8 plates, 4 bowls and 9 forks and one knife. Too many dogs. A kitchen the size of a speck and I got home from work just an hour before the guests arrived. But we do have 20 cocktail glasses. You do the math. It was super fun. No place I'd rather be.

Except for maybe the borax mining flatlands of Mojave. Maybe we pack the party up and head out there next year, everybody!

Agility homework exercise, except maybe don't try this at home.

So I am an unapologetic follower of the Greg Derrett agility handling system. I also am an follower of the HBO series Entourage, Canadian heavy metal, and Keanu Reaves. Full disclosure. I use the system to try and be a nice clear and consistent handler so that my dogs don't completely screw up. But for years, and years, I've had this little problem that I haven't been able to fix.

Finally, the other night, my super agility pal and instructor and owner of Hobbes the trained dog who doesn't like handlers to be inconsistent or to screw up, he sort of sighed. After I screwed up again. AGAIN. I was trying to pivot in to CLEARLY EXPLAIN to one of the dogs to pull in towards me and not run out and take a jump I didn't want them to take. He sighed. He once again suggested, perhaps use a little less finger and try to actually pivot.

How many years has he given me this advice? I tried the exercise again. And again. He sort of waves his finger around.


"Not the finger! Don't give the finger."


I am always giving the finger.


"Too much finger, not enough shoulder!"


Finally, Rob is all, "You need to just go home and do this in front of the mirror." He sort of twisty pivots around. Like I thought I was doing, for the last HOW MANY YEARS?


Let me get this straight. I now have agility homework, and that homework is to learn how to get all twisty but twisty in a clear and consistent manner without giving anyone the finger, in front of the mirror.


I think I always had this problem of making teachers exasperated.


In grad school, I believe the term, Unteachable, was used more than once.


I believe Karl Ewald thought this was terribly funny, and then just had to start doing all my art for me.


In high school, I believe that preferring to be at the barn instead of the school contributed to a certain amount of academic exasperation.


At least I show up for agility class.

And I am trying. Right? Twisty pivot, right?

Today, Nancy Drew tries to solve the mystery of the furry purse.

The other night, all the dogs were left alone for a couple hours while the humans went out.


When we returned, Gustavo's Special Furry Treat Purse (Exhibit A) had been removed from my normal lady purse (Exhibit B) , and had been decimated, desicated and detonated all over the living room floor.

Now, this was not an expensive or exotic item, I actually found it in a trash can at a dog show. It's just a little nylon bag with white fur attached and a nice, sturdy red strap. It's stinky and the fur shreds, but I can put Gustavo's treats in it and he attacks it like nothing else, especially when I drag it around on the end of a leash. Half of poor furry purse though, had been shredded and and stripped and made bare of all threads. An explosion of red and white and fur all my couch and living room rug. I believe because a little piece of cheese had been left moldering in it, and this is the kind of thing I carry around in my purse, which is not furry or stinky. Just a normal lady purse, when normal ladies carry around stinky fur bags with pieces of rotten string cheese rolling around inside.

Who had the audacity, the stealth, the cojonoes, to carefully remove this item from my purse, on the table, and nothing else, then eat through fur and heavy duty cordora nylon to get at a little piece of cheese?


Suspect No. 1, certainly likes her food, but is weirdly trustworthy around snacks and things belonging to humans. Like she has a code. You know how those codes go. Gangsters and Pirates and Guys have them. But Suspect No. 1 has cojones. That's for sure.


Suspect No. 2, has impeccable manners in most everything except involving food. Also can be extremely stealthy and shrewd, and has the brain power to engineer heists like none other. Is not normally audacious, however stealth and snacks could override that.


Suspect No. 3, is the owner of said purse, but seems highly unlikely to do something like tracking an item and actually locating it. Like is not the rocket scientist of the group. But, you know what? It IS his purse.

So how did Nancy Drew solve this mystery, assuming Nancy Drew did solve the mystery?

Nancy Drew, it turns out, is a pretty crummy detective and just goes for the whole TEAM policy like all for one and one for all and everybody guilty until proven innocent and everybody is equally in trouble and yelling and so forth and stomping around and scowling. Nancy Drew can't figure it out. Nancy Drew said a lot of potty mouth words at the whole guilty team and got out the vacuum and that was just the end of that. Maybe some of YOU are good at mysteries and can solve the crime. Nancy Drew gives up and Gustavo has to play with a zip loc baggie now.

Hola Gustavo!

We caught Gustavo in a rare moment of standing still last night. It happens. Just not much. With his new found interest in entomology, he's learning to quietly stalk the bugs out back under bushes instead of just crashing around the yard like a little rocket all the time with his furry squeaky bone in his mouth. Well, yeah. He still does that too. A lot. But sometimes, rare occasions, he slows down for a few minutes. I decided to take the opportunity for a couple questions.

Laura: Hola Gustavo! The other day at dog agility at Quail Lodge, you were running so so so fast that you came out of a tunnel, hit the table at 100mph and slid across it and off, landed on that perfectly manicured grass, and just disappeared underneath, into the shade, instead of back on top. I mean, you did get right back on top, but that was certainly a creative idea. I loved it how you came leaping out, jumped back on, into your down, then just wagged and wagged your table for that 5 seconds that seemed like 3 hours. No dust left on that table after that 5 seconds.


Gustavo: I see Bugs!

Laura: So we practiced on Monday up at Forest Agility, and yesterday at the practice field. You held your dogwalk contact for so long, no matter where I darted off to, or threw your furry tuggy treat purse. You ran across that dogwalk like a bullet, stopped, then nothing could get you to budge off. Like a big boy! You think you could try that next time we go to a dog show? And are you ok with it that your favorite toy is a ripped up, furry purse?


Gustavo: Es el azul! Hola bug!

Laura: Well yeah. But your purse is red and white. Hey, I'm not kidding, little buddy. Lately, it's been like you are a real agility dog when we go practice. Turning and watching and sending out and coming in, hitting pole entries, loving that teeter, amazing a-frame, reading the serpentines, not getting scared of anything or sticking your head down the plethora of gopher holes that we sometimes see. What is it? What brought you back on track? Can we have some more runs at the dog show like that Snookers run we had on Sunday?


Gustavo: Mmmph. Tengo bug. Yo la tengo! Is bugs!

Laura: Hey, guess what. I think it's your birthday this week. Same as mine. Even though we actually have absolutely NO IDEA how old you are, on your USDAA card it says July 26, 2006, making you 3 years old this weekend! Old enough for your CMJ measurement where you need to slouch just enough to be under 12" tall. You have lived here with us, on Walk Circle, instead of on the dusty streets of Juarez for exactly 2 years. Two years! We're going to have a birthday party for us this weekend, K?


Gustavo: Aloha because SNAIL.

Practice makes perfect-a primer.

So first of all. I am not sure why I wore this. It was on top of the stack, is all I can guess. It's a slippery slope, and apparently I'm sliding fast.

Anyways. It's been a while since I've imparted any useful information. As if I have in the past imparted useful information. Humor me.

I would like to say I work really hard when I practice. WHO IS LAUGHING? STOP THAT. I do I Do I DO, too!


Well, yeah. Sometimes the light is cool somewhere and maybe I have to stop and do a photo shoot. But I haven't even been bringing a camera with me lately, because I've been trying to really work as hard as I can and make the dogs better, stronger, faster, fancier, and while it's useful and informative to see exactly what I thought was appropriate to wear out of the house into public, sometimes it's just a headache to deal with the camera.

So I have dogs of different levels. Ruby is semi-retired and we think of agility practice for her like low impact water aerobics and she is wearing a bathing cap and can't get her hair wet. Otterpop has been blowing me away with her most excellentness but we need to get it together more. So 5 fault runs CEASE. And Gambles are got. And certain corgis get beat. Gustavo, he just needs to practice and practice and practice and practice. And practice. And practice.

I like to dole out equal amounts of turn. Although if by equal you mean Ruby usually gets a short turn, and those other two, long turns. I also like to dole out equal skills, so if someone is practicing one thing, the others might practice something similar. Although Otterpop needs to practice working away from me way more than Gustavo, who needs to practice working close to me. And he practices much more basic drills in the beginning, building up to harder ones. His jump angles get moved and I vary front crosses and rear crosses and where we're going so he HAS to watch my cues and not just run 100mph to the next thing. Otterpop practices hard things! I like to think of something really hard, set it up, and figure out how to run it with her. Like in a trial, you'd be all eeeww, when you're walking a course and see some ugly ass evilness thunk up by a judge. I try to think these up too and practice practice practice.

Today, I set up 3 main drills specifically for the G-man. Everybody else got to do these too, but he does them a lot a lot a lot to remember remember remember.

Drill One: A long leadout, send to a tunnel into poles.
Drill Two: An even longer long leadout, teeter totter to 2 jumps handled with variable directions to the a-frame and back down the line of three jumps.
Drill Three: Super duper uper long leadout to dogwalk, practicing me leaving him there and walking all over hell and back, then off to either a couple jumps or the poles/tunnel combo.

So 3 dogs times 3 drills times maybe Gustavo does each on 5-10 times and same with Otterpop and Ruby only once or twice is how many?

Equals 66 turns maybe for me? Hell yes.

When the Team visited the super classy, in an understated kind of way, USDAA trial.

On Sunday, off we went for a day of USDAA. This one was a fancy, shmancy, underpantzy day. Not underpantzy. I don't know why I said that. So not classy. No one shows, nor talks about, nor spells underpantz with a Z at the Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley. Ever. No matter what. Sorry Quail Lodge.

The Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley is all about classy, and they said we could have a dog show there. So on the flawless, level polo field by the mountains and golf courses and Lexuses and Clint Eastwood, we had a day of dog agility. I think they wear diamond tennis bracelets at Quail Lodge. But keep them hidden under cashmere sleeves. There are parking attendants and golf villas and chefs. And somehow it all got arranged that they would also have dog agility.

You ever been to Carmel Valley? It's by Carmel, where *cough* older *cough* people enjoy strolling and eating sandwiches in thatched roof cafes with names like Hog's Knees and taking their dogs to the beach and buying sweaters at Burberry. Some people, maybe even some people's moms and dads, might enjoy visiting their children who live in Santa Cruz by actually visiting Carmel instead because it is free of tattoos and street sleepers and has the thatched roofs and all. Just down the 17 mile drive from Pebble Beach, which is all about golf and horse shows, both sports where you ante up big time to play. Carmel Valley, a beautiful drive away from the beach, is a place where people don't shout, cool breezes keep temperatures down and cool millions buy you a tidy little shack on a hillside.

Usually dog agility is near cattle. Freeways. Big trucks and trains and bmx and rodeos. Foreclosed homes. Not villas with personal vineyards and golf carts. Holy smokes. I could get used to this. Can we switch ALL our dog agility to Quail Lodge? No gophers, no divots, no long car trip to the Central Valley. I heard tales of many absentee dog agility husbands attending because of golf. Some people even stayed in the lodge, where the rooms are $200 or $400 or $800 bucks a night. Not sure. But they give you leather and down dog beds in them and I think you can turn your dogs loose on the links by the light of the full moon while you drink your champagne and Elvis Costello croons jazz ditties to you from the hot tub.

Quail Lodge offered events like Test Drive the Giant Sparkly Range Rover. The 4 star BBQ. Pet adoptions. Booths of tastefully branded shwag. Spectators. Lure Coursing.

Have you ever seen the lure coursing? A furry tail on a remote control string inside a long track with tunnels and speed bumps. Show your dog that thing, and they're off.

Ruby got to do this. She wasn't entered in dog agility, due to the little problem I like to call Crashes Herself Thru 12" jumps. So I paid my money for a single lure course, took her over there, showed her the squirrel, and thought she'd be off in a flash.

But instead, she looks at me like, You're Joking? At Dog Agility, You Are Telling Me To GET The Squirrel? It's a Trick.

I'm like, "Go! It's ok! Get the squirrel!!"

She looks at me. I can tell she's thinking, Trick. Dogs Are Not Supposed to Get Squirrels. Especially Not At Dog Agility And I Will Go To Hell.

The little furry thing wiggles and jiggles and finally, good manners dog just goes SCREW IT and off she goes around the track after the fur. In the blink of an eye, at the finish line but clearly very fun for her. I didn't let any other dogs do that. Ruby is Special.

I tried to interview Ruby about her lure coursing adventure, but she demured. I don't think she likes interviews.

I did interview Gustavo about his day. Verbatim:

I am staying I am staying I am staying then OK I am running I am running I am running it is climb it is contact it is just running running running tunnel tunnel TUNNEL running running and I hits table and I slide right off so I get under I get under I get under it is funny funny funny and laughing laughing laughing on table counting to a MILLION then running running running TEETER TOTTER HOLA HOLA HOLA HOLA I LOVE YOU running running running some poles some more poles more poles do ALL the poles running running running climb running running running running running running HOLA HOLA HOLA I LOVE YOU HOLA..."

It just sort of kept going like that. I think he was describing his manic standard run which did have contacts, poles, a stunning teeter but also was just manic with circles and crowd applause and laughter and a horde of kids descending on him afterwards because they all loved him. I don't know where all these kids appeared from, they just were there waiting for him at the finish to pet the cute little fast doggy. I don't think there was a Q in there. Dunno. It was sort of nuts. Like I was running the lure course piece of fur, hopelessly trying to keep up with it. He wiggles and jiggles and the steering is haphazard and you just hang on and RUN.

He was able to channel all that into a stunning Snookers that I am incredibly proud of and felt like handling a genuine, trained, lightning fast dog. Loved it. That was his whole day.

I asked Otterpop why she was uncharacteristically speedy and well behaved and in good spirits the whole time. Two little handling errors of mine flubbed up her SuperQ and turned a smashing Grand Prix into a 5 faulter. What a surprise. Her Standard run, lovely and fast. All day, no judge stuff, no freakies, no slows, no nothing. Just My Otterpop!

Otterpop says, "OTTERPOP DOES NOT TELL!"

I'm like, "But Otterpop. All the time you get so WEIRD at dog shows. Then this one, you are Normal! There's got to be a reason?"

I'm thinking, the allure of diamond tennis bracelets? Requires laser leveled manicured polo fields for running on now? Likes seeing white gloved parking attendants who wave and smile without showing teeth or gums? Well, anyways, Thanks Otterpop!

Does this Otterpop show up at the next couple trials, including Regionals?

Otterpop says, "Ha HA." And leaves the room with all the dog toys.

I couldn't interview Hobbes. He had to go home. We won his Grand Prix though and also had a beautiful Standard. Usually when I talk to Hobbes he just barks at me really loud. So I'm pretty sure how that interview would have gone. He's a big, tall border collie. He barks loud. I bark back at him. He runs fast. I run fast. I love Hobbes.

At the end of the day, fog rolled in and motorhomes rolled out. Packed up the rings, packed up the dogs. One final game of frisbee on the grass that little elves with Hermes helmets hand carried every single blade in on a silver platter and tapped in to the dirt with their little Tiffany hammers. The clean dirt. Drive by the white, not fluorescent orange, traffic cones and artfully lettered, in the tasteful, branded typeface, signs that murmur, No Parking PLEASE. Wind down the oak studded lane, back up to the road, and realize, I'm jonesing here for a golf course. How creepy is that?

And then, aw, SCREW IT. Maybe even get a polo shirt with a collar. Some shoes with fringey tassles. A bag of clubs, whack balls out there on the greens for dogs? Hell YEAH.

Q and A with Ruby, we think.

Laura: Ruby, you are a complicated and mysterious dog. A dog of great beauty, and bravery, and noble in citizenship. Yet also stealthy, crafty and shrewd in your ways. You totally proved the power of dog training by going from a weird, feral thing that wanted to eat other dogs to my super star of white glove manners. Plus you have the fastest a-frame of all the small dogs, and you love riding patiently in Timmy's bike basket while the other dogs have to run in the street. And you always. ALWAYS. Without fail. Bring back the tennis ball.

Ruby: Alas, I am but a demure servant of your words. You are too kind. Also, I need to make sure, this is an Otterpop sanctioned interview?

Otterpop: This interview is with Otterpop.

Ruby: I grow weary sometimes.

Laura: Do you ever wish Otterpop would find other hobbies that don't include you?

Ruby: Hark. Is but beneath me, beneath this vary chair, lie in wait a beast of tremdous spirit, who possibly can kick my ass should I speak in candor?


Otterpop: Everyone talks only to Otterpop. TO OTTERPOP.

Laura: But you guys are essentially, one big happy family? TEAM Small Dog. Every night, everyone on the couch together. All day, laying in your big kennel together. Just last night, tennis ball game with 3, count them 3, tennis balls. Uh, Ruby? Ruby? You in there? Hello? Are the witches speaking to you right now?

Laura: Uh, Ruby?

Laura: So sometimes Ruby goes off to another place. This is when the witches crawl in and whisper to her. Flies also speak to her and can take her there. She'll come back.


Ruby: Dogs do not speak. Nor grant interviews. So I may speak with the witches, but you either take generous liberties with the truth or perhaps it is you who speaketh with the witches. Just saying.

Guess who went to Dirt Nite?

Someone ran courses with a teeter totter and poles in them. Like just totally ran them all fast and stuff and didn't mess up or freak out and so forth. Like had actual handling and just flying over the teeter totter and through the poles and over the dogwalk and a-frame. Like everybody else.

I'm not naming any names, unless your name happens to begin with a G. And ends with ustavo.

And maybe you're the littlest one. And maybe sometimes freaks out and so forth.

But not anymore.

When once again, Laura proves to be somewhat of a crummy citizen.

You know, I try to be a good citizen.

It was my week for jury duty. Always a pain in the ass, probably just as much for people with regular jobs as for the self employed, but it's our civic duty, righty-o?. For some weird reason, I've never, ever been picked to actually be on a jury. They always chase me right out of the courtroom and "Thanks for Playing and See You Again in a Couple Years!"


So off I went again this time. First you go sit and wait in the modular outside our County Building Courthouse. Our county, spares no expense. Offers airport plastic seating and all of us shoved in there like little sardines in a can. Everyone has a book and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait. A lady explains how it all works very, very slowly. As if we are all very, very stupid. Also there are little signs, printed from MSWord on pink paper posted all around saying the exact same thing in big bold allcaps that she just told us. Slowly. Speaking in allcaps.


Until a crabby faced deputy comes and shuttles us up the stairs to Homeland Security, where you go through disgruntly staffed metal detectors into the court building. Our county, in the middle of humungous layoffs and no one in there looks cheerful and happy to be at work. SLAM goes your stuff on the metal detector conveyor belt, and SLAM it comes off and Hiya and Thanks, Security Guys!

All the prospective jurors are walking around without belts on. There's no place by the metal detector to re-strap them on and the prospective jurors shuffle around, trying to rebelt without looking too stupid. Ha HA and take that, Security guys. I wore a skirt.


We all sit outside Department 3. Once again, packed in like sardines in a can, on hot sweaty benches in the hallway. Looky out there-my exact wedding site, right in view! Everyone pulls out their book again. The bald guy in sweats is reading Tom Clancy. There's a monk in red, flowing robes with a Kipling backpack, who hides his book cover when I am totally busted stealing a glance. He's writing down little notes in the margins in blue pen. Didn't know monks did that. The lady next to me is reading something called Loving One Another that looks like it was printed in the 70's. She has a big dreamcatchery type tattoo on her arm and giant feather earrings, also from the '70's. We all sit there, together, on the long benches and wait.


Until a new deputy pokes her head out of the massive courtroom doorway, and admonishes us in. And guess who it is? The scarey lady bailiff from our very own Courtroom Drama in November! We totally know her, but not in a good way! Boy oh boy, her frown is never going to turn upside down. The evil bailiff lady's face is frozen like this forever, but you can bet nobody going to put a foot wrong in her courtroom. Because something about her expression, or maybe it's just her bangs, seems to say, "I'll shoot you dead, asshole." We file in, the judge is ready and everyone sits, packed in once again like sardines in a can.

He introduces the cast. The Bailiff. She glowers. The Court Reporter and the Clerk. They don't look up. The DA. He's the dapper guy in the bow tie who was squinting at all of us when we walked in. I hate his bow tie and I hate his haircut and I hate his squinty little eyes on me. He squints at me, and I squint back. His suit pants are just too short. The defense attorney stands for a minute, smiles weakly, and sits back down. She has bad posture and an unfortunate tweed suit. Terrible orthopedic style pumps and hose and makes me wonder, THIS is how attorneys dress? She's plaid, with a stoop, and her hair is possibly worse than mine.

So then the judge introduces the defendant, that we're going to be queried on whether or not we are suitable as his jury. He has to turn and say his name. He's stuffed into a wrinkly, striped shirt, has a big scar and something about him right away gives me the creepy willies. He looks at us all, and sort of smirks for a moment. His neck is the size of a ham and his shaved head has skin folds that shove their way into that wrinkled, cheap shirt. And then the judge tells us that the case is for felony child molestation. He's the accused, and accused for crimes too heinous to type. If I did, you'd cry. There's sort of a collective vacuum as all the air in the stuffy courtroom gets sucked up, because I'm pretty sure everybody thinks the exact same thing. All at the same time. That the guy is a slimeball and let's just string him up right now.

I guess? Or maybe they're better, more fair American citizens than me and I just imagined that. The judge said we were supposed to be impartial and wait for the evidence to be presented.

The overweight lady in the cat t-shirt next to me stops playing solitaire on her Blackberry and shoves it into her faded Hello Kitty tote.

The hunchy attorney in tweed is trying to get him off. Squinty eyes bowtie wants to prosecute. Bailiff glares and the judge says it again. Jurors need to remain impartial and base their decisions on the evidence that will be presented.

Because of the delicate nature of the case, and the questioning, we're once again sent to the hallway to be packed and sweltered and led back to the courtroom one by one for questioning. This takes a long time. I go home on the lunch break, and come back for more packing and sweltering and waiting for my turn. I sit next to the monk again and he keeps scooting away from me, sliding down the remaining millimeters on the bench, finally grabbing his backpack from between us and wedging it firmly onto his lap with an exasperated little hiss. Do I look like a monk robber? Never did see what he was reading. Good citizens don't talk in the hallway there, and for hours you can hear a pin drop as everyone waits their turn to go in for questioning.

When it's my turn, I only last a second up there, on the stand. Which is just a red rolling office chair, adjusted a little bit too high. My feet sort of swing and don't touch the floor. I sneak a look over at the guy, and when asked about my ability to remain impartial, apparently something about the ugly daggers shooting out my eyeballs at the attorney and at fatty scarface guy are enough, combined with whatever it is I spit out at the judge, that I'm excused within moments. I KNOW he's innocent til proven guilty, but it was not all I could do to yell out at him, "I hate you, evil, ham necked child molester and your evidence twisting tweed wearing attorney!" and ask to please just have him shot by the bailiff asap.

Like I said. I am a bad citizen. And a bad liar. So when asked whether I could be impartial, something about him just made me all seether and that was that.

I thought about it, the whole time waiting in the hallway, wedged onto the bench. I was just listening to the radio about Justice Sotomayor on the way there, who is always fair and in good temper. Try to be unbiased and hear him out and make an informed good citizen decision, if selected onto his jury. I know how I felt in court. But being innocent for walking dogs vs. being accused of child molesting, we're not talking apples vs. oranges here. Apples vs. a stinking, hulking, damaging ogre more like it.

So that was that. Don't know who, of my peers sitting out there on the sweaty, sunny bench in the hallway, will have to make that judgement. The monk? Lady with the giant Balenciaga bag that is totally a knock off? Guy that looked like Lurch in all leather ensemble? Some of those khaki wearing bluetooth ear guys standing by the window? Didn't hang around to find out.

I just walked away.

Ask Otterpop. Which is always a scarey proposition.

Laura: Hello Otterpop. Today we walked to the beach at low tide, where you ran and ran and ran. We then drove up to Forest Agility where you practiced a million hard gambles including turning out of a serpentine to a jump 100 miles away. And then you ran next to the bike all the way to the soccer field where you chased the tennis ball and glowered at the other dogs chasing their tennis balls on the other side of the field and then ran next to the bike all the way home. Yet you seem to be so not tired? Otterpop, do you ever get tired?

Otterpop: Is someone cooking burritos in the house?


Laura: Did you know Scott Chamberlin is coming to judge the August trial and the Regionals the weekend after? He is going to be watching, staring, and running after you on your dogwalk contact which you are actually in an occasional missing of phase at the moment. Are you aware of this, Otterpop? Scott Chamberlin, 2 weeks in a row?

Otterpop: I hate these stupid succulents. They are ugly and Otterpop doesn't need them.


Laura: Otterpop, your distance work today was so incredible. Your turns away from me so precise, never a waver on your out. I kept setting harder and harder gamble ideas, along the lines of "Hobbes could do this but Otterpop can't" and you just kept knocking them out. One after another. The other dogs were getting hot and tired and wanted to lay in the shade and all you could do was more. More. MORE. MORE!!!! So Otterpop. Could you do this at the next few dog shows and get those stupid 3 Gamblers Q's to finish your ADCh?

Otterpop: Otterpop cannot hear your words because Otterpop is humming a brain tune right now.


Laura: Otterpop, I could write something really embarrassing here about you right now. Like how you totally like to sit in my lap and that you want your name changed to Butterscotch. But I suspect you would rather have me write about how you scare off the mailman whenever you can and keep naughty horses in line and are learning how to explode things via telekinesis. Anything that you want to add to the end of your interview?

Otterpop: Otterpop is not listening to you because if Otterpop can make the camera lense explode Otterop won't be stayed anymore in the succulents and can have all the burritos.

How it would go if we used laser beams in dog agility.

Some of my dog agility friends graciously accepted my requests to model the hypothetical outcome of the use of supersonic laser beams in dog agility.

If by graciously accepting my requests, you mean that I was sitting out on the agility field with my tiny camera and I took their pictures without them knowing. But it was shady out there on the field and someone had to sit next to the fluffy tunnel to keep it fluffy and fresh and also they all thought I had swine flu and no one wanted to sit near my germs.

But Kim might find the contact beam useful if Ari forgets a contact. Ari is really, really fast. So is Kim. But a contact beam would probably help sometimes. Kim just shoots it in her ear and she would just Stop. Super sonic!


There's Kathleen using one for a nice tight turn. Usually, she just uses the power of Greg Derret instead of the laser beam. But the laser beam works good, too. JB is mesmerized.


Mary sometimes spits out wrong words. Or actually I think she doesn't always tell Ariel words for things. Ariel just KNOWS things. So now they both know she's supposed to go into the tunnel. Thanks laser beam!

The time Team Small Dog had to pull a golf cart. Dog sled. Golf cart.

So there were these eskimos.


They needed a dog team.


For their dog sled.


Say the snow was actually dirt.


Gustavo and Ruby, Dirty Snow Dogs.

She speaks briefly, without sarcasm, but don't worry, it will likely come back within moments.

From his only class last weekend, Advanced Gamblers. It was really a super run. Made me convinced everything I've been doing the last few months to rehab him from the spookies is paying off.


He's still got a long ways to go. I suspect there will be more ups and downs with him in the agility ring. I'm just taking it super slow with him from now on, no pressure, no pushing. Just decided he's not doing Team at the Regionals coming up, with the super cutest small black and white dog team ever. There's time for that later. I know, I know, the pointy finger.


This photos is from 2 years ago. When the dog rescue lady showed him to me. He'd only been a US citizen for a few weeks, brought over in the back of a van from Juarez, Mexico after a spay neuter camp down there. No hablo ingles at the time. No hablo el potty training. But was the sweetest, fastest little dog I'd ever met.

And still is. I can't believe how lucky I am to have a Gustavo.

Well, that was mushy and heartwarming. Nice sentiment. She loves her little doggy. Even though he just barfed on the couch and has been bringing snails in the house to play with, crunch down on with sharp little teeth and leave in places such as, human shoes.

You know I wouldn't trade him even for a 39 million dollar jackpot. I think. Maybe you ask me that next time I step in a snail.

Dirt Nite Haiku Fest

Does the sick person
taking shuffly little steps
have to lift the a-frame

I teach class seated
across the teeter totter
and fall on my ass

Laryngitis voice
does not stop me from yelling
Give That Dog A Treat

My blistered nose runs
And I wipe it with my hand
Snot mixes with dirt

In my car I have
a baggy of carnitas
Gustavo teeter

It is fast and true
he slams it to the black ground
Give That Dog a Treat

Otterpop, Ruby
don't get to have any turns
so I don't pass out

Several teeters
For one crazy little dog
And then I go home

Some agility
For only 5 short minutes
is better than eating pie

Just in case you missed this little news item from yesterday.

Much to the total freaking out chagrin of the dogs, I stayed home from work yesterday. I NEVER stay home from work. I was that sick. I attempted to walk the dogs on Monday, thinking some sun and fresh air would patch me right up and I just needed to suck it up. Who gets sick in the summer?

That turned out to be a huge mistake. I trudged all the way down to the beach, about a 5 minute stroll for someone that doesn't stroll like a shuffling, undead zombie. By the time I made it there, I just wanted to lay down and die. Right there, in the street. And had no idea how I would make it all the way back home. I sat there on a rock for a while, waiting for the vitamin D, pure health from the sun, to kick in and for the dogs to channel Lassie and figure out a way to drag me back, working like the good team that they are. Ha. Trudged the death march back home and boy oh boy, was that the longest walk back from the beach ever. Tiny little shuffling steps, it was all a blur. Spent the rest of the day knocked out, dragged out, and swatting off the tennis balls and skanky stuffed animal carcasses that kept getting plopped onto my face from tiny little vultures swooping in from above me.

It just so happened that my miserability continued onto the day of Michael Jackson's memorial service. Maybe you heard about this. Conveniently brought to every single tv channel in existence. So massive, they shut down the whole Hollywood freeway. And Harbor Freeway. Probably more freeways. You ever tried to drive around LA and they've shut down a WHOLE ENTIRE FREEWAY? Helicopters flew above, live taping the endless line of big black hearse cars, funeral processioning down to the Staples Center, home of the Lakers. You could watch it in English. Spanish. Various Asian languages. Not sure what's usually on tv on Tuesday mornings, but whoever usually watches tv on Tuesday mornings, sorry if you didn't love MJ.

The dogs alternated between insane running through the house with dog toys, trying to get my attention in case I haven't noticed that THERE HAS NOT BEEN A WALK YET OR TRIP TO BEACH OR FOREST and finding it curious that I would be laying on the couch during the day watching tv. That's something new. There was some kind of police activity happening down the street that Otterpop kept hopping into the window to yell at, and I'm all, "OTTERPOP SHUT UP! MICHAEL JACKSON MEMORIAL SERVICE! OTTERPOP! AL SHARPTON!" And I'm yelling over Al Sharpton and Al Sharpton is yelling about Nutting Strange About Your Daddy and Otterpop finally stopped yelling and had some respect. Geez.

I remember watching Princess Diana's funeral procession on tv in the middle of the night. Every single person in England was standing there on the road, and there were massive piles of flowers everywhere. We sat on the couch, trying to stay awake, and were weepy. MJ's procession was a little more weird, a little more B-List and OJ and gaudy, until the moment the brothers brought out the genuine gold plated casket on to the stage, with a gospel choir singing, and I feel really bad for his family. He's still their dead relative, no matter how else you look at it. Princess Di's service just didn't have circus elephants and ticket scalpers and a legacy of plastic surgery and possibility of pedophila lurking under the surface. Or John Mayer. Who the hell is John Mayer?

It got sadder and sadder as it went, might have been a superdome freak show going on outside, but inside was tears and songs and just like every single memorial you ever go to. Except with the same stage backdrop as the Democratic National Convention on sparkly glove night. There were some weird bits. Like a singing British boy that Michael "picked out" and the We Are The World Finale with god awful graphics and a children's choir. Little glimpses of his sons, chomping on gum at their own dad's funeral. A little freaky that all his kids have a haunted, post surgical MJ appearance. Nothing like what he looked like as a kid. Like his surgeries were crafting him into what his kids would eventually look like?

But c'mon. When Auntie Janet let his little girl press in close to the mike, and she busted up the place, said he was the best daddy ever and how much she loves him. Little skinny girl, with a black starched dress and a grandma sanctioned cardigan sweater and patent leather kleenex purse. This was just a really sad memorial for a relative that lived out his life in the public eye. Someone we've known forever. Who could dance up a storm and sparkle like a glove. Even though the sequins hurt Brooke Sheild's hand. Who should have had a hair stylist and been drug off the stage before reading from The Little Prince.

Not the kind of memorial service you see every day. One that I'm glad I didn't miss. Was sad, but weird, touching in scope. A fitting way to remember MJ. The camera copters tailed the motorcade back up the closed off freeway to the valley, where they would all sit down to lunch, and continue to be the Jackson family.

Closed due to disease.

Somehow the little cold I had over the weekend turned into some kind of swine flu miserability. And a nice, OOPS, to all you people who got germy slobbered on in the hugging and cheek kissing of the weekend festivities!

If things get any more festive than this, I just might explode.

Pretty much, we celebrated Fourth of July in our traditional fashion. If by celebrating, you mean to avoid catatonic dog shock by the 48 hours of street warfare that ensues, we lock ourselves in the house with the dogs, stereo blasting louder than I ever thought humanly possible, and shove the 2 sensitive eared dogs under blankets. Otterpop doesn't really care. She's all, "Bring on those illegal imported via internet black market fireworks for days. Because now Sarah Palin is ready to join forces with Otterpop." Um, okay...until even she's had enough and I cover her crate in blankets, turn out the lights, and hope it ends by morning.

And if it couldn't get any more festive, how about throwing in a dog show into all of that? And a wedding? A horse treasure hunt at work? Right? You try to beat that much festive.


And can I just tell you, this was the wedding cake. It barely fit in the trunk of a car.


She was super happy about that.

So you're dying to hear about the dog show. Because, I know, my non dog agility friends. You're always all, "YAY! More Info about Dog Agility, Fascinating Fringe Sport for the Middle Aged!"

Maybe about how Otterpop got yet another plain Snookers Q to add to her collection of non SuperQ's. Or how I totally, how should I say this in dog agility terms, spazzed out and prevented yet another masters gamblers Q? Yes. Spazzed out in her gamble and once again, still 3 gambler's Q's away from her ADCh. We carefully plan and practice those gambles, this was one we do all the time, the Far Away Serpentine of Death. And I send her over the line, and start sqwacking like a chicken and waving my arms around over my head and I believe possibly jumping up and down and Otterpop just turns around, looks at me with wild eyes, and runs back to me quickly to see if there are explosives in my butt that have just misfired and she is missing one helluva party and I am not sharing illegal fireworks with her and perhaps even withholding Sarah Palin.

I mean, really. Spazzed out.

She was actually running just fine. A classic 5 faulter in standard when she did her first judge identification stare over the second jump and knocked a bar. Watched the judge carefully over the dogwalk and then, just like a trained, normal dog, ran the rest of the course without a hitch. Thanks Otterpop! I believe she thought I would buy her fireworks afterwards but there is no way I'm supporting her whole Sarah Palin fixation with explosives. If there was ever a dog you don't want anywhere near things that you light with matches and blow things up with, that would be Otterpop. She had to just settle for a treat and a game of frisbee on the soccer field.

I hemmed and hawed about running Ruby. She has been running so beautifully over the tiny jumps, and I'm pretty sure that those humongous 12 inchers of the Performance division are really sucking the life out of her. I entered her in one snookers as an evil science experiment. So what're you gonna do? Call PETA? If they come with explosives, Otterpop'll totally kick their asses. Figured out a course with as few jumps as possible. A total Ruby course, lots of fast running over a bunch of 7 point a-frames. And just felt like every jump she did was such a stretch, flingy heaving herself over until she just finally crashed through the number 6 combo of the closing. Big time. Poor Ruby. I think it's confirmed that she's retired from USDAA. She was happy to run and had a fast time but I just can't look at her jumping like that anymore. It's as painful for me as I suspect it's become for her. She can still practice with tiny jumps. Eat treats. Play frisbee. Do some CPE. She's ok with that.

Gustavo made a single appearance in Advanced Gamblers. No stressy freakouts, no spookies, hit contacts, had actual genuine handling, one weird a-frame refusal and needless to say, I kept him away from the teeter totter. It's interesting to have a dog that shoots off like a pistol in gambles. When I send him out over that line, he goes out and then some. And then some more. He had to go out over 2 jumps and into a tunnel beyond the second jump. He shot out WAY past the tunnel, ran back around the long way and through the opposite end. Funny and creative points! I wish I could say it's my stellar distance training but it's more like he thinks he's like a tiny cannonball and you say OUT and OUT you are gonna get. He collects many, many opening points. Good god.

Hobbes had a great standard but I had to bark at him to get him to lay down on the table. That standing out there, barking, costs us time. Not to mention, is super embarrassing. I am wearing a skort with pale chubby legs and I am standing out there, with a judge staring at me, barking at dog to make him lay down. But he's so cute. And eventually he did.


We only went to a little bit of dog show. So we could still go to work and to the wedding. Which was a-ok with me. Hey! That's my husband with a foxy wedding guest.


Because some things, maybe a little bit more important than dog shows. Imagine that.

The time we interviewed Debra Jane Seltzer and realized, we are so not worthy.

One day, I got this email from my new friend from Brooklyn, New York, Debra Jane. And within minutes she is totally the new Team Small Dog hero. Because Debra Jane takes her pack of 4 small, fast, kick yer ass dogs all over the country in a van to photograph stuff. Stuff like giant milk bottles and 3 story high dinosaurs and motels shaped like teepees. Stuff that is vanishing before our eyes to make way for Old Navy and steam shipped sized boxes of office supplies and beverages. And when the cool stuff is all gone, Debra Jane and her dogs might be the only ones that found it all.


TSD:
Debra Jane, I haven't even made a dent in all your photo collections, and your websites, and I spent days in there. I am in awe at the sheer volume of your photos, that you only do on your little road trips. Because it looks like a full time job. Seriously. I am getting tired just thinking about it. My jaw is totally dropped in awe. Besides the actual trip where you are the only human in the car and the driving, and the stopping to get photos and turning around to get photos and going back to get photos, is the enormity of your websites.


Which, ok, is a little confusing. Debra Jane is an overachiever. She has a bunch of websites, and you kind of have to go see them all to get what I am talking about here. Go fix a snack.

gripper, fix, sputnik & gremlin

the big ol' website

flickr sampling of the website photos

the roadtrip blog



Debra Jane:
The site is ridiculously big at this point. (*The site. My god-this took me days to go through ALL the sites*) But I still have huge lists of stuff to get to yet. New stuff that I find out about as well as reshooting stuff taken many years ago with an old camera or in shitty weather. Or stuff that has been transformed over the years -- for better or for worse.


It is more than 40 hours per week I'm sure. Plus, I can usually sneak in about 3 or 4 hours of me time at work (which means website time in some form). Over the years, I've learned to get by on about 5 hours of sleep per night. I work nights (5:30pm-2am) which means the dogs are sleeping while I'm out. Offleash hours are only til 9am so I have to get up at 7:30 to get the dogs out there every morning or I'm screwed. Nik will start removing books from shelves or deconstructing furniture if I don't. So I stumble off to the park on about 3 1/2 hours sleep. Then I catch a two hour nap before work. For like 15 years I've been doing this. Side effects: memory loss, brain damage, ADD but otherwise great health.

TSD:
And then the technology while you're traveling of batteries and internets and not letting computers get stolen out of the van. Then, on top of it you have all the dogs and you are dealing with them and they need to go on walks and not bark in the motel room and not whine in the van and that it used to also include competing in agility but now just includes practicing for agility? I am like, how does she do this? Seriously? Because jaw dangling on floor right now.


Debra Jane:
It's very organized -- I just follow along with my list and bang things out. The organization is done way beforehand so I waste no time getting lost or shuffling paper.

The dogs are in the van so nobody's messing with it. My van has three cigarette lighters -- enough to charge the cell phone, the camera batteries and the laptop all at the same time! I have backup camera & laptop batteries always ready.

If I get Nik out to run for a few miles each day, several times per day, then I'm pretty good. The seniors (Grip & Fix) are fine with sniffing around & peeing on stuff. Grem I have to be very careful with or she'll take off. If we pass a water source (big river, ocean) then it's pretty much required that I stop. Nik & Grem start "monkeyscreaming" as you call it. By nighttime, they are shot and grateful when the van stops & they can finally get some quality rest. So they don't bark in motels. They are also used to NYC so they are used to loud, idiotic humans, dog collars jangling, car alarms, whatever annoying sounds that life can have.


The practicing agility is a good thing. I drive out to Long Island during a weekday. Have two rings pretty much to myself. So I can do whatever I want. And then there are some nearby trails where I can take the guys afterwards. The hard part is the driving -- tons of traffic usually both ways.

TSD:
Also, I think what makes this really amazing is that you're preserving stuff that is vanishing. I grew up in the south bay of LA and every time I go back there, all the old cool googie 50's modern restaurants and apartments and shops are more and more and more gone and it honestly sometimes makes me cry. But I didn't do anything about it and I can't go back and get photos of the stuff that's gone. So you are doing very important work here.


Debra Jane:
I'm so glad that you "get it". I spent a few years living in Venice in the late 1970s. Hadn't really spent much time there til last year and was so depressed about how much development has wiped out everything in West L.A., Santa Monica, etc. Also my the town I grew up in, Ventura, used to be lemon & avocado groves -- now horrible malls & government bldgs.


TSD:
Hey-that Tiki Aparatment building is from Redondo Beach, just down the street from where I grew up! I used to drive by it like every day! I grew up loving stuff like that, and just thought it would be here with us forever.

Do you have any favorite things? You cover a lot of genres, from architecture to signs to weird stuff like dinosaurs and giant lumberjacks to outsider art places. A lot of varieties from cultural production for commerce, plain old cool architecture, and some very passionate and visionary artmaking.


Debra Jane:
That's a tough one. I only dabble in the folk arty stuff. I'm much more attracted to commercial buildings & signs & fiberglass statues. Hard to choose one over the other. I tend towards mid-century buildings -- esp. banks, churches, office bldgs. which still don't get the respect that they deserve and are ripe to demolition. Most of mid-century devotees (websites, forums, etc.) are into houses but I find them pretty boring, plain & redundant. I'm more interested in how businesses brought attention to themselves, how buildings have been re-used, and what survives (vs. what's gone) and hoping to create more interest and therefore respect/importance for what remains so that these things might be preserved. Art Deco buildings have more respectability so I usually don't shoot them unless they are incredible. I am much more into the streamline buildings which are not as "in" -- esp. little ones. I'm sure there is some part of the brain that overlaps with rescue dogs & rescue buildings/signs.


TSD:
Can I just tell you I am totally jealous you made it to Salvation Mountain? I have LIVED in California my whole life and just can't ever get there.

Debra Jane:
Well, then you must schedule it! I was lucky to be there when no one else was around which kind of accentuated the surrealness of it.

TSD:
What sticks out in your memory as particularly mind blowing?


Debra Jane:
Stumbling into something that I didn't know about is a rare thing since I spend SO much time researching and prowling on the 'net for stuff. But sometimes I'll stumble upon some freaky UFO-ish 1960s bank or a nice cement church -- or some pet cemetery which I had very little info about turns out to be super great & rips me up emotionally with the photos/inscriptions -- or a neon sign has just the right light on it and I say to it "you're going on Flickr tonight!" Sometimes things that have been in my notes for years and years I finally get to and it's less than expected -- or better. So there are different types of the "unexpected" that would qualify as mind-blowing.


On this most recent trip, this guy comes to mind as "mind-blowing". I had no idea he'd been restored (and I follow this sort of thing so it's strange that I wouldn't know). They did a fantastic job -- but he was missing his Coke cup, paper hat, etc. So it was sad but fantastic. He's one of the super rare, unexplained heads, that were apparently made in Canada.


Another example, I'm very into giant milk bottles & was really looking forward to seeing the Milk Bottle Water Tower in Montreal. I had an intersection & couldn't find it. Asked around in my best broken French & was finally told it had been removed. I was very depressed by the new building that had supposedly replaced where it had been. That night, I looked it up just to torture myself & found photos at Flickr taken recently! Went way back to Montreal just to shoot it. So I felt a sense of accomplishment and awe that even in its rusty state, it lives!


Perhaps my biggest claim to roadside fame is digging up the info about a very special sign -- and even the guy that made them. This page includes all kinds of details like a map I made of where the signs were originally installed, links & info about all the ones that still exist, videos in descriptions here and there so you can see them operating, and even a few photos of Mr. Milks himself. For a real treat, at the bottom of the page are some "home movies" from the early 1950s that I uploaded to YouTube of what some of his creations in Bossier City, LA (then a mini Vegas).


TSD:
Does being a New Yorker have anything to do with this? Does living in Brooklyn give you super human powers? I always heard New York was where the super talented and super motivated people went, LA was where the super motivated yet possibly untalented people went, SF where the super talented yet possibly unmotivated went, and Santa Cruz was a black hole that just swallows us up and makes us want to sit around and watch the surf.

Debra Jane:
That's fascinating. Plenty of deadbeats, low-energy people in NYC I'm sure. But yeah, maybe survival makes you stronger, more willful. I always had the sense in Calfornia that years were just melting away. The lack of seasons. Out here, I find I'm racing to accomplish things in warm weather before I never want to go out. I'm deliberately savoring every day right now before it gets too hot and then too quickly fucking cold again. So it's sort of a more panicked way than dogs do of living in the moment. I'm now 51 and feel probably more panicky every year to get shit done & see stuff. Relaxing is not my style so NYC seems an appropriate place to be. If not for the cold and the parking hassles and way too many people. I don't go to movies or plays or museums -- I'm here because of the combination of my good-paying, perky job and my rent controlled apt. When I have a day off, I'm either slaving at the computer or we're off somewhere. I think being back in CA would be good for me & would force me to slow down a bit.



TSD:
I am totally wondering, what does her house look like inside? Is it so carefully catalogued? Are there millions of equally cool roadside souvenirs?

Debra Jane:
Very boring space. I don't collect stuff. There is a huge Muffler Man head (long story) and a few other things (postcards, photos but not really tshochkes). Otherwise, it's office-like. Tables, files, big screen TV that never gets turned off while I'm "working". Horrible marathon crime documentaries on right now -- murders, cellblock life, whatever -- titilating enough to look up once in awhile but not enough to get suckered in. I'm into neat and tidy and organized. Dirt and dust don't bother me. Clutter freaks me out.


TSD:
What do Brooklyn dogs do when you are at your investment bank job?

Debra Jane:
Got that one already. Grem wears her bark collar & snoozes in a crate while I'm out or she'd get us evicted. She tries to get Nik to play which gets everybody barking. I don't feel bad for her though. She gets tons of exercise during the day & it's just her regular routine. Everybody else behaves & sleeps. It's dark soon after I go to work.


TSD:
And is it weird to have an investment bank job when investments are falling apart all around us?

Debra Jane:
I've survived five rounds of layoffs -- but maybe not the next one (December?). My company is one of the more conservative and European-based so they didn't have to get bailed out and didn't do skeevy things. It's businesses buying/selling businesses or parts of them. Things have definitely slowed down. What I do is make presentation books look "pretty", make graphs, tables, simple graphic-y things, some editing/typing. A mix of Word & PPT & Excel. The stuff the bankers can't do themselves. Lately, the bankers have been doing more and more of it so the books look like shit. But in these times, they aren't making the millions that they were so nobody care how things look I guess. I'm like a chef working at McDonald's right now.


TSD:
Does this listmania and archiving skillset affect your dog training? I am thinking you are a super good dog trainer. Gripper has been a big champion in USDAA and NADAC, and they are all well behaved enough to travel around in a van and be behaved on all these different locations while you are running around shooting photos

Debra Jane:
I took boatloads of seminars and went to camps with all the greats in the first eight years or so. But I had no good trainers in my area. So it was always a mix of seminars/camps & then doing the actual training on my own in rented spaces. So I got used to winging it and experimenting and my dogs did damned well. So somewhere between what I learned from the pros and what worked for my dogs got us along quite well. I never had driven Border Collie or Sheltie types that LOVED the sport. But had to develop working relationships that mattered & motivated my dogs.


I know I lectured you about the barking on the teeter technique. I liked your approach to group teeters! Anywhere that you can insert novelty into training is a good thing I think.


Um, most people would not describe my dogs' van behavior as "well-behaved". Every nearby motorcyle is cause for mayhem. Toll booths. Gas stations where they pump your gas (NJ and OR -- I do all I can to avoid them). So lots of situations that are noisy, not pretty, with dogs thrashing against the glass. Grem goes off barking at any dog she sees. She sometimes smells them before she sees or hears them. I've seen her jump up from sleeping to find them. And she's a real earsplitter. Nik also brings me bits of anything he can find in the van -- a one inch scrap of paper or plastic will do & puts it on my shoulder & starts whining or bumping me to throw it. I indulge him sometimes which is a big mistake. Or he somehow busts into the strapped-up toy bins in back & brings up a squeaky. So there's always lots of amusement/annoyance to keep me from dozing off.

TSD:
Where is your next trip going to be? How do you figure out the routes you're going to take to avoid all the Home Depot's and Walmarts that are becoming so ubiquitous now? Do you have an inner radar devloped now that helps you find stuff when you're traveling?


Debra Jane:
Much more unromantic than that. The routes are really the most efficient paths between destinations. But on a major, old commercial strip thru a town, I will have a drive around sometimes to see what's there. I haven't been to the Midwest in awhile so that's where headed for the month of August. So I better not have any rain! My Ohio & Missouri shots are about five years old and pretty ugly. Parts of IN & IL I still haven't gotten to. KS & IA I've only covered part of. So for the past couple months & for the next six weeks, I'm frantically working on my lists -- printing maps for each destination & organizing the piles. As well as key word searching the crap out of google & flickr so I miss as little stuff as possible in the states & cities that I'm heading to. I always find out about some neat gas station or sign when I get home that was just blocks from where I was -- painful!


TSD:
Do you meet people when you're on the road that help you find things to see?

Debra Jane:
Nah, I'm the antisocial type. No time to chat. And 95% of what I see is preplanned. But I do sometimes have get-togethers with people that I've become buddies with at Flickr that like the sorts of things that I do. Usually a couple people on each big trip. Always had good experiences.

TSD:
Do the dogs ever do anything naughty on the road that puts you into a tight spot? IE, bad for life, good for story?

Debra Jane:
Daily! See blog. Grem scares the crap out of me daily even when I'm home. I can't count the number of times she's crossed busy roads. Running across the desert in NM was one of the worst experiences.

TSD:
Do all your dogs love each other equally or do you have pack dynamics?


Debra Jane:
Not so much. I'm not even sure they love me! They are true terriers -- self-sufficient, not at all clingy. Nik & Grem play together sometimes in the house -- terrier chawing on each other type play -- but never outside. Grip & Fixie do withers dances -- posturing and barking nastily at each other -- a lot. Female dominance crap I'm told. But it never goes anywhere -- just looks bad. Nobody cuddles with each other. Maybe they're all the products of broken homes & dysfunctional families. But with all their park experiences with hundreds of different kinds of dogs offleash, daily, they have perfect social graces. Can keep their space without getting into fights. Can handle obnoxious, pushy dogs with ease. Have some patience with puppies. I've had friends who claim they have dogs with aggression issues -- but have introduced my dogs to them with nobody losing it. The owners are always shocked. My dogs know how to say "stop it" and "leave me alone" in a serious but not insulting way.

TSD:
Introvert or Extrovert? Do you ever travel with another human, or is it only with the dogs only?

Debra Jane:
I don't think anyone could bear traveling with me or the dogs! I'm manic, they're nutso. Introvert I guess. I'm manic, they're nutso.

So there -- that oughta keep you busy. Damned life story! Grip is pacing and barking and spinning and digging on me and her full water bowl (practically speaking English) -- indicating that it's time for dinner.

Take care,

dj


So really. Scroll back up to the top. Go to Debra Jane's websites and see all the stuff she's found out there. Go see some of it yourself, and find more. It's all going to be gone someday. And don't call her Debra Jean, or Debbie. It's Debra Jane.

The time when she forgot the course, because she says she never does that but clearly NEVER is an exaggeration.

Last night at Dirt Nite things were going swimmingly. Was a dirty night, not too hot, not too cold. Clammy damp dirt clinging to everything.

Just had Ruby and Otterpop and Hobbes out. Gustavo was barfing. Is that too much information? Well, he was. So he just sat in the car.

We ran some courses, life was fine, dogs were good. You realize Dirt Nite is called this because it's filthy dirty and it's at night. So all day long, before I go, I ride people's horses and teach other people how to ride their horses. If it needed a new name besides Work, it could be named Dusty All Day. So I yell loudly at people about horses, then I leave and go to a different barn to yell not quite so loudly at people about dogs. From Dusty All Day to Dirt Nite. It's a glamorous life, the one that I lead. Lucky for me, my day to evening ensembles are so easy and breezy and don't even need different accessories to carry me through my day.

Because dirty goes with everything.

So by 8pm or so when I get a chance to run my own dogs, I am possibly somewhat brain dead. Wednesdays are long days.

Usually, I just carry on. There seems to be enough brain cells to run some runs then drag the equipment back to the trailer and drive home by 10pm.

Last night though, walking the last course, the brain cells just ceased. My non agility friends, imagine a sea of sticks and boards and floppy vinyl tubes. Drifting across a grand floor of sticky black dirt. That with the wave of a hand, becomes a Course and you walk around and remember what comes before what and where you shall turn and where you shall turn or not turn your dog. You walk and think, you walk and look, then POOF. Out you go and pummel around at great high speeds doing everything in an orderly fashion and this is the whole dog agility bit.

It is a useful and helpful thing that this vast sea of items is logical and makes sense and has one thing before the other. This, I believe, is course analysis. Which is employed after the course memorization. Which is employed by the stomping about with a pointy finger pointing and side stepping and back stepping until the steps have memorized their way into feet.

Usually, I use the logic and the memory and that a course may drift out to sea in front of me is the last thing I worry about. There's bigger fish to fry. Can I run faster than a border collie here? Will the small speeding zucchini loaf of a dog put her feet in the yellow paint on the end of the board? Can the doggy wrap their doggy body around that first pvc pole sprouting straight up out of the ground and zig and zag through all the rest of them if I am actually running way over there?

But last night, at the end of the night, I found myself adrift in that sea for a minute. Brightly striped pvc sticks floating by, over and over, and all I could do was spin around in circles. And realize that the clock had struck 9. And there wasn't a brain cel to be found. POOF. Gone. No logic. No order. Just floating around and spinning. In my mind, I am thinking about coconut cupcakes and how lovely they are. And what I get is a border collie pummeling at me, trying to have logic and get pointed in the right direction and carry on.

Kind of like when the ship slams into the ice chunks, gets some sense knocked into it and it's either sink or swim. Unless it's whale saving Captain Too Radical for Greenpeace and his ship isn't supposed to hit the ice! Sink or sink. Whales are dying! Coconut cupcakes! Good god, just put in a rear cross. Huh?

And then finally, the order comes back, and carry on.

When we use some sort of yoga zen things but somehow I believe this is not really our thing.

At yoga class, we are supposed to notice our breathing so we are In the Moment. Even if you are worried about your car getting towed because you were late for yoga class so in the moment used the illegal parking.


Seether is not in the moment. Seether spends a lot of time wearing her Impatient Pants. I believe these pants to be very, very tight in the crotch area.


Which makes her Seethe. Seeeeeethe. She is waiting for the gate to open and if she stares at it hard enough with the Evil Stink Eye, it may EXPLODE and Otterpop will have a walk, thank you. She will TAKE A WALK, thank you, and she will take it straight up with a twist AND on the rocks. NOW.


So she is supposed to wait sometimes because this is controlling her impulses. Because a lot of the time her impulses are highly unpleasant ones. The ones from Seether that cause things to EXPLODE including her brain. Here I made her wait on the super nasty slime filled drinking fountain. She was seether there because actual soccer players had the uppity uppness to actually use the pinecone frisbee walk run field for actual soccer. With men kicking and yelling things in Spanish at each other. Seethe. Seeeethe. Seeeeeeeeeeeethe.


At agility, there are turns and everybody gets one. And part of agility is you are waiting for your turn. I believe this is like the breathing part of yoga where you are learning a lesson. And everybody learns their lesson different-like. Like how at yoga I use the breathing part to write a brilliant chapter of a book which I will promptly forget after yoga which is the punishment for not thinking about the breathing. Ruby uses the waiting to plot a way to remove all the treats from the treat resting place of too high when someone else has a turn. And Gustavo is monkey screaming. But Otterpop is thinking about agility and she is watching and planning and uses this power to do distance handling of remarkable farness awayness.


And also uses the waiting for seething. Because In the Moment my ass. She just wants her goddamn turn. NOW.