Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Southern California

In February we took a trip down to Southern California. We went to Bakersfield and over through Tahachipi. Fred knows all the back roads and little used roads from his trucking days.

Going through the desert and observing the landscape quiets the mind like no other scenery.
This field of white boulders was amazing. I'm sure somebody has the geological explanation for how they came to be in this area, but that doesn't negate the wonder.

Joshua Trees—I kept seeing them in abundance, and when I finally decided I should take a picture, there were only a smattering left along the road.

(If you want to see wonderful pictures of the desert in all its seasons, visit this site I found while trying to locate cactus names: http://www.wildnatureimages.com/anza-borrego_photos.htm)

We went to Escondido to attend a live taping of Wayne Dyer’s lecture Excuses Begone (currently being broadcast on PBS).

While visiting San Diego, we ate crab sandwiches at one of our favorite places on the wharf under the watchful eyes of some scavenger gulls.
I love visiting Old Town while in San Diego. An excerpt from the San Diego Chamber of Commerce:

Old Town San Diego is considered the "birthplace" of California. San Diego is the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement in California. It was here in 1769, that Father Junipero Serra came to establish the very first mission in a chain of 21 missions that were to be the cornerstone of California’s colonization. Father Serra’s mission and Presidio were built on a hillside overlooking what is currently known as Old Town San Diego. At the base of the hill in 1820’s, a small Mexican community of adobe buildings was formed and by 1835 had attained the status of El Pueblo de San Diego. In 1846, a U.S. Navy Lieutenant and a Marine Lieutenant, raised the American flag in the Old Town San Diego Plaza.

Historic buildings include La Casa de Estudillo.

La Casa de Estudillo has been kept totally intact as it was in the 1800s when it was a private residence-
from the herb garden,









to the outdoor oven where they baked bread

and the furnishings in all the rooms.

It’s quite a treat if you like history and want to get a feel of what it was like to live back then.
I am always amazed at just how much we have grown in a little over 100 years. Everything was so downsized back then.

Before the drive home, we swung by the ocean one more time and came across this old surfer dude. He was up there in years (way up there). He’d had a stroke, leaving him with limited use of one arm and limping, but by gum he was goin’ surfin’. Now that is determination.

It was the perfect footnote to Wayne Dyer’s lecture, Excuses Begone; there's little you can’t do if you get your mind in the right place and this ole geezer exemplified that.

So, what is it you think you can't do?


Surfer Dude

Scene 2

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Trip to the Pound


Izzy, German shepherd of last month, has a new home. She was a beautiful puppy but all my energy and time had gone into training and managing her, and bandaging the resulting wounds. I had designated an area on the bathroom counter for the bandages, band aids and peroxide I needed daily. That last morning, while resisting me and trying to assert her dominance, her tooth sliced my finger open. It was the last straw. She went back to the breeder who had graciously given her to me. I felt like a failure.

Lesson learned: know what you want and need from a dog and know what kind of dog would fit into your family routine. You can’t expect to turn a dog’s breeding of hundreds of years into something it is not. Izzy taught me that I am a small dog person. At my age all I want is easy and cuddly. So I decided that I would look for a small dog, ideally not a puppy (I’m done with the potty training).

I started dropping into the different rescue organizations and events around town on and off for a few weeks with no success. Then, during one of Fresno’s hot summer evenings, I got an overwhelming feeling to go to the SPCA. One dog, who looked lost, forlorn and about 5 or 6 years old, was listed as a Pomeranian mix. It was wrong. It was a Lhasa Apso, a breed I’ve had in my home for 40 years.

I got mixed feelings. He was not excited (it’s the pound, hello, full of bouncing, barking dogs) and he seemed old, despondent and uninterested so I left. But, next morning I awoke with the feeling I needed to go back and give him more of a chance and take a better look at him. I walked him outside, away from the noisy kennel. He was good on leash, tail up, responding to my lead. But he didn’t seem interested in me. I noticed that his tail started wagging at the young girls walking by who help take care of the dogs in the kennels. They acknowledged him and he responded to them.
I reminded myself that the adult Lhasa does not warm up to people easily. They are a cautious breed (once used in the temples of Tibet as inside dogs to evaluate visitors motives; whether friend or foe). So I sat and communed with him for a while and finally decided to take him home.

Buddy!


He’s a dear, mellow, non Alpha dog. All he wants to do is sit next to me and be a buddy. He loves his walks and he’s coming out of his shell now that we are changing his diet and giving him boundaries. The vet said he is about 3 years old and he is beginning to look it. He’s more energetic and trusting each day.

He had a breakthrough after his bath this week (he actually stood there quietly while I bathed him, something that has never happened with any of my other Lhasas) when I finished lightly drying him off outside and he started racing around the yard like a crazy dog (typical small dog behavior). He got so excited I had to calm him down. I think his pound experience was hard on him but he is coming around and loving life right now. Me too.