Augh. It is too morose. And morose isn’t fun. And you know I’m all about Fun. Life goes on. Jenna Bush got married! My mom’s roses have something like slugs which is not slugs but seems like slugs! The whole former Burma debacle with cyclones and military dictatorships and such! And here I am. Just waiting for some kind of green light in a crystal ball that says, “Hey, It’s a SUPER time to euthanize your dog RIGHT NOW!”

So, like I so dramatically told you I would do yesterday, I thought maybe it would be a sign if I took Timmy up to Pogonip, where he used to love to walk. And the sign would be that he’d perk up, and sniff the air, and a spark would come back into his eye and it would be a sign that he has a lot more days, rather than fewer days. I’m rubbing my hands together, I’m rolling those dice and I’m ready for my sign Now!

So we packed up all the dogs and drove them up the hill. Pogonip is a green belt of open space; redwood forests and old oak meadows. It borders on the University and some Nice neighborhoods and people with homes in the neighborhood run in there and homeless people make their homes in the forests there. Maybe you might remember the old Pogonip club house down at the bottom near Goodwill Bargain Barn from the Lost Boys. A big event when that was filmed in Santa Cruz back in the ’80’s. I am featured in it as an extra, although you can’t see me because I’m in a car driving by and it’s dark and the vampires are on the motorcycles and I don’t think I ever even saw me in it. I still think vampires and Corey Feldman when I think Pogonip. So dogs go on leashes in Pogonip unless they don’t then maybe they get a ticket. From the City ranger, not the State Parks ranger.

And we park up at the end of the Nice street, 20 yards from the trail head. In front of a Nice house. It’s a Nice area. More square footage per garage than my whole house. Big front yards with professional landscaping. Milguard windows. No junker trucks and whole families packed into trailers in driveways. We get the dogs out, takes a moment because Timmy is slow and make our way to the path and start down the path. It’s a sunny day and couples are out walking their dogs and the women all have sensible sun hats and the dogs are all golden retrievers. On the way there, Gary wanted to listen the to the Giant’s game but I made him listen to songs from the Timmy playlist on the ipod because we are waiting for a sign and that seemed like a useful way to see it, me being knowledgeable of the gypsy ways for sign searching and all.

We make it about 20 more yards down the trail and Timmy has a panic attack. In front of golden retrievers and moms for mother’s day and I have to grab him up and tell everyone walk is over after a grand total of about 3 minutes that’s that. Back we go to the car. So much for a sign. So much for the whole Timmy standing in the meadow business and maybe a hawk will fly over in the breeze and spirit guide in a can anyone? I am restraining a squirming bundle of panic in my arms and people are looking and we just need to be back in the car and get home.

So there’s this note on my windshield when we return to the car after our big 5 minute walk. Aha! It is a sign! Is my first thought. Or it is a fan letter of Team Small Dog! is my second thought. Or third thought is just some flyer about a fish fry. I have all those thoughts almost all together. Sometimes I think fast. Rarely when I need to. Gary has the small dogs and he pulls the note off and I am holding the panic attack and he shows me the note. Printed out from the computer in a stately Times New Roman, 14pt, double spaced. Which says:

Please keep the volume of your tunes down (and keep your dogs quiet) when you park in the neighborhood. We can hear the noise clearly from inside our houses.

Thanks for your cooperation.
The neighbors

Some f**ing sign and you know how I get when someone tells me what to do that is plain craziness from neighborhood facism. My mind gets this weird japanese animation image of thunderbolts and spinning teacups and speed racer and astronauts and robots hurling things all in red and black and giant eyes and screaming. That’s all I see for a moment then all I can do is, swaddling my panic attack tightly in my arms, holler, “This is a public street and public land and this is normal neighborhood noise. This was normal neighborhood noise and now it is not because what kind of insanity comes from…”

I am cut off. Gary is shoving me and my big mouth into the car. I have Timmy on my lap. I can tell you exactly what Tunes I had on conservative volume when we pulled up. The Mescaleros Silver and Gold, a slow and quiet song with strumming guitars and HARMONICAS for gods sake. You know the first thing I did when we started the car to leave. Put on Led Zeppelin and put it on LOUD and put down all the windows and Gary is trying to get us out of there fast before I get in a fight with some neighbors because I stick my head out the window and start hollering something, I don’t know what now, about crackhead asshole neighbors because the animae is still running in there and I am just mad.

So we got him home. Back down to our neighborhood where you can have your Tunes on whatever volume you want and everyone is ok with pretty much whatever you want to do until it involves guns. Or leaving their dump truck in front of your house for a week when they’re on a surf trip using up all the parking spaces. Timmy was ok after I got him back in the house and let him bounce off the walls for a while and pumped some treats into him. I’m not really sure if I got a sign or not now. I kept looking for one the rest of the day and you know, he just slept and paced and the only thing out of the ordinary that happened was I went to the grocery store, and the husbands of people I know kept appearing to my right, saying hi and how you doing and they were all really tall. By the third time this happened. I was sort of dumbstruck and just stared at the guy like I am in a fog and tell him how the tofurkey is on sale and he meanders off and I’m like, HELLO, maybe that’s the sign? The husbands and their tallness and always appearing in a grocery aisle to my right, peering down into my basket and asking hows it going?

So here’s what I ask you, if you made it to the end of this story. I never know if you do. If you can tell me if THAT was a sign, and what it meant, I have a nice note from a neighbor for you, with a hand drawn by a former artist portrait of team small dog for you on it. Comment me your thoughts, and if you win you send me your real and genuine address and I send you some real and genuine former art. Maybe was worth something once, probably ain’t worth nothin’ now, but you deserve a prize for being a better gypsy than me.