flyingboxercircusII

California looms. I haven't been back in years - trying to recall when, can't, and don't want to go back now. But blood calls, and I am in my 'good father' mode, bowing before the winds of change and the inexorable advent of the next generation. There are certain rites-of-passage at which my presence is required. Truthfully, I am not sure why; at my core I will always be slightly disconnected from the reality of what and who people are. I don't know why. It is just a missing piece, blown or torn out in previous adventures. Maybe I am like a moutaineer who has lost a leg in the high country some years back; he limps but still manages to keep up, not a leader, but a solid slogger. I sometimes fear people will find out this about me, that I am not quite connected, and then think I only go thru the motions with a superficial carelessness. Not so! I work my way thru the motions with a usually fierce determination to find out what it is the rest of you know that I don't, and to do my best not to disappoint. It is my yoga to do this. The yoga of the householder who never got to the cave to meditate his way into knowledge, who chose to stay in the trenches with the hot fudge sundaes and the dirty diapers. Most days I am glad to be in my sixties; all that work behind me now. J.B. will think I am getting strangely metaphysical here, ripe for conversion to the ONE TRUE GOD? not likely, but I am feeling like I may be approaching graduation after a strenuous course of study.

We finally camped 2 days by a lake near Ukiah. It was great. Big oaks. Few people. I hiked with the kids to an abandoned winery on the lakeshore. Found some old machines with babbitt bearings, machines that had probably cruelly manipulated grapes into dream-juice, and a derelict tractor with spiky iron tires; I cannot recall the make - read it and promptly forgot it. So much information is essentially useless; as you begin to forget more and more stuff you can realize that with aplomb. The trail went thru thickets of manzanita and oak and madrone groves. Spendid. Assholes on the Lake revved boats to see how close they could come to blowing the engines.

We had toyed with the idea of stopping to see Pat's kids. All three daughters, Gillian, Cara and Morgan, live around the S.F. Bay Area. I had, several times, talked her out of it, wishing devoutly to skip the muss and fuss and traffic and slide south on homogenous Intersate 5, one of the most completely bland roads in existence.

So, we pulled up to Gillan's house in San Rafael in the afternoon. Kaitlin, whom I had last seen as a newborn - ah, that's when I was here last!, is up and sprinting. Fearless little devil. She chases the kids all over their outside deck, her own Himalayan Mastiff puppy, only half grown at 60 pounds, in close proximity. It is like fleshy, organic bumper cars; the soft, muted crump and bodies fly all directions only to reverse course quite suddenly, pivoting off shoulder blocks and flung heads. A small bottom hits the deck and a momentary pout ensues. Then she is up and running again. The kids haven't been this happy since they discovered Alpo.

Other g'kids kids wander thru, but none of them catch my eye like the whirling red-headed dervish with 3 furry best friends drooling on her and nudging her along.

Toward evening we slip away to make our way south across the urban wasteland. Traffic isn't too bad.

I had figured out something about the pottery. There is some system whereby all the high end stuff comes to where people can afford it - duh! The unrecognized V.B. in the dusty corner of the back room of an elderly shop seeming almost stillborn in the heat of a midwestern day isn't really there. It is the exception we seek; as stevenrose had put it - "the thrill is in the hunt." So, where better to look with expectations of finding than someplace like Sebastopol, lying between the affluently gay Russian River resort area and San Francisco.

A big, shiny multi-dealer mall, and another few hundred got left in the care of strangers. I now had my third dated piece of Van Briggle. Until Pat put the brakes on me I was on a roll; I had the moral high ground for the moment. She would be picking up her 25 year service award, 'the rock', when we got back to Maine. A 1.3 carat Asscher cut diamond in a custom platinum setting. She thinks, beyond all reason, that I bought it for her. Nonsense! It is 'our' money; I just said "Oh, go ahead....." Sometimes - rarely, actually - men have it so easy.

Next up would be my favorite part of California, the least damaged, on the coast anyway: San Luis Obispo. I had lived there for a year, working in the local State Prison and spending my off-hours on a nude beach chilling. The periods ups and downs have all been smoothed by the friction of blessed time into a rosy memory.

Pat's Journal 11 May, 2005 Eureka, C - fucking -A.

California - the sun came out as we crossed the border! The Oregon coast was ok with the pallisades and sandy beaches, but California instantly trumped with lagoons fringed with seaweed and plein air stands of Eucalyptus, Queen of Trees. For the first time on the trip there is no time pressure. We ambled along 101. The kids at last met the Pacific; Shay pooped in the surf to celebrate. The 6 here in Eureka is a bit seedy. There was a homeless guy asleep on the grass near our door. The maids appear to live in the motel - they giggle a lot and entertain serial boyfriends. I have no idea what we're up to today. We have three and a half days to get to L.A. Maybe I can entice Don with the antique stores of College Avenue. Although I think he'd rather score the overlooked pieces from unsuspecting rubes.

The weather is absolutely perfect. Camping tonight!?!?

Pat's Journal 12 May, 2005 Ukiah, Ca.

By the shores of Mendicino,

Lake of power boats and fishing,

Sits the penner of these pages.

Smugly with her mug of coffee

Penning pages, sipping coffee

Musing in the misty morning.

We came down 101 from Eureka hitting antique shops and malls in Fernbridge, Ferndale and Fortuna. At my instigation we bought our first Roseville - a small pair of incised, brick-colored candle sticks. I sort of fell apart in the late afternoon when finding a camping spot seemed hopeless and my kids and grandkids seemed so close yet unreachable. Don perservered and by sheer force of will brought us to Lake Mendocino where the popup now squats in an oakgrove fifty yards from the still, silver water. Lots of bird action, whip-poor-wills, quail, mother and baby duck-units, chirps, twitters, and one-liners all around. Sometimes I wish it would always be 7A.M.

Pat's Journal 13 May, 2005 Ukiah II.

Two days in one place just because we wanted to! The trailer is small, dirty and logistically troubling, but far, far better than the finest Motel 6 going. No overpowering smells of cleaning products and third world perfumes. No concrete and schlepping, no heavy, claustrophobia-inducing drapes, no forensically rewarding carpets and bedspreads.

We grubbed for pots in Ukiah and environs and came back to camp early for napping (P) and hiking (D,S&W). Beanie-weinie and tuna fish sandwiches with the last of the Anchor Steam Porter. Not bad; not bad at all.

Today we head south on 101 to the land of soccer moms. Gil and Kaitlin will be waiting for us.

Pat's Journal 14 May, 2005 Gilroy, Ca.

Yesterday had its ups and downs. We drove first to Sebastapol where V.B. was sought, found and bought, and on to Dorian Way. Gillian is wonderful. Her face is softer, her conversation very self-depreciating, funny and insightful. She is nine months clean and sober and could be an AA poster child. She has an absolute Zen-like patience with little Katie (pan to sleepy 3 year old on mom's lap, dipping baguette rounds into a ketchup pool - her real dinner removed from her scornful view.)

Maddie is chubby, refusing to wear bras or deoderant, her mind accomodating to mall-rat cell phone culture, her little round body clinging to the relative safety of babyhood and to the comfort of savored calories.

Torran is so bright - he treats me like a fellow-adult. He keeps a low profile. He has lots of humor, a mobile face and blue eyes the size of VW hubcaps. The world will hear from him if he wants it to.

Across the Bay Amber and Cara are having a hard time of it. Amber at twelve is a full-blown troubled teen - the full catastrophe! Cara is helpless. She says she can't say no, that she doesn't know where she ends and Amber begins. Cara, sobbing, "Amber, what the fuck do you want from me?" Amber, sobbing "You should know what I want!" Everybody suffers, everybody survives. Inshallah.

Meanwhile certain boxers romped with Daisybear in the wonderful rock-climbing backyard overlooking the Bay. We pulled out after laundry and dinner, crossed the Golden Gate at twilight and 19th Avenued to S. San Francisco. We came to Gilroy by 2200 and found a 6 and a Dennys. And so to bed.

Rocky is recovering from a pinched tail; "watch out for them swinging doors!"

We have arrived in Hermosa Beach. Tom is one of - he would tie for first with another soul or two- my favorite people on the thread at the Capless. He digs into his own cluttered closet much the way I do and comes up with gems that I sometimes wish were my own. What higher praise than to say "I wish I'd said that!"?

There is always the first uneasiness at meeting, a little dance, like dogs sniffing butts, but less orchestrated and likely less useful. Tom is as others had described him: short, balding and beady-eyed. Well, maybe it isn't beady-eyed so much as the in-your-face look of someone getting set to drill thru your skull and extract information. I feel like I may blush.

Tom comes out to the truck with me to see the circus. Pat is inside getting to know Jenny. Tom says they have 2 cats and I should put Sgt. Rock into the house to get acquainted. I have some reservations, telling Tom that cats don't tend to accept strange cousins as well as dogs do. He insists it is ok. Doubtful but willing I extract Rock from the back of the truck and walk up, open the front door, toss Rocky in, close the door and go back to Tom. Oh, the things we do without clearly considering the consequences.

Pretty soon Jenny is on the back stoop, which is a second floor porch over the descending drive, looking down at me. She is upset. I don't know if she is going to weep, or if rage will take over. I cringe when she says something about a strange cat in her house trying to kill her beloved fluff-balls. The exact words elude me and I am just left with one of those rather visceral memories that, even in retrospect, shut down your autonomic functions. I am suddenly in that airline commercial where the fellow has done something really stupidly reprehensible and is seeing himself flying away to safety in a little bubble that floats above his ashen face. I look at Tom. His face is neutral. It is on me. I retrieve Rocky, who is actually under a chair in defense-posture while two hissing beasts circle her. My apologies are dust in the wind. Rocky returns to the truck, not unwilling to go.

What has just happened? Did Tom set me up? To what purpose have I now become Jenny's tormentor and enemy? Jeez, Marie, we just got here and things are going to hell in a handbasket. I cannot read Tom's face. Is this the guy who has been sending anonymous, witty postcards to us for weeks in preparation for our visit?

We go into the house. The ebullient, witty, irreverant Tom is strangely withdrawn in this home of his, missing actually. Jenny rules. She says what must be done, indicates what she wants others, well, Tom anyway, to think, and clings very tightly to her veneer of control over this environment; this control enforced by sheer will appears to be what holds her together. A stiffness pervades all. I feel a brittle tension enveloping the room. Justin joins us for dinner. He seems a nice kid. At least he talks, not something teenagers always do when adults are present. Jennie's control extends fiercely to her only child; she is an umbrella over his very soul.

Downstairs in our free apartment Pat says she doesn't want to stay here. This is vintage Pat; fear and doubt at first sight. Nothing will go right, she insists. Jenny will explode. There will be blood in the stairwell. The stairwell has taken on curiously iconic proportions. We have gone thru a tense scene where Jenny insists that the dogs will come up stairs and get them in their home during the night. Tom has demonstrated that the door at the bottom of the stairwell has a doorknob that can only be manipulated by an opposable-thumb lifeform. No boxers will ascend the stairs with carnage on their tiny minds. She remains unconvinced, shaking her head in doubt. This one event represents the crux of the moment. We are not really welcome; an amorphous danger is our baggage, and fear is the pervading mood that we bring.

My own theory is that things often sort themselves out by morning. I note all the above as probably somewhat temporary and say we should give it a day to settle. Pat wants to leave now. I am caught between really wanting to settle in for the night in a very nice, spacious and free place, knowing I would be extraordinarily embarrassed to just up and leave, and Pat's persistent insistence that we fling ourselves back on the refugee-road. No, I tell her; we stay here tonight. I am eyeballing the rum bottle and wanting to unpack today's finds and touch some bottoms.

Oh, lest I forget, there is the saga of backing the tent trailer down the drive. It needs to go about 50 feet down a narrowish drive, between house and wall, and get parked at the bottom. I spread myself out all over the street getting lined up and ready, blocking all traffic, and I back up a few feet and then pull forward, because I am about to crush something. Traffic remains blocked. Jenny watches from her perch and wrings her hands. After a few such abortive attempts Tom offers to do it. I gladly accede. He really knows how to do this, moving down the drive with ease. There are some shrill calls for him to cease and desist before he destroys much property. He basically ignores this. At the bottom there is the problem of the car in the garage, Jenny's, being able to get out with the trailer there. The trailer goes back a few more feet and brushes a small lemon tree; more wailing ensues. Tom is very cool with all this. He is either completely unruffled by things, or he is in, as I think, some sort of neutral gear.

I am sorry to have gone on so long about all this, but it does pertain. When Pat and I got settled into the bottom floor I said to her: "This guy isn't really Tom. He's some sort of Walter Mitty." I am hopeful that the real Tom will show up soon.

Tom and I go out to breakfast at a crowded little beach cafe. He is much looser; seems at ease with himself. We have a lot of fun over the ensuing days; the real Tom shows up when he isn't with the family. This could sound like a nasty comment, and Tom and I have talked this over, but it isn't meant that way. I was married 13 years to a woman with whom I lived for 3 of those years. It is within my ken to appreciate the rigors of relationships. We do many things to survive; we can rage, we can hide, we can run. Damage is always done. It is done by both, or all, sides. These things cannot be judged easily, if at all, by those outside the situation. The law begins to step in, and not very effectively, only when flesh is torn, but up to that point it is really a free-form exercise in survival. The best we can hope for often, is just to learn enough not to get into this predicament again, and to find our way to salving the wounds we inflict, sometimes even as we make the cuts. Though, as an observer, the values of one side may find a clearer resonance within us than the values of the other, we understand that no one wins, everyone loses, and good guys and bad guys are best left to the movies. Blame is for bozos. Every family has its cluster-fuck moments.

Tom hauled me to his favorite haunts, anything Green & Green. We stood on the sidewalk looking at the Blacker House, largest of the Greens' creations. A man got out of a car and Tom called to him. They spoke and Tom asked if the fellow was the filthy rich son-of-satan - maybe not in those words - who owned the house. I had to appreciate this. It would never have occurred to me to talk to a stranger that way. I tend to be pretty reticent with people I don't know. Tom was boldly inquisitive. The guy almost had Tom joining something called the Junior League so he could get an early look at the house on the inside; it won't be open to the public for a couple more years. To Tom this is inexcusable. On tours he secretly tape-measures joints on furniture, taking pics where none are allowed, pushing the envelope to get into the builder's heads. He seeks to wrest something from these long-dead brothers that almost has an odor of salvation to it.

Things had settled down at the house. I was solicitous of Jennie's feelings, really wanting to assuage her doubts. Who needs to live in fear in their own house?? She was relaxing. I did get called for letting the dogs poop and not promptly picking it up. I hadn't really thought much about it, but all dog people here have scads of plastic bags in their pockets, and they pick up dog poop like it was gold. I became a miner and won approval. Jenny presented me with my very own bags, murmuring "it's the law."

We had connected with Ara and I arranged to meet him at his bungalow in Long Beach. Getting there a bit early I looked under the mat, the prearranged key-place, found it barren and was digging in the flower pots when someone yelled at me. I looked up and saw a tall fellow in a dark suit coming my way. It took me a moment to recognize Ara. Later I asked him about the suit, and he had one of his oddly candid moments. He told me the suit and tie were like a super-hero costume, that when he put them on he became important and powerful, and he loved it. I was amazed, having spent most of my nursing career in areas where not even the rather casual whites were required, and so glad of it. I hate uniforms and would probably actually just go naked much of the time if society permitted. Here was my son giving me the view from across the chasm. My appreciation for his confession was enormous; he is not easy with being spontaneously candid about his feelings. Here I should add that he does get easier with himself all the time; at 30 I think he is just beginning to bloom. Somehow this makes him seem like a little boy again - unrestrained glee.

At some point I took Pat to Union Station and saw her off on a train to the Bay Area. We were both here for College graduations, but mine, Ara's. was here, and Pat's, daughter Morgan's, was up north. She was gone 3 or 4 days. The kids and I carried on.

Pat's Journal 17 May, 2005 Hermosa Beach II

In the morning we shop-crawled in Long Beach - I thought of my mother's story about driving from Bakersfield to Long Beach where her father taught her to swim in the salty, green water. In the afternoon we found Ara, Andie and Newton. Tidy little bungalow; tidy little neighborhood. Don presented Ara with his "pencil box"; Andie is already thinking of it as a jewelry box. Ara had just come back from a job interview (employer no

show) dressed an an elegant dark suit. He says he likes to wear it because it is like a superhero's cape - Accountant Boy, against all fraud and malfeasance. Andie, also in a dark suit, came in fresh as a daisy from a day of selling wine. They seem easy and contented with their lives and each other. They served a grand roast chicken dinner and we sat around and talked family and dogs and other loving trash.

They're planning a big enchilada party, which I'll miss. Instead I get two train rides, time with Shirley and Shofe, Morgan's triumphant graduation and "the best barbecued chicken in the world." Mi familia loca - way, way too much grief and energy. And me (all about whom it's not) a gradually failing, obese, grandperson trying to chin myself on the 21st Century.

(Today we're scheduled for the best barbecue in the L.A. Basin. Still some stuff left for me to do before I'm stored in the box.)

Pat's Journal 18 May, 2005 Hermosa III

We motivated to the San Fernando Valley, freeway bumper to bumper, to have lunch with Rod Padrick at Dr. Hogly-Wogly's Tyler Texas Barbecue. Roses everywhere, even around the rundown rentals scattered among the owner-occupied, well-secured, barbered and pampered little houses. No wonder the homeless come here. The neighborhoods seem safe, almost welcoming.

After lunch we went to Highland Park and Pasadena where we found a few things to exclaim over, e.g. Rookwood Egyptian bookends for $1400, but nothing to buy. Tom came down to examine our treasures when we got home. He liked the pots, especially a perfect little green Rookwood which he photgraphed from all sides with his state-of-the-art Minolta digital. Spoke briefly to Jenny and got two really great smiles. They are truly nice people who are being quite kind to us.

Pat's Journal 19 May, 2005 Hermosa IV

A brief note this A.M. just to keep my hand in. Yesterday involved a million miles of freeway, antique browsing and sunny SoCal weather. We took Jenny and Tom out to dinner at Akbar, the Indian restaurant up the block. Good time, bland food. Highlight of the day was the Hermosa Beach Dog Park. Pure joy for all concerned.

The toilet seat broke while I was sitting on it - a fat person's worst fear next to sudden death in the street. I hope Don buys my plan for clandestine replacement, otherwise Jenny's prophecy of doom will have been fulfilled and my name forever blackened on the Arnworld thread.

Pat's Journal 19 May, 2005 On the Coast Starlight

In transit. From Hermosa to Union Station is just under an hour. Amtrak personnel and fellow passengers solicitous of my age and weight. Senile invalid? Spunky little old lady? Can I buy a vowel?

The Coast, green hills, wildflowers and valleys put any other place I've ever been in the shade. I'll always love California best of all--- the California of 1955 with auto courts and Giant Orange Stands. What would it be like to do those 50 years over again?

9:20 P.M.

Chugging thru the noc somewhere north of Gilroy. My butt has had enough train. City all the way to Emeryville. I'm apprehensive. It's not about me. It's not about me. It's not about me.

Pat's Journal 20, May 2005 Oakland

Shirley met me at the station (Amtrak only an hour late) and we sat up and drank wine. All kinds of news. Bo's wife died and he's living in Hawaii near Nikki. Daniel is a CPA with Anderson. George is living in a trailer in Puyallup. Shirley sees Penelope once a month. A lot going on here. Weather fantastic. Sitting on the deck drinking Peet's is hard to beat on a fine May morning.

Pat's Journal 21, May 2005 Dogtown

Good day yesterday, Peet's on deck (see above) then a trip to see busy, thriving Cara at Jamba Juice. Oakland Library next via AC Transit. Unable to dig up anything on Uncle Art but got to see Lake Merritt at its Art Deco best. Took a stroll on Piedmont Avenue - replete, just fucking replete! Shirley took me to dinner at a place called Dopo, 3 blocks from her good old house on Echo. Soft-shelled crab and pasta in a leek, morel cream sauce. The finest kind!

Shirley knows everyone in the neighborhood; everyone seems to love her. She stops to talk with everybody passing by. She has created a fine life for herself. I'm extremely lucky to be one of her 8 zillion friends.

Morgan now - she lives in a huge 3 story apartment in a regentrifying Emeryville. Great slabs of wall for displaying art. Islands of warmth. No clutter. Morgan is beautiful and gracious - still selling herself short. Still thinking that Tony is better than a law degree. Arrgh!

Talked briefly on phone to Cara. Amber had done things she had promised not to. Double arrgh!

Met Rod at a barbecue place he has habituated for decades. He is a local boy; actually graduated from high school a year ahead of me in the next town over. He is a bear of a guy, but a good natured one. I think he is probably a very gentle person; Pat kept getting hugs. I still can't quite figure out what he does - sets up equipment for people? At any rate it seems that he does it all, from plumbing to electrical, and is so in demand that he doesn't advertise, just takes work as he wants to. Pat has remarked that the one thread she finds that ties all the Capless crowd together is their craftsmanship. If I weren't included I would go along with that. This is a group you could use as a core to populate a new planet - though we might be a touch old and worn down for the job. Do guys with vasectomies qualify as breeders? Is the brave new world supposed to ring with the cries of children? Awww, it's always the next generation that causes the problems anyway - who needs 'em? Clones would be the thing. Could I get a clone of your wife? She seems like a lot of fun. Murder in paradise - am I rambling again? Shucks....

Rod's promise of the best barbecue ever was not one I could confirm or deny. Having almost no sense of smell I have little ability to taste. Food has, for me, a few basic flavors: sweet, vinegary, salty. I enjoy texture as much as anything. Rod is another of these intense souls who drill you with his eyes. I like honest people, but at times I wonder if I haven't gone too far. He treated and was a gracious host but had to leave soon for a job.

Somewhere in here we hit antique shops in Pasadena. Ah, I found out where the money is. Nice pieces of early V.B. with price tags in the thousands. I didn't even ask to handle them. Drove around and looked at houses I had grown up in, in Highland Park, but it was all different, all foreign. Things looked cheaper and busier and less dependable. It was as if what I saw now was make-believe, all shoddy, cardboard facades whose sun-faded colors ran weakly in the infrequent cleansing rains. Where there had been solid homes and sturdy streets there was now a faint pretense of life and activity. I had lived in this town longer than I had lived anywhere growing up: 5 years. It was my major touchstone to childhood. Now it had shrugged and rolled me off its shoulders; I landed in the dust in some In-between Land. You could really hurt yourself wondering. I stopped and we went someplace else.

I came back to this area one more time. Rod, who finds everything on the internet as if it were just a drawer he had to sort thruough, found out a free-day was coming that included Gamble House and the Loomis House. Loomis and the Greens had been builders and movers in this area at the same time, but no one could prove they ever met. Loomis hauled rock out of the arroyo to hand build a stone house in Highland Park; vernacular, hand crafted, in the mission tradition. He espoused the same ideals as the Greens in many ways, but he was blue collar and loved the Mexican tradition and flavor. The Green brothers were very high class with a rich clientele. Loomis I can identify with; the long effort getting those rocks up. The satisfaction of it. The Greens leave me breathless. The Gamble House, Tom's prevailing passion in life, is a wonder, an absolute wonder. I was bad there; I got in trouble for touching the wooden walls. I wanted to handle the art pottery; the docents eyed me as if I were a cultural terrorist. Tom took more pictures; he already has a surfeit.

It was a grand day. Ara came along; I got to meet Michael Haynes, and Rod and Tom were there. The high point for me was when we were able to settle down for a bit. Tom led us to an eatery, the Top Hat?, and we all had huge pastrami sandwiches. I liked what I saw of Michael, but you don't see a lot. He is somewhat oblique and scarce online, so I didn't have a lot to go on when I found him in the flesh. I know he is smart and funny, and I could see that, but anything more would require time and trust. The most revealing thing about Michael is his sailing journal, which is great - he published it at the Capless, in installments, but didn't seem to want wider distrubution. He has a facility with the written word. I had hoped to meet his wife, the Admiral, but it was not to be.

So, Zoe shows up, by phone, and is expecting to be able to come and stay with us at Tom's. I tell her I don't think we can do that; the situation is a little tense. She is aggravated. She refuses to get hold of Ara and bunk at his house for a night or two, says she is getting a hundred dollar a night hotel room that she can ill-afford and rings off. Something is going on with her. I don't know what. It turned out that the friends she had been going to stay with were all busy. Katy, the kid's mom, was coming up and had rented Zoe a hotel room for later in the week. This was around Wednesday, and Katy wasn't rolling into town for a day or two. I decided to let Zoe be for the moment; she was in a bad mood, and I didn't want to get into a squabble with her. Her moods can come and go with fair rapidity. The sunny disposition is never too far away.

I spent a couple of days around Ara's. He was pretty busy. We had one ongoing conversation that we kept coming back to, or so it seemed to me. He holds me largely responsible for the problems he had as a teen, saying that if I hadn't worked night shifts and been gone all the time his life would have been different, better. I wheeled out my theory that we are all hard-wired and without some huge, deforming influence from the environment we are going to become who we are patterned to be. He doesn't buy this. For him nurture beats nature to its knees. I can see where my view might seem a little darkly mechanistic to him. I almost think that we are born to face certain things in life in a karmic fashion. It seems to explain a lot to me, but then I cannot muster the blind faith necessary to validate an intelligence behind such a plan, and I remain essentially clueless. The state does not displease me.

And then there was the graduation on Friday A.M. I don't think the school could have made it a whole lot worse if they had tried. Hundreds and hundreds of kids in long, dark robes marched out into nasty hot sun and sat forever in metal folding chairs listening to speakers who mouthed words that few could understand. The most vibrant was a gesticulating woman, a former surgeon general, I guess, who spoke one word with utter clarity: "percentages". She uttered it again and again, waving her arms. I understood later that she was talking about the rise of women in the world. It might have been an interesting speech, but the sound system was fubared-out. After the kids received a piece of paper, not a real diploma as those would be available later online for printing out - am I jesting? - they were supposed to return to their seat for more festivities. Every kid down there had a cell phone and the families in the stands were busy calling telling the kids to get the hell out of there. About two thirds of them walked out of the stadium rather than go back for another turn in the oven. That alone proves that college graduates are smarter than some think.

The college, University of California at Dominguez Hills, is predominantly black and hispanic. Ara did tell some sad tales of the level at which many of the kids worked. It sounded as if a lot of them were not even working up to high school level, but they were graduating from college. He mentioned an event near the end of school when a girl was spoken to unkindly by a fellow student in class, and announcing that no one called her a 'bitch' she attacked. I don't really recall ever seeing thrown chairs and a fist fight in class before.

Graduation over we returned to Ara's for The Party. There was the party, and there was Don and the kids. I guess I was surprised to find that almost everywhere we went we were censured, usually only mildly, for having brought large dogs. Dogs the size of Waldo and Shay just don't fit into most people's lives. I hadn't really thought this out before we left on the trip, but even had I done so it would have changed nothing. When you own pets this size your life is altered. I sat in the yard during most of the party with the kids on leads and drank my couple of beers and ate my enchiladas and talked to those near me. The party was much larger than the small house. The bungalow is great; I loved it. But it was really built couple-sized. I did get to talk to Zoe; she was feeling better.

Inside the house was packed. Ara, for all his quiet way, has made a lot of friends. Andie is a people-magnet, pretty, bright, engaging. Katy and her husband were there, and had brought Katy's older sister, Aunt Pat, along. I hadn't seen Aunt Pat for a few years. She is the same age as my Pat, but has become something of a cranky crone. Having never married she lives with her mule and dogs out in the desert. There is something bitter about her. Does she feel regret seeing others move on and prosper? Age is enfolding her at a rapid pace and not being too gentle about it. (Some of the people here are on the Ara & Andie get hitched site, if you want faces to go with names.) I left fairly early. I had a drive back to Tom's and a couple of beers was my limit. I understand things got a little rowdier later. I might have enjoyed that.

A note on Ara and Andies little dog, Newton. Somewhere along the line they had met this reasonably eccentric lady who had decided to create a new breed of dog: Desert Buddies. I forget what all goes into the mix, but Newt has the look of a pug with long legs and an actual face; some of this is chihuahua peeking thru. I guess Newt is the poster-boy of the breed - they had to sign a statement that they would not have him neutered as he was to be future breeding stock, but having tired of this covenant Ara and Andie told the woman they had moved to Maine, and were released by her. The interesting aspect is that many of Newt's sibs and cousins don't look at all like him; they are referred to as Dr. Moreau's dogs. A couple of A&A's friends own these creations. I would like to have seem them. Newt is a real bundle of joy. I rather like pugs anyway, having had time with Molly.

Pat's Journal 22 May, 2005 In transit

The Coast Starlight was running 5 hours late, so I switched to the Bakersfield train-L.A. bus combo. Right now we're rocking thru Richmond. The seating is actually more comfortable.

The graduation went well. Speeches short and snappy; grads at commencement gleeful. Ron and Eve gave a low-key party in their wonderful Berkeley backyard. Saw Amber for the first time - she's not psychotic, but seems to be testing the wonders of teen-age sociopathy. She's not nail-skinny, and she eats more than Cara thinks she does. She needs to read the Catcher in the Rye. She needs to hang out with smart people.

Pat's Journal 23 May, 2005 Long Beach

Yesterday is a little blurry - cars and trains and buses and light rail. According to Rich-guy Rick, who sat across from me on the train, Bakersfield is a wealthy community full of millionaires and fine dining. Rick was drinking Vodka boiler-makers and may have been a little off track.

Wonderfully good to see Don again. We're staying at Ara and Andie's place - they're in Puerto Vallarta - to regroup for the return trip. We need to do something about the truck; Rocky is now able to escape at will. I found her this A.M. hiding out in the crawlspace under the house across the street where boxers live. What with all this hithering and thithering this L.A. place hasn't been overly restful. We need to simplify our lives and get down the road.

Pat's Journal 24 May, 2005 Long Beach II

City of Bungalows! SoCal is winsome here. The little yards are full of hyper-ponic flowers and shrubs, succulent, tumescent, vibrant - the way it would be if it wasn't really a desert. The rainbow flag flies everywhere. The folks who fly it have spread comfort and beauty.

Yesterday was devoted to vegging out and regrouping. I went for a long walk after lazing 'til noon, got lost and had my nails done. Another nap and then "Acres of Books", finishing off with the dog park. Staying at Ara and Andie's is like being at home, except for the proximity of millions of strangers. "Turn backward, turn backward, Oh, Time in thy flight---"

Pat's Journal 25 May, 2005 Long Beach III

Disaster! We were saddled up and leaving the dog park when Waldo was attacked by a pair of German Shepards. One methodically tried to remove his left ear, the other punctured the back of his neck several times, searching for his throat. Every mutt in the park crowded around. It looked to me, with my "silly eyes", like they were all trying to kill him. Dog owners and dog-walkers are all about action - 3 or 4 of them joined in, grabbing, punching and kicking the offensive brutes. Don got the dog off Waldo's ear and a tall hero-dog-walker prised open the jaws of the one on his neck. Waldo emerged torn and bleeding from several wounds. It was not a dog fight, it was an attempted assassination.

The woman who owns the Shepards is a potential 5150, suit-proof, no fixed abode, history of running vicious dogs, evidently the scourge of the dog park. The dogs were impounded because of their previous record.

Waldo's doctoring cost $685. The back of his bull neck has been shaved and is crisscrossed with heavy stitches. His ear has been re-attached. He is on anti-inflammatories, pain meds and antibiotics. He seems to be okay but has yet to return to his happy-go-lucky ebullience.

We're here in Long Beach for a couple more days to allow for healing - disconcerting Andie's sister who had to cancel a planned tryst with her boy friend. A fender-bender in the fast lane can spoil the whole day of thousands.

Pat's Journal 26 May, 2005 Long Beach IV

In the throes of packing for the road. Yesterday a day of rest for Waldo, who is doing fine. No fever, good appetite. I called Don Orton and told him we should be hauling across the Mimbres sometime Friday. Rocky has instinctively gone to ground; it may take some time to find her. She is currently high on my PIA pet list.

Yes, that is about the last thing to add on circling the drain in the L.A. Basin. Waldo's tribulations.

Tom had introduced us to the Hermosa Dog Park, we had been there several times, and it was wonderful. Acres and acres of dogs running about with the owners ambling along keeping their particular charges in sight. All so relaxed and good-natured.

We extended our program to include the Seventh Street Dog Park in Long Beach. Our first visit was just as good as the others. Different cast, but the same activities. The 'fetchers' rushed pell-mell in motley packs up and down the park in pursuit of tennis balls throw with plastic hurling-devices. This was not a scramble either of the kids joined in, except for a momentary interest. They both belong marginally to the class of dogs I would call 'loners'. Dogs that move to their own music, wandering from spot to spot, stopping for the occasional butt sniff or play-posture bow, but mostly doing what they did individually. When it was time to go I put the lead on Waldo inside the park and we headed for the gate. He stopped as a large German Shepard went stiff-legged in front of him. I have to admit my own error in what happened next. Not realizing the other dog was quite so strung out I gave Waldo a little tug to come along. When his head moved, an inch or two as I pulled, the Shepard attacked. I never even saw where its partner came from. They obviously had a routine, a strategy, that took the victim both frontally and from the side. You've seen dog fights? The are fast, furious, loud, bloody, a horror film run at high speed, the flashing teeth and blood-splatter magnified in slow motion sections. The cries and shrieks seem at a distance and in the middle of your brain at the same time.

I have had the experience, in an emergency, of knowing absolutely what I had done to deal with the situation, convinced of my actions, only to be assured by others, later, that I had stood by as stunned as they were, never moving. I know I went into the melee. Waldo was on the bottom under these two dogs, squealing like a stuck pig. A horrible noise. Every other dog in the park was there by the time I was, all crowding forward for a front row view. The script was absolutely hard-wired. Getting a hold of the dog on Waldo's ear I pulled it away realizing it was coming, but so was his ear. I don't know what I did, but I got the dog loose; someone else had hold of it then and took it away. The larger dog was on Waldo's back, had him flattened in the dirt, and was doing death shakes from its grip on the back of his neck. There was no way he was going to break Waldo's neck doing this, but again, it was hard-wired. A man had hold of the Shepard pulling him back to no avail. I heard myself shrieking "get him off," over and over. The man yelled "I can't!" and then did the most marvelous thing. He grabbed the dogs jaws and actually got his fingers in far enough to pry the teeth loose. Waldo, the weight off him, came up off his back snarling and snapping. I was right in front of his face and told him it was ok now. He stopped and I led him away.

Later I realized I had not done the things I would think, in advance of such a situation, that I would do. I hadn't gone to every length, every extreme, to save Waldo. Thinking back I realized I could have choked out either dog and rendered them unconsious in seconds; I have done this with people - little known secrets of emergency psychiatry - and I know how it goes. The cops call it 'doing the chicken' because it often induces a mild and short grand mal seizure as the oxygen-starved brain responds to shutdown. It will stop anything that breathes, at least for a couple of minutes. I hadn't reached in and plunged my fingers down thru yielding eyes to kill the brain. I hadn't kicked dogs until their bones broke like twigs. All of these I realized, after the fact, were options in saving Waldo. It will take me a long time to sort this out. Maybe it has to do with my psych training. I spent decades in wild on-the-floor fights attempting to contain folks who wanted to hurt, if not kill me. I rarely struck out with intent to do lasting harm. Contain and keep safe; that was always the way it went. But I think that for Waldo I should have killed. Why didn't I?

People gathered around to support us, to tend Waldo's wounds. One little lady said "I was so mad I kicked that dog as hard as I could." Her eyes clouded. "I never in my life kicked a dog before." Pictures were taken of Waldo's state by someone, and we were given a list of names and contact for all the witnesses. A motorcyle cop had just stopped by the park and saw most of what happened. He called Animal Control. The officer said it was not a crime unless a person was bitten. Animal Control seemed hesitant to come out. These parks fall under their jurisdiction but are not regularly monitored. The officer would not come into the park, saying a uniform in with all those excited dogs was not going to work. He called the dog's owner, a small, dark lady who had gone to the other end of the park and might have been attempting to leave, over to the fence and took her license.

I didn't talk to the middle-aged woman until after I had given my statement to Animal Control. The first thing she said was "It was your fault for having your dog on a leash inside the park." I told her to 'get fucked' and it all went down hill. It came out that her dogs had attacked the previous week and she already had a court date. Maybe she lived in a van; it wasn't clear. Animal Control took her dogs and we got directions to a vet.

The vet was a young woman who took Waldo straight into surgery. Hours later when I picked him up he was groggy from the anesthetic, stumbling like a battered drunk, and my wallet was much lighter as we left. He had lots of pills to take. Pat and I decided to hold over in Long Beach one more day. A Lieutenant Quigley interviewed us at Animal Control the next day and took pics. She was to represent us in the upcoming case. We were comfortable with that. Assuming the owner of the dogs is actually convicted of anything repayment of our vet bills will be a part of her probation. We are not holding our breath. I did make a statement for the court that if the dogs were not put down they should at least be separated and the woman should never again own large-breeds. And that was the end of SoCal for us.