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Mario's Three Lives

Just a quick stop-by and hello as I am baking and cleaning and packing the camper. I look forward to seeing many faithful few this weekend!

If you are in the mood to sit a spell, or to turn up the speakers and listen while you work, enjoy this short story -the link is at the top of this post, entitled "Mario's Three Lives"- curtesy of www.podcastle.org. I listen to short-story fantasy podcasts from them on my ipod every now and again, while fluffing pillows and turning blind slats to ju-ust the right angle to let in light without letting in sunlight and folding towels into ridiculous little fans. This one is about 6 minutes, 45 seconds. I listened to it while driving home from work the other day, and it had me laughing out loud, and it has stuck with me because I just feel so much like Mario most days- asking, wondering, theorizing, jumping and landing on my ass (warning- if you take offense at the word "ass", it's in the story) in a world that simply does not have as many answers as I have questions, and when I fail, I wait for word that I may Continue, and I know my God from the clues I have been given, yet wonder how much more there is I simply can not know. You will have to listen to it instead of reading it, click the little arrow beside the symbol for the speaker under the written paragraph. The written portion is only the first few minutes of the story.

We got back yesterday from a quick camping trip over by Buena Vista. It was good, we hiked Poplar Gulch, hung out at Mt Princeton Hot Springs, camped in our camper under aspens and pine trees. We shared several beers and several meals with our friend Scott, who lives there, and I found a big cluster of enormous King Bolete mushrooms, which I have cut and in the fridge, awaiting a stir fry.

Andy provided a bit of entertainment for us a time or two on the trip. Besides being a huge baby and not at all at home in his new surroundings-he has yet to accept the camper as his new doghouse- and besides his insisting that he sleep between us, which led to paws in our faces when he rolled onto his back and stretched, he also provided several surprising clues into the workings of his doggy brain. One assumes a dog is not capable of deduction. But the more I watch Andy's brain work, the more I wonder.

We were loading up after watching the sunset from the deck of Bongo Billie's, a coffee shop with a view of the surrounding Collegiate peaks, and after having him tied to my chair for a half-hour, and his hour in the truck while we ate, I was pretty sure he needed to "go". I took him to the parking lot, and told him to "go potty". Now, I should mention that the books on dog training say that going potty on command is not a fancy trick, it is the dog being reminded that he has to go by word-association, much like the sound of running water does for us. And they say that a dog cannot make the distinction between the big job and the little job, so don't try to teach them to "go poop". Well, this dog, who is not exactly a rocket scientist most of the time, knows the difference. He knows which command means a quick trip out to the yard, and which command means he should start sniffing and circling and preparing to hunch up. But out there in the parking lot, he must have been dehydrated from a long, hot day, because he ran back and forth at the end of his leash when I told him to go, and did not go. I kept repeating the command, thinking he was just distracted by all the smells, and finally he stopped, looked at me reproachfully, and squatted for a split second. Then he ran to the pickup, ready to load up and hit the road. I looked where he had squatted, and the ground was bone dry. Which left me wondering- did he deliberately mislead me? Did he try, but there was just nothing there? Are dogs more devious than we think they are, giving us humans whatever it is that will shut us up in order to just get on with it, without being purists, knowing that just the illusion of obedience will shut us up, as well? I know people say lying is a human folly, but I know that on more than one occasion, he has waited until my back is turned, sneaked things off the table, hidden them, and has been lying on his wondowsill calmly staring out the window when I come back into the room, and only later, I find the evidence that he has unearthed his people food and savored it when he had more time. He did that once with an ice cream bar in the car, and it was only because of a tell-tale smear of ice cream across his ear that I began to dig beneath piles of dirty linens until I found it. I know that a dog's nature is to hide his bones, but just that act tells me that they do not have the angelic, loving, sharing personalities that we humans give them. And they do lie.

The other thing that entertained us was that on the way home, on the switchbacks over Hoosier Pass, he began to brace himself to keep from sliding across the armrest/console in the middle of the pickup's bench seat before we began to make the turn. This, in my mind, takes a lot of reasoning, recognizing patterns and adjusting to them. He realized, by looking out the window, that we always stayed between the lines, and when the lines curved in a certain direction, he slid in the opposite direction. He began to watch the lines, and as soon as he could see in which direction they curved, he threw himself the same way, with his paws off the console in our laps, tensed, and waited for us to start to make the turn.

It has been proven lately that a dog has the reasoning, deduction skills, and counting skills of a two year old human. When three treats disappear behind a screen and only two are revealed when the screen is removed, a dog and a two year old reveal the same signs of bewilderment. Dogs are the only animals to comprehend what a pointed finger means, and follow it's path to what it is they are supposed to be seeing.

All of that really had no point, except to say that I am beginning to realize more than ever what animals comprehend, and like Aristotle, I am beginning to see them as my brothers, with mutual respect and a working relationship. Beating them or eating them- both criminal unless absolutely necessary.

In the meantime, I wait for "Continue", and do not know what I am to do until I am doing it.