Walking the Dogs

Jill got me started volunteering at the JC Animal Shelter as a dog walker. The facility is so small and outdated that they don't have dog runs or any enclosed outdoor space for the dogs so there are a number of volunteers who walk the dogs in the little park across the street. Since this is a city dog pound they will eventually put down animals that can't be adopted or that just repeatedly get passed over. This is a little difficult and a constant worry when there are dogs that just seem to sit week after week and not get adopted. We had a scare with a dog named Megan who was a good dog, sort of a black lab mix, but she became frightened one day when a wheel barrow fell off a passing dump truck on the highway. After that she became more frightened each time she would go outside and something unexpected would happen. She went down hill pretty fast and we figured she would never be adopted....but eventually she found a home.



ALBERT -- Some dogs have a rap sheet. Albert is in the shelter because he discovered that he likes to eat chicken. The chickens belonged to a neighbor and neither the chickens nor the neighbor were pleased. He has been there for a couple weeks.


ARIEL -- At about seven years of age, Ariel thinks she is sort of the dowager queen of the animal shelter. She has a weight problem and needs to walk but she is somewhat opinionated on the direction she wants to go. She is good at slipping out of her harness and has to be carried back to the shelter. She thinks that is great fun.



BRENNA -- Brenna was once a family dog but somehow got separated and was picked up as a stray out in the county. She is probably the best natured dog in the shelter and is great on a leash. She had good care when she lived with her family but no one has come to claim her.



BYRON -- Byron came to the animal shelter because his owner was shipped overseas with the military and there were no other options for him. He always looks for his person when we go for our walks but is getting accustomed to the shelter. He is a little rambunctious and hard to handle on his leash.


SAMMIE -- There are lots of puppies at the shelter. Sammie was adopted as a puppy but was returned soon afterward because the family couldn't keep him. He loves treats and is growing fast. He has to compete with other younger puppies when people come in to adopt a dog and so far hasn't been picked.


I'm supposed to be getting more exercise so walking the dogs a few times a week is helping. The shelter has a bunch of cats and kittens but no one has been able to get them to agree to walk on a leash.

Adventures in Dentistry

I am no fan of dentists. I have habitually avoided them for most of my life and, until now, I have never found one that I actually liked. I can tolerate them for a while but that is about it.

I doubt that anyone enjoys going to the dentist. That isn't what I'm talking about. I also don't have a fear of dentists like some people do. I just don't like them as a general rule.

In my case it goes back to my early formative years when I was sent to the St. Louis University Dental School clinic for my first actual dentist visits. This was a room about half the size of a football field filled with dentist chairs and dozens of pimple-faced dentist wannabes with outdated tools and no skills to speak of. It was the luck of the draw....you waited for your name to be called and then they turned you over to this kid with a drill. Of course you had to have x-rays first so that took a while as they stuffed 3-by-5 cards in your mouth, told you to bite down and then ran out of the room. When the kid started drilling and smoke was coming out of your mouth there would occasionally be a "real" dentist who would walk up and peer into your mouth, usually with his hands clasped behind his back. At the time I thought that this was the guy who was going to save me. I hopefully waited for him to take the drill away from the kid and do the job himself. Instead, he would grunt and walk away. Finally he would come back and shove a mirror in my mouth and look at the kid and say "OK, that's a 'C' ". My drill-jockey got a 'C' on my tooth. At lunch time they would all go to lunch and you were turned loose for an hour. You were supposed to drag your lip out to the waiting room or maybe go find something to eat. Paul ate part of his tongue when he actually did go find something to eat...you can't tell when you are chewing your tongue when it is numb. (The picture looks much better than it did in the 1950s but it still gives me the creeps.)

My other early experience had to do with orthodontists. The clinic had a back room where they kept the junior orthodontists. They seemed to be under some type of supervision because you didn't actually get to talk to them. The "real" orthodontist would look at your teeth and ponder what to do. You have probably seen the sculpture of the chimp pondering the human skull? That was the same expression. Then they would decide to take an impression of your teeth. This is really fun. They have these little iron horseshoe shaped troughs filled with some kind of latex-plaster goo and they shove your teeth into it and make you sit there until it hardens. Then they try to get it unstuck from your teeth and then pry out of your mouth. They do one for the top and one for the bottom so you are ready to confess to anything by the time they are done. Then they tell you to come back at a later date when they reveal the plaster model of your teeth. I was mostly interested in getting a look at that C-quality filling that the child-dentist did but that, apparwntly, wasn't the point. My teeth are crooked...big deal. I knew they were crooked because my mom used me as the crooked teeth poster child and made sure everyone in the neighborhood got to see how crooked they were. This was one of her favorite ice-breakers when she met strangers. She would trot me out to show off my crooked teeth. I told her and the clinic where they could stick their braces after that second visit. They had display cases chock full of plaster casts of peoples' teeth so I guess that is where mine are now. I have no interest in going to find out. Decades later I was sent by another dentist to have a consultation with an orthodontist. This guy was one of the best in the city and after making a new set of impressions he told me that my teeth were better off being crooked than having them realigned to the point that they didn't bite properly. That was what I wanted to hear.

I must have gotten the message across that I didn't want to go back to the SLU dental clinic because my mom took me to a dentist she heard about at her work. This guy was down in the black ghetto somewhere...an old Jewish dentist that had been at the same place since before Moses came down off the mountain. By that time I had broken of a corner of my front tooth. (That is a reoccurring theme in my encounters with dentists). This guy proceeded to fit me with a crown to patch up the broken tooth. Again, this took a couple visits and when I went to get the crown put on it was gold and about as big as your thumb. Once it was on my tooth I though it looked hideous -- maybe I could go be a pimp somewhere but I knew I could never go swimming again because the thing would drag my head under water. The crown finally fell off a few years later and I was thrilled to have it gone. I could open my mouth again without looking like an oncoming freight train.

Later on, I only found one dentist that I thought I was going to like but he left town in the middle of the night and disappeared. He didn't even tell his office staff that he was leaving.

I usually went to Joanne's dentist if I had to go. She had a knack for picking them. One guy broke a hand drill off in her tooth while doing a root canal and didn't tell her. He finally did tell her but he attached the crown to the stuck portion of the drill bit. This is the same guy who was late to one of her early morning appointments because he was up all night in his attic stomping raccoons to death. The raccoons had invaded his attic so he went up and stomped them to death. I don't think I would have allowed him to work on my teeth that day.

Her next dentist was better but even he had a screw loose. Every time you would go he would have some new outlandish story or conspiracy theory. Space aliens, Nessie, black helicopters, Vatican or masonic crypto-fraternities and wing-nut politics usually were the topics of discussion. He wasn't a bad dentist but you never knew what mood he was going to be in. Once his marriage broke up it got even worse. Sometimes he didn't talk at all. Sometimes didn't feel like working on your teeth so he would mess around in your mouth for a while and then have you make another appointment.

So now I have gotten to the point, at sixty years of age, that I need some serious dental attention. I have old fillings and a few broken teeth. I decided not to go back to either of these last two guys and started searching for a new dentist. I found one and he seems like he will be OK. Nothing unusual surfaced at the first appointment. The guy is experienced and has modern equipment. He actually reminds me of our vet in a way...which is a good thing. One other similarity with the vet is that this is going to cost an arm and a leg and who knows what else. He seems to think that I don't have a tremendous amount of dental problems but so far the anticipated bill is well into four figures.

I don't plan on re-visiting this topic unless things take a turn for the worse. So far -- so good.

Tai Chi

I'm a little caught up on a verb. I don't quite know what the correct verb is when someone 'does' Tai Chi. Does one 'perform' Tai Chi or 'practice' Tai Chi or maybe 'execute'? I think that I'm at the 'practice' stage since I've only been at it for a little over a month. On one level, Tai Chi is a martial art and is supposedly quite an effective and even deadly form of self defense. I'm not really interested in the martial arts aspect but I can see that the basic moves can be combative and defensive.


My interest is in the flexibility, exercise and health aspects. I have been practicing Tai Chi for several weeks and I can tell that I am a lot more flexible and I have better balance. I have a hour-long class each week and practice about a half hour each day at home. The half hour goes by very quickly and I have gone on longer at times.


I wasn't aware of the meditative aspect of Tai Chi until I started the class. It always looked like work and exercise to me but I was always interested in it. Once I got started the rhythmic breathing and repetitive movements at an almost slow-motion pace really lead you into a calm meditative state and reduces stress.


I also didn't know anything about the history of Tai Chi but there are a number of styles or Tai Chi families. Our class is in a Yang style but there are apparently even multiple styles within the Yang family. The class is offered through AARP so we are probably doing the AARP Yang style. I am one of the younger people in the class so that surely has an impact on what direction we take.



Joanne took a Tai Chi class at the YMCA at one time but was frustrated because the instructor tried to move the class too fast. From not knowing anything the first week to performing elaborate sequences of forms in a very short time frame. The class I'm taking is primarily focused on the basic forms and not so much of the sequential movements. That makes it more understandable than what her class was trying to do.

^~^~^~^

25 Random Things

OK -- there is a disease going around where someone is compelled or otherwise possessed to post twenty-five random things about themselves or about anything in general. We, the staff of Feral Chats, have composed such a list...

1. My blog partner and cat, Watson, watches TV and seems to really like the Charmin toilet paper bears.

2. Recessions suck. This one will really suck no matter what President Obama does. Both Bush presidents left office with the economy in a mess....but I digress.

3. I have lived about 5 'lives' in my lifetime, so far....Joie lived about 8 (at least). Don't be afraid to reinvent yourself from time to time.

4. Fly fishing is cool. So is Tai Chi. So is kite flying.

5. Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, Shakespeare, Jefferson, Joseph Conrad, Mandela, Cicero, Jesus, and a good dictionary will pretty much work for me if stranded on a desert island.

6. I like to cook and I'm good at it. I also make a really good home brew beer.

7. I decided years ago to retire early because life is short and we have no guarantee that we will be able to enjoy retirement if we wait until the 'usual' retirement age. I retired at 52 but worked part time for seven years in a job I really enjoyed. That was a nice time to spend with Joanne and we got to do a lot but I miss her a lot.

8. I really have gotten more conservative as I get older (no, really, I have)...but I was raised by a (small 's') socialist so I'm still pretty liberal.

9. I've rafted the Colorado and tubed the Chattahoochee. Scuba diving was cool but I've given it up. I think I'd like to go hang-gliding but not skydiving. I spent far too much time in caves when I was young and that was probably the riskiest sport I did.

10. I played soccer and was a right forward -- now they call them strikers. Our team was so bad we had four strikers and still couldn't win.

11. I wanted to get a PhD in history specializing in Latin American History and eventually teach in college. I didn't but that's OK too. I might go back to school sometime.

12. We built the Panama Canal, the transcontinental railroad, Hoover Dam and mastered heavier than air flight without the cell phone. We do our best work without being constantly tethered to somebody else. (so turn the damn thing off and drive!!!)

13. I had pet ducks when I was a kid.....they are filthy animals.

14. Getting old sucks but being young can suck too. Take care of your body and it will take care of you.

15. I like my old truck and will probably spend more money on it than it is worth.

16. I can hardly wait to move to New Mexico...but I might need to be better at Spanish than I am.

17. I want to visit Ireland, Italy (again), India, Peru, Belize, and Ethiopia.

18. I only need to lose about 25 pounds...I have big bones.

19. We in the US are totally out of touch with the what is happening in rest of the world...thanks to our incompetent or slanted news providers. Try to get your news from other sources if you can.

20. What idiot writes the music for slot machines? And does Billy Mays have an indoor voice?

21. I was born during a meteor shower and enjoy watching the meteors each year on my birthday on August 12 (for over 45 years by now.)

22. Some cool places to live would be any place in Umbria, San Francisco, Bernalillo NM, Swansboro NC, Vancouver, Sebastian FL, Mendocino, St. Louis and maybe even Jeff City. (But...There really isn't anything good to say about Missouri weather.)

23. Recent research shows that our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined as our use of technology has increased. I think that is true. We can now make more mistakes in shorter time than ever before.

24. God exists and loves us but never promised that we would have a long, easy or pain-free life.

25. Take time to count your blessings. Learn to forgive. Take time to grieve. Wear clean underwear. Always carry a handkerchief.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...that's probably more than 25 but who cares...nobody is going to read this anyway.

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