Assemblyman Mike Duval, a good, staunch married “Family Values” Kinda Guy, from conservative Yorba Linda, in Orange County has resigned. He was caught yakking and yukking it up during a legislative hearing when he thought his microphone had been turned off, telling his fellow committee member, during a break in the meeting, about his “sexual escapades with a woman he says is 18 years younger,” who also happens to be a lobbyist, as reported by Juliet Williams of the Associated Press.
Sounding more like a Valley Girl than an Assemblyman, the story details his conversation: “I’m getting into spanking her,” sez our Assemblyman, the guy who “received a 100 percent rating from Capitol Resource Institute, a conservative advocacy group, for his votes on legislation considered pro-family during the 2007-08 legislative session.” And “She goes, ‘I know you like spanking me.’ I said, ‘Yeah, that’s ‘ cause you’re such a bad girl.’ . . . “ Oh, she is not! I talked to her yesterday. She goes, ‘So are we finished?” I go, ‘No, we’re not finished.’ I go, ‘You know about the other one, but she doesn’t know about you,’” referring to yet another woman in the Assemblyman’s stable.
Well, like, OMG! So after Mike was caught with his mic open, here’s what he said as he resigned: “I am deeply saddened that my inappropriate comments have become a major distraction for my colleagues in the Assembly, who are working hard on the very serious problems facing our state. I deeply regret the comments I made in what I believed to be a private conversation. This is a private matter and I ask that everyone respect the privacy of all involved.”
And here’s what our own Sam Blakeslee, the Assembly Minority Leader, Republican from San Luis Obispo, had to say about our man Mike: Mr. Duvall recognized his inappropriate comments would be an endless source of distraction for this institution, and out of respect for his colleagues and love for his family decided to resign. I respect his decision to put his family first during this difficult time.”
Hmmm, let’s see. A lobbyist screwing an elected official, a lobbyist who’s in Sacramento to get laws passed by elected officials, perhaps even the one she’s screwing, and this is just a private matter? Naw, Mike. This went public when you crawled into bed with a lobbyist. Next time, stick with “civilians.”
And here’s what Our Man Sam should have said, “Mr. Duvall recognized he violated ethical standards consorting with a lobbyist and violated his moral standards in committing adultery and demonstrated himself to be a hypocrite in maintaining the public outward appearance of an upright Family Values man, while in private he was just acting like another phony horn dog. The good citizens of Yorba Linda deserve better.”
And the best, and most typical, is old Mike himself. He doesn’t regret his behavior. He doesn’t regret violating his marriage vows. He doesn’t regret his hypocrisy. Nope, not a bit of it. He only regrets that he was caught with both his mic and his fly open and that his comments went public.
Ah, sigh, the days The Putting Of The Paper Bag Over The Head In Shame are clearly long, long gone.
Also Long Gone
Congressional shouter, Joe Wilson, he of the yelled out “YOU LIE” to President Obama during his recent address to Congress is also another of those No Paper Bag Of Shame For Mike public figures. He apologized for his boorish behavior but instead of being shunned as if he had B.O. and resigning in utter humiliation, he’s gathering lots of happy wingnut supporters, including tons more campaign money from the health insurance industry, which, no doubt, accounted for his verbal enthusiasm during the president’s speech? Ya think?
Well, no paper bag for Joe, either. But maybe he’ll turn out to be a bellweather in our toxic political climate. Maybe we can look forward to other Republican corporate shills turning Congress into the House of Commons wherein backbenchers heckle and call out questions and holler British Snark at the Prime Minister during his Q&A sessions.
I sincerely hope that isn’t the future. The British have a long history of truly educated snark. Americans have neither the education nor the gift of the withering rebuke. They’re just embarrassing and would soon turn Congress into a bigger joke than it already is.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
9/11 Again
The following excerpt was from a column I wrote for the Bay News in 2003 on the anniversary of the World Trade Center attack. Today, it’s another anniversary and again, all that I can feel is sad fatigue at the utter waste and loss of all that transpired since those planes hit their mark. Sadness and a terrible knowledge that Osama bin Laden was absolutely correct in his evaluation of America and his clear understanding of just how fragile this country really was/is. He knew that all it would take would be for one dramatic strategic hit and Americans would finish themselves off and end up with a country crippled, bankrupted in a ginned up phony war, an economic system ruled by and for the elite that was as fragile as the twin towers themselves, vulnerable to the slightest economic hit, a country filled with easily frightened and fooled, willingly uninformed people, helpless sheep heading for the cliff. One strike and it all came to pass.
I can only hope that this anniversary finds this country at least more awake and paying attention. But observing what passes for political discourse nowadays, I have my doubts. Perhaps we simply never learn anything.
The Falling Man
The power of that photograph still stuns. It’s what the eye does not want to see, the heart does not want to comprehend. He is seared into memory, the falling man, so calm, so straight against the vast, vertical expanse of the World Trade towers. Head down, his legs slightly bent, hands at his side, his back straight, he will remain trapped eternally in a moment of unspeakable horror, falling forever.
The photographer, Richard Drew, wrote the story that accompanied the photograph. He was puzzled why this photograph, “denounced as cold-blooded, ghoulish and sadistic,” soon vanished from the national media, yet to this day still remains the one picture people remember and ask about. He notes that, “My fellow photographers call it ‘the most famous picture nobody’s ever seen.’ But, in fact, you have seen it.”
We all have and its power to stun remains awful because, as Drew concludes, “. . . we already know the identity of the man in the picture. He is you and me.” . . . . .
I can only hope that this anniversary finds this country at least more awake and paying attention. But observing what passes for political discourse nowadays, I have my doubts. Perhaps we simply never learn anything.
The Falling Man
The power of that photograph still stuns. It’s what the eye does not want to see, the heart does not want to comprehend. He is seared into memory, the falling man, so calm, so straight against the vast, vertical expanse of the World Trade towers. Head down, his legs slightly bent, hands at his side, his back straight, he will remain trapped eternally in a moment of unspeakable horror, falling forever.
The photographer, Richard Drew, wrote the story that accompanied the photograph. He was puzzled why this photograph, “denounced as cold-blooded, ghoulish and sadistic,” soon vanished from the national media, yet to this day still remains the one picture people remember and ask about. He notes that, “My fellow photographers call it ‘the most famous picture nobody’s ever seen.’ But, in fact, you have seen it.”
We all have and its power to stun remains awful because, as Drew concludes, “. . . we already know the identity of the man in the picture. He is you and me.” . . . . .
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
The Sierra Club's Newsletter Checks In
The following comments appeared in the Sept newsletter on the Planning Commission recommendations on the Los Osos Sewer.
Santa Lucian • September 2009
Sewer Myths Busted
The County Planning Commission
hearings on the Los Osos Wastewater
Project shone a bright light on
various claims asserted by the County
and the Public Works Department
about the biggest, longest-running
public works project in county
history. They fell like autumn leaves
before the questioning of Commissioners
and in the face of hard data.
A short list, with corrections:
[in italics]
Gravity sewers don’t leak; any
evidence of such deficiency is a result
of old technology, the failure of 100-
year-old clay pipes, etc.
-- Major infiltration and inflow of
groundwater has been found in gravity
systems less than ten years old.
Gravity sewers are environmentally
preferable to STEP/STEG collection.
-- The only significant environmental
benefit of gravity over STEP is the
reduction of the amount of sludge
produced when a gravity system is
used with facultative ponds. If facultative
ponds are not used, there is no
environmental advantage to a gravity
sewer. Facultative ponds are not (yet)
part of the County’s project.
All collection systems would have
roughly equivalent impacts and the
Coastal Commission has no issues
with the selection of one over
another.
-- Dan Carl, Central Coast District
Manager, California Coastal Commission,
wrote to County Public Works
Director Paavo Ogren on July 15 to
say that sludge reduction should be
made a “a high priority in the
selection of preferred collection and
treatment technologies.”
The Tonini disposal site might not be
outside the water basin because, theoretically, there could be connecting
strata between the aquifers.
-- The Tonini site is outside the water
basin. Treated wastewater disposed of
at Tonini would be water wasted.
The Andre site cannot be used
because PG&E will not allow the hay/
grass crop that would be required to be grown under power lines.
-- PG&E restrictions apply to the
heights of trees and structures under
power lines, not grass and hay.
The use of recycled water in the Los
Osos basin cannot be required until
the basin has been adjudicated.
-- State law requires that recycled
water must be used in lieu of well
water by ag users if recycled water is
available.
“We’re trying to give the
county some guidance and
direction to avoid a train
wreck at the end of this
line.”
- Peter Douglas
Executive Director,
California Coastal Commission
A Sewer, Almost
Never did a project so flawed get so much better so fast
As a rule, improvements in what you
are given are extremely unlikely if you
simply take whatever is offered.
On August 13, after hundreds of
hours of study and public testimony,
two field trips, 8,000 pages of documentation
and 170 pages of findings
and conditions, the County Planning
Commission proved this point when it
approved the permit for the Los Osos
Wastewater Project.
The Commission vastly improved on
the project as originally submitted by
County Public Works -- a project that
had no chance of receiving a coastal
development permit due to its
impermissable environmental
impacts. Sewage will now be subjected
to a significantly higher level of
treatment, producing effluent that
can be safely recycled for use on
crops. The treatment plant and
disposal method will not consume
645 acres of prime agricultural land.
The treated effluent will remain in the
basin and be put to work curbing
saltwater intrusion instead of being
sprayed away outside the water basin
in the middle of a drought. A mandate
to reduce water use by 25 percent is
included, more than doubling the
originally proposed level of water
conservation.
The improved project demonstrates
the reason why the Sierra Club, in
agreeing at the outset that we all
needed to “support the project,”
elected not to follow the path of least
resistance in doing so. We joined with
concerned local citizens who insisted
that the project feature tertiary, not
just secondary treatment of wastewater;
that treated effluent be disposed
of inside, not outside, the ground
water basin and be made available to
growers to reduce pumping of the
lower aquifer and seawater intrusion;
and that a more aggressive water
conservation program be mandated.
And so it has come to pass.
Unfortunately, what the Commission
did not do, despite a wealth of
evidence that it should, was mandate
the use of a pressurized effluent
collection system and the use of
facultative ponds for treatment. The
selected gravity system and Biolac
treatment would result in greater
quantities of toxic sludge produced as
an end product of treatment. These
two parts of the project still need to
be changed to ensure that the County
takes the environmentally superior
course of action on the largest public
works project in its history.
The Environmental Impact Report
on which those decisions were based
was correctly and repeatedly characterized
by Commissioners as “flawed.”
They were being kind. Golden State
Water Co. correctly summed up the
fatal flaw of the EIR’s “failure to make
a connection between the facts
presented and the conclusions
reached.” Further: “because the
County fails to set forth an accurate
project description, a meaningful
alternatives analysis is impossible.
Because the DEIR does not provide a
stable project description to which
alternatives can be compared, the
‘alternatives’ presented in the DEIR
are more akin to a series of proposed
projects, rather than the means to
compare the worth and value of
alternatives to a proposed project.”
The Sierra Club is appealing the
certification of the EIR in order to
correct those flaws, correctly state the
project’s environmental impacts and
clarify the collection and disposal
options before a permit is approved.
The Planning Commission’s process
and the project that emerged from it
was a testament to the value of public
advocacy. Local residents, community
groups, wastewater experts and
environmental organizations brought
their concerns to the Commission,
backed them up with facts and data,
and the Commission listened.
Had we all heeded the call to “just
do it” and acquiesced to the project
that Public Works submitted to the
Planning Commission, none of the
above improvements would be part of
the project now.
When the permit comes before the
Board, for the sake of the aquifer, the
Morro Bay Estuary and the citizens of
Los Osos, those improvements need
to stay there, and two more need to
be added: an environmentally preferable
treatment method, and the
consideration of an alternative
collection system in the bidding
process.
"The estimated progress of seawater
intrusion since 2005 is the third, and
biggest bulge; the rate of progress
for the prior 20 years is shown in the
layers to the left of it. The rate of seawater
intrusion into the basin is now under the
Los Osos downtown and commercial area
and appears to be four to eitht times faster
than it was fourt years ago"
Cleath & Associates/Keith Weimer, LOSG
Santa Lucian • September 2009
Sewer Myths Busted
The County Planning Commission
hearings on the Los Osos Wastewater
Project shone a bright light on
various claims asserted by the County
and the Public Works Department
about the biggest, longest-running
public works project in county
history. They fell like autumn leaves
before the questioning of Commissioners
and in the face of hard data.
A short list, with corrections:
[in italics]
Gravity sewers don’t leak; any
evidence of such deficiency is a result
of old technology, the failure of 100-
year-old clay pipes, etc.
-- Major infiltration and inflow of
groundwater has been found in gravity
systems less than ten years old.
Gravity sewers are environmentally
preferable to STEP/STEG collection.
-- The only significant environmental
benefit of gravity over STEP is the
reduction of the amount of sludge
produced when a gravity system is
used with facultative ponds. If facultative
ponds are not used, there is no
environmental advantage to a gravity
sewer. Facultative ponds are not (yet)
part of the County’s project.
All collection systems would have
roughly equivalent impacts and the
Coastal Commission has no issues
with the selection of one over
another.
-- Dan Carl, Central Coast District
Manager, California Coastal Commission,
wrote to County Public Works
Director Paavo Ogren on July 15 to
say that sludge reduction should be
made a “a high priority in the
selection of preferred collection and
treatment technologies.”
The Tonini disposal site might not be
outside the water basin because, theoretically, there could be connecting
strata between the aquifers.
-- The Tonini site is outside the water
basin. Treated wastewater disposed of
at Tonini would be water wasted.
The Andre site cannot be used
because PG&E will not allow the hay/
grass crop that would be required to be grown under power lines.
-- PG&E restrictions apply to the
heights of trees and structures under
power lines, not grass and hay.
The use of recycled water in the Los
Osos basin cannot be required until
the basin has been adjudicated.
-- State law requires that recycled
water must be used in lieu of well
water by ag users if recycled water is
available.
“We’re trying to give the
county some guidance and
direction to avoid a train
wreck at the end of this
line.”
- Peter Douglas
Executive Director,
California Coastal Commission
A Sewer, Almost
Never did a project so flawed get so much better so fast
As a rule, improvements in what you
are given are extremely unlikely if you
simply take whatever is offered.
On August 13, after hundreds of
hours of study and public testimony,
two field trips, 8,000 pages of documentation
and 170 pages of findings
and conditions, the County Planning
Commission proved this point when it
approved the permit for the Los Osos
Wastewater Project.
The Commission vastly improved on
the project as originally submitted by
County Public Works -- a project that
had no chance of receiving a coastal
development permit due to its
impermissable environmental
impacts. Sewage will now be subjected
to a significantly higher level of
treatment, producing effluent that
can be safely recycled for use on
crops. The treatment plant and
disposal method will not consume
645 acres of prime agricultural land.
The treated effluent will remain in the
basin and be put to work curbing
saltwater intrusion instead of being
sprayed away outside the water basin
in the middle of a drought. A mandate
to reduce water use by 25 percent is
included, more than doubling the
originally proposed level of water
conservation.
The improved project demonstrates
the reason why the Sierra Club, in
agreeing at the outset that we all
needed to “support the project,”
elected not to follow the path of least
resistance in doing so. We joined with
concerned local citizens who insisted
that the project feature tertiary, not
just secondary treatment of wastewater;
that treated effluent be disposed
of inside, not outside, the ground
water basin and be made available to
growers to reduce pumping of the
lower aquifer and seawater intrusion;
and that a more aggressive water
conservation program be mandated.
And so it has come to pass.
Unfortunately, what the Commission
did not do, despite a wealth of
evidence that it should, was mandate
the use of a pressurized effluent
collection system and the use of
facultative ponds for treatment. The
selected gravity system and Biolac
treatment would result in greater
quantities of toxic sludge produced as
an end product of treatment. These
two parts of the project still need to
be changed to ensure that the County
takes the environmentally superior
course of action on the largest public
works project in its history.
The Environmental Impact Report
on which those decisions were based
was correctly and repeatedly characterized
by Commissioners as “flawed.”
They were being kind. Golden State
Water Co. correctly summed up the
fatal flaw of the EIR’s “failure to make
a connection between the facts
presented and the conclusions
reached.” Further: “because the
County fails to set forth an accurate
project description, a meaningful
alternatives analysis is impossible.
Because the DEIR does not provide a
stable project description to which
alternatives can be compared, the
‘alternatives’ presented in the DEIR
are more akin to a series of proposed
projects, rather than the means to
compare the worth and value of
alternatives to a proposed project.”
The Sierra Club is appealing the
certification of the EIR in order to
correct those flaws, correctly state the
project’s environmental impacts and
clarify the collection and disposal
options before a permit is approved.
The Planning Commission’s process
and the project that emerged from it
was a testament to the value of public
advocacy. Local residents, community
groups, wastewater experts and
environmental organizations brought
their concerns to the Commission,
backed them up with facts and data,
and the Commission listened.
Had we all heeded the call to “just
do it” and acquiesced to the project
that Public Works submitted to the
Planning Commission, none of the
above improvements would be part of
the project now.
When the permit comes before the
Board, for the sake of the aquifer, the
Morro Bay Estuary and the citizens of
Los Osos, those improvements need
to stay there, and two more need to
be added: an environmentally preferable
treatment method, and the
consideration of an alternative
collection system in the bidding
process.
"The estimated progress of seawater
intrusion since 2005 is the third, and
biggest bulge; the rate of progress
for the prior 20 years is shown in the
layers to the left of it. The rate of seawater
intrusion into the basin is now under the
Los Osos downtown and commercial area
and appears to be four to eitht times faster
than it was fourt years ago"
Cleath & Associates/Keith Weimer, LOSG
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Guess Who's Coming to Din-Din?
The following excerpt is from Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s new book, “Crow Planet; Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness,” a splendid book now available at your local bookstore.
“So you’re saying crows are the birds we deserve,” friends have suggested as if crows – bulky and black, stalking about – might be present as a punitive reminder of our ecological missteps. It might sound as if that’s what I’m saying. Certainly it is ironic, at best, that we remove forests, replace them with concrete and shrubbery, line the sidewalks with plastic cans full of food scraps and topped with ill-fitting lids and then lament the presence and noise of so many crows. But no, if it were about deserving, we would have no bird at all. As it is, we have a shiny, black, intelligent, native, wild bird we’ve been given.
“It is difficult to know just how many crows there are. The international avian conservation organization Partners in Flight estimates the American Crow population in the United States to be about thirty-one million, but some crow experts, including John Marzluff at the University of Washington, believe that number to be a bit low. There are more than three hundred million people in the United States. Marzluff tells me that while he doesn’t know for certain, he thinks there might be about one crow for every five to ten humans. This would be consistent with his studies showing that nesting pairs in suburban areas tend to claim and defend two houses with their accompanying yards as breeding territory. There is, then, roughly one crow per family. I like to think about this when I set the table for dinner; I imagine a dark visitor, our allotted crow, perching on the back of a chair with one of our best china plates in front of it, waiting for the spaghetti.”
Friday, September 04, 2009
Miracles End
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Kahil Gibran
As all miracles must, The Small Miracle of the Carrots (And the Green Beans, too.) came to an end. Kasimu, my little Basenji was dying of kidney failure and since his disease made everything taste awful, he was facing starvation until he decided, out of the blue, to gobble down some raw carrots. That was followed by green beans, then kibble and we began day by day taste trials, sampling any number of foods hoping that one would be palatable enough to sustain him. The kitchen counter soon filled up with bags and cans and treats and biscuits of every sort. But nothing lasted for long and slowly the little guy grew thinner and thinner, despite a ferocious Mr. McCawberian will that surely “something will turn up,” and a determination to stay very much present and engaged with his world.
Until time and strength began to run out and we both entered Dying Time, that strange place where time stands still and rushes by with terrifying speed, all at the same time. A place where hope and despair rise and fall with stomach churning frequency. A time of wasteful worry and muddled prayers. “Please, let him die right now. No, wait, please let him get better. No, wait . . .”
And Kasimu made it hard for me to get into the proper frame of mind at any given time. I would put on my sorrowful, grief face and prepare myself for his passing, so weak had he become, only to watch him hop out of his cuddler and totter around the other dogs as I was readying them for a walk. He, who looked like he could hardly walk across the room, demanded that he be allowed to go along too. “You’re dying,” I’d say. “You can’t possibly be up for a walk.” But he’d insist, getting horribly agitated at the thought of being left behind, being left out, being left alone. So we’d take a “pretend walk” to the end of the driveway. Then he was happy. For him, a walk was a walk, pretend or not, since there were always new smells in the front yard that required his close inspection.
And when he’d refuse food for days, despite being rail thin and running on fumes, and I’d steel myself that the end must surely be near, I’d find him suddenly wandering among the tall dog legs at evening biscuit time, Hoovering for crumbs. He likely wasn’t really hungry by then, but, by gosh, he wasn’t about to be left out of The Ritual of the Night Time Snacks. And so it went, an emotional roller coaster of hope whipsawing with despair that got more awful and more comical as time passed.
The day before he died, I got a call to do some emergency babysitting of his other brother and sister, who lived in Morro Bay. I brought the two visitors into the front door to be greeted by the pack and there was Kasimu, tottering out of his death bed to cross the room for a sniff-fest, greeting siblings that he hadn’t seen in several years – the whole litter together again for the last time.
By the next morning he had slipped into unconsciousness, but was resting and breathing comfortably. I ran some errands and when I returned home I gave him a few drops of Rescue Remedy then washed his face with a damp wash cloth, something that I suspect brought forth memories of puppyhood and the comfort of being licked clean by his mother’s warm tongue. I told him it was O.K. to go. I told him what a good little boy he was. He had a mild seizure and when it ended, my jug-eared, carrot-eating, endlessly optimistic canine Mr. McCawber – Kidogo Hodari Kasimu, my Brave Little Keeper of the Forest –stepped alone and forever into the green darkness.
I buried his ashes under a newly planted sacred white sage plant. Soon his white bones will be part of its pungent silver leaves. And when I sit in the corner of the garden and look at its silvery softness, I will be reminded of what Kasimu’s dying had to teach me about living, lessons that I clearly hadn’t learned yet: Be brave. Don’t assume anything – each moment is brand new so things will always turn out differently than you expected. That’s why you must have the courage to wait and see what will turn up.
And if kibble’s off the menu, try carrots.
Kahil Gibran
As all miracles must, The Small Miracle of the Carrots (And the Green Beans, too.) came to an end. Kasimu, my little Basenji was dying of kidney failure and since his disease made everything taste awful, he was facing starvation until he decided, out of the blue, to gobble down some raw carrots. That was followed by green beans, then kibble and we began day by day taste trials, sampling any number of foods hoping that one would be palatable enough to sustain him. The kitchen counter soon filled up with bags and cans and treats and biscuits of every sort. But nothing lasted for long and slowly the little guy grew thinner and thinner, despite a ferocious Mr. McCawberian will that surely “something will turn up,” and a determination to stay very much present and engaged with his world.
Until time and strength began to run out and we both entered Dying Time, that strange place where time stands still and rushes by with terrifying speed, all at the same time. A place where hope and despair rise and fall with stomach churning frequency. A time of wasteful worry and muddled prayers. “Please, let him die right now. No, wait, please let him get better. No, wait . . .”
And Kasimu made it hard for me to get into the proper frame of mind at any given time. I would put on my sorrowful, grief face and prepare myself for his passing, so weak had he become, only to watch him hop out of his cuddler and totter around the other dogs as I was readying them for a walk. He, who looked like he could hardly walk across the room, demanded that he be allowed to go along too. “You’re dying,” I’d say. “You can’t possibly be up for a walk.” But he’d insist, getting horribly agitated at the thought of being left behind, being left out, being left alone. So we’d take a “pretend walk” to the end of the driveway. Then he was happy. For him, a walk was a walk, pretend or not, since there were always new smells in the front yard that required his close inspection.
And when he’d refuse food for days, despite being rail thin and running on fumes, and I’d steel myself that the end must surely be near, I’d find him suddenly wandering among the tall dog legs at evening biscuit time, Hoovering for crumbs. He likely wasn’t really hungry by then, but, by gosh, he wasn’t about to be left out of The Ritual of the Night Time Snacks. And so it went, an emotional roller coaster of hope whipsawing with despair that got more awful and more comical as time passed.
The day before he died, I got a call to do some emergency babysitting of his other brother and sister, who lived in Morro Bay. I brought the two visitors into the front door to be greeted by the pack and there was Kasimu, tottering out of his death bed to cross the room for a sniff-fest, greeting siblings that he hadn’t seen in several years – the whole litter together again for the last time.
By the next morning he had slipped into unconsciousness, but was resting and breathing comfortably. I ran some errands and when I returned home I gave him a few drops of Rescue Remedy then washed his face with a damp wash cloth, something that I suspect brought forth memories of puppyhood and the comfort of being licked clean by his mother’s warm tongue. I told him it was O.K. to go. I told him what a good little boy he was. He had a mild seizure and when it ended, my jug-eared, carrot-eating, endlessly optimistic canine Mr. McCawber – Kidogo Hodari Kasimu, my Brave Little Keeper of the Forest –stepped alone and forever into the green darkness.
I buried his ashes under a newly planted sacred white sage plant. Soon his white bones will be part of its pungent silver leaves. And when I sit in the corner of the garden and look at its silvery softness, I will be reminded of what Kasimu’s dying had to teach me about living, lessons that I clearly hadn’t learned yet: Be brave. Don’t assume anything – each moment is brand new so things will always turn out differently than you expected. That’s why you must have the courage to wait and see what will turn up.
And if kibble’s off the menu, try carrots.
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