My Dad and Dogs

My dad feared dogs. He called them a Yiddish word, “hunt.” “Jews don’t like dogs!" he’d declare, “Dogs eat Jews.”

He’d go on with a performance rant. “Look at that rotten hunt,” he’d tease, pointing at a neighbor’s miniature schnauzer.  “That’s not a dog, it’s a rat. That hunt will kill you. It’s a vicious animal; it smells bad and looks even uglier. Who needs one of those in the house? Get yourself a pet cockroach!”  

My father’s physical antics trying to avoid dogs often made us laugh. Once he literally threw my mother between him and a Great Dane.   “Take her,” he pleaded.  He’d hide behind walls, and sneak around corners at friends’ houses to avoid the dreaded kelev, the Hebrew word for dog, which also means, “bad.” One of the most offensive insults in Yiddish, is du bist a hunt mit di oyern (you are a dog with ears).  I’m sure my dad used it.

 “That hunt,” he’d say to a disbelieving pet owner, “It should be poisoned, right away.”  And the dog, as if knowing it had to convert a detractor, would amble right up to my dad, and lick him, wanting to make fast friends.

My dad told me and my sisters, who always begged to get a family dog, that dogs were not to be trusted, and that according to Jewish lore, embodied evil.  Dybbuks. “They chase you down the street and tear off your limbs,” his own mother warned him as a child.  And she was right to instill fear, sort of.  In Poland where she had lived before WW2, and in Germany during the Holocaust, dogs were used to hunt down Jews, intimidate, and kill them. “Really, dad?” we’d protest, hugging every canine that crossed our paths.

My dad had to get over his epigenetics, when at a synagogue auction, as a joke, someone raised his hand to bid on what was supposed to be a pedigree poodle puppy.  

We “won” the dog to my sisters' and my glee, but  it stunned my dad . Yet, he didn’t make us give the small brown mutt (his pedigree didn’t pan out) back.  When we took the puppy home and played with him, my dad joined us, wearing a pair of thick ski mittens. 

He never stopped commenting on hunts, even though two lived under our roof, while I was growing up. He never genuinely liked a dog he met, except for our King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, Picasso.  Our daughter had lobbied hard for Picasso to join our family, and my dad initially felt betrayed. My sister had cats, who my dad feared even more than dogs because they pounced, then attacked. He made her shut them into a bedroom whenever he visited her house. 

Picasso, oblivious to my father’s animal phobias, would jump up on our couch where my dad occasionally napped, and curl up by his feet. After a while, my dad admitted that he liked lying with the hunt; eventually he even admitted that he liked Picasso.

This past week, on the 7 year anniversary of my dad’s death, I sat on the floor, sobbing over the prospect of losing Picasso.   Our 13 year old sweet baby had hurt his back, was in horrible pain, and couldn’t walk. Until we sorted him out, I thought Picasso would be joining my dad in the next realm.

But that didn’t happen. The little trouper pulled through and he’s almost back to his jaunty, sunny self.  Some losses seem unbearable.  But I have learned how to endure them by remembering stories like these, that lay at my feet like our precious hunts.

Greetings from Goatlandia

“Sit, that’s a good girl,” Kain, a strong lean middle aged man in scuffed brown cowboy boots, Levis, and a black t-shirt, encourages Henrietta, a strapping young brown pig, who walks with us, as Kain gives me my morning work orders.

 “You can feed the pigs,” he says to me, and “Sit,” he reminds Henrietta.  Henrietta sits back on her haunches and raises her reddish pink snout, on his command. “We’ve got to train her for when she’s 600 pounds,” Kain explains. “We’ll take her out to fairs and schools to educate people about animal rights, changing farm practices, and eating vegan.”

That particular morning at Goatlandia, an animal farm sanctuary in Santa Rosa, California, I detected a bounce to Henrietta’s step, as she followed us back to the fenced in pasture where she hangs out during the day with 16 rescued goats.

When I first met Henrietta she wore a little blue t-shirt.  “How cute,” I thought, not understanding that the cloth protected her back that had been burned when as a runt, she was thrown into a fire by her former owner.

At Goatlandia, Henrietta, along with the other 100 or so residents, don’t only survive, they thrive.  Last year, after the devastating fires in Sonoma County, Goatlandia opened a second site in Sebastapol to take care of an additional 27 rescued goats. 

Henrietta sleeps in a big yellow shed in the pig pasture with four black and white sister hogs, Gigi, Dippy, Portia, and Brianna, and a white hog named Sheldon. Rescued from a farmer who changed his mind about slaughtering the hogs after giving them names, the hog sisters form a 2000-pound wall of protection around Henrietta at night in as they dream pig dreams resting in soft hay.

Deb Hoffman, a restaurant owner from San Francisco, sold two successful business, and moved to the Santa Rosa to create Goatlandia with her partner, Alana Ekhart, a Sonoma County native and yoga instructor, who returned to the area to pursue their shared vision of farming and food.

Goatlandia initially offered Farm Tours, an AirBNB destination, and Vegan meals from the abundant garden, in addition to serving as a sanctuary for rescued farm animals.   Deb and Alana attended educational events at local schools and fairs, bringing along animals for people to cuddle. 

After a complaint from a neighbor about parked cars, Goatlandia had to cease providing farm tours and hosting events onsite. In Sonoma County there are currently no laws that govern animal sanctuaries, and the property unfortunately, doesn’t meet zoning requirements for opening the farm to the public.  

The non-profit organization is currently readjusting to these constraints, adapting to take animals and food out into the community, and creating a membership model that will allow donors and volunteers to work and learn onsite.  They also have an adoption program, that places rescued farm animals in loving homes.

As I set off with Kain to prepare the pig food. Henrietta is not pleased to be left to her own devices, and follows me back to the gate.  “I’ll be back, sweetie,” I assure her, making sure she doesn’t sneak between her freedom and me.

Kain gives me a very large colorful tub filled with veggies from the kitchen shed: potatoes, carrots, and green roughage.  Local markets such as Oliver’s Market in Cotati regularly donate produce to Goatlandia.

I wrap my arms around the tub and proceed to the pig area, where the four hogs play in mud puddles, lounge contentedly on their sides, wander about, and of course, eat.  I dump the colorful orange, purple, and green produce, onto a wooden slab. I watch as the hogs snort, inhaling apples and broccoli, tossing around their breakfast with great enthusiasm.

Next on the chore list, comprised of about 50 different tasks we check off as we accomplish them during our 3-hour shift, is cleaning the goat sheds.  Goat shit forms small, round, hard pellets.  The goats poop everywhere -- in the fields and in their sheds, on the concrete surfaces that lead to the barns, and on their wooden play structures.

The mayor of Goatlandia is a large black and white goat named Stella, who greets humans and animals with gentle curiosity.  Duncan, one of the three large white Saanen goats, is eating the hair off the backs of the other two rescues, Rainy and Noll, a behavior that Alana says doesn’t particularly bother them.  Two brothers, Phineas and Ferb, brown and black Oberhasli goats, adopted from a meat company owner who no longer wanted them, approach me, and Ferb, with his curly cut off horns puts his face up close to mine to say hello. 

Luna and Chanel, Nubians with lovely long white and brown ears, sunbathe, as Coco, a brown Lamancha, who was unwanted because she had an extra teat, rubs up against the side of the green barn.  So many goats, so many stories.

A young woman volunteer, home for the summer from U. of Washington, and I fold up the blankets from the floor of the goat shed, then carefully empty the poop into a large round plastic green tub that sits in a framed wheeled apparatus.  Later, we use the goat poop we’ve collected from sweeping sheds and raking the ground, to fill holes in the pig’s pasture, so they don’t trip and hurt themselves. 

We hang the quilts on the fence and hose them off; they’ll dry out by the end of the day and will be returned to the sheds where the goats sleep at night. 

In the goat pasture, two volunteers, a mother and a twenty or so daughter, half-heartedly rake poop.  Kain finds me and whispers, “Those two are new.  They told me that they have hay allergies. “ We laugh and wonder what they expected to be exposed to on a farm.  “They don’t seem to understand my instructions.  They won’t last an hour,” Kain predicts.

I look up from my racking and sure enough, they put their rakes back behind the blue barn.  They flee Goatlandia; Kain nailed it.

Farm work may not be for everyone, but I find it extremely satisfying.  It’s physical, purposeful, and interacting with the animals makes me giddy with joy.  About 30 people volunteer at Goatlandia, sharing my enthusiasm for caring for the animals in their “forever” home. 

I wheel my full green tub over to the pig pasture and hunt for holes to fill.  When I’m done, I stop by the feeding shed and get a bunch of cut carrots to stuff into Henrietta’s orange Kong toy ball.

When I walk back up to Henrietta’s shed in the goat pasture, Henrietta is more interested in devouring the carrots than playing with the ball; she almost bites my finger as I shove the sticks into the ball.  I make a note to myself to rest all food in my open palm when offering treats. Henrietta vacuums up an errant red potato that I remove for her from my pocket.  I get a cupful of coconut oil to rub on Henrietta’s healing back.  She squeals, not happily, but I explain what I’m doing, and she tolerates my ministrations.

Before I wash farm dishes and bowls and tubs at the large metal outdoor sink, I stop by to say hello to my Special Needs pen friends, Spot, Max, and Poppy.  Spot, a shaven wooly white sheep, looks out for Max, a blind black sheep who tosses his head like Stevie Wonder.  They came from a wool factory operation. Poppy, a three legged Pygmy goat, hobbles peacefully about.  She is the essence of sweetness and lets me hold her and stroke her head.   I instantly fall in love with my father’s namesake; we called him Poppy too, and his fuzzy baldhead was equally soft to the touch.

When the morning’s chores and all the items on the list have been completed and ticked off, Kain heads out.  I say goodbye to him, and he motions to one of my fellow volunteers, and says, “Some people think I’m bossy and I scare em.“ I laugh and say, “Kain, you don’t scare me for a minute,” and he responds, “Didn’t think so.”

Kain gets me, as I stand in my rubber green work boots with little goats printed on them, having fallen fiercely in love with this farm and its inhabitants.  “You know what you are doing,” I affirm.  “You’re awesome. So what’s up with your shoulder?”

Kain goes to the cab of his big dusty black truck and pulls out a set of x-rays to show me his decimated rotator cuff.  Then he showed me an image with the great big screw-like thing implanted in the bone.  Kain, who in addition to leading the farm chore charge each morning, is also head of the Goatlandia non-profit’s board, will be out of commission for about 3 or 4 months

.

At a volunteer training the next day he apologetically tells the group, “I’m really just all about the animals, so if I do something to offend you, just let me know. It’s not about you, it’s for the animals.”

The founder of Farm Sanctuary, one of the first shelters for farm animals established in Watkins Glen, New York in 1986, put it simply, “Animals are friends, not food.”

Ethical eating has caught on; in the past three years there’s been a 600% increase in people identifying as vegans in the U.S. According to a report by research firm GlobalData, only 1% of U.S. consumers claimed to be vegan in 2014. And in 2017, that number rose to 6%.

But there is still a long way to go.  99 out of 100 animals killed annually in the U.S., about 9 billion animals, are slaughtered for human consumption. In stark contrast to the utopian community of Goatlandia, factory farming and industrial slaughterhouses subject animals to horrible suffering: confinement, overcrowding, extreme heat and cold, mutilation, and disease.

Goatlandia is a great example of the grassroots advocacy efforts that have launched in places throughout the country and worldwide.  Spending time on the farm with the rescued animals has stirred my own desire to further clean up my eating habits, and make cruelty-free choices.  As the Goatlandia website (www.goatlandia.org) notes, “A vegetarian can save 25 land animals per year, and a vegan can save 200 animals.”  Pivoting to a plant-based diet interests me; and the food that I’ve had the pleasure to sample at Goatlandia work parties and trainings is absolutely delicious!

Goatlandia infuses me with a feeling of calm and joy in these harsh and troubled times.  The week that Brett Kavanaugh successfully made it onto the Supreme Court despite his history of sexual assault and injudicious, vicious partisan behavior, on my Friday morning at Goatlandia I saw six chicks hatch from their eggs, and worked with Henrietta, teaching her to turn a circle. These animal survivors provide respite to the patriarchal onslaught and give me comfort and hope.

This past week when my chores were done, I sat on the ground in the pig pasture, and asked Portia, Gigi, Dippy, and Brianna if anyone would like to have their bellies rubbed. Down went Portia, followed by Gigi.  Henrietta came over and lay down beside me as I made good on my offer.  “This surely must be hog heaven,” I concluded.

Check out the animals on Instagram at goatlandia_sanctuary.

My Kind of Yoga

The Alpine goats wandered among yoga pant and skimpy top wearing Marin fit people, mostly women with a few middle aged men sprinkled in for good measure. A handful of pre-teen kids kneeled on the blue and pink and purple colored mats strewn with twigs of green alfalfa.  Then class commenced.

The animals happily nibbled away during child’s pose and downward facing goat, I mean dog, as the cheerful Yoga instructor led us through a series of basic poses. Though I am a Pilates regular, I am not a Yoga person.  I came for the goats.  And I was overjoyed to be among them.

Arms outstretched, and legs crossed, I broke my poses to gather little piles of alfalfa and then quietly summoned the Alpines. My state of mind, undistracted, and focused, was wholly absorbed by the little goats.  The Yogis call this state Nirodha, but I’m pretty sure I achieved it not through the practice, but via the goats.  I rested my foot on the backside of a gamey bigger goat, and the softness of its coat delighted me.

About midway through the session, a blond long haired goat herder, wearing  a dirty orange tee shirt, came through with a bucket of food, and about half a dozen goats hightailed it over to him in a mild stampede.  I laughed at the sound of their little hoofs pattering across the pavilion floor, but some people seemed startled out of their yoga meditation.  Mostly, the goats ambled amicably about, as observers stood outside the penned in pavilion, watching the scene with bemusement.

“They are so sweet,” I commented to the herder.  “And so well-behaved.”   He explained that they socialized the goats from birth to be out among the people, grazing on grass on hillsides, or attending these classes. 

I have to admit that I was less interested in the Yoga stretching, and more excited to interact with the goats.  I’d seen videos on Facebook of small goats climbing onto the backs of Yoga participants.  No goats climbed onto my back, but they did come close, allowing me to pet them, feed them, and whisper sweet nothings into their tiny furry horns.   

Heavenly, for me.  For the goats, pretty routine.  City Grazing, a San Francisco-based goat landscaping non-profit organization, teams up with Deborah Burkman, an experienced Bay Area yoga instructor, to offer these 30 minute sessions.  It was the first time they brought goat yoga to Marin, and of course, it immediately sold out.

A baby goat stood still next to an empty mat, as the class ended.  It didn’t move, as people collected their things and quickly left the area. I didn’t want to leave and the baby, completely relaxed, had fallen asleep on its feet!   It doesn’t get more adorable.

My love for goats, the oldest of domesticated animals, began a long time ago.  We have a large oil painting of one named Hodini, in the living room of our Dillon Beach house.  I admire their intelligence, and enjoy cheese and yoghurt made from goat’s milk.   I’ve visited with goats in West Marin, Greece, and Israel, but never for long enough.  When I tell my wife that I want a couple of goats, she rolls her eyes.  But I’m one serious Capricorn.  

In my quest to learn more about goat care and the making of goat products, I’ve contacted an animal sanctuary in Santa Rosa called Goatlandia.  Two ex-San Francisco women, who used to own a restaurant in the city, founded this farm animal rescue organization.  They take care 14 goats, 5 pigs, and 46 chickens, and also find foster placements for farm animals.

I filled out their volunteer application and was particularly struck by their question: “Why do sanctuaries rescue farm animals?”

I answered, “Unfortunately when domesticated animals can’t rely on humans for care, they have usually one option – death.  Providing a safe and healthy home to farm creatures is an important act of loving kindness in these harsh and cruel times.”

I kept my answer short, but the whole idea of sanctuaries, is particularly salient in the face of Trump era immigration policies that treat children and families inhumanely and cause irreparable damage.  Quite simply, I believe it is a worthy endeavor to provide safety to vulnerable beings, whether they have 2 legs or 3 or 4. 

I am waiting to hear if Goatlandia will let me volunteer.  In the meantime, I’m dreaming of goats.

Doused

Over the weekend I received a distressed email from a friend telling me that she was in the midst of trying to resolve an Internet identity theft issue. She said she was consumed for two days trying to “fix things,” and that she was suicidal. The email alarmed me; I even wondered if the email itself was a scam. I texted her, telling her that things didn’t sound right, and cautioned her to stop providing any more information to anyone, or doing anything PERIOD, until she could have other eyes assess her situation.

Turns out that my friend got sucked in by fake Apple Support representatives via an 800 number provided to her via a phishing email.  Expert brain fuckers manipulated her to use cash to buy Google Play money cards; she relinquished money card information to the scammers, who then cashed in.  Embarrassed, she did not want to tell me how much money she had lost, but she admitted, “It is a lot of money.”

This story shook me up. How could my friend, a regular technology user and reasonable, smart person, fall for such an evil scheme?  She is not alone. Victims of online fraud in the U.S. lost an estimated $800 million in the last year.  These scams often start with an email, so I don’t respond to an email unless I know who sent it to me. I don’t open unsolicited emails with suspicious generic subject lines and never open attachments from an email I do not recognize; I just delete them.  Also, I never give out personal or financial information unless I have initiated the transaction. If someone is keeping me on the telephone, that’s a bad sign. I hang up if they persist.

Still, I’m curious about these scammers who tricked my friend. Do they inhabit the dark web? Who trained them?  Who is profiting from these scams? How or will they be caught?   My friend told me she felt as if she were in a trance, following the directions of these malevolent imposters who kept directing her to give them more money.

I think about vulnerability and the fraudulent/perilous nature of these times.  What does it take to protect yourself?  Laughter, anger, a gun?  Hackers, swindlers, liars, autocrats, and their collaborators surround us.   So many institutions, systems, countries and their governments operate with a breathtaking degree of corruption. The media circus/reality television show that is being executive produced by the orange blimp baby and masterminded by a Russian ex-spy and strong man, entrances us.  It’s crazy.

At the park today, I stopped to talk with a small Indian girl about twelve, who was playing fetch with her golden retriever.  I looked at the forehead of her dog, and noticed a reddish orange mark about the size of the tennis ball that was lodged in the dog’s mouth.  “What is that?” I asked.

The girl explained that it was colored arrowroot powder, thrown at her dog in celebration of Holi, an Indian holiday.  I asked her to tell me more.  “We make different colored powders and throw them at each other for fun,” she said.  She mentioned something about demons, but the girl went bounding off after the retriever before I got clarification.

When I returned home I did some research and learned that Holi is a “festival of colors" or the "festival of love” that celebrates the victory of good over evil.Based on a story from the Bhagavat Purana, a demon king named Hiranyakashipu, to fulfill his desire for immortality, performed penances so that the creation god Brahma bestowed upon him five special powers: he could be killed by neither a human being nor an animal, neither indoors nor outdoors, neither at day nor at night, neither by astra (projectile weapons) nor by any shastra (handheld weapons), and neither on land nor in water or air.

Hiranyakashyapu felt invincible, which led to extreme arrogance. He proclaimed that only he be worshiped as a God, and that he would kill anyone who did not accept his orders. His own son Prahlad, refused and continued believing and worshipping Vishnu, another of the big 3 Hindi deities.

This pissed off Hiranyakashyapu and he made various attempts to kill Prahlad. King Hiranyakashyapu asked his sister Holika for help. Holika had a special cloak garment that prevented her from being harmed by fire. Hiranyakashyapu instructed her to sit on a bonfire, holding Prahlad on her lap. However, as the fire roared, the garment flew from Holika and covered Prahlad.  Holika burnt to death and Prahlad emerged, unharmed.

Vishnu appeared in the form of Narasimha - half human and half lion, at dusk (when it was neither day nor night), took Hiranyakashyapu at a doorstep (which was neither indoors nor outdoors), placed him on his lap (which was neither land, water nor air), and then eviscerated and killed the king with his lion claws (which were neither a handheld weapon nor a launched weapon). Prahlad and all human beings were freed from the compulsion and fear of Hiranyakashyapu, and good triumphed over evil.

On the eve of Holi, after sunset, people light a bonfire and sing and dance around the fire, praying for the destruction of evil.  The next morning they celebrate Rangwali Holi – a free-for-all festival. In the streets, open parks, and outside temples, they throw colored powders and drench each other with water and water balloons.

I’m wondering if I should stop by my friend’s house and douse her with some colored arrowroot powder.  With so much evil triumphing over good in the world, I worry that we, like Holika, do not have adequate cover. In lieu of waiting for Vishnu to vanquish the demons, we must exercise caution, not fear, and celebrate all the good things with as much joy as the young girl with the marked dog demonstrated, as they ran through the park.

Swimming with Horses

Fear, it wasn’t what I expected to feel as I sat on the bare back of a fifteen year old horse named Sage, who was taking me for a swim at Prosser Lake in Truckee, California.

I signed us up for a special trail ride at the Piping Rock Equestrian Center, inspired by a youTube video that my daughter showed me of large pigs swimming in the Bahamas.  Who knew this was even a thing that pigs could do? Sophie wanted to swim with the pigs, but since we only had a four day family vacation planned, I thought an aquatic adventure with horses in Tahoe might be fun.

After uneventfully traversing the brown dusty mountain trail for an hour, ducking to avoid occasional branches, we arrived at the remote, uninhabited lake. We took the saddles and blankets off the horses, and removed our jeans and shoes. Lani, our strapping trail guide with stunningly white legs, who by summer works as a wrangler, and by winter teaches skiing to kids at the Northstar resort, helped me onto Sage’s back. “What happens if I fall off,” I asked her.  “Just swim,” she said, “I’ll come in and get the horse.” 

I summoned my courage, and took the plunge, steering my horse straight into the water. Sage found his footing on the muddy bottom, then started moving towards the middle of the lake.  As the water got deeper, the horse just let go and started paddling, with me on his back, holding the reins in one hand, and grabbing strands of his black and white mane with my other hand.

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The cool refreshing water enveloped me as I glanced nervously over at Sophie, who was parallel to me, riding Roscoe, a dappled rust colored older horse, who like Sage, loved to swim.   “I’m scared,” I called to her, but Sophie and Roscoe seemed content and comfortable.  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said, “but I’m going to do what you’re doing.” I took a breath and went with the flow, following Sophie and Roscoe’s lead.

I knew that I had to trust Sage, after all, he had a name that commanded respect, and just relax into the moment. I rarely have the opportunity to do something completely new; often this involves relinquishing a certain control over my fate that is both humbling and exhilarating. Under a brilliant blue sky, surrounded by mountains blanketed with deep green pines, I melded into this large confident creature. “Sage is smiling,” Sophie announced.  “He’s actually smiling!” I smiled widely, too.

Lani, on a giant easily spooked horse named Pike, returned to shore after a number of unsuccessful attempts to get him to take a dip in the lake.  She waved to us, taking photos with my iPhone. 

About ten minutes into our swim, Apache, a younger horse, reared up and threw another rider in our group, a thirteen year old girl, off his back, into the water.  Apache bolted to shore and then took off at a gallop.  Meredith, another young but experienced equestrian exited the water, dismounted, then quickly saddled up her horse, and went after Apache.  

Sophie and I stayed in the water for another half an hour, submerged on the backs of our aquatic equines. The horses happily swam about; at one point, Roscoe went so far under that Sophie almost floated right off his back. 

“I had no idea this was even on my bucket list,” remarked Sophie, as the four of us left the magnificent mountain lake. 

We sat on the dry golden grass and drank some water, taking in the beauty of our surroundings.  Miraculously, the amazing Meredith caught Apache, and ponied the horse back to the group.  We saddled up and made our way back to the stables, Sage taking his sweet time on the trail.  He clearly preferred swimming to schlepping. Wise horse.

-- dedicated to the memory of horse person and person extraordinaire, Colm Costello.

Reporting Forward Progress Stopped

On her way home from work at around 6 p.m, my wife, Patricia texted me an Alert message she received from a neighbor on NextDoor, our local social media platform.

“Evacuation for fire in Greenbrae – Los Cerros, Vista Grande, Corte Cordova, Corte Dorado, Corte Patencio.  Go!”

The “Go!” in the Alert got my attention, When my cell rang and Patricia instructed me to put the dogs in the car and leave the house, I did as she said, immediately.  I took nothing, just Sadie and Picasso.

As I walked onto our street to get in my car, I smelled traces of smoke in the air. This reminded me of the devastating Sonoma County fires last October.  In Marin, we choked on particle infused air for two weeks.  How rapidly whole neighborhoods just north of us had burned out of control; by the time these fires were extinguished 42 people died and over 8600 structures were destroyed, with damages exceeding 1 billion dollars.  I allowed myself just a moment to feel the fear.  What would it be like to lose our home, our possessions, our pets?

Our house sits on a steep hillside, at the end of Tioga Lane, a very narrow windy road with two blind spots. “Slow down,” Patricia admonishes me whenever she is a passenger in my car, no matter how slow I am going.  The street safely accommodates a single vehicle traveling one direction at a time, so often there is another car or truck headed right for you.  Sometimes you can see it coming, other times, not.

Usually both drivers stop to engage in a negotiation where one driver invariably makes way for the other and no one falls off the hillside. For reasons unknown to me, people don’t use their garages and park on the street, so that also makes it extra fun.  And did I mention scampering deer and scurrying squirrels? Wandering coyotes intimidate the neighbors and someone recently spotted a bobcat, posting warnings on Next Door. Garbage and Recycling trucks have it really bad on Tuesdays. The street can get stopped up easily on good days, so in emergencies with a flee factor, you can’t mess around.

I considered the text Alert, and unsure if Los Cerros, the road into our Greenbrae area, was in flames, took the back way, down the hill on Manor Road. I encountered two screaming fire trucks headed up the hill. I could hear more sirens headed my way.

Several police cars lined Manor Road near Sir Francis Drake.   A policewoman when I rolled down my window and asked her what was going on, nonchalantly told me there was a fire on Visa Grande, the street right above my street.  “How serious?” I asked. She said that firefighters were getting it under control but she encouraged me not to go back just yet.

I drove on, as I had a couple’s therapy appointment in Mill Valley to keep, but I wanted to check my phone to see if there was an update about the progress of the Greenbrae fire.

I received another Alert, this time from the Marin County Alert service, concerning the vegetation fire in Greenbrae on Vista Grande: “IC reporting forward progress stopped. Evacuation order lifted.” 

I paused on the cryptic words “reporting forward progress stopped,” wondering who in the county was responsible for such bad writing, but soon directed my anxiety elsewhere since our home was be safe.  I noted that I needed to call the gardener to weed whack our yard immediately.

Juan, the gardener, an older Guatemalan guy, came over the next day and I surveyed the property with him.  Between discussing trimming the two kinds of overgrown Pyracantha shrubs, and cutting down the small dead oak tree that rests in front of a larger half-dead oak, Juan told me his story. 

He came to California thirty years ago and has worked two to three jobs most of the time.  At the height of running his own small business, he employed a crew of eight.  Juan wants to be retired, but can’t support his family on the Social Security he receives, $900 a month. He doesn’t qualify for Medicare yet, so his monthly healthcare cost for his family is $1200 through Kaiser.  He still hires a few workers and he explained that it is important to pay them a decent wage so they can support their families and also so that they stick around.   “Once I picked up a couple of day workers I didn’t know and we did a job at a very large house.  When we finished, they looked at me and suggested that we return to rob the rich people.”

“What do you think about what the United States is doing at the border, detaining children in cages and separating families,” I ask Juan.  This immigration horror unfolding is on my mind and is breaking my heart. I had a scare yesterday, unsure if our house would burn to the ground.  But having to leave your home because of violence and poverty, then having your children taken from you, as your own fate is equally precarious – this reality for people seeking asylum outrages and saddens me.

“Life is hard,” he sighs. 

“What this country is doing is wrong, so wrong, Baby jails,” I lament.  The voice recording released in the media of infants crying, and children calling for their papi’s and mommies, plays in a loop in my head. I am shell shocked by the cruelty, inhumanity, and trauma inflicted on people, on children and their parents fleeing dangerous, untenable situations with nothing.  My Jewish trauma genes activated, I think of concentration camps and families divided and sent to their deaths.  

“Yes, life is hard,” Juan repeats.

“We have to do something to stop this,” I say. “The political agenda of Donald Trump and the Republicans in control of the Senate and House is not just to stop ‘illegal immigration,’  it is to stop immigration period.  People deserve the opportunity to make their lives in this country.  We must be decent and kind to each other.” 

Our eyes meet and then we resume our discussion about whether to trim the Oleander bushes that have grown out of control.   He’ll be back with his worker in a day or two.

That night, when I return from an immigration protest rally in San Rafael and my Tai Chi class, Patricia and I have a stupid fight about whether or not Juan should cut the pink and white flowering poisonous Oleander now, or wait until the fall.  I retreat to bed, angry and sad from my day. 

“Wake up, wake up, honey,” I tell Patricia this morning at six.  “You must go outside before the next Alert and cut me a bouquet of fresh Oleander.”

She rolls over, but not before I detect a laugh.

Rings and the River

Since 1986, my wife, Patricia and I have worn our wedding rings, angular gold bands, subtly divided into two ridges and then brought together with a small round precious stone on the lower left face – a red ruby for her, a blue sapphire for me.

The year we got the rings, El Nino hit the Bay Area particularly hard. The Russian River in Sonoma County flooded its banks on Valentine's Day that spring, with cresting water reaching almost 50 feet. Winds blew roofs off barns and houses, leaving piles of debris once the water receded. For weeks, people fished mud caked couches, twisted lounge chairs, and water logged mattresses (the contents of Guerneville gay resorts,) from the meandering mellow river where nude sunbathers happily hung out.

When it finally stopped raining, one hot weekend, Patricia and I evacuated our Glen Park house and headed up to the Russian River.  Into the trunk of my red Honda Civic hatchback, we stuffed the silver and blue inflatable kayak that I had gotten from an advertiser in the Lifestyle magazine that employed me as a features writer. 

I’d choose an adventure or an adventure would choose me, and then I’d document the experience in an amusing way for the monthly magazine. I wrote about Hot Air Ballooning, Sky Diving, and immersed myself in a sensory-deprivation Samadi tank.  This last escapade was by far the most frightening, as I was enclosed and floating in a claustrophobic womb tomb, with only my breath and heartbeat to keep me company for what seemed like eternity.  When asked to try kayaking, I accepted the offered inflatable vessel and enthusiastically tested it out on Bay Area waterways. I didn’t think twice about taking it and Patricia to the Russian River for a paddle.

We parked the car at a canoe rental place on the outskirts of Guerneville, and used an electric air pump to blow up the boat.  “It’s so light and easy to get into the water,” I assured Pat as I handed her a paddle.  We put our backpacks into the kayak, and climbed in. I pushed off with my paddle, and we started down the river.

The brown water moved us along quickly, too quickly. Within a few minutes, we were headed straight towards cement pilings from a bridge that had long since been removed.  “Paddle harder,” I yelled to Pat, but we didn’t stand a chance and hit the grey barriers broadside. 

The kayak flipped and we were swept downstream, each going her own way.  I managed to hold onto my paddle, and when I bobbed up in the water, I didn’t see Patricia.   I did see the kayak, looking pathetically bent in the middle, but somehow afloat.  I swam towards it and held onto the side, still traveling rapidly downstream.  

Patricia meanwhile was in the middle of a scene from Deliverance.  She flailed and grasped onto tree branches on the far side of the river, desperately trying to pull herself up onto the riverbank.   Exhausted, she finally clawed her way to safety, just in time to hear my voice.

“We are so fucked,” I yelled. 

“Sue, where are you?  Are you okay?” she shouted back.

“We are so fucked,” I repeated.  “We are so fucked.”  I just kept saying this over and over, as I rounded the river bend.  “We are sooooooooooooooooo fucked.”  

I somehow got myself into the kayak, and paddled towards her.  “Get in,” I instructed. She looked doubtful.  “Our backpacks are gone, we have no car keys, no wallets, NOTHING!” I noted.  “We have to get to town, where maybe someone can help us.   We are so fucked,” I began my lament again.   Probably just to shut me up, Patricia got in the kayak and I paddled half-heartedly as the current, thankfully, slowed down.

About 100 yards ahead, we spotted a woman standing in about a foot of water, bending over and pulling something from the river.  The grey backpack.  She unzippered the front and pulled out a soggy Ms. Magazine. Behind her on the riverbank, a group of three women reclined on lawn chairs, looking up at us from their picnic.  Near their brightly colored blankets and sleek wooden canoes (containing life jackets -- who would have thought those were necessary) rested my soaking wet blue backpack with the car keys and my wallet.

We emerged from the kayak like defeated drowned rats, dripping relief.  As we recounted our accident, we started laughing, and didn’t stop laughing for the next few hours, as the kind lesbians offered us oreo cookies, sandwiches, and cold drinks from their coolers. One of the women, Linda Fisher, told us she owned a jewelry shore in the East Bay.  Later that afternoon, they loaded us into their canoes, and paddled us to town, towing the semi-deflated kayak. They even drove us the 15 miles back up the road to the parked Honda.

When Pat and I decided to get wedding rings – gay marriage was not yet legal but we had been together long enough to want to symbolically affirm our partnership – we headed over the Bay Bridge to Linda’s store.  The ring glinted gleefully in the glass case, and we both fell instantly in love with its design.

Cut to Austin, Texas, my sister’s Buddhist wedding a few years later, where a group of my parents' Jewish friends and family members sat uncomfortably whispering among themselves throughout the rituals.  If they could have chanted “Oy Vey,” they would have.

My dad’s longtime childhood friend, Al Weiss, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary and his wife Joan, had flown in from San Diego, for the event.  Joan, an elegant and strikingly beautiful woman, impeccably attired in a white linen suit and beige silk blouse, sat next to me at dinner, and she kept staring at my left hand.  She finally reached for my hand, gently holding my ring finger between her perfectly manicured thumb and index finger, and examined the ring.  

“Can you take that off”” she asked.  “Does it have an artist’s mark inside?”

“I think so,” I said, twisting the gold band from my finger.  “We got our rings at a jewelry store in Albany.”

Joan examined the inside of my ring, which had been engraved with the letters “PAT,” and then recognized another mark.  “You’re not going to believe this, but Al’s daughter, made your rings,” Joan told me. “See here, there’s her initials – LW.”  

Turns out that Al’s daughter, another Linda, worked as a jeweler in Petaluma and sold her creations at Fisher’s Jewelry.  And of all the rings in the world, we had chosen ones made by my dad’s oldest friend’s child.

When the Supreme Court recently ruled that the Colorado baker could refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, Pat posted a picture on her Facebook page from our Prop Gun Wedding, held at the last minute in 2003, right before California passed Prop Hate (8) banning gay marriage.  The photo was of the cupcakes we fed our friends and family that day.  She aptly noted that “Masterpiece Bakery can keep their cakes and hate. We prefer cake baked with love.”   On that day our dog Picasso was our ring bearer, delivering our gold bands to us in a tied up handkerchief.  Our daughter, Sophie, played us an Irish jig on her violin.

I like to remember this story of our rings and all of the calamity and serendipity that culminated in a ceremony of connectedness that is our vicissitudinal love. This love still flows 33 years later, like the Russian River.  Over the years, Patricia has lost her ring two times -- when Sophie was a toddler, Pat retrieved it from a leaf pile in our backyard after hours of searching, and the other time, just months ago, she found it on the floor of our garage after looking for it to no avail for two weeks.  I admire the fact that Patricia never gives up, not on rings, and not on what matters in life.