Cleaver Beaver

This morning - oh, wait, it was early afternoon by then (dang endless daylight! Gets me all confused!) Where was I...? Oh, yes. This afternoon I was driving out of my driveway in search of coffee when I noticed that one of my aspen trees had fallen down. This was to my right on a steep slope above the lower arm of my drive, and while the trunk was entirely on the slope, with none of it laying in the drive itself, I made a mental note to clear it when I got home.

But you know how quick thought is. As I drove past it, after a single hasty glance, a whole bunch of thoughts popped into my head. It took only a fraction of a second to think: Wait a minute. That's a young tree, not likely to be rotted in the trunk, so why would it have broken? Also, there was no wind last night to knock it down. And did I mistake it, or did that one microsecond I glanced at the break-point show what look like chisel-marks...?

So I put on the brakes, backed up 10 feet and squinted up the hill, hunched over my steering wheel to get the angle. Hmmm. Suspicious. I put it in park, told Finn to stay put and got out. The hill there is extremely steep, not conducive to climbing (or at least, not unless you're a quadruped of some description), so I only went up about 3 feet, just far enough to get a better look. Well, hm. That DOES kind of look like chisel marks. Peering closely at the dirt and leaf-litter on the slope, I thought I might be discerning a little trail of some kind - but it's pretty subtle, so I might be making that up. I ponder for a few seconds, shrug, make my way back into the drive... where I notice that the upper part of the tree has been sectioned into two or more lengths of trunk (two that I can see, anyway). There are multiple small branches that appear to have been chewed off the trunk, raggedy-edged, scattered here and there. The leaves of the aspen are just now wilting, and the exposed wood is still slightly damp. The short sections of trunk also have the scalloped appearance of chisel-marks at the ends, and there is a flattened area a foot wide in the weeds at lakeside.

Well, what do you know. I have  a beaver in my lake.

Then I think: Hm, do I really? because I haven't seen any signs of it, and the lake has no stream of running water in or out. But then I think: Well, streams aren't essential. I've seen beaver lodges in swampy wetlands. The main things seem to be deep enough water to sustain the beavers both summer and winter, and enough trees nearby for food. So maybe I DO have a beaver.

I've lived in this house for 13 years, and never seen hide nor hair of a beaver anywhere near here before, which is what makes it hard to believe I have one now.  On the other hand, it's quite a bit harder to believe that some human agency is responsible; what person would climb six or seven feet up that steep and slippery hill to cut down - with an axe, mind you, not a chainsaw or some more convenient device - a small, not-that-spectacular aspen tree on private property? And then chisel it into smaller sections, and drag those across the drive and toward the water? To say nothing of apparently gnawing the small branches off with their teeth.  There are, after all, any number of larger, more conveniently-placed trees to vandalize. Although those aren't aspens - which I like, and am not best-pleased to have gnawed down, damn it all. But that's wildlife for you. The moose eat my birches when I'd rather they eat my willow and alder, and the beavers apparently want to eat my aspen when I'd rather they eat... well, my willow and alder. Beasts these days. No consideration for my landscaping preferences. Ah, well. What are you going to do?

By now I'm pretty sure I'm not just hallucinating the potential presence of a very large semi-aquatic rodent setting up house right next door to me, because I can't put together a logical explanation that does not include a beaver. I can't picture some person doing this, particularly at night - because I'd for sure have noticed the tree down yesterday evening, around 6:30, when I was on my way to my friend Lori's house for socializing and general girlie debauchery. I did bomb in and out pretty fast  - zipping home after work to feed and walk dogs and collect bratwurst and a movie, and zapping back out equally fast to go to Lori's. Moreover, as it happens, I was out late that night. This was necessary, as we grilled the brats, drank beer, talked about boys (and mutual guilty pleasures such as "True Blood" and "Spartacus Blood and Sand" and any movie that includes horses, sword fighting, or - preferably - both) and generally enjoyed ourselves. For a while we picked over agates and other interesting rocks, some rough and others polished smooth and satiny, that Lori picked up at an agate beach she knows and flies to from time to time. Lori is an excellent pilot (and in fact, if you need a flying adventure in AK, I highly recommend you contact her at SkyTrekking Alaska so she can fly you around for fishing or hunting or Iditarod or what have you. She'll land you safe, and she seems to know everyone and everywhere interesting in Alaska. Apart from which, she's a ton of fun to hang out with. But I digress).

Anyway, we watched "Dear Frankie" (a truly charming little gem of a movie which no one seems to have seen) and by the time all was said and eaten and drunk and done, it was well past midnight. We're at that stage of summer where midnight is dusk, now - not full dark, but not exactly the full-light twilight it's been for the last few weeks. So it's possible, on the way home, that I missed seeing the downed tree when I pulled into my driveway at one in the morning.... but I don't think so. So I'm fairly certain that my little stealth tree-faller was at it between one a.m., when I got home, and 6 a.m., when I was up and about and letting dogs out. Certainly before 2 p.m. when I left the house in search of coffee. I'm 100% certain that it didn't happen earlier than 6:30 last night. Being as how beavers are largely nocturnal, the beaver theory would fit with the timing. And I'd just about guarantee that if a person was in my driveway messing with my trees, my dogs would have gone ballistic. So even if my other logic were faulty, I still can't see another theory that fits better than the Marauding Beaver theory (aka the Castor canadensis caper).

So now I guess I'm on beaver watch. I'll have to try to protect my remaining aspens. I love them - their quivering leaves flashing green and silver in the slightest breeze, their straight white trunks, the way they change their silver-green leaves into shimmering golden coins in the fall; the way they cover my drive in gold leaf like alms before winter. So while I'm sympathetic to the needs of the local wildlife, I really hope there's something else out there they can be convinced to eat, instead of cleaving down the rest of my aspens.

Years ago, a friend of mine's little boy had a sore throat. Meaning to tell his mother that he had a hot scratchy throat, he tried to say he had a fever in his mouth. But because he was learning to talk, he said instead "Mom, I have a beaver in my mouth." So despite the depredations on my aspens, I guess it could be worse. I may have a beaver, but at least I don't have a beaver in my mouth.

Smoking Fish

I know. Fish don't usually get going so fast they smoke.

Recently I unexpectedly came into some salmon. This is a Good Thing, nearly as exciting as coming into money. For one thing, salmon tastes way better. For another, it actually can be used as a means of barter, nearly as good as monetary exchange, (although much more satisfying, as in: I'll trade you two pounds of Dall sheep for a King salmon fillet, or I'll trade you a jar of bear meat for a couple of silvers – you know, that kind of thing.)

How did this happen, you ask? Well, my boss wants to go fishing next week, but he's on call. I volunteered to take his on-call, and he volunteered to give me a fillet. But as it turns out, he didn't give me a fillet. He gave me a good-sized Playmate cooler FULL of fillets. Have I mentioned that I like my boss? And also anyone else who gives me free salmon. Just sayin'. I also got some rockfish in with the mix, but my boss assured me it's a bland and boring fish, and needs to be prepared in a way which adds flavor to it. Okay, I'm game. I love making crap up when it comes to cooking. The victims of my culinary excesses may not love it so much, but since I'm congenitally incapable of following a recipe as written, it's probably a good thing that I am perfectly willing to try any number of weird concoctions – and if they turn out to be complete crap, it's a further good thing that my dogs are willing to try even weirder ones.

So all of a sudden I've got salmon. Which is almost as good as having crab legs – which is great, except for how hard it is to wear pantyhose, since the spiny bits make it just about impossible to pull your pantyhose on without getting a run in them. That has nothing to do with smoking fish, of course –although anyone who has crab legs is, by definition, smokin' – but smoking fish is a whole other challenge. I tried to smoke a fish last year, actually. I got it lit, but I couldn't get it to draw.

Okay, lame-ass jokes aside, this is my inaugural fish--smoking year. I've lived in Alaska for 16 years, which means I've been pushing the limit. I'm pretty sure that if you haven't smoked or canned or otherwise preserved some subsistence-type food item within 15 years, they revoke your citizenship and boot you out of the state. I've skated under the wire by consuming many such items and also freezing a few – but freezing, though it is a means of food preservation, hardly counts. Freezing is sort of automatic up here, if you wait a little. It doesn't take any special talent. If you wait long enough in the season, all you have to do is chuck it outside and it freezes. No special talent required.

Still and all, it was only a matter of time before the fish-smoking police would have caught up with me, so – even as we speak – I'm sitting on my back deck, typing this and keeping an eye on my smoker – which is starting to smell pretty good, if you want to know the truth. I have a Border collie (yes, Finn, still feeling well) at my feet basking in the sun, and I'm being dive-bombed by dragonflies, but the mosquitoes are largely done for the year – at least at my house. And in any case, if the alder smoke wasn't enough to keep them at bay, there is always the Two-Foot Rule, to wit: Any mosquito that comes within two feet of me will be summarily killed without mercy. If they stay two or more feet away – well, live and let live. The bats and dragonflies need something to snack on, after all. I'm not greedy. Well, not about mosquitoes, anyway. On the other hand… did I mention the smoker is starting to smell pretty good? Like smoke and carmelizing brown sugar and salmony goodness.

Now here's the thing about salmon: It's my second-favorite fish - second only to halibut, which (if you don't know) is food of the Gods, ambrosia, mana in aquatic form. It would be one of the "Two G's" – good, and good for you – except that to call halibut "good" is to insult it with faint praise. It's more like "exquisite and good for you".

Salmon is, however, a very fine fish indeed. They're packed with antioxidants (all those lovely omega-3 fatty acids) and are an excellent source of high-quality and very tasty protein. Besides, it's pretty hard to make salmon in any way that isn't yummy. Bake it, broil it, poach it in wine, make it into chowder, smother it in herbs and grill it, cook it with sliced lemon and dill and garlic, slather it in sour cream, bury it in fish-packs or massage it with dry-rubs – practically anything goes, with salmon. It's a very robust fish, and a forgiving one as well, and the flavor allows you to pull off a myriad of gastronomic feats with aplomb. However, I confess that of the many delicious ways I've eaten salmon, it's possible that smoked salmon is my favorite. Especially the way I've had it up here.

There are lots of people in AK who smoke salmon so good it will make you weep. Your knees will go weak as all your blood rushes to your tastebuds. Angel choirs will sing. You may have a religious experience. You will be reluctant to swallow, to let that flavor escape from your tongue, so you will be tempted to communicate for several hours by means of gestures and grunts so as to be able to keep that delectable flavor in your mouth juuuust a little longer.

Now, I'm not saying my maiden voyage into the smoky waters of cured fish will be anything quite so special… but I will say I relentlessly quizzed several of my fish-smoking pals for tips. There are some common themes – for instance, the fish I like best is always done with a brown-sugar brine. However, techniques and spices vary. I went with a dray-pack method, in which the salt and sugar and spices are mixed together dry, and the prepared (filleted, sliced and towel-dried) fish is layered with the dry-pack and kept cold overnight. By morning, the dry-pack has sucked moisture out of the fish, which is much firmer, and is now marinating in a thick molassesy brine, heavily sludged with undissolved sugar and salt. I've elected to use alder wood for my smoke. In an hour or so I'll need to check to see if I need to put more wood in the smoker, but the "busy" part of the program is over. And now I'm hanging out, watching the squirrels and the birds, admiring my six-foot-high fireweed (flowered out only about halfway up the spike, if even that much, so according to legend, there's plenty of summer yet ahead) and generally keeping an eye on things. So far it's been relatively simple, thanks to the generously-shared knowledge of my Alaskan peeps.

I've noticed, however, that there are certain things that people fail to mention about smoking fish.

1. For one thing, you will get sticky. Very, very sticky. I've discovered that having a pack of Wet Ones on hand is a good idea. If not for that, I would still be trying to unglue my fingers from the paper towels.
2. On that subject, you're going to use up at least half a roll. Maybe more.
3. Your dogs will try to help you with this project. Don't let them.
4. Even if you don't let them, avoiding smoking a little Border collie hair in with the fish is a bit of a challenge.
5. Pam is your friend. I mean the cooking spray, not the vampire.
6. After you have finished cutting fish into brine-sized pieces, packing it into the brine (or the dry-pack mixture) and washing and drying your hands the approximately 27 times it will take to get rid of all the sticky, you will discover that somehow, many small circles of plastic, about the size produced by a regular three-hole paper punch, have mysteriously appeared, adhered tightly to your skin. This is not plastic. These are random leftover fish scales which have cleverly eluded the best efforts of soap and water. Despite appearances, you are not stuck with them until the end of time. You can eventually peel them off your skin. Don't give up. They make wire-bristle brushes for grills, you know. Just sayin'.
7. If you want to keep inquisitive insects, lint and random dog hairs off your fish while it is drying after the brine (so that it forms a useful little skin called a pellicle, which helps keep it moist during the smoking process), a few yards of ultra-cheap tulle from the local fabric store are worth the $3 investment.
8. Fish scraps will occur – bits and pieces of skin or fragments of flesh that come apart during the preparation. Another word for these scraps is "dog food". Or so I am assured by every dog in my house.

Now, I've tried to make sure I followed all the rules, so that I don't end up poisoning myself or others. For instance, when the fish is drying, they say it should be kept cool – which, according to the books, means no more than 65 degrees – and that a fan may speed the drying process. Hmm. When I got up this morning, my back deck was 50 degrees, and there was a light breeze blowing. Perfect. Fans? We don't need no stinking fans. Well, not that kind of fan, anyway. This is Alaska, dude. Cooler than 65 degrees is kind of normal.

I'll let you know how it turns out. It's really not that much work, once you figure out the little handy tricks. And if I don't actually poison myself… well, I did mention that smoked salmon is my favorite, right? I can vacuum-pack it and have smoked salmon aaaaaaall winter long. Just so long as I manage to have periodic amnesia and forget there is smoked salmon in the freezer, because otherwise I'll just eat it all in a week.

In the meantime: Smoking fish. In Alaska, it's not just a good idea. It's the law.


Update: Having eaten several pieces of fish thus prepared, I have not suffered ptomaine poisoning, botulism, vomiting, diarrhea, seizures, coma or death. Grimaces of disgust were completely absent, and if I didn't precisely hear angel choirs singing, there was at least definite loud humming. These observations make me think it's mostly safe to eat. There is one small problem, though, since it is evidently kind of addictive. I probably need to adjust my brine. Less cocaine and more Monkey-Butt powder, probably. Okay, I'm kidding. There's no cocaine in it.

Aflack... Aflack... AAAFFLLAAAACK!

Finn's been poorly lately.

One day not long ago he was lying on the bed next to me, pressed hard up against me, a fine tremor of stress shivering through his tissues and vibrating through mine, waking me. He looked at me anxiously, ears flattened in distress, wagging his tail in a nervous, tentative way, and urinated where he lay. A lot. All over the bed.

This is MOST unlike Finn, so - apart from leaping to my feet and whipping the sodden blankets back before things could soak in to the mattress, I made immediate plans to pop him in and run some blood work.

The last time Finn peed on my bed, he'd leaped up one day while I was folding laundry on the foot of it. He walked with deliberation to the center of it, fixed me with a glance and, once he was sure I was watching him, urinated where he stood. Right in the middle of the down comforter. My immediate thought was AAACK! BAD DOG! - but the one hard on its heels was: Finn doesn't do things like that. Something's wrong. If he was just being inappropriate he'd have lifted his leg on the bedpost - but he didn't. He camped his back legs out behind him, slightly crouched as if something hurt him, and just emptied his bladder right there, all at once. So: No scolding, and yes workup.

I ran a urine sample the next day and sure enough: He had a bladder infection. Well, thanks for telling me, dude; it's harder to pick up in males because when they go out it's pretty much par for the course that they hike their leg about 71 times and pee a little bit on everything in creation. So unless they do something else - something abnormal - you have no way of knowing. He may not have thought of it in exactly those terms, but in his own way Finn was letting me know he was in distress and needed help.

Finn is a Border collie. They have a useful ability to use their eye to control livestock. Unlike my Raven dog, Finn isn't much of a stock dog. He's what is sometimes referred to as a "loose-eyed" dog, meaning that he hasn't got a lot of the vaunted and much-esteemed Border collie Eye. But there is one thing he can do with it that Raven can't. Finn has a particular way of looking at me that compels me to really look at him: Closely, carefully, with observance and attention.

Sometimes he uses this talent just for fun. One time I was hosing out the back of my pickup truck, which had a shell on it. Consequently I was duck-walking around under the low canopy, concentrating on flushing out a large quantity of sand and gravel from the bed. This was, unsurprisingly, taking a long time; sand and gravel sink below the water flow and tend to stay put. Finn was wandering around in the driveway with me, hopping into the truck bed every so often to inspect my progress. I'd given him a pig ear to help keep him occupied, and kept  half an eye on him while I worked.

At one point Finn jumped into the truck bed and gave me that Look; I could feel the weight of it resting on me, a gentle and persistent touch, quietly demanding my attention. I glanced up to see him gazing intently over his shoulder at me, pig ear clamped between his jaws, one corner of it pushing his lip up in an absurd lopsided grin. When he was sure he had my full attention he turned to face the lowered tailgate, tossed his pig ear high in the air, leaped out and caught it on the fly, and landed adroitly on the driveway. He turned around to look at me again, gently wagging, as if to say "What did you think of that? I invented a new game! Didja see my technique? I didn't just catch that pig ear, I threw it, too, and I don't even have hands! I should get at least 8 points for the dismount, don't you think? I should probably get a ten, though, for creativity and style."

Naturally I laughed my sodden butt off, so he demonstrated the rules for me several more times. And, thus rewarded, Finn has persisted in the use of this particular Look. Which is in part how I knew, when he urinated all over me and my bed whilst fixing me with that expression, that something was Really Wrong.

I took him to the clinic and drew some blood. It was a Sunday; I was there alone. I waited for the bloods to come out, expecting signs of infection or possibly kidney disease. What I got was hypercalcemia. Very marked hypercalcemia. Enough to max out the capabilities of our blood analyst unit.

A peal of dread rolled through my chest when I looked at it. As a general rule, hypercalcemia in dogs means cancer until proven otherwise. And of the cancers that cause it, the most common one is lymphoma - which, in dogs, is incurable. The next most common are perianal cancer and bone cancer - and Finn had no such masses present.

Hell and God damn it. I love this dog. He's only eight. This can not be happening.

I admit I said a lot of really bad words while I thought. I went through my rule-out list of causes of hypercalcemia - the HARDONS list: Hyperparathyroidism, Addison's disease, Renal disease, vitamin D toxicosis, Osteomyelitis, Neoplasia, Spurious. My bloods had already ruled out Addison's disease, renal disease and osteomyelitis. There was no history of vitamin D toxicity (and I'd know, as this dog is with me pretty much 24/7, and when he's not under my eye he's in a run at the clinic.) That leaves me with hyperparathyroidism, spurious (lab error, essentially) - and cancer.

I drew more blood to be sent out to an outside lab to test inonized calcium levels and parathormone levels. The results would rule out lab error - confirmation or denial by an outside lab - and hyperparathyriodism. I also - while waiting for that test to come back - Xrayed Finn's chest. The commonest cause of hypercalcemia in dogs, as I said, is neoplasia - cancer. The commonest cancer to cause it is lymphoma, and the commonest form of lymphoma to cause it is a form called mediastinal lymphoma. The mediastimum is the structure in the center of the chest that contains the heart, the trachea and esophagus, the great vessels (aorta and vena cava) - and a cluster of lymph nodes just forward of the heart, at the branching of the mainstem bronchi. Lymphoma itself being a disease of the white blood cells, it forms most commonly in liver, spleen and lymph nodes, though it can go anywhere the bloodstream does.. Finn had no enlarged lymph nodes in the periphery of his body - the ones you can feel under a dog's jaw or armpits, in the junction of the shoulder, in the inguinal region or behind the knee. But the ones in the abdomen are harder to reach, and the ones in the chest, impossible. Those must be imaged.

The lateral view of Finn's chest looked okay - maybe a little hazy in front of the heart, but no visible mass. But the V/D view - one taken with him lying on his back - told a different story. There, in his mediastinum, right in front of his heart, is an unmistakable mass. Unmistakable.

More bad words, but I kept them to myself this time, both to avoid offending my co-workers, and as a way of whistling past the graveyard - pretending that I didn't know that death was stalking my household, its dark and roving eye fixed, for the moment, on Finn.

Meanwhile, there's one thing that cannot be ignored. Finn is still PU/PD - polyuric and polydipsic, which means he's peeing and drinking like a racehorse. The real problem here isn't the inconvenience; it's that, with calcium that high, you can induce kidney failure, and that, if left untreated, can potentially kill a dog faster than cancer. Something had to be done about this. There are there are choices: One is diuresis: simply running vast quantities of fluid into the dog to dilute the excess of calcium. It's a temporary fix, though, and may take days to produce the desired result. The second option is a calcium-wasting diuretic, one that excretes calcium preferenetially to other minerals. This isn't a bad option per se, but its capacity to drop the calcium is limited. And given the extreme numbers Finn was posting, I doubted it would help enough to make much of a dent.

That left option three: Steroids. Prednisone will dump excess calcium like a bad boyfriend. It's also cheap and well-tolerated, and tends to stimulate the appetite - which would be a good thing, since Finn - normally the most food-motivated of dogs - had started refusing food. There's really only one problem with it in a case like this: Pred induces MDR proteins.

MDR proteins are cell-membrane transport proteins that eject harmful substances from the cell. In the case of cancer, this is a bad thing: it means that medications that are meant to kill the bad cells are ejected before they can do the job. Normally, pred would have the additional drawback of destroying your ability to achieve a histopathological diagnosis (which means a diagnosis based on tissue samples examined by a pathoologist under a microscope)... but since I wasn't going to crack Finn's chest to biopsy lymph nodes this was not my main concern. My main concern was the MDR proteins. So there we are, Finn and I, between a rock and a hard place. If I use pred, I begin to induce MDR's, and the MDR proteins will close off any window I have for more-aggressive chemo that will earn me a longer remission. If I DON'T use pred, his kidneys will shut down and we'll lose much faster.

Still, you don't induce MDR's instantly, so I started Finn on pred on Sunday to dump his calcium; sparing his kidneys was the first obstacle, and I suspected the hypercalcemia was in part responsible for his poor appetite. I knew I didn't have long to decide what I would ultimately do. I'm in no way opposed to treating cancer - and have done it (sometimes with spectacular success) with any number of patients, not to mention four of my own dogs (Finn being the fifth such candidate). In animal medicine we aim for quality of life over length of life - after all, no dog is making it to sixty, and what matters to them is not how long they live. It's how WELL they live. And there's another factor: Of the chronic diseases, Cancer it the most curable one we have. We can't cure heart failure. We can't cure kidney failure. Past a certain point we can't cure liver failure, either. Treat them, yes. Cure them - short of a transplant, no. Cancer, we can cure. Not all cancers, of course, including the profoundly accursed lymphoma, and there's a cost - but as a group, cancer is the most curable of the chronic diseases.

This is all well and good, except for one big fat "however", being this: Lymphoma in dogs is a non-Hodgkin's form, and though medical science is always, always in pursuit of a means of curing it, that means has not yet come to hand. So based on the standards of medicine as they stand today, my best hope with aggressive therapy is a remission of some months' duration, and that may be hard-won... or possibly, unachievable. Not every dog will do a remission. And I have to consider the cost to the dog and the length of good time I propose to offer him in trade for the bad time I will cost him during treatment.

I thought about it from the minute I saw the high calcium levels, through the second blood draw and the Xray and while I was pending my other tests. Finn would do anything I asked of him - but he's a worrier. He hates procedures, and although he submits to them and tries to do as asked, he really really hates them. He is anxious and afraid, wonders what he's done wrong, is sad and uncertain for hours or even days afterwards. Can I in good faith put him through weekly procedures for this?

On the one hand: He's only eight (albeit, about to turn nine). On the other: It's not fair to torture them 'til they die. You have to strike a balance for the dog, do what's fair for them even if it's not the most time you can potentially gain for them. And ultimately, if you lose them now or lose them later, you're still going to grieve them. That won't change. All you can change is when. And with all that in mind - and Finn's temperament foremost - I decided that if it should be bad news, I'd stick with pred for as long as it would give me, and then, when it could give me no more, I'd do my best to help Finn die as gently and easily as it is in my power to make it.

A hard decision, but when I made it I knew it was the right one. It settled into my being with a little click, fitting in such a way that I knew, sad and grim as it was, it was the right choice for Finn.

Two days later the test came back: Hypercalcemia, and low parathyroid levels. So I've ruled out lab error, and I've ruled out hyperparathyroidism. That leaves me with one answer left: Hypercalcemia of malignancy, with a mediastinal mass telling me it's lymphoma.

I really expected this to just hammer me to my knees. I love this dog. Love him. He is charming and funny, sweet and willing, easy and kind - and so beautiful. Mainly that's his expression. My father once remarked that when Finn looks at you, you see his whole soul in his eyes. That's really kind of true. He is an honest dog, and a generous one as well. He gives you all he has, right off the bat, unreservedly. So what I expected was devastation, and I spent the entire day tensed, braced to stave off the well of pain and despairing of my dog lasting even 'til his 9th birthday, a week hence; he was that ill. But instead, once I was home and had a chance to drop my defenses, the fear fell away and what I had... was peace.

I found this confusing, and a little annoying. I knew what he had was bad. I'd already lost a dog - my beloved Buddy-dog - to lymphoma in the intestine. So how was this going to be okay? But I felt, somewhere unshakable, that it was going to be okay.  And after fighting that for a while, I gave up; I didn't understand why, but it was still there - that peace. Maybe it was just acceptance; we all die, sooner or later. Maybe it was just the understanding that whenever we part, Finn and I, it will hurt - and when is immaterial to that. The pain will still have to be endured, regardless of the date of its arrival.

Still: There's what must be done today.

Finn did well on his pred at the start. It is a medication that often causes excessive drinking and urination, of which he had plenty to begin with. But the pred did its job faithfully; Finn's calcium dropped like a rock. Within 36 hours he was actually less PU/PD than he was before we started the pred. He ate well for a few days - but then I noticed an alarming amount of weight coming off him, very fast. I upped his food, but he continued to drop weight and his appetite began to fade.

This is not just bad - it's really bad. Finn is very food-motivated, and in the past I've had trouble keeping weight off him, not keeping it on him. Things were moving alarmingly fast. The spines of his scapulae were like knife blades under his skin, the muscle on his shoulder blades gone. The vertical processes of his vertebrae stood up stark and clear, revealed by his atrophying back strap muscles. His arms and legs were thin and flaccid, his normal robust muscle tone gone, and his face looked hollow, the bones pressing against the skin from within, no longer clothed in normal flesh. Moreover he was weak and tired. This is a dog who had once had a leap so graceful and effortless that he seemed to float from the ground to the pickup bed, as if lifted there by magic. To see him climb laboriously, one foot at a time, into the cab of the truck - well. Not looking hopeful. I weighed him. He'd lost six pounds. That's 15% of his body weight, gone in less than 2 weeks.

The one thing about being backed against a wall like that is this: You have nothing to lose by punting. If you make a gamble and it doesn't pay off - well. You were losing anyway. So punt I did. I invented a protocol using a mitochondrial modifier. That went okay for a week, and then Finn started vomiting.

Well, crap. Okay, anti-emetics to control that, discontinue my invented protocol, taper the pred. Two days of that... and well, at least he has his appetite back; in nothing else, he'll at least eat well 'til I have to make the tough decision.

But then I noticed something. Finn stopped losing weight. In fact, he also seemed a little more cheerful. He'd eat anything I put in front of him, but now it seemed like it was actually putting some flesh on him.

Hmm.

Within a few more days, Finn was energetic enough to be really rather annoying - and there was great rejoicing. Mind you, it's a bit of a shock to be driving down the road, minding your own biz, and have something wet and warmly slimy suddenly thrust through your hair, smearing unidentified goo along your neck and then rolling down the front of you to land in your lap. This would, of course, be the drool-soaked Aflack duck (kindly provided by the Aflack dude, who gave me two because I told him Finn loves Aflack ducks). He does, too - he loves to bite them and make them say "Aflack... aflack... AAAAFFLLLAAACK!" Over and over and over again. Until your brain explodes. At any rate, the Aflack truck-duck is now mute, having been Aflack'd to death. Still, Finn keeps poking it over my shoulder so I can throw it into the back seat of the cab for him, because evidently driving is no longer interesting enough. We also have to have GAMES while we're on the road. (The Aflack house-duck has, unfortunately, kept its voice... which I know because I hear it every so often at FIVE IN THE MORNING, thank you very much, since Finn likes to get up and play with it while I'm trying to sleep. This can be ignored only so long. And "so long" is also a lot shorter if the spit-slimed duck is poked invitingly against your cheek several times, in repeating intervals of approximately 2 minutes, or else possibly dropped directly onto your forehead. Just sayin'.)

So: Hmm twice.

I'm inclined to be skeptical by nature, so I wasn't prepared to go all hog-wild about this. I took a "let's just wait a little and see" attitude, but I did feel that Finn was sturdy enough to go someplace with his sister Raven in the truck with us (something I'd stopped doing when he got sick, figuring he didn't need the stressor.) The first time I did this there was a clash of renewed sibling rivalry; even this was encouraging, since Finn had been so extremely passive when he first got sick. He'd defer to the back seat without even token resistance, leaving Raven the run of the front. But this time I had to banish him to the back, a correction he took with seemingly good grace.

Ahh. Peace. All is quiet on the western front. Until the Aflack truck-duck shoots forward and thumps against the dash hard enough to bounce back into my lap. So two things: one, Finn is maybe not as happy about the back seat as I thought, and two, maybe he should be pitching for the Yankees. Although I'm fairly certain he'd rather catch for them.

The upshot at this point is that Finn is, for the moment at least, well. It's unclear to me if this is a long-term remission - perhaps even a spontaneous remission, which does happen independent of treatment - or if it's just a lull, a temporary respite. It's too soon to tell. But in the short run I'm grateful for all I can get with him; he's very dear to me, and I'm not eager for a parting of the ways. And even if it means he's obnoxious and annoying and drops his spitty duck down my neck umpteen times a day, I'll take it. And I'll kick the soccer ball for him, and throw his Ceasar Milan designer squirrel frisbee until my arm falls off. I'm glad he feels well enough to be a pain in my behind, day and night. And i even admit that I don't really mind that much hearing "Aflack... Aflack AAAFFLLAAACK!" approximately one hundred and seventy-one times. In a row. Every few hours. Until my eyes bleed. The main thing is: the dog feels good.

But I am kind of considering some kind of de-voicing surgery on the Aflack house-duck.

Farewell Sunny Knik

This is why I love Alaska.

I have some friends who (for privacy reasons) I will pseudonym here as the Resk family (which stands for "really excellent super-keen", just so you know.) The Resks are everything you could want in friends: They're smart, funny, generous, warm, good-hearted, hospitable people, and man can they cook. Which, if you're friends with them, is vastly to your advantage, since there's every chance they'll feed you at some point along the way. I say this in complete confidence, since every time I show up at their house, food magically appears. And it's GOOD food. And if they offer you a drink? Try it. You'll like it.

When I first met them, it was as clients. Mr. Resk (who will henceforth be called Mac, which stands for "manly and capable") mostly came in with the dogs at first, since his lovely wife Tara ("talented and really adorable"), a nurse, was working a 3-on, 3-off schedule far far away in Bethel. I can't really remember what it was that got us started, but Mac and I made each other laugh really a lot. Somehow we'd always manage to get a physical exam and treatment lined out, even so, but it was a near thing sometimes.

It turns out that Tara was making beaver mitts as a fund-raiser for Iditarod one year. I thought: I want some beaver mitts! So (following instructions) I traced my hand twice on a piece of paper: Once with fingers together, once with fingers apart. My rings made odd little bumps appear on my tracings, so I carefully labelled these, with arrows pointing to them: "This is not a deformity. This is my ring." The thumbs ended up looking a little weird, so I labelled them, too: "This actually IS a deformity. Oh, wait, it's my thumb."

Evidently Tara thought that was pretty funny, but despite my deformity - er, my thumbs - she made me an absolutely gorgeous pair of beaver mitts. It's not possible for your hands to get cold in them. Trust me, I've tried. Ain't gonna happen.

At any rate, I've enjoyed a friendship with the Resk family for many years. Lately it's been even more interesting, what with the addition of their children, Extremely Adorable #1 and Extremely Adorable #2. These are charming boys, sturdy and bright and SO cute that no one alive can look at them and not go: "Awww!" I tried it once. I almost had a seizure trying to hold it in. It's better to just give in right away. Trust me on this.

One day, a few months ago, I happened to hear that the Resks were planning to sell their house. I must digress here for a moment and tell you: I love their house. It's cozy and snug, sitting up on a hill amongst big old aspen trees. It's a log home with a fieldstone fireplace in the living room and a long deck across the front of the building. There are outbuildings and a couple of nice, level areas for dogs, a fenced yard for kids and a wide, flat space where barbecues can be held. Plenty of space for horseshoes or a volleyball net or a game of giant-inflatable-soccer ball soccer. A congenial space, in the Knik Historic District, with access to the trail system. It's not far from the Musher's Hall of Fame, the Kink Bar (where Hobo Jim has put on many a rollicking pre-race concert) and Kink lake. There's access to the Iditarod trail right off the property.

Iditarod trail access.... Hmmm. My tech Julie should hear about this. She runs dogs. She likes log homes. This would be PERFECT.

So, quick like a little bunny, the minute I returned to work I told Julie she should call the Resks. She did. They're all like "Wha...? We told ONE person we were planning to list our house and already we have a potential buyer? Before it's even been listed? We don't even have a real estate agent! Um... eh?"

Alaska. It's a big state, but it's a small town. Word gets around.

So, fast forward a few weeks, and: Ta-da! Julie and her husband bought the the Resk house. What do you know. It is perfect. Or, at any rate, perfect enough. Me, I'm pretty happy that it's going to someone I know and like. It's a lovely space, and if I can't have it, well then, someone dang good should.

The upshot, naturally, is that I went to yet another perfectly fabulous barbecue at the house. It's not a housewarming party; that's when you move in, and this was thrown by the Resks the day before they moved out. So what do you call that? It's kind of the opposite of a housewarming. But somehow "house-cooling party" doesn't sound right. House-switching party? Tag-team house-handoff party? Hm. Well, anyway: A party.

I did mention the Resks know how to cook, right...?

Halibut, onion and pepper shishkebabs. Reindeer bratwurst. Scallops wrapped in bacon. Tenderized pork on a skewer, basted in something yummy. Marinated prawns. And of course, for the faint of heart traditionalists, hamburgers and hot dogs. Luckily for me, the ranks of the Resk friends can, by and large, cook as well: Smoked salmon. Potato salad. Home-made salsa. Spring rolls. Mmmm.

I might also mention that there was Sangria, Sunny Knik Margaritas, and Alaskan Summer Ale on tap. Hm. I have to try ALL of those.

Jeez. Where to begin? So many choices, so little space in the average human stomach.

Well, it was a gorgeous (and I mean gorgeous) day, and the fire was crackling cheerfully, basting the air with the scent of fire. Clearly where I must start is with a nice cold ale, whilst standing near enough the fire to get the smell of smoke thoroughly permeating my hair. Oh, and as a by the way, that's where the good conversations got started, so obviously I picked the perfect spot to begin. So there I am, basking in the warmth of a sunny Alaskan day, chit-chatting with friends while the rich, warm taste of my cold ale limbers my tongue, and watching a bald eagle fly low to check us out. And hmm... the grill is starting to smell mighty good, perhaps I should get a plate...? But first a hunk of this smoked salmon and - damn that's good, nice work, man! What, there's plenty? Don't mind if I do, then... nothing like a nice hunk of smoked salmon with a bacon-and-scallop chaser.... (pause to enjoy random dog cuteness) What? You're right, my plate is empty! How did that happen...? Oh, another couple of shrimp and some pig-on-a-stick? Sure, why not? Nobody minds if I eat like three of these spring rolls in a row, do they? (short intermission for more random dog cuteness) Oh, look, Extremely Adorable #2 is doing something extremely adorable! And Extremely adorable #1 is passing out bubbles to the other kids - who, strangely (not!), are also extremely adorable. Wow, better move back, here comes Mac with an entire sled full of wood to throw on the fire all at once. I think I'll just stand back here for a few minutes.... Oooh, another Margarita? Sure! What, giant marshmallows for roasting? Wow, dudette, that is a champion s'more you just made there! (and, yet more random dog cuteness).

Well, it went on like this for several hours. Five and a half, to be exact. If not for the fact that I had dogs waiting to be fed, I'd probably still be there. Fortunately I'd not eaten lunch - it being a busy day at the clinic, as usual for a Saturday - so I felt more than justified in eating two days' worth of calories in one afternoon. Why not? We're celebrating here, man! It's the house-hand-off.. er.. whatchamacallithousewhateveritis party!

Overall it's a bittersweet occasion - sad to see the last of the Resk BBQs, happy for their new adventures; Happy for my friends Julie and her husband, sad Julie could not make it to the party. Still, there's no denying the pleasure of the day, the enjoyment of good friends and good food and good weather. The Resk family isn't leaving the state, or I might have been too sad to go to the party. As it is, there will be other parties, and maybe they'll come to Wildwood for one event or another. Maybe Julie will throw her own BBQs, and we'll all meet there. The possibilities are endless.

One thing is for sure though: There's something about standing under the wide open sky, the heat of the sun on my head and the heat of the fire on my legs, the scent of wood smoke and grilling meat pierced by the happy squeals of children and the murmur of conversation.

It feels like summer now.

Dogs Driving Cars

One day, a few years ago, my (now-ex) boyfriend Oz and I decided to go to Talkeetna. Now, if you haven't been there, Talkeetna is a fascinating little town. I do mean little; you can walk from one end of it to the other in about 10 minutes. But Talkeetna has an interesting and varied culture, despite its small size. It's the jumping-off point for those who want to climb The Mountain (Denali, which up here is often referred to as simply The Mountain, capitals implied). As a result of that, there is a summertime culture of outdoor enthusiasts, guides and pilots and various seasonal businesses that spring up in  - well, the springtime, and persist all summer. Naturally, the tourist activities go up significantly as well: flightseeing, riverboating, fishing, what have you.

Still, despite all that human traffic, there is little in the way of car traffic, and little need for it, given the size of the town. Cars drive in and park at a convenient little parking area and then you get out and walk. You can have a nice browse around the shops, eat at one of the tasty little eateries, walk to the Talkeetna River before it dumps into the Susitna or cross the bridge and explore the opposite bank. At any rate, the main spur enters town and then takes a left-hand turn, after which it dead-ends a few hundred feet later. At the bend in the "L" is the parking area where nearly everyone gets out and walks.

The town has a decidedly counter-culture feel to it, with a wide variety of people - tough old Alaskans, hard-core mountaineers, pilots of many a stripe (professional, recreational, bush), tourists of all descriptions both from Alaska and Outside, seasonal workers, State wilderness employees, local Talkeetnans (is that a word?) - the variety is astonishing for such a small town. I don't know if it's this variety of disparate folks, or if it's some special magic of the town itself, but Talkeetna is quirky, unusual, offbeat and deeply charming in a way that takes me off guard. The most bizarre and unusual combinations seem somehow just right, when viewed from the perspective of the town's particular point of view.

I can't recall on this given day if we'd flown up and walked into town from the Talkeetna airport, or if we'd driven. In either case, we were wandering through the shops, stopping for lunch (excellent pizza), chit-chatting with various people beknownst and unbeknownst to us. I was doing some early Christmas shopping of the niece-and-nephew variety, and Oz was either browsing along with me or waiting patiently outside for me to finish my scouting.

We'd been all the way down to the end of the L and back on our wanderings, and I was checking two last shops for a raven-shaped hand-puppet. My targets were on the incoming Talkeetna Spur, right hand side of the road. A small two-door hatchback type of car pulled over on the far left shoulder, the driver jumping out to talk to a friend she'd spotted walking alongside the road. There was a sort of general squealing of delight and mutual hugging. It really wasn't a traffic hazard, there being so little traffic, even though she'd parked on the wrong side of the street and had left her car idling with its driver's-side door wide open. I glanced over at the sound of happy reunions, smiling a little, the way you do when you see people you don't even know being all bubbly and excited.

What made me smile even more was that I noticed that there was the most adorable Jack Russell in the front seat of the car. He had semi-pricked ears and a wiry, scruffily-bearded muzzle, and his little tail was straight in the air, wagging madly. He craned his little neck to look out the windows, but kept to the vehicle.

Good little dog, I thought. I would never trust MY dogs to stay in the car with me standing 15 feet away, door wide open, and the inducements of a warm summer day and lots of people all strolling back and forth, some carrying (and dropping, perforce) food of various descriptions. My dogs would probably all leap out to romp around my  feet, or mug toddlers for their ice cream cones.

But this little JRT did neither, evidently taking his car-guarding duties seriously. Spying a large black Labrador ambling along the L on a leash - crossing impudently in front of the car, without so much as a by-your-leave - the Jack Russell immediately launched a challenge at the intruder. Barking furiously, he leaped to his feet, putting his forepaws on the dash for a better view and hopping up and down on his hind legs, making abortive attempts to scrabble up the curved shoulder of the dashboard. For some reason this tightened my focus on the dog. Suddenly I realized he was taller than before, and a microsecond later I saw why. He'd planted his hind feet on the automatic's on-floor gearshift.

"Um -" I said, to no one in particular. Oz looked at me. I started to point across the road, just about the same moment that the Jack's bouncy little barks produced the results that evidently my subconscious mind was anticipating. He shoved off hard with his hind feet, attempting to launch himself up onto the dash - but succeeding instead in shoving the gearshift into "drive".

It was one of those moments where you can see the impending events unfolding as if in slow motion in your mind, mere fractions of a second before they occur in real life - but you are powerless to stop them, by virtue of distance. The car began to roll forward at a stately pace. The driver, caught up in the excitement of her friends, did not, of course, hear the tires moving over the sandy verge of the road. The wide open door bumped gently against a telephone pole and slammed shut.

The Jack Russell, thrilled to be approaching his quarry, barked excitedly on.

"HEY!" I said, loudly, trying to attract attention as the car proceeded, slowly gathering speed. (I'll grant you this wasn't the most articulate thing I might have said, but somehow screaming "Dog driving car! Dog driving car!" didn't seem quite right, either.) One part of my mind is observing this all with some bemusement; it seems peculiarly fitting, in a way. It's Talkeetna. Of course there is a dog driving a car down the street. Why not?

Several strapping young men stood in the middle of the road at the L-turn, mock-punching and shoulder-bumping each other animatedly in an exuberance of testosterone and youth. One of them either heard my exclamation or noticed that the car, proceeding at a regal pace, was being piloted by none other than a small white terrier, yapping with glee as he bore slowly but inexorably down on his sworn enemy the Labrador, now passing from starboard to port across his bows. The young man leaped into action, diving at the front of the car, bracing his hands against the hood and digging in with his considerable thigh muscles to slow the car's progress. Two of his buddies and at least one random passer-by threw themselves into the fray as well, bracing their brawny chests against the hood and their feet against the silty hard-pack of the road, all the while being pushed slowly back cross it like the Spartans at Thermopylae - unfortunately without benefit of either leather loincloths or Gerry Butler.

Meanwhile, the JRT, having seen his nemesis escaping off his port bow, had moved so that he was standing behind the steering wheel. His efforts to climb the wheel for a better view levered down against the spokes of the steering wheel (whatever those are called), swinging the car into a wide left-handed arc. The Jack Russel - no doubt delighted with this turn of events, as he was now following his prey through the L of the road - celebrated by making several bank-and-turn leaps off the steering wheel. Muffled by the closed window, he none the less sounded completely demented with elation at his success.

Meanwhile, the now five young men pitting their strength against the car's forward momentum are being pushed inexorably back, their cross-trainers skidding against the road. The car is slowing, but not completely stopped, and people are towing their children briskly out of its path. The driver of the car, her attention brought at last to this scene, gives a shriek. The left front of the car is now clear of the roadside obstructions, however, and one of the car-matadors dives toward the door, yanking it open, deftly inserting himself behind the wheel and stepping hard on the brake. He manages this maneuver without allowing the JRT to escape, puts the car in "park" and shuts down the ignition.

There is general applause for the car-matadors (who aw-shucks it and shove each other around a little in bashful fashion, fugitive grins on their faces.) The driver rescues and scolds her JRT. And the Labrador escapes into the crowd, foiling the JRT's attempt at world domination via automotive mastery.

Well, after that, of course, anything else would be anticlimactic, so that pretty well put paid to my shopping for the day. I never did find the raven hand-puppet I was looking for, but on the whole, in terms of entertainment, I have to say it was a good day. I mean, how often do you get to see a Jack Russell terrier driving a hatchback down the street and steering it around a turn? For sheer offbeat charm, it's hard to improve on that.

Well... maybe if you added Gerry Butler in a leather loincloth...

Trying New Things

I'm a great believer in trying new things. For one thing, one of my great fears is the idea of losing my mental faculties. This is in part because lives depend on my brain being in good working order; my patients, if no one else, need me to be firing on all cylinders. But it's partly because so much of my enjoyment of life depends on my way of thinking about it. So I'm all for anything that keeps my brain flexible. To that end I take up new projects every so often. I took a painting class last summer (watercolor, and produced a reasonable likeness of my dog Finn) and took up Swedish and Norwegian - in part because they're free on LiveMocha. (Who knew that learning to roll my R's would turn out to be so useful?) I took them up together because they're similar languages, and I figured it would be just as easy to learn them together as separately, but I soon discovered a pitfall: Occasionally, when I mean to say the Swedish word, I unexpectedly veer off and go all Norwegian for a second - and perhaps vice versa, but since one of the docs in the clinic speaks Swedish and none of them speak Norwegian, I only get caught when I mess up the Svenska portion of the program.

Important Program Note: Before you all start sending me missives in Swedish (or Norwegian, for that matter), please bear in mind that when I got sick I lost all energy of every description and have done nothing - and here I mean literally NOTHING - with either language since. So naturally I've forgotten everything except "Jag ar kort" and stuff like that. Hardly the raw materials for a scintillating conversation, since stating that I'm short - well, 5'4" - is pointing out the painfully obvious and leaves little room for sensible replies.)

I've heard that one of the best ways of keeping the brain flexible and active is to take up a new language. I figured that it might not be such a bad idea to brush up the old ones, too, so in the interests of keeping the old noggin (and I do mean OLD noggin, since I'm so ancient I am practically fossilized) in good working order, I decided to brush up on my French and Spanish. In pursuit of this, I had an excellent idea (which I shamelessly stole from S at the farm, who I believe may have gotten it from the Penzeys catalogue): To wit, read Harry Potter (or some other familiar story, preferably one geared toward simpler vocabulary) in a foreign language. I soon discovered, however, that my high school French and Spanish classes were woefully lacking, since words like "owl" and "cauldron" and "wand" were for some inexplicable reason not included in the vocabulary. I know! Amazing!

However, evidently there still is not enough sleep in the world for me. The up-side of this is: Mmm, sleep! The down-side is: Falling asleep randomly in the middle of Things That Should Be Quite Interesting, But Somehow Are Not Enough To Keep Me Awake. Therefore, I must put my linguistic ambitions on hold until such time as there IS enough sleep in the world for me, which by my calculations will be sometime after 2017.

For that reason I've been trying OTHER new things, things which do not require much concentration. For instance, this weekend I took Finn to meet a bunch of bitches.

Now here I should point out that these are the "girl-dog" sort of bitch, and none of them is in fact very bitchy. They belong to my friend LK and are actually a rather charming gang. However, LK (who has both a generous heart and a sense of adventure) requested the pleasure of Finn's company for my vacation, and (in order to ensure a smooth transition) invited Finn and I over for a play date ahead of time. Finn was introduced one at a time to his new harem of girlfriends. One of them charmed him immediately by throwing herself in complete abandon onto her back, inviting him to inspect her tummy. Another charmed him by being willing to run and play wildly with him. His other girlfriends are a little more demure, but I think he'll succumb to their charms in the long run - or vice versa.

Meanwhile, Finn - who likes men - was delighted to be going to a guy hangout. Particularly one with many interesting animals and things to sniff and pee on. Mind you, he was perfectly happy to follow LK to the kitchen (there to help with meal preparation). LK asked me if there's anything Finn shouldn't have.

"Well, he's been known to eat plushy toys now and again," I said. We turn to look at Finn, who has, as usual, located every toy in the house by means of some mysterious Border collie radar and has been pestering us to throw them for him. At the moment we turn to look at him, he has a stuffed rabbit between his front feet. He is industriously chewing the stuffed carrot off of it and manages to gulp it down before I can collar him and steal his prize.

"Okay," LK says, with the air of someone crossing an item off a list. "No stuffed toys."
"That might be best," I agree, glaring at Finn (who gives me a happy grin. He loves carrots.)

Meanwhile, it has become time for lunch. LK has made us two different kinds of chili from Dall sheep. It's good. And here what I really mean is it's goooooood. It's tender and tasty and blends beautifully with the spices. This leaves me with (I think) only two species of game mammals native to Alaska that I've not tried: mountain goat and musk ox. So now it's my turn to tick something off my list. Dall sheep: Tried it, loved it, would try it again any time.

We sit in the Man Cave part of the house (which is populated with animal mounts of various descriptions, since LK and her husband are both hunters and, in fact, run a hunting camp in the summer for a varied clientele), and which has some beautiful woodwork in it. It's currently under construction, but there's a comfy couch and some coffee-table-height tables to eat off of, and the door is open to the sunny deck. The dogs race back and forth, in and out the door. We mostly keep the dogs from begging and trying to lick things off the table.

LK, bless her, sends me home with leftover chili (both kinds) and Finn with a leftover garlic biscuit (which he cleverly laid claim to by means of licking the side of it.) At that point I had to digress and tell a story about having once gone to a housewarming potluck at Meryl's place. Someone had brought a loaf of homemade bread which had thoughtfully been sliced. The end slice was leaning temptingly toward the edge of the plate. Too well-behaved to actually steal off the table, Meryl's dog Dancer none the less succumbed to temptation sufficiently to lick the end piece - just once, mind you, before she restrained her gluttonous instincts.

"Meryl," I said, "Dancer just licked the bread."
"That's okay," Meryl said. "We're all dog people here."

My gut reaction to which was: You know, I'd eat something MY dog licked, but I wouldn't eat something SOMEONE ELSE'S dog licked. After which mental commentary I started laughing at myself, because really: WTH? Am I insane, or just stupid?

Personally, since this whole thing is about me being afraid my brain will turn to paper mache` the instant I turn 50, I'm going with "insane".

So there I am, trundling home with two (TWO!) tubs of Dall chili, one slightly-used garlic biscuit, and a tired (but very happy) Border collie. I motor on back to the clinic to release my emergency surgery (who has cooperatively woken up and stopped bleeding from its bitten and formerly-lacerated-but-now-sutured ear). Then I just have time to make dinner at the farm, where we have lamb (yum) roasted in home-made Worcestershire sauce, salad, rice and Cape Cods made with home-made highbush cranberry juice and cranberry vodka.

Ahhh. I like trying new stuff! New stuff is very very tasty.

At this time, Raven is commandeered to come live at the farm and entertain S&R's Border collie, Tessla, while I am on vacation. I see that I have returned to the stage of life where my dogs are more popular than I am, and my job is to drive them places so that people can socialize with them. I really can't mind this, actually; I think anyone who esteems my dogs has excellent taste, so I'm content to play chauffeur and second fiddle.

So now I'm sitting here thinking about doing more new stuff and eating leftover Dall chili (which is, if anything, even tastier after a night in the frige). I am all happy because I made my brain try some new things and that clearly must mean I've staved off senility for at least another week. Maybe longer, given the antioxidant content of highbush cranberries (greater even than blueberries).

And have I mentioned...? Dall chili: Goooooood.

The Great Snake Escape

So, while I'm thinking about snakes...

I grew up in the same town as I went to vet school in, and my step-dad was a professor at the University. Some of his research involved him doing fieldwork in the summers, in the caves and deserts of the southwestern U.S and in Mexico. Sometimes he (plus or minus a sibling or my mother, who would sometimes accompany him) would return with the unexpected: Handwoven woolen blankets form Mexico, beads and T-shirts from Oaxaca, a pillowcase full of bats brought back to establish a research colony. The bats were my favorite - all except the time when I opened the refrigerator to discover that several of them were wandering around loose inside. But that's another story.

One of the things my step-dad brought back from the field was a Sonoran bull snake. She was a beautiful patterned creamy gold and chocolate, spotted along her back and sides. Less wedge-shaped of head than a rattler, she could none the less, when threatened, flatten her head til it looked remarkably like that of a pit viper. Combined with a rattling hiss, an S-shaped striking posture and the rapid vibration of her tail, she could strengthen her rattler impersonation impressively - and did, until she became used to us. She was around three or so feet long when she first came to us. I'm not sure why my step-dad decided to bring her back, but she arrived cozily tucked up in a pillowcase knotted shut to keep her in. We were not allowed to handle her at first, in order not to stress her too much. My step-dad told us she wasn't a dangerous species - she could certainly strike and bite, if pressed, but had no venom - but she was to be allowed time to adjust before we handled her. A subgroup of the gopher snakes, she was of a robust breed, a constrictor that in the wild subsisted on mice, rats, gophers and other small rodents - although birds and eggs might also be eaten. The observation that bull snakes and rattlers rarely live in close proximity gave rise to the speculation that they might also eat baby rattlesnakes for breakfast (and let me tell yuo, this is not a job for wimps.) However, whether or not that is true, it is (apparently) true that where bullsnakes prosper, rattlers are rare.

We set her up in a large aquarium with a heat lamp, some rocks and coarse sand for landscaping, and a water dish made from the deep lid of a canning jar (which she frequently knocked over as she moved from basking spot to resting spot.) I will say she seemed to accept this change in circumstance with a minimum of fuss, being by and large a placid, easy-going sort of snake. If you put your hand into the cage to stroke her, she might merely flick her forked tongue at you, or she might lift her head and begin to twine about your arm. Certainly if you took her out, she'd wrap herself around you in a leisurely sort of fashion, looping around your arm or slipping her head between the buttons of your shirt to try to wrap about your waist. It's hard to say if she enjoyed being stroked along the sinuous line of her body, but she at least seemed to like it; she didn't shy from it, at any rate, and sometimes appeared to seek it by bringing her head near someone's hand. But perhaps she was just tasting our scents with her quick black tongue.

She was pleasant to touch, at any rate. Her scales were sleek and smooth as lacquered wood, and the incised overlapping pattern of them had a pleasing texture under our fingertips. She had a leisurely way of crawling along one's arm, and her muscular embrace was surprisingly satisfying in some visceral way. I find that one hard to explain, but it falls into the same category as the pleasure of feeling the strong, curved muscle along the crest of a horse or the rounded weight of my Finn-dog's thigh pressed against my toes when he lays at my bare feet. There's a pleasure in feeling the thoughtless vitality of other creatures, expressed even in stillness. Perhaps it reminds us of our own energies, rooted in every microscopic cell, inescapable no matter how banked they may be under the layers of civilization. We are, at the core of it, animals. All the sophistication in the world cannot erase the knowledge, echoing in our bones, that however unlike us they may be, these creatures are our brothers.

And so it was - for me, at least - with Missnake. As scaleless and warmblooded and hair-bearing as I am, I felt some kinship with her, and marvelled at her differences even as I felt our similarities. Hers was not the same sort of interaction as you'd get with a dog or a cat, but it had its own distinct pleasures none the less. Sometimes we took her for "walks" inside the house. It wasn't really a walk, since snakes have no legs (I know! Amazing!), but we'd hold onto the end of her tail and let her crawl around exploring the floors with us scooting along in her wake, bent double to let her use as much of her body as possible, gripping only the last inches of her tail. She was surprisingly fast on a level surface, so holding onto her tail was a necessity, lest she escape and find her way into some heating duct from which she could not be rescued.

She was fed a diet consisting mainly of mice. Since she wasn't doing her own hunting and was fed regularly, it wasn't that long before Missnake (a thoroughly unsuitable name, I thought, but it wasn't up to me) was approaching 5 feet in length. About the time she passed the 4.5 foot mark she became noticeably stronger, presumably in consequence of both increased girth and the increased length to leverage it. We'd wake up in the morning to find that the lid of her aquarium - which was constructed fairly heavily of pine firring strips and hardware cloth - had been shifted in the night.

My room was on the same floor as hers, very near where her aquarium rested, so often enough it was me who woke in the morning to discover that she'd shifted the lid sometime in the night. We tried weighting it with various items - a rock, a brick, a volume of Encyclopedia Britannica -but Missnake (shudder, that name) was both long enough and strong enough now that the inevitable happened. One night she managed to push aside the lid of her cage, volume XIV (W through Z) of the Encyclopedia Britannica notwithstanding. I woke up to see the lid askew and Missnake absent and unaccounted for.

Naturally I alerted the troops (parents and assorted siblings) and we searched the house. The house being three stories and 19 rooms, not counting closets, crawl space, attic, garage and various storage bins and cubbies, built-in and otherwise), this took some time - but we were, in the event, unsuccessful. We found not hide nor hair - nor scale nor scute - of her.

There was of course the possibility that she'd made it out of the house and gone walkabout (crawlabout? Slitherabout?) out in the countryside of Northern Colorado all on her lonesome. I'd have been sad about that; she was a nice snake, the name notwithstanding (and that was hardly her fault, after all), and I would have worried about her. (I know this is foolish - she came from the wild in the first place, and managed fine without us - but you know how it is. You take care of something, pet it and admire it, stroke its smooth lacquered scales and feel its sinuous muscularity hugging your arm, you get attached.)

On the other hand, the bull snake is the natural enemy of the rattler, so maybe if she'd escaped she might have saved me a certain amount of near-cardiac arrest later in life.

Still and all, we wanted to find her, so Steps Were In Order. My mother, who I will point out is no dummy, had a little think on the subject. First order of business, she figured, was to determine whether or not Missnake was still in the house. Accordingly she set up a handy Snake Motion Detection scheme. Bear in mind that this was back in the 1970's (Yes! I AM so old I'm almost mummified, why do you ask?) and the idea of using nanny cams and so on was not yet even a twinkle in some engineer's eyes. We were low-tech in those days - but creative, for all that, and my mom (having had to devise means of surviving the chaos of having more or less accidentally produced a large number of offspring possessed of varying amounts of abundant and unrestrained energy, not to mention a certain slant for the nefarious -and here I'm not mentioning any names, but I'm looking at you, MaskedMan!)... where was I? Oh, yes. My mom, as a matter of self-preservation, had had plenty of practice in the use of her creative talents. Being a logical sort, she figured that (being as how she was a snake and all) Missnake could not move from one room to the next without dragging her length along the floor. Hence the Snake Detection System: a line of flour sprinkled across the threshold of every room in the house. In the morning, every flour line was inspected for telltale drag marks. Every evening, it was repaired from the scuffs and disturbances of having five children, a dog and a cat traipsing about the house.

It was soon apparent, from a smear of flour between the family room and the utility room, that Missnake was indeed still in the house. Based on the direction of flour drag, the utility room -with its built-in cubbies and laundry bins and boot box and closet - was thoroughly inspected, without good result. Flashlights were shined into and under every likely and unlikely spot, but no luck: Missnake seemed to have been taking lessons from Mata Harri, and was nowhere to be found.

This state of affairs continued for several days. Then, at last, a break in the case: My mother, alone at home after the rest of the inmates were off variously at school or work, happened into the utility room, intent on doing some laundry, and chanced to look at the washing machine just in time to see the end of Missnake's tail disappearing under the edge.

Too late to grab her, my mom got down on the floor and pressed her eye to the space under the machine, just in time to see the shadow of the long, muscular body working its way up along the barrel of the washer. Concluding that Missnake had found a handy perch up near the top of the barrel, Mom got to her feet and inspected the top of the washer. Clearly the solution was to take the top off the washing machine, but how?

Well, the obvious first move was to call Sears (it was a Kenmore washer) and talk to their service department. Accordingly, Mom dialed them up and was soon on the line with one of the service technicians.

"Hi. I have a Kenmore washing machine," my mom began, relaying the make and model to the tech. "I need to know how to take the top off of it."

There is a pause. "Why do you want to know, lady?" asks the technician (or words to that effect, presumably wondering what kind of crackpot he has on the phone. Someone who wants to use their machine for making illegal hooch, perhaps? Or maybe someone newly arrived from living in a cave, who doesn't understand how to operate a washing machine? Or perhaps some foolish do-it-yourselfer, who is unaware that Sears would happily send someone to the house to service the machine?)

"Because our five-foot-long bull snake just went up inside the machine and is currently wrapped around the barrel, and I'd like to get her out," my mom says, with some asperity.

"Oh," says the technician, his demeanor shifting abruptly away from suspicious and skeptical and towards direct and businesslike. "Well, you'll need a Phillip's head screwdriver. The first thing you'll want to do..." and he proceeded to give clear instructions in an orderly fashion.

Strangely, he did not offer to drive right out, take the machine apart and extract the snake himself. I can't think why not.

However, my mom was more than equal to this task, and we all arrived home from school that day to see Missnake resting comfortably under her heat lamp, with four volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica and a cinder block stacked atop the lid of her aquarium. Mom regaled us with her adventures of the day, we all pressed our grubby little noses to the glass of the aquarium and welcomed Missnake back (offering her a celebratory mouse as a welcome home present), and harmony reigned. Until I had a thought.

"But what if she gets loose again?" I said.

"Don't worry. Your step-dad is going to make a better lid for the aquarium this weekend. Aren't you, dear?" she said, with emphasis. My step-dad agreed that yes, indeed, he would absolutely love to do that, giving the impression that he had in fact been longing for such an opportunity and was only too thrilled to be provided with an excuse to engineer something of the sort.

I don't recall exactly what modifications were made, but I do recall that the lid to the aquarium was a lot bulkier after that.

That was Missnake's last Walkabout in the house. After a couple of years, when she was as large and robust a snake as a steady diet of mice could make her, my step-dad was again going back to her neck of the woods for another field season. It was decided that it was time for Missnake's tenure in our household to come to an end. Her aquarium was getting to be too small to accomodate her powerful length, and she seemed increasingly interested in escaping to go exploring. Accordingly, she was tenderly cuddled up again and carefully transported back to the desert of the southwest, where she was returned to her old stomping (or slithering) grounds, robust and healthy and ready to terrorize the diamondbacks of Arizona.

I imagine she's long gone to dust, but I remember her fondly. I was never afraid of snakes, but she taught me to appreciate them in more immediate and personal terms, and for that I thank her even now. She left behind her other lessons, as well: how to walk a snake, build a snake detection system, and get the top off a Kenmore washing machine, amongst them. Not to mention that if you should wish to contain a determined reptile, it will take at least four volumes of the Encylopedia Britannica to do so.

They do say knowledge is power, and I guess that's proof, of a sort. But it might also be proof that the stubborn vitality of life will continue to rise up when least expected and push aside any number of layers of knowledge and sophistication to have its way. There's a certain loveliness to that, a reassurance that settles in the pit of my being, an anchor against the more disheartening tides of the modern world. No matter what we do, life will have its way - and keep on having its way, no matter how we try to keep a lid on it.

Not a bad legacy for one little snake.