I LOVE CRASH! and other things you’ll hear me say…
There he is. My best friend. The love of my life. The little being you will hear me talk about ad nauseum and the little being whose picture I show to everyone I meet. I have shown his picture to so many people, I can’t remember them all. And when I get home each day I tell him about everyone I showed his picture to. His name is Todfield Crash!, or Crash! for short. If you are unfamiliar with his breed, he’s a Border Terrier. He has a page on Dogbook and he has an Official Fan Club with 107 members, so far.
None of this has anything to do with this post, but I tell EVERYONE how much I love Crash! so I thought I would start with that.
I just wanted to say that I am going through each post one by one to reformat. I have to recover my mailing list… and get a site redesign. And a bunch of other things. Slow and steady wins the race (thing #2 you’ll always hear me say). And by the time the race is over, I hope my site will be EXACTLY what I want…
But for now, I’m off to Amsterdam… (thing #3 you’ll always hear me say…I’m off somewhere. I can’t sit still!)
How I Almost Died (this time)
It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I (1) *LOVE* the United States of America and (2) find living in my current country of residence as comfortable as a cheap polyester suit, two sizes too small in 100 degree weather. For this reason, I try to live in my own little moving USA bubble via the internet, social networking, a US standard keyboard, and all that 21st century stuff that they don’t have here, or that costs 10x as much here as it does in any other part of the world. My Monday round up is Meet the Press, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Car Talk, The Splendid Table, KCRW Good Food, This American Life, Fresh Air, and so on. Tuesday is 60 minutes, The Moth, and various photography podcasts and other NPR podcasts. Obviously I don’t get through those in one day, but it’s what I listen to on my daily commute to and from work. Two weeks ago, the This American Life episode (#380) called “No Map” (A show about people who find themselves well off the beaten path at least in any way they could have anticipated…), and opened with a story by a policeman who was telling of something that happened to him as a rookie. He was called out to a scene in the summer time to a turned over van to find a man holding the hand of a chimpanzee on the side of the road dressed in a red sweatshirt, jeans, and shoes. They were being yelled at by the homeowner whose lawn the van had come to rest on. The man told his story– The chimp had been strapped in the passenger seat of the car with the seat belt, and the lightning and thunder of the storm scared the chimpanzee. He jumped out of his seat, grabbed the driver and threw him to the back of the van and took the wheel. The man told the police officer, “He was doing really well, then he lost control of the van.” The police officer asked, “The CHIMPANZEE lost control of the van?? At what point was the chimpanzee ever in charge of this thing??” and the man responded, “Listen it’s not my fault! The chimpanzee had the accident!!!”
WELL. Monday morning rolled around and I was listening to Meet the Press as I left my home around 0630. Our gate is not automatic, so you have to get out, open the gate, drive through, get out, close the gate, and get back in the car. The end of the driveway is on an incline and curves up to the street, and I had just driven through. I stopped on the street which is perpendicular to the access to our driveway, and got out, leaving the car running, but in neutral, and with the handbrake engaged. Underneath and around the closure of the gate is really fine gravel and some concrete which is a little slick. I slip there ALL the time. And last Monday, I slipped and fell. As always, up until that point I was looking at the ground, and listening to the iPod. I fell as I was closing the gate (which is broken by the way, so there’s no latch and it has to be blocked with a rock so it won’t open by itself. I hadn’t gotten to the rock part yet…). As I put my hands down to get up, I looked up and noticed that the handbrake on the car had not caught and the car was rolling down the hill toward me. I hadn’t heard the soft sound of the car on the gravel slowly rolling backwards, gaining momentum.
As I tried to get up, I fell again because I couldn’t get any traction in the gravel. I tried again and then started to panic as the car neared. Finally, I gave up and just rolled to the side and out of the way as the car passed, like Jennifer Garner in Alias after putting C4 underneath some van in a parking garage. As I jumped to my feet and watched the car roll past, the image of a little chimp with a red sweatshirt, jeans and tennis shoes popped into my head. I beat on the hood of the car as it passed, like that would encourage it to stop on its own… And it just rolled back, smashing into the 2 foot high retaining wall, lodging one wheel behind it, after busting through some of the 20 pound bricks, and leaving the other wheel off the ground. The only thing keeping it from smashing through the neighbor’s fence and continuing through their yard and into the other neighbors’ yard (the jerks) was a big bush. Usually I curse when I slip and stumble there, but this time, it saved my life. Had I not fallen, the car would have just run me over, and I would have been none the wiser.
Rattled, dusty, sore, running late and still rewinding the “I’m either going to die or break a leg” nanosecond of true fear, I walked all the way back to the house and rang the doorbell a million times. My sidekick came to the door in his sleeping clothes and I burst into tears and screamed, “I ALMOST DIED!!! I FELL DOWN!! GO PUT ON SOME PANTS YOU HAVE TO HELP ME MOVE THE CAR!” and he went upstairs and changed into sweatpants and flip flops and came downstairs. Still crying I screamed “YOU HAVE TO PUT ON SHOES! YOU HAVE TO HELP ME! I’M LATE!” Now, why it is in crisis situations like this, and after traumatic experiences people insist on going ahead with their plans, instead of focusing on what has happened, I’ll never know. But remember, I was well off the beaten path at least in any way I could have anticipated. Still groggy from sleep, he grabbed a set of keys and followed me out of the door. I yelled, “I have keys!!! HELP ME!!!” and he turned around, went inside, came back out and closed the door.
When we got up the drive way, all he could see was a little car sticking out of the bushes half way, with one wheel off the ground. He put his hand on his head, and one on his hip and turned around and looked at me with tears streaming down my face trying not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation and said, “I know I’m not supposed to laugh, but HOW IN THE *&^% did you do this???” and I said, “I FELL DOWN! I ALMOST DIED! THE CAR SMASHED INTO THE BUSHES! I AM LATE HELP ME!!!” and he got in the car and tried to move the car, but the wheels just spun. Still apparently hysterical, I screamed at him that one of the wheels was off the ground, and that he’d have to get in the bushes and move all of the bricks from the wall out of the way so that the car could get out. He got out. Put both hands on his hips and scowled at me. He walked to the other side of the car and bent down to look at the car half suspended on the wall, stood up and looked at me again and said, “I can’t believe you.” and I screamed “Now isn’t the time for questions! I almost died!!! I ALWAYS help you without asking questions!!! YOU CAN’T BE MAD AT ME BECAUSE I FELL AND ALMOST DIED!!” So he got in the bushes, heaved a lot of bricks out of the way, cursing the whole time, got back in the car, smashed on the accelerator and freed the car, driving it up to the street and pulling the handbrake so hard I thought he’d rip it out of the car. He got out, pointed at me and said, “I want my wall back in place.” I thanked him, reminded him again that I almost died, and drove off. I was only about half a mile away when I realized that I had two sets of keys, mine and the spare, and turned around to go back. I honked at the gate and he came back. I hung my arm out of the car window and he pulled his set of keys out of his pocket and said, “When you told me to leave them, I thought ‘Yeah, and what if she drives off and leaves me locked out.’ You need to clean yourself up. You’re all dirty and your face is streaked.” I said, “But I remembered to come back. And you shouldn’t be mad at me, because I almost died. The car was up on the street, and as I was closing the gate, I fell down and kept slipping. I almost died!” When I got to work and unpacked my bag and saw the coconut cake that I had brought for my colleagues– the only reason I was even going into the office to begin with, instead of going straight to meetings, I saw that my poor cake had almost died too. It had cracked right down the middle from the trauma.
Post script: It’s ok if you laugh. When I replay the incident in my head, I laugh, too, but only after I think about how I was doing really well for a while, and then lost control of the car and almost died. And yes, for all of you of my generation, in addition to thinking of myself as a chimpanzee who lost control of my car, I also thought of myself as the old woman on the MedAlert commercial who had FALLEN and COULDN’T GET UP!!!
Post post script: My sidekick called me later in the day to see how I was feeling and told me that he wasn’t mad at me that morning, he was just still groggy. He hadn’t understood when I was screaming that the car rolled backwards from the street, and that I had fallen down when closing the gate, he thought I fell getting out of the car. He said he slips there all the time, too. Then he asked if he could tell all his friends about how I rolled out of the way of a moving car to save my life, like in an action movie…
Starting Over
A friend once listed to me the top ten list of the most difficult challenges that a person can face in their lifetime. The end of a long term relationship, changing homes, changing jobs, the death of a loved one were all on the list. The destruction of 4 years worth of a website was not on the list. It should be.
Someone from a US based domain hacked my previous threelayercake website on 7 May. The infection in the joomla files was so widespread, I had to scrap it and start over. Hopefully, I will have the chance to bring all of the old content to archive it here, but I took the opportunity to switch over to WordPress using a free template (for the time being) until I can get the hang of the control panel and figure out how this all works.
I realize I’m getting old because just the thought of starting over and learning all this after five years of doing the Joomla route is not exciting. So hopefully within the next couple of days I’ll be able to repost my last post from the old site or something similar…and get started.
Don’t ask “You don’t have back ups?” Because I kind of do, but it’s complicated…and it’s kind of why you should really despise hackers and all those people out there who are confickering their way into your lives and your pockets without you knowing. Because it’s a rat race that you can’t really win. You can only hope that wherever you are, you limit your vulnerability as much as possible. This may ultimately include having some sort of insurance on your “stuff”, like your bank account and other things of this nature which are the ultimate goal of these hackers. It’s so much more of a threat than Y2K, but without all the stockpiling of water and meals-ready-to-eat.
Anyway, bear with me as I learn. I hope the new site will be exactly the aesthetic I was looking for, with a greater emphasis on photography. And as I work to get it all into place, I am also working on my LiveBooks portfolio site. So…sometime, somewhere, I’ll be up and running. Watch this space.
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Easter in Dog Town
Easter in
Dogtown
Crash!’s injuries had healed up well and rather quickly by the time Easter came. Coming from a non-religious family, though, Easter would prove to be a day like any other. The only big excitement for Easter this year was that Crash! and Zizou were taken to see Crash!’s groomer and oldest Italian friend, Gianfranco.
Gianfranco and Crash! go way back to the days when Crash! was a grooming model and helped Gianfranco and his team win grooming awards in and around Rome. In fact, Crash!’s presence at these shows helped raise his notoriety
beyond the confines of his neighborhood. In addition to the regulars at the coffee sh
ops and food stores, in any pet store in which Crash! entered, people stopped and looked and said, “That’s CRASH!” They remembered how radiant a
personality he had on the grooming table. He was never too busy to stop and greet any and all of his fans, or anyone who made eye contact with him for that matter. He couldn’t walk one city block without finding someone to give the dog’s equivalent of a high-five.
Of course Crash!’s popularity and cuteness got on Zizou’s nerves. She was a very attractive dog as well and drew effusive compliments everywhere she went. “What beautiful eyes you have! What a beautiful coat you have! How well behaved you are!” She never tired of hearing them. But it just wasn’t the same as when people fawned all over Crash!. Sometimes, she just wanted to box his cute little
button face in, especially when he was fresh from the groomers and was admittedly too cute for words. Sometimes, she did box his face in. It gave her great satisfaction even if it meant a big fat time out.
On this uneventful Easter Sunday, Crash! and Zizou enjoyed a trip to the field behind Dog Town, where they could run freely and feel the breeze in their newly trimmed (or stripped, in Crash!’s case)
hair. Zizou enjoyed barreling up and down the field, a menace to anyone or thing in her path. Crash! teetered along behind her, making up in quick wit what he lacked in speed. They loved this field for the variety of smells and flora it provided. There was a stream, a very tight thicket, a field where the farmers collected wild salad greens, a porcupine den, and there were many resting places for boars.
The day was so uneventful, they took two runs in the field, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, being very careful not to mess up their fresh and clean coiffure and retired to bed. They loved the country surrounding Dog Town as much as they loved Dog Town. Their next big outing, they knew, was the beach. And in May, when it was officially open, they’d be primped, car tuned up, and their new GPS navigation system tuned in (a Christmas present from their family to ease the pressure on Crash! when he and Zizou drove around town). They wouldn’t get lost again, like they did last year…
Crash! and Zizou get Attacked
Formello Chronicles Chapter 5
Crash! and Zizou get attacked
It seemed like such a nice neighborhood, that one surrounding Dog Town. Crash! and Zizou never had any problems when they went out on their afternoon walks down the street, past Artù’s house. In the opposite direction toward the jackasses who stole some things from Dog Town (and foolishly left them on display in the front yard). And finally, down the street and around the corner to see Juan, a name Crash! and Zizou gave to a little friendly beagle who has a huge yard, and personally patrols all of it, sometimes leaving his grounds to play down at Dog Town. Between Juan and Dog Town was a big Mean Dog, a Pit Bull mix, who always barked viciously and threw himself against the fence, tried to dig through the hedge, and just kept up a BUNCH of noise whenever Crash! and Zizou passed.
One day in mid-January, just a week after Crash!’s uneventful ninth birthday, their image of living in a nice neighborhood changed. In the evening, around 7PM, they set out to go call on Juan. They were accompanied by Papà, who had them on their leashes. Papà had a walkie talkie in his pocket so that he could keep in touch with Mamma. It never occurred to Papà to take a weapon with him because while he found his neighbors to be utterly idiotic, he had made friends with most of the animals around. But shortly after leaving Juan’s gate, he was surprised by the big mean ugly dog. He had managed to jump out of his yard and had sneaked up on them, not even Crash! and Zizou had heard him.
In the blink of an eye, a fight broke out. Zizou only lasted a couple of seconds in combat before she slipped from her collar and hid behind Papà. Crash!, just as he had done when the Boar got after Zizou, went to defend Zizou but was immediately snapped up. The dog, roughly five times Crash!’s weight and size, grabbed Crash! in his mouth and began to clench his teeth. Papà radioed to Mamma. MAY DAY! MAY DAY! ENEMY ATTACK! But Mamma could not decipher the crackling noise on her walkie talkie. She radioed back four times REPEAT! OVER! completely unaware of what was happening on the other end of the radio. Crash! screamed out in pain, and Papà began to fight with the Mean Dog. As the dog’s grip tightened, Papà yelled for help and began to wrestle with the dog. (I think Davy Crockett did something similar with a bear.) No one came to help. He was ultimately forced to choke off the dog’s air supply in order to free Crash! who would surely have died had the fight continued. Crash! rolled free, and Papà took the Mean Dog to his gate and returned him to his owners, new members of the neighborhood jackass association. Papà radioed to Mamma on his way back from battle with Crash! and Zizou in tow.
When Papà came through the door, Mamma was a bit taken aback. Papà and Crash! were dripping in blood, and a few tufts of Crash!’s hair were falling off of him. Zizou was unscathed. WHAT IN THE MERDE HAPPENED? Papà just said “Call the vet! We were attacked!” A few minutes later, Crash! was up on the exam table. The vet cut some hair away from Crash!’s side to reveal a nasty cut. He had been seriously wounded in the fight, and the muscles there on his side had been ripped. Mamma almost passed out at the thought of Crash! being hurt and bleeding. (Only the blood betrayed Crash!’s injury, his disposition was as cheery and energetic as ever.) The vet advised that Crash! should be revisited after twenty days to see whether surgical intervention would be necessary to repair the damage inflicted by the Mean Dog. Crash! was injected with a pain-killer and carried back home, where he was lovingly laid to bed to convalesce. Poor Crash!
Kind notes of sympathy and many phone calls poured into Dog Town from as far away as America enquiring about Crash!’s injuries. He received received a call from the nearby town of Nepi, Centro Lydia to be exact, from two friends, Tickey and Shaka who wished to come over and pay a visit. Alack and alas, they were told that it was too early for Crash! to play, maybe in a few weeks. At least that’s what his family thought. Little did they know that when they weren’t home, Crash! was up and about and running around like mad, he had never been in finer form they would soon discover…
Italy’s Elderly Citizens
Why this woman and others like her are the key to my self esteem
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