Miss Hobbs Still Doesn't Like Gregg...

Gregg was convinced Miss Hobbs needed to be checked out by the vet right away and was especially concerned about fleas after our experience with quarantine. I watched her carefully and didn't see any scratching or feel any lumps below the skin indicating irritation from bites. Nonetheless, I took Hobbs in the next available day and they told me it would be expensive.

In addition to a full physical exam, they tested her blood and stool. Hobbs is exceptionally healthy for her age and condition. They did de-worm her at the clinic. However, several days later I had to take a stool sample in because she had diarrhea. Just as I suspected, she had coccida. Since she's had this before, the vet put her on a 21-day regimen. It's a liquid suspension this time rather than a pill, so I just pop a towel over her, pry open her jaws, and squirt a little of the syringe contents into her mouth. She makes a token protest but we both know it makes her feel better.

She has annoyed Gregg mightily by urinating on his gym bag. She has done this at least twice. She also urinated on the kitchen floor several times. Gregg initially thought it was because of Sparky, but he went on puppy training papers right in front of the door, not under the hutch where she puddled. I looked on the mentor site at Purina Cat Chow and it appears her problem is most likely stress.

Miss Hobbs is not the friendliest of cats and has been traumatized since kittenhood after getting tangled in a plastic grocery bag. Since she's been back, the whole cat hierarchy has been upset. Considering she spends most of her time hiding out under our bed, I'm not sure what the big issue is amongst the cats. When she does come out from under the bed to walk around all stiff-legged, it's very evident she's an old cat. I wonder if she hasn't suffered from some sort of dementia. Or maybe she's just mad that I didn't try harder to find her.

A New Home for Sparky

After much discussion, Gregg relented and gave me additional time to find another home for Sparky. We made colored flyers to advertise Sparky's wonderful qualities and endearing expression and posted them on Big Navy, the mini-mart, and at the hospital. If I couldn't find someone to take him by the end of the week, I was looking at crating him and sending him to my mom back in the mainland---an expensive proposition, but one much more palatable than GAIN.

We got two calls just four days later. One of the callers worked with me and came by my workspace to find out more details. I drew him a map to our house and hoped for the best. He had a dog back home who weighed 84 lbs and it was too expensive to ship him here. He said he just accepted the fact it would be two years before he saw his dog again. Sparky would help him while he was missing his dog back home.

When I got home that evening, the doggie gates were down. My heart sank just a little. Part of me was so relieved---no more getting up early, no more spending time with the dog instead of my family, and no more conflicted feelings. Except there were still conflicted feelings: part of me was incredibly sad that I failed at loving dogs.

When I walked in the door, my observations were confirmed. Sparky had a new home.

It's a bittersweet feeling. Dogs force you to live in the moment with them. Cats live parallel lives with you. Something can be learned from living with both.

Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

I became the [temporary] owner of a puppy on Tuesday, 15 May.

I was at Isla interviewing Brett Silk for a story on dog bite prevention when this woman pulled up in an SUV, pulled out a cardboard box, brought it in and set it down. She went back to the SUV. We all watched her from the glass doors.

"Does this happen often?" I asked.

"All the time," they said.

I guess the woman had second thoughts about what she was doing, because she returned to the lobby and said, "My son brought this dog home that he found along the roadside. I can't bear the thought of him being hit by a car but I can't keep him. We're moving to South Carolina and I'm taking care of a sick relative."

A moment of silence. Then I, ever hopeful, took a deep breath and said bravely, "Well, I have a credit card. Let's see if he's healthy and take it from there."

Three kinds of people exist in the world: cat people, dog people, and indifferent people. I am definitely a cat person. I thought Gregg was a dog person; he always talked about how he grew up with dogs and said he wished we had a dog. That is, until we actually got one.

The kids were initially very excited about having a dog. However, there is a big difference between having a dog, having a puppy, and having cats.

I had to get up earlier than normal to play with him, feed, and toilet him. When I got home at night, I played with him instead of reading my email or books, or spending time with my family. Working 12-hour shifts meant I didn't spend much time with my children before bedtime anyway. My discretionary time, always scarce, became microscopic.

Sparky, as we named him, adored playing fetch and could play it for hours on end.

Cats, on the other hand, love playing with me and, at about the time I'm getting tired, it seems they feel the same way. Without any obligations or hard feelings, we both move on to other activities. My cats lack the ability to inspire guilt in me, unlike Sparky. So there you have it: the way to get me to do something is use your big brown eyes and guilt me.

Hobbs is Back!

I was talking to Mom on Sunday, 3 June, (late Saturday night her time) when I saw a cat walk across the patio. "Mom, I've got to go---Hobbs just walked by!" I dropped the phone and opened the door. The cat promptly took off running. Hobbs has been missing since late February when the back door blew open after we had gone to bed. Of all the cats, Hobbs was the only one who ran away.

I raced into the beddroom to get my shoes and ran back out, Gregg yelling after me, "If you find the cat and bring her back, the dog is going to GAIN tomorrow." I didn't hesitate.

Now the cat was nowhere to be found. I walked through all my neighbors' backyards calling, "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Come on, Hobbs..." Nothing. I walked until I reached the street. Stopping, I looked around. I did not get the feeling she had crossed the street, and I looked up the street. I thought it unlikely she ran that direction either. I turned back and started walking on the other side of the tree line, still calling out her name.

All of a sudden, I heard her familiar meow. "Hobbs?" I called out again. She meowed in response. We kept the dialogue going until I saw her sitting under a clump of trees, waiting patiently for me to catch up to her.

I carried her home, a feather's weight of fur and bones.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day on Guam is different from anywhere else. This small island, intensely patriotic, unabashedly mourns each and every Son of Guam or the Marianas. Every loss is deeply felt and the rituals of rosaries and military honors are commemorated.

Guam PDN Memorial Day Article

Here is something from one of my Marine buddies:

Memorial Day is their day, isn't it? It is supposed to be the day a grateful nation pauses to quietly thank the more than one million men and women who have died in military service to their country since the Revolutionary War.

Or is it the day the beach resorts kick into high gear for the summer season, the day the strand is covered by fish-belly white people basting themselves in coconut oil, the day the off-season rates end and the weekend you can't get in a seaside seafood restaurant with anything less than a one hour wait.

Or is it one of the biggest shopping center sales days of the year, a day when hunting for a parking space is the prime sport for the holiday stay-at-homers? Or is it the weekend when more people will kill themselves on the highways than any other weekend and Highway Patrol troopers work overtime picking up the pieces?

I think the men and women who died for us would understand what we do with their day. I hope they would, because if they wouldn't, if they would have insisted that it be a somber, respectful day of remembrance, then we have blown it and dishonored their sacrifice.

I knew some of those who died, and the guys I knew would have understood. They liked a sunny beach and a cold beer and a hot babe in a black bikini, too. They would have enjoyed packing the kids, the inflatable rafts, the coolers, and the suntan lotion in the car and heading for the lake. They would have enjoyed staying at home and cutting the grass and getting together with some friends and cooking some steaks on the grill, too. But they didn't get the chance.

They blew up in the Marine Barracks in Beirut and died in the oily waters of the Persian Gulf. They caught theirs at the airstrip in Grenada in the little war everyone laughed at. They bought the farm in the I Drang Valley and on Heartbreak Ridge, Phu Tai and at Hue.

They froze at the Chosin Reservoir and were shot at the Pusan Perimeter. They drowned in the surf at Omaha Beach or fell in the fetid jungles of Guadalcanal. They died in the ice and snow of the Bulge and the Vosges Mountains. They were at the Somme and at San Juan Hill and at Gettysburg and at Cerro Gordo and at Valley Forge.

They couldn't be here with us this weekend, but I think they would understand that we don't spend the day in tears and heart-wrenching memorials. They wouldn't want that. Grief is not why they died. They died so we could go fishing. They died so another father could hold his laughing little girl over the waves. They died so another father could toss a baseball to his son in their backyard while the charcoal is getting white. They died so another buddy could drink a beer on his day off. They died so a family could get in the station wagon and go shopping and maybe get some ice cream on the way home.

They won't mind that we have chosen their day to have our first big outdoor party of the year. But they wouldn't mind, either, if we took just a second and thought about them. Some will think of them formally, of course. Wreaths will be laid in small, sparsely attended ceremonies in military cemeteries and at monuments at state capitols and in small town's squares. Flags will fly over the graves, patriotic words will be spoken and a few people there will probably feel a little anger that no more people showed up. They'll think no one else remembers.

But we do remember. We remember Smitty and Chico, and Davey and the guys who died. We remember the deal we made: If we buy it, we said, drink a beer for me. I'll do it for you, guys.

I'll drink that beer for you today, and I'll sit on that beach for you, and I'll check out the girls for you and, just briefly, I'll think of you.

I won't let your memory spoil the trip but you'll be on that sunny beach with me today.

I will not mourn your deaths this Memorial Day, my friends. Rather, I'll celebrate the life you gave me.

This Bud's for you, brother!

-Author Unknown-

Surfing in the Rain

When it rains in Guam (and it does quite a bit), it can really come down. Harder than anything I've ever seen anywhere else. It is not unusual to get three or more inches in one hour.

The kids, of course, love it. They put on their bathing suits and play in the gutters as they overflow from the deluge. Check out Drew in our most recent downpour. (Click image for full size photo)

The Photographic Son

Anna is jealous that Drew keeps getting his photo published in the local papers. This week he even made the flyer for the Annual Memorial Day Beach Bash...