A Man and His Dog

After a few days of rain, today broke crisp and clear and seemed like the perfect day to grab a 20 minute noon walk with Maury, the dog. I’m not surprised by the rain; after all it is the rainy season, which as near as I can tell runs from about August 15 to June 30 annually. But the sun is shining today so it was a good day to get out and enjoy it. Maury and I took one of our favorite treks, straight up our street and over a canal until we get to a river, and then we walked along a dike above the river until crossing another bridge and heading for home. Along our way today we encountered:

A couple arguing loudly in Dutch who slammed their front door shut when they became aware that we were passing. Some things translate into any culture.

31 sheep. Counting 31 sheep makes me yawn.

Two cows.

One noisy, lonesome duck. I felt a great empathy for him, because I’ve been feeling like a noisy, lonesome duck lately. More on that in my next post.

Two evil, malicious, vile, sneaky, snarling cats.

Ten other dogs. Maury greeted each one with an anxious blend of sniffing, posturing and curiosity, wondering if this is friend or foe. It occurred to me today that he and I are not too much different, except thankfully I don’t do the sniffing (although the pheromone research people say that I do). I’m just much better than Maury at hiding my anxiety.

A woman dressed as a Japanese Geisha on a bicycle. Someone recently told me a great past time here is to play, “What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen on a bike?” This is definitely an entry.

Maury is my steady companion, the only friend I have who greets me every day with fresh enthusiasm. Isn’t there a prayer to the effect of “God, help me be the person my dog thinks I am”? I wrote this poem in Maury’s honor and I hope you enjoy it.

Blessed are the Meek

Sometimes
at five or six am
when I am asleep on my side
you hop on the bed
and lie down spine to spine with me
sticking your head into my pillow
snorting and squirming
into the bouquet of dead skin cells, sweat and hair follicles
you find there.

An unhappy voice comes
from the other side of the bed saying,
he’s rutting on you, you are both disgusting,
STOP IT.

But I like it.
It sort of feels like a massage
and besides
it’s a reminder that,
despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary,
old boy,
there is still a wild beast somewhere deep inside both of us.

Odds and Ends

I need to report that I have a Dutch driver’s license in my wallet! In addition to that, I have a new train identity card. These join my already existing Dutch residency card to make a tri-fecta of cards adorned with the “Worst Picture of Me Ever Taken.”

My dad asked me the other day, “When do you sleep?” I told him that like any normal person I sleep at night and occasionally in the afternoon at my desk. Then I said, “Why do you ask?” He said, “Because you seem to post your blog entries at weird hours.” A little explanation might clear this up. The Google folks that run this blog site are based someplace on the US West Coast and all blog entries are actually posted 9 hours before what the site says. If the math is too hard to figure out, just rest assured that I sleep at night.