Lure Coursing In New Jersey

All the way across the country we called ahead to verify if the motel or hotel accepted dogs. Even with the verification, we were shy about the visibility of The Family Dog. He is, after all, not a tiny little thing. In fact, he has been known to take the breath away from people unfamiliar with the spectre of a huge, one hundred twelve pound dog grinning at eye level.
So tonight, on our final hotel stay, we again called ahead and again were told that dogs were accepted and again snuck The Family Dog in the back entrance just in case.
So intent were we on the 'sneak in' that we didn't notice the van parked at the far end of the lot. Had we been a little less absorbed in subterfuge, we might have wondered about the Rhodesian Ridgeback pictures decorating the outside of the van.
Tonight the Holiday Inn at Somerset, New Jersey, is hosting participants in the North Branch Park Lure Coursing. Lure coursing is a bunch of dogs chasing a mechanical rabbit across a field. According to Wikipedia, lure coursing is usually limited to purebred dogs of sight hound breeds. The Family Dog is not even close to being a purebred, but the breed he most closely resembles, the Rhodesian Ridgeback, is a sight hound. Never mind that The Family Dog usually can't even find a crumb that's dropped off the table, he's feeling pretty happy about the whole thing.
"It's just a great feeling," he says, 'to for once not have to worry about being caught or being too big for the room." Or at least that's what we think he's saying.
Who knows. Once he's more comfortable, he may take up Lure Coursing himself. I think I saw him make a note of it in his Paw Pilot.

We Remember Them

When my Grandmother passed away about twenty years ago I remember my mother telling me that she didn't understand cremation.  "You need a place for your children to visit, a place where they can come and talk to you."  I was pregnant at the time and thought that her words made sense.  She had lost her mother and if she found comfort in visiting her grave, I was happy for her.  

When my mother passed her wishes were to be cremated.  I never did get a chance to talk to her about when and why she changed her mind.  The day after her shiva was over and we took our walk around the block, one of my sisters suggested we visit the cemeteries of both sets of grandparents located in Brooklyn.  This was a harder task than anyone imagined.  Where were the cemeteries?  When was the last time anyone in the family had been there?  What were the plot numbers and did we really want to do this on the coldest day of the year? With a bottle of whiskey and some hard boiled eggs we bundled up and piled in the car.   The first cemetery was well maintained and my father's parents had a dual stone.  Her side of the stone was filled in fifteen years after his.  My dad toasted his parents with the whiskey, ate his egg,  sang a sefardic song and we said Kaddish.  The cold quickly pushed us back in the car and with the help of mapquest, we made it to the my mother's parents cemetery in ten minutes.  After we got directions to the plots, and drove around searching for the numbers to make sense, we gave up and parked.  After what seemed like an eternity, I saw a sign containing the numbers where the plots should have been and so I called for my sisters.  So many of the foot stones were covered in dirt.  They were sunken and the grass had grown over parts of them.  I knelled down with my bottle of water and started to rub and loosen the dirt with my scarf.  My hand was frozen but I didn't care.  There she was and there he was right next door.  I looked up and saw my dad shaking his head.   "I'm glad your mother isn't here to see this.  She never did come here, I guess she was happy with her memories."

Here's To Bumps In The Road

I once watched a movie with a plot even more outlandish than many of the movies I enjoy. This story involved the transporting across country of the most dangerous criminal in recorded history. Of course, he was being transported on a commercial airline and of course everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
I was asked by someone just walking through the room why the the world's most dangerous criminal was being transported on a commercial airline. I was stunned that such a question would even be considered much less verbalized.
"Because," I answered, "if the most dangerous criminal in the world was shackled and strapped into a plane designed only for the transporting of the world's most dangerous criminals nothing would happen and no one would watch the movie."
I was thinking of that movie today and considering bumps in the roads we travel. Journeys with bumps in the road are called adventures. Without the bumps those journeys are just called going from one place to another.

Dog Days

There is something about a sign reading "Keep Dogs On Leash" that compels certain people to let their dogs run free. We are currently encamped in a lovely, peaceful apartment with the luxury of a designated dog area. It's a nice area with benches and grass and wood chips and flowers. And boxers and pit bulls running free and easy.
"Please leash your dog," I said to the woman who was talking on her cell phone while her really big, grey pit bull, drool pooling on the ground behind his paws, raced toward the family dog.
The woman continued to chat as her beast drew nearer, steam rising from his nostrils.
"Put your dog on a leash!" I shouted.
She looked at me as though I spoke an ancient language unknown to most of the civilized world and continued her conversation.
"There will be a terrible fight here in a couple of seconds," I said through clinched jaws, "And it won't be between these two dogs."
"I'll get back to you," said she to her celled companion and flipped closed her phone.
As three sets of teeth bared, mine being the third, she leashed her dog and began the arduous task of dragging him away from the family dog, whose lip was still curled ready for the melee. As she left the pet area, the pit bull human glanced over her shoulder perhaps to make certain that she had really been asked to obey the fifty or so signs posted in the pet area not requesting but demanding that dogs be kept on leashes.
Escaping from that potential disaster, I started to lead the family dog out of the pet area when the gate opened and three more dogs were let off of their leashes.
We found another exit and left before teeth were bared and before fur flew.
Apparently it really is a dog eat dog world.

Sand

It came out of nowhere.  Her e mail and his leaving.  two week after their 18th anniversary and two day before their children's birthdays, he made an announcement on their way home from a funeral.  "I'm not happy", he said.  "Funny", she responded, "I thought we were."  This kind of news travels through family and friends with a disbelief that leaves everyone speechless and frightened.  What you thought was solid ground was nothing more than sand.  "He's already got a place in town", she relayed with little emotion.  The shock that her best friend had betrayed her was too painful to permit herself to feel.  I talked to people who had been with them on the holiday and they saw nothing to suggest that there was discontent.  It was all hidden, even from her.  We all thought that if anyone would outgrow the other it would be her.  His mother cried through the festive meal...now we know why.

Landmarks

Jersey City is an easy place to get lost. At least Jersey City is an easy place for me to get lost. I generally have the same destination from trip to trip. The route to that destination either changes or my ability to follow directions changes. Either way I frequently get lost in Jersey City. One possible explanation for that on going difficulty emerged yesterday when I discovered that in a very close area there are two intersections of Grove and Newark Streets. I wasn't lost, really, I was just at the wrong intersection. Amazing how two streets could intersect twice. Some cities are like that. It seems as though the original city planners conspired against visitors. Take Rock Springs, Texas, for example. The Rock Springs in my childhood was a really small town. To me, though, it was huge. I walked out of some store or other and became completely disoriented. It took me a forever of wandering and asking and weeping before I found the home of my Great Aunt Vera. She explained to me the importance of landmarks. "Always find something that stands out," she said. "The tallest mountain or building or a water tower or something interesting. The important thing is to always know where you are in relationship to your landmark."
Jersey City has never gotten the best of me. I always wander around until I stumble into my destination.
Lately, though, I've been thinking a lot about my Great Aunt Vera's advice and the value of landmarks.
They not only help us find our way. They help us to remember who we are.
I'm going to be thinking a lot about my soul's landmarks and about the wisdom of a Texas pioneer who throughout her life never lost track of who she was.

Destination - Monday

Hotels or motels along the highway have an astonishing similarity. Members of various chains, they became interchangeable including the water under the shower tray which left a kind of soft feeling under the feet. The dog must have wondered why we rode around in a car for long days and then always wound up in the same place.
Sometimes I wonder that myself about other life events. On this trip we knew we were moving along.
That's one advantage of road trips over everyday living.
On road trips we have maps to guide us and warn us of hazards or delights along the way.