I should be studying Spanish, but I’ve been working on that for a while now, on and off, for the past few hours, and I’m bored with it. I get bored with it too easily, I think, and I wish it weren’t so.

Here I am though, talking about stupid shit. First up is the fact that I finished the other of the Octavia Butler novels, Parable of the Talents. The woman could definitely hold the reader. It is too bad she died recently, but I think that is why the works came to my attention. Anyway, the books talk about a black girl born about 10 years from now, and grows up in a small community surrounded by a formidable wall. The community is partially self sufficient, and occasionally the residents have to protect themselves from homeless predators outside their walls.

The girl grows up in the household of her preacher father, but she strays and develops her own set of postulates that define the lives of humans in general. She calls them simply ‘truths’, and the first is that her ‘god’ is simply change. She builds on that as she goes through life, fleeing from the vandals that finally overwhelm the community, and picking up followers as she travels. They endure alternating bouts of hardships and relative easy living as the author tells about her version of where our country could be headed with some of our current popular religions. She doesn’t necessarily attack specific religions, but gives ideas as to how individuals could distort teachings to their own purposes. The book, which was supposed to be the second of a larger series, was the last she wrote I think, and was published in ’98. There are definite criticisms of the current administration, how dangerous it could get if a religious fanatic were elected to the white house from a deeply religious campaign. In the end her story ends up with her followers making the first tentative reach for interstellar destinations to expand the home of the human race to more than one world.

I have also started Getting To Know the General, but I think I’ve mentioned that. I’m just about halfway done, and there isn’t much in the way of deep insight concerning General Torrijos… not yet anyway. So far a more apt title would be Getting To Know the Sergeant, because everything has been about Graham Greene’s time spent with Sergeant Chuchu, the head of the national guard. They do a lot of drinking, and the Sergeant does a lot of womanizing. There is a little information about the canal zone and the treaty, but not much. Maybe the second half will be better.

We got a new dog already. I have Spanish class with a lady that knew we put the lab to sleep. She mentioned knowing someone that knew someone that was giving away a Bichon Frisé. (This is pronounced BEE-zchawn free-ZAY, which is debatable, just look on the internet) This is how the conversation went…

Are you sure you don’t want a dog? I know someone at the school that knows someone giving away a bichon freeze.

Is it bichon frisé?

Is that how it’s pronounced?

I’m pretty sure, my wife has been researching that breed because they are small, don’t shed and don’t smell. Just the kind of dog I would prefer. How old is the dog?

It’s about four months old.

Really? What’s wrong with it?

(laughing) That was my first question. Apparently there is nothing wrong with it, the owner just can’t keep it for some reason. They did say that it was taking medicine for something, but I don’t know what.

I guess I gotta call my wife on this one. They are just giving it away?

Yep

That’s hard to believe, they are expensive dogs.

So I called my wife, and she said she would be willing to at least look at the dog. She didn’t want to get another at least until the kids were out of school, which isn’t for a few more years. We made arrangements to see it the next day, and my wife picked it up the day following that. The story behind the dog seems complicated. The owner called me to arrange for my wife to see the dog, and he said he acquired it because of a combination of alcohol mixed with a sudden feeling of altruism. His kid’s school was having an auction fundraiser, and the dog was donated by a pet store. Since then he has had to part with his ‘friend’ he was staying with, who has three dogs of her own, and who was holding the dog for him.

Because of all this the dog has had little if any housebreaking training. The medicine was for what they call ‘kennel cough’, and it’s already gone; the medicine, not the cough. A friend of mine says it’s a girl’s dog, after I sent him pictures. It is a nice but strange dog. At times he seems lazy, but he still does the ‘racetrack’ that owners attest to all over the internet. He will get excited and then run around the living room, or the yard, and just go round and round. After many laps he will lay down and pant, looking very pleased with himself.

My wife still can’t believe they gave it to her for free. Some of it I think is the housebreaking, it should be over by now but the dog doesn’t care where he lets loose. So, we are crate training it and he spends most of his time in the yard, in the crate, or penned in the kitchen with someone watching. My wife thinks he’s learning; she had the door open the other day to the back yard and the dog went to the corner of the yard and took a dump on his own. At least it seems he has a favorite spot for voiding the colon, which is a good thing. There is a dog door going in by the end of the month, that may help.