A young dog’s fancy

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Cower-no-more

Trentin Quarantino’s
 DOG ALMANACK 
Springtime Edition

The long covid winter is over, and with spring comes the promise of people, places and activities long banned and forgotten! Maybe, for me, it’s also time for blogging again!

Louis, the puppy we so rashly acquired around Christmas, proved such an inescapable drain on my time, brain- and blog-power that I couldn’t get it together enough to write. Our grandchildren are now adults, mostly, and I had completely forgotten the exhausting and sometimes heart-wrenching 24-hour attention one needed to keep babies (of any species) from inadvertently harming themselves or others.

But now, finally, two things have happened to change that: (1) Kathleen, Louis and I have all gotten our species-appropriate vaccinations, so at last we can leave the house and interact with the outside world, and (2) Louis is starting to grow up.

The relationship of dog-years to people-years has been extensively covered in this Almanack [here], but those discussions were all about physiological years. We haven’t discussed psychological dog years.

Louis is six months old, which we at the Almanack are told makes him the psychological equivalent of a “rotten teenager”. Our job has now morphed into watching him 24 hours a day to keep him from intentionally harming himself or others. Just as exhausting, but not as heart-wrenching because he’s a rotten teenager so we don’t care as much.

And Louis is a boy rotten teenager, which means he’s only concerned with two things: eating, and you know.

We’ve lost, or nearly lost, to his bottomless omniverous appetite: several dog beds, human chairs, stuffed toys, hard toys, all our throw rugs, a couple of remotes and my cell phone.

He’s also made “special friends” with all the legs in the house (chair, table, and human) as well as his stuffed animals and dog bed.

We talked to the vet about his manic incessant humping, but she allowed that this isn’t a medical issue—it’s a “lifestyle choice”. Then she gave us more bad news. We had been holding on to our sanity (barely) with the knowledge that when Louis reached six months, it would be time to get him fixed. But the vet said she’d just been to a vet seminar on the topic, and the new current wisdom is that it’s better to wait until he’s ten months, to give his bones time to grow right.

“How much does Louis really need bones?” we pleaded, but she would not be moved. Then she twisted the knife further with the observation that his humping is a learned behavior, which he would probably continue even after he’d been de-oystered. In fact the longer he does it before the cut, she said, the harder and harder the habit will be to break. (HA HA I said “harder”.) (I’m so tired.)

Louis’s favorite paramour is a big, boneless, shag-covered dog bed that makes him feel just right. I should have known better when I bought the thing—in hindsight, it’s so obvious that the product title, “Cozy Calming Bed” is just a thinly-disguised euphemism, like the “happy ending” offered at a certain kind of massage.

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New Dog Products

“COZY” “CALMING” BED

Pamper your pet with our self-warming and “soothing” bed that is finished with a luxurious faux “shag” fur! Paired with deep crevices that allow your pet to “burrow”, your fury kids will have full, restful “sleep” for improved “behavior” and better “health”.

3D PRINTED STEAK

The world’s first slaughter-free ribeye steak has been produced using 3D bioprinting and real cells from a cow. Israeli company Aleph Farms has teamed up with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to cultivate a lab-grown ribeye intended to have the qualities, textures and taste of a real steak without killing an animal. “It incorporates muscle and fat similar to its slaughtered counterpart and boasts the same organoleptic attributes of a delicious tender, juicy ribeye steak you’d buy from the butcher,” Aleph Farms said in a statement.

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Dog Walk Botany
with Professor T. Quarantino, BsD.

POPCORN BUSH. On a walk with Louis I came across what I think must be known as a movie popcorn bush, because that is what its smallish yellow-white blossoms most resemble. God, how I miss movie popcorn! We tried to make our own with some extra fine salt I bought on a quarantine ordering spree and that yellow powder in the Kraft Mac ‘n’ Cheese Box. It was pretty good, but it was more like convenience store popcorn than movie popcorn. (I also haven’t had convenience store popcorn during the Time of Covid, but I don’t miss it as much.)

MAY APPLE. Thanks to eminent biologist and faithful reader Leon Cammen for identifying last week’s mystery plant, a picturesque ubiquitous ground cover boasting up to 9 radially-symmetrical leaves, as the May Apple. Dr Cammen points out that 4-leaf May Apple DNA possess about 40% as much luck as 4-leaf clover, and since a May Apple is much larger than a clover, finding a single 4-leaf May Apple about as lucky as scoring a small handful of 4-leaf clovers! I have yet to see a 4-leaf May Apple on our dog-walks, but my search continues.

Figure 13. Two-, 6-, and 7-Leaf May Apples. (The 2-leaf May Apple, although extremely rare, is unfortunately not lucky. Not that it’s unlucky: the plant is fortuity-neutral, or in botanical terms, “afortunate”.)

GRASS CAKES. If your walk takes you by a newly mowed lawn, you may be lucky enough to see some of these little patties that were ejected by the mower, made up of thoroughly chopped and matted together grass and leaves mixed with a healthy portion of rich loamy soil, and a bit of lawn mower oil to hold it all together. Dogs love these tasty treats.

Grass cakes also enjoyed a period of human vogue when I was young back in the age of Aquarius, providing the basis for the original veggie burgers in the seventies. The ingredient humus is often mistranscribed in modern recipe books as hummus.

Happy Spring all! Louis has been repeatedly been rescuing Kathleen and me from the twin evils of sloth, boredom, and sleep, and with our (and others’) new immune powers we are looking forward to emerging from our covid hibernation and maybe reconnecting with the outside world again. No more cowering-in-place for us, until the next catastrophe. See you then!

Thanks,
Dorn
2-25 April 2021

New Normal

It seems like I am actually in a slow return to ‘normal’. Too bad I forgot what that is! But my first painting of the pandemic was one of Willow representing social isolation and my post vaccination painting is also of Willow. Seeing her in her white overalls and yellow boots (yes, I had a real, in person, grandchild visit!) somehow made me want to paint her as Alice in Wonderland – I guess that can represent the strange world we are trying to emerge from – or is it where we are going? Good luck to all of us as we burst forth and gradually get back to doing whatever it was that we did!

Zoomed Out

In yet another pandemic themed painting, I wanted to register the ‘zoomed out’ feeling of being not just tired of the pandemic in general, but also tired of the ways we now communicate over the internet. Experts say that we get especially fatigued because a lot of the non-visual cues that we usually use to communicate have become much more difficult or impossible to read. The ‘zoomed out’ feeling seemed to be perfectly exemplified by my brother Roal, as recorded in a recent screen shot of a family video chat. That became the subject for this painting. I am really hoping that the time when we can get together again in person is not too far away!!!

Pop’s Paintings

Many people who have been following my Social Isolation journal on Facebook think of my Dad, Pops, a.k.a Quick Carlson, as a poet, but he also has impressive artistic achievement of other kinds. I was amazed the other day, when I was looking for something in his basement, and stumbled upon a map drawer filled with dozens and dozens of his beautiful watercolor paintings from the 80s and 90s. “How come these are just living in a drawer?”, I accused. “Oh, those are my rejects”, said Pops. Maybe time is also the great healer of self-criticism, too, because when I showed him some of the photos I had taken of the paintings he admitted that they weren’t too bad. “There’s enough to have a show”, I said, but he had zero interest in that or in selling any. So, I have turned my attention to getting them to live on the walls of his descendant’s homes by introducing them in the family chat and getting response that way. The scribbly picture above is what I am getting to sort things out. In the meantime, Pops said I could make a 2021 calendar, free for download, for anyone that is interested. It’s done! Get it at

https://thirdagethoughts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Pops-2021-Calendar.pdf

My walls are very full, but I couldn’t resist claiming this one that reminds me of the shore walks that I take so often these days.

Thanks Pops!

Half-mune: cower in place 44

– In which Dorn gets shot.

Preface  


It's REAALLY DIFFICULT to write one of these posts with a puppy underfoot! I can see now why raising babies is a young person's game. You don't get any sleep at all, do you? Even our Louis, who is so much better and smarter than all the other puppies, still only has the bladder the size of a peanut, and has to go out every couple of hours day and night. I haven't slept this poorly since I had to work for a living. No, not even then--it's since we had babies in the house. 

This morning I was taking Louis out for his third walk of the day, and I noticed he was trying to hide something in his mouth. He finally admitted that it was a chewed-up Tootsie Pop. I don't know where he got it--it's been many Halloweens since we had them in the house--and I don't know if he found it all chewed up like that or did it himself. It looked like most of the chocolate center was still present, but I've heard about chocolate and dogs so I worriedly called the vet. 

They weren't worried. "You know that Tootsie Pops don't really have any chocolate in them, don't you? Just chocolate flavor and brown food coloring."  "er, uh, sure, I knew that!"  "Just keep an eye on him and let us know if he vomits or acts funny". He didn't, so I stopped worrying about him and looked up Tootsie Pops to see if I had been lied to all these years. I learned (a) they do have some cocoa in them (a bit more cocoa than salt, which can't be that much), and (b) Tootsie Rolls were invented in 1908 but it took a hundred years for them to be certified Kosher. 




Now here's our story.

Kathleen has a superpower. She can strike up a conversation with a complete stranger, any complete stranger, and within five minutes they are fast friends who have shared all of their deepest secrets, things they might not have told even their spouse. She can build a bond of intimacy over a shared wait in line, a serving of eggs at a greasy spoon diner, or a “shushh” from the presiding librarian. She can learn things from a coworker of mine she met two minutes ago that I hadn’t gleaned in ten years of working side-by-side. (I’m aware that this may also say something about my own super-antipower.)

Kathleen uses her powers only for good, and recently she decided she was going to do some good for herself. Having seen on the news that doses of covid vaccine had started to be available beyond medical professionals, but not finding any mention of it locally, she struck up a phone conversation with one of the staff at her doctor’s office. Within minutes she had built that magic bond, and gleaned that there was some talk of doctors being able to alert the Calvert County Health Department of patients needing (and therefore eligible for) covid vaccination as soon as practicable. Kathleen is immuno-compromised (lupus) so she certainly qualifies, and her new friend promised to nag the doctor until he sent Kathleen’s name in.

When her friend alerted her that the necessary name-dropping to the Health Department had been effected, she began her second campaign. She called up the County Health Department and found someone in the office handling covid who would speak to her. Again within minutes, she made fast friends with that person, who promised to scour the recent communications to the office and, finding Kathleen’s name, she would proceed to nag her boss until he translated this doctor’s request into an appointment to receive the vaccine.

I’ve seen this amazing instant intimacy of Kathleen’s work many times in our years together, but never with so focused a purpose planned from the start and executed so efficiently. Within a couple of days, Kathleen had an appointment to get her first shot, right along with all those people who had conscientious doctors!

Oh hooray! The year-long nightmare might finally be coming to a close! Imagine shopping in a grocery store, being able to pick out the non-damaged fruit from the rejects rather than relying on a staffer there. Being able to go to the dentist, or the hair-cutters! Visiting our grand-kids!!

So last week, we took the trek to get Kathleen her first vaccine shot from the County Health Department, who had cleverly set up a drive-through vaccinarium in a local industrial park.

We were nervous. What if something goes wrong? We double-checked her paperwork and her ID, bundled Louis into the car, and off we went. The lines were relatively short, unlike the Florida horror stories we had seen on TV, and seemed well organized. Louis got a little overwhelmed from all the cars and masked health department workers, and started a non-stop barrage of yapping that made it hard to hear our instructions. At one point I panic-dropped Kathleen’s drivers license, and it quickly scuttled into an unreachable crevice between the front seat and the center console, but fortunately she had another valid ID in her wallet. Disaster averted! And just like that, Kathleen was next in line, and then was receiving her shot, with me sweating anxiously beside her and Louis going apoplectic in the back seat. A brief wait to make sure she didn’t drop dead from the injection, and we’re off for home, mission accomplished!

My own first injection would have to wait another week, mainly because (a) I don’t have Kathleen’s persuasive superpowers, but also because (b) my risk factors weren’t as high as hers, and (c) my doctor’s office seemed less amenable to referring me to the County (although (c) might just be a manifestation of (a)). At one point, my doctor’s office told me that they were expecting a load of vaccine themselves any day, so weren’t referring anybody anywhere else. I observed to them that this sounded like a business decision designed to benefit them rather than a medical decision designed to benefit me, and that finally softened their hearts and they referred me.

Yesterday we did the same drill for my vaccine shot as we had done for Kathleen’s, but without any of the panic. Even Louis seemed laid back in the presence of all the strange cars and people. After all, we were seasoned veterans at this now.

So now we both have had our first of two Moderna vaccination shots, with the second shots (supplies willing) coming in February. What a freeing experience! I feel so much better now after the shot, even though my arm is sore. My confidence that I can re-enter the world is returning. I know intellectually that it will take both shots before I am as immune as modern technology can make me, and further that even the partial benefit I get from one shot will take some time to materialize, but even so!

It’s funny, but my new-found feeling of invincibility actually started when I first received the email inviting me to the vaccinery to get the shot! Just because there’s no scientific evidence that any immunity is conferred by the vaccine before the shot is actually injected, that doesn’t mean that no extra protection is present. I refer you to a Harvard study that showed that a placebo could provide medical benefit even if you know you are only taking a placebo. They suggested that the mere act of participating in the ritual of medical care was enough to provide the benefit. If it works for taking a pill labeled “placebo”, it should work for signing up for a vaccine appointment too.

The word “immune”, by the way, is from the Latin im (not) • munis (serviceable). The parent word “mune” means not immune, or vulnerable. My current condition, and Kathleen’s, where we have some but not all of the immunity conveyed by the vaccine, is termed “half-mune”.

But being vaccinated doesn’t mean taking stupid risks. We both still wear our masks and wash our hands, and will continue to do so even after we get the second shot and our antibody titers rise to the full level.

And you should too! It’s only common sense, and common decency. A vaccinated person can still carry the disease to an un-inocculated (or “full-mune”) person, and can still act as an incubator for millions of little covid bugs to reproduce and mutate. When you think about almost a billion people around the world providing test chambers for those coronavirus germs, it’s no wonder we’re starting to see new and more dangerous variants emerging!

So continue to keep your distance, wash your hands, and for heaven’s sake wear the damn mask when you’re around other people! Provide the benefit to others, even if you don’t want it or don’t believe in it yourself. Apply the lesson of the old story about physicist Niels Bohr (or in some versions, Albert Einstein): when a visitor observed a horseshoe nailed over the great scientist’s door and asked if he really believed the superstition that this brought good luck, Bohr/Einstein replied, “No, of course I don’t believe that. But I’m told that the horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not.” As with horseshoes, so with facemasks.

Thanks for listening, and stay safe,
Dorn
1/20/2021