Missing Ollie

I used to have the best dog in the world. His name was Ollie and he was a black/brown/white spotted Rat Terrier mix. I got him for Christmas when I was 20. I had told my Grandfather that I wanted a dog now that I had an apartment and so we drove through some neighborhoods in Del Rio until he spotted a small herd of Chihuahua-esque dogs. You use to see this a lot in Del Rio, someone would always have a mess of dogs (almost always Chihuahuas) they'd keep around, always looking healthy, always cute.

So we got out of the car and he knocked on the door,the man comes out and my Grandfather asks if he had any pups or dogs for sale. The man took a look around and said that he had been thinking that maybe he had five too many dogs and would sell 1 or 5 of them to my Grandad. He loved them all but felt he could part with the pups and would only sell them to a good home. They were all Rat terrier mixes from the same litter and were now 4 months old. I looked at them and they were all so cute but of course one stood out, the one that came up to me and sat in my lap.

After answering a series a questions and told to bring him right back if it didn't work out, my Grandfather paid the man $50 and I named my dog Ollie. He was already housebroken and fat and healthy and so cute with his huge pointed ears. He looked like he could use them to fly. We took him to the vet that afternoon and he was given a clean bill of health. My Grandfather was afraid he might have worms.

Ollie came back with me to Austin and we had a great life together for only a few years. He was always on a leash, always indoors but by a freak accident caused by my stupid and careless roommate at the time, he was killed. I found him not breathing,gums blue, on the street, picked him up and prayed through loud tears and got in the car to get to the vet though I was sure he was dead. He came back for a moment, eyes alert, gums red and I became hopeful, stopped the car and told him I loved him and glad he was back then he died in my arms in an instant. It may have been seconds or five minutes, I don't know, I lost all track of time and space at that moment but he was so real and alive just before he died. I buried him under an oak in this park near the rental house. I was depressed for a year, an entire year. To this day I still miss Ollie. I dream of him often and feel that he is still around somehow. It's been 14 years since he's been gone.

Synchronicity

When I look back on things I saw in my childhood, the more and more Del Rio seems like a rare place and maybe I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. I haven't seen the Monarch butterflies descend on Austin the way they used to when I was living in Del Rio. In fact it is rare that I ever see a butterfly just bouncing along the landscape. It has been less than 8 or 5 times in the past 18 years. When I did see one I did stop to watch it.

I remember being out at recess in October and there were so many Monarchs you'd step on them if you moved too fast. They were in the trees in the schoolyard, on the building, jungle gym, flying all over. Not many kids would pick them up, we were all taught not too. Of course there were those few who couldn't resist, same kids that kept the horned toads in shoeboxes until they died. Those are gone too. Horned toads were everywhere, again, in my own backyard you had to watch it over the summer or you'd step on one. Never knew of anyone who ever did. I guess by high school the MOnarchs started to disappear, then again, I wasn't paying attention to much in high school. I do remember being reminded it was October though, because the Monarchs were in the neighborhood fluttering around.

There were also times when all these toads would just come into the neighborhood in large herds. I remember crickets, cicadas and birds doing the same thing. Mini plagues? So what happened? Changing climate, end of the world soon? Do I just happen to remember a few hundred more Monarchs than there actually were? Just like to think that I was at the right place at the right time, it isn't often that one finds oneself in a perfect spot.

Interests Du Jour

I just now discovered Berg Publishers! Where have you been all my life Berg?
On my wishlist are the following titles:
Fashion Under Socialism
Fashion Under Facism
The Language of Fashion (and other reads by Roland Barthes)
Wearing Ideology
Old Clothes, New Looks
Fashion Under the Occupation
Suburban Century
Home Possessions
American Cinema of the 1980s
Mob Culture
The Vanishing Map
Ballet Across Borders
Bikers
Skateboarding, Space and the City
Feeding the Gods
and this list could go on and on....they literally have a book for every ponderance and interest du jour I have ever had in my adult life.

Yay Fall! Minutiae

I went outside early this morning and it was still dark, cool and the moon was GORGEOUS! I heard a rooster crow. Yay! Awesome moment. It may still feel warm but Fall and cooler weather is coming at us. Can't wait for the time change. I like it dark out.

Wow a stingray!

We went swimming with stingrays in Grand Cayman. We were told not to touch them here or there and to look out for this, that and the other, the list went on and on! I couldn't keep the warnings straight so I decided I didn't want them near me, especially under me. When they'd swim towards me I'd swim away.

Apparently the stingrays we saw were wild but sort of like pigeons or grackles in that they knew people meant free food so they'd come around and didn't seem aggressive (not aggressive by nature we were told). There were supposedly 50 of them and five times as many people in the water. They were 4x4 to 5x5 in size and would float and swim all around you, sort of hard to keep track of where they all were.

Between the sneaky stingrays, the boats coming in with loads of tourists and the choppy waters that day, I decided I didn't have a good enough handle on my bearings and got out. I am sure they mentioned the barb but I don't recall that warning specifically, just that there were too many to remember, I was on vacation afterall.

Awwwwwwwww, I really liked Steve Irwin. Poor guy, why him and not Cheney.

Austin tagging

I heard on KUT that the Austin police department fired the guy in charge of controlling the graffiti and tagging in town. I had noticed there was more around and thought maybe Austin had hit that tipping scale moment and was truly becoming urban. I thought maybe many in town were already celebrating Austin reaching a poignant moment in growth, since the town has this goal of becoming a big city with density, ugly buildings and everything. All along though it was one man, or his small dept, keeping all the tagging and graffiti under control, cities need more than one man.

Personally, I think the guy who was fired is going around and marking up the town. It just isn't that good. Nothing like Style Wars. Austin can't call itself a city or be taken as seriously urban until it creates a dozen decent taggers. So far it has one that I have seen.