Less attitude; more bike paths, mountains and beer.

Tonight in my biology class, I got my first test results back. Ace. My instructor even wrote on my quiz: “Good; I think this vet thing might be doable”, and encouraged me to take a chemistry class as soon as possible. Then I got a text message from Brenda, asking me to come home right after class because Hooper broke his tooth playing at the ballfield.

When you study stuff like this, sometimes it’s hard to see the real world relevance to your work. But tonight, Hooper reminded me of why I’m doing this. And so as soon as I could, I drove home and we all rode over to the 24-hour animal hospital. Sure enough, one of Hoop’s incisors is sheared off right at the gum line and will need to be extracted. Apparently, Hooper and Monty—the two most ball-focused dogs in our neighborhood’s play group—turned to chase a thrown ball at the same time, and turned right into each other, and Hoop just got the losing hand in that deal. The vet sent us home with antibiotics and painkillers (for Hooper), and we will make an appointment tomorrow morning with our vet for the remains of the tooth to be extracted. The upshot of all of this is that I have been trying to schedule a time to shadow my vet as she does day-to-day activities, including surgeries, and so it may just work out that Hooper provides me with the impetus (and the patient) for finally doing it.

The pain meds seem to be helping, but every once in a while Hooper lets out a single, loud, bark, as if to say “god DAMN, this hurts!”. I hope we can get him in tomorrow for the extraction. Stay tuned.

Tonight was one of those nights I truly felt lucky to live in Boulder. Tonight, at the fabulous Boulder Theater, the Reel Rock Tour kicked off to a packed house, and Brenda, Leslie, and I were there.

The Reel Rock Tour is a traveling film festival celebrating rock climbing, in the extreme. Good god, it was fucking amazing. The only thing better than the photography was the amazing skill and daring of the people in the films. Well, that and the rocks; the rocks were amazing. From Eldorado Canyon—right here in Boulder—to Yosemite to Chamonix, France, these places served as playmates to people who tested their limits; their drive, determination, balls and boobs, as they climbed, slept on, and B.A.S.E. jumped off of some of the most amazing fucking rocks on the planet. It was awesome.

In case you didn’t know, Boulder Colorado is kind of a hotbed for rock climbing. More importantly, in case you didn’t know, Brenda (my wife) is really into rock climbing. I reveled when Brenda took a rock climbing course at the Boulder Rock Club, and enjoyed her stories every time she came back from the gym, and especially when she came back from Eldorado Canyon on a climbing adventure with her classmates from the gym.

So when I saw this film festival advertised, I jumped at the chance to check it out, and I ended up being totally sold on the idea of rock climbing.

By the time the feature event rolled, I was totally engrossed; the beautifully brilliant mountainous landscape projected on the screen was wonderful to look at, but then the reflected light from the screen revealed an amazing thing: the Boulder Theater was totally packed. Every seat was full, and people were sitting in the aisles and standing in the stairwells, to catch a glimpse of these amazing athletes groping their way up the most impossible of routes.

The alpine hikers were my faves, but there were so many characters both in front of and behind the lens that you just wanted to be your best friends, and the fact that half of them were in the audience watching the show (and occasionally tossing out swag, including climbing legend and Rob’s girlfriend Beth Rodden’s husband Tommy Caldwell tossing out shit like ten feet from us) just added to the drama.

All in all, a good night. I am so going to try rock climbing now!!

Ahh, Boulder. Scott Carpenter Park, just around the corner from our house, has a public municipal swimming pool that keeps the kids cool all summer. Now that summer is over, the pool is officially closed for the season—to people. Boulder being dog-crazy Boulder, that does not mean the pool is yet closed for good to all creatures, though. No, after a de-clorination process last week, the pool was officially open to dogs starting this weekend and extending to next weekend. Yeah (woof)!

Naturally, upon hearing of this insanity, we made plans to participate.

We arrived at the pool parking lot Saturday afternoon—surrounded by vehicles with filthy pickup beds and festooned with decals like “my Border Collie is smarter than your honors high school student”—and headed into the melee. Once inside the gate, we paid our five bucks, took Hoop’s leash off, and the games began. Now, Hooper loves to swim in the reservoir by the East Boulder Dog Park, but that has a sandy beach and a nice gradual slope into the water; this is where he learned to swim. But this pool business, all concrete and with an abrupt transition from land to water, well, this took a second to adjust to. Seriously, like, a second.

Watching the dynamics involved with roughly forty dogs running around, all overloaded with the sensory stimuli of having an entire human public pool at their disposal, was thrilling, amusing and hysterical. A co-worker appeared, with his wife and their dog Winnie. They were trying to get Winnie to get over her fear of jumping into the water. With Hooper obviously over his fear of jumping off the pool coping, we decided to see if we could tackle the diving boards.

There were a couple of dogs over by the diving boards who were seemingly chanelling Greg Lougainis, showing no fear of the bobbing board or of leaping off the end. One dog actually pushed off the end of the board so well that he managed to get the board to bounce a few times after he departed. It sounded really professional, the “boing—splash, boing, boing”. I figured Hooper would be a natural, but he displayed a lot of anxiety about jumping off the end. He happily jumped up on the board, and would follow me out to the edge if I showed him the ball, but no matter how I threw the ball into the pool, he just couldn’t be enticed to jump off the end. You ask me, he’s just showing everyone how smart he is. But the pool is open for dog swims next weekend too, and I think I’m gonna bring him back for one more try at diving before winter arrives. All in all, it was a great day and it was fun to watch Hooper take in the newness of the entire experience.

I finished reading Merle’s Door last night; I cried like a baby through the last forty pages.

At this point, since bringing Hooper home, I have read about a dozen or more books about dogs: dog training, dog breeds, dog behavior, dog health care, dogs; the last category includes your typical dog memoir or reflection on living pets, and so far Ted Kerasote’s book totally nails it. Granted, Merle is a fantastic dog, living in fantastic conditions, but the story is still a real rags to riches story, rife with dog care and training tips—and, what I feel is one of the most important skills required of any dog owner, observational tips.

Ethologists will piss all over this book as a 400-page homage to anthropomorphism. And while I admit there is a lot of the author inserting plain-english words into his dog’s inner monologue, we all do that. Every dog owner out there knows they’re guilty of making up Fido’s inner thoughts while out for a play session in the dog park, and you know it.

So, getting past that, you have a wonderful story of a man who takes in a stray dog and together they teach EACH OTHER many important lessons of life. These are lessons I’m learning now, taught by Hooper, and having read “Merle’s Door” are lessons I’m absorbing and cherishing much more deeply, knowing Merle’s—and all dogs’—ultimate fate. And I guess that’s lesson number one that dogs teach us, is that life’s too short to sweat the small stuff.

I loved this book.

Brenda, Hooper & I all piled into the car today for a drive to Denver, to attend a birthday party for some friends of ours. Partners Greg & Ted share birthdays a day apart. Greg aged a year today, and Ted did the same yesterday. And so a joint birthday picnic/barbecue in the park near the Denver Zoo was in order, with dogs.

Greg & Ted have a pair of winning canines; Guinness the Pug, and Lucy the Mutt (I used to threaten to kidnap Lucy and take her home with us from their parties ever since we moved to Boulder; she is adorable and built just like Hooper). Many of their other friends have dogs as well, and so dogs were invited to the birthday soirée.

And so it was that we loaded a backpack with Nalgenes of water and a Tupperware container to act as a bowl, poop bags, dog treats and a couple of tennis balls, and rolled out towards Denver. We also had a secret weapon. We brought the basketball.

You see, Hooper is quite the ‘baller. He has an uncanny ability to dribble a ball around a field using his muzzle and his front paws, and this is a skill that he demonstrated the very first time I produced a bright yellow utility ball on one of our walks back in November of 2007. Hooper took to that ball like Pele, coaxing it around the field under the moonlight for over an hour, managing to steer the ball back to my feet every once in a while so I could try to kick the ball past him (which rarely happened). But suddenly, a pop and a hiss was heard, and the fun ended.

A regulation basketball is 30 inches in circumference, and comprised of a tough leather cover that can resist a dog’s attempts to bite through it, and we have one of these objects. And today, we felt that if Hooper was to be allowed to roam free on the grass of the Denver Zoo Park—with heavily trafficked roads bordering us—we wanted a reliable distraction to keep him close, hence the basketball.

When we arrived, we rolled the ball out onto the grass and Hooper immediately began working the field with the ball. People immediately inquired about how we “taught” him to do this. Shrugged shoulders and allusions to that cold November night followed. Hooper spent the next several hours rolling that basketball around, beckoning me and anyone else who was interested to kick the ball around, and to engage him in some goalie practice.

Brenda had mentioned to me that a couple of the small children present at the party were terrified of dogs, and that we needed to make sure Hooper steered clear of them, and I was paying strict attention to his movements around the guests. But at one point, a couple of kids showed up with Hooper’s basketball, and they were fighting amongst themselves over who should be the one who kicks the ball toward Hooper. I watched with great interest and joy, as Hooper adapted to the kids’ erratic movements and gestures.

This one kid was literally pushing his friend out of the way, directing the action. He was moving the ball around and gleefully watching Hooper’s attentiveness and reactions to his direction. I had a great time watching Hooper play with the kids, but when I heard on the ride home that the one kid was one of those “afraid of dogs” kids, I just beamed.

Hooper is turning into quite a gentleman, and an ambassador. A saint.

I am unable to speak—have been for days—because I saw Bob Costas’ Olympic hair. You have GOT to be fucking kidding me.

One year ago today, Brenda & I brought Hooper home from the Boulder Humane Society. What a year it’s been.

Freshly grieving over the loss of our cat Emma, we both fell in love with this little, black Labradorish-looking puppy, and brought him home with us. He was afraid of his own shadow, afraid to get into the car, hopping on all the furniture. A couple days later, he (we) learned his first command, “sit”. I went on a streak of dog book purchasing, which continues to this day. We purchased dog toys and treats like they were crack, and the high of watching our dog take to these things with varying degrees of interest was equally addictive. We discovered the baseball fields behind our house serve as an excellent local gathering place for the neighborhood dogs and their owners; we’ve made new friends, as has Hooper. I’ve learned to bake, to bake dog treats. I have considered becoming a veterinarian. I read about dogs all the time. I think about Hooper whenever we are apart. I bring him to work with me. I started a Facebook group so fellow Boulder dog lovers could share hike ideas and dog treat recipes. We’ve had Hooper’s DNA tested so we could know exactly what he was made up of—not that it mattered, but we were curious. I’d say Hooper has had quite an effect on my life.

This past weekend, Brenda & I celebrated our eighteen year anniversary as a couple, and we brought Hooper with us. He’s an inseparable member of our family, our pack.

I can’t imagine life without a dog now. He’s my buddy. I had some dogs as a kid, but they were always transients, except, unfortunately, for the stupid, barky, nippy, West Highland White Terrier that I hated (hated!) when I was little. I always wanted a big black dog that would fetch and roll over and be goofy, and now, at forty, I finally have one, and some mornings, when Hooper is running around with his tongue hanging out, a tennis ball jauntily carried in the side of his mouth, I feel like I’m ten years old again.

Hooper has a ways to go. He pulls on his lead, he still jumps up on people, he barks when he shouldn’t. But that’s just standards. That’s me being picky. Really, he’s just perfect, and I’m looking forward to many more years of friendship with this strange little creature who seems to trust me, to like me, to love me. When you have a bond like this with no words, just actions, it’s hard to, well, put into words. I’m just happy, and I think Hooper is too.

Brenda & I just got back from Denver, having just taken in the cutting, silly, schizophrenic, smart and above all, funny standup act of Eddie Izzard. Brenda & I saw him in New York back in 2003, and when we heard he was taking his new tour through Denver, we bought our tickets months and months ago. Turns out we had pretty great seats, just six rows back! Being that close to him, it felt like we were in a venue much smaller than the Paramount Theatre, and you could really see his expressions that are such a part of his stage presence.

This show was far better than the 2003 effort, I thought. His topics once again covered the gamut, with religion and politics taking their usual large chunks of the set. This time around, he was wearing man clothes instead of a dress, but there was still a few transvestite jokes (as well as a plug for his TV show “The Riches”).

His energy was high, and his digressions into improv did not disappoint. He spent some time debunking “intelligent design” by taking us inside the mind of an appendix (“we have this thing, an appendix, it’s there to digest grass, but we haven’t eaten grass for thousands of years, so they’re all just sitting there going ‘uhh, have you got any grass up there, hello?’... doesn’t sound intelligent to me…’hello, yeah, it’s me and Jeff here in the appendix room, we’re bored ‘cause you haven’t got any grass, so we’re just going to blow up now.’”). He also turned Noah’s Ark story on its ass, and pleaded for us all to vote for Obama in the election this year. Interestingly, that drew some boos and murmurs; I’m not sure how you can like Eddie Izzard and be a Republican. He’s so… smart! Anyway, all in all a great performance, and a nice evening.

Eighteen years ago last night, Brenda & I kissed for the first time. For nine years and change after that, July 28 was our “anniversary”, until I finally got my shit together and married Brenda. Nowadays, May 7th is our anniversary, and we’ve celebrated eight of those, but July 28 is still our first official anniversary and yesterday we marked eighteen of them. Kinda cool. We will celebrate this weekend in Grand Lake.

Emma was Brenda’s pet cat. Well, that’s what she started out as. Brenda got her shortly after the two of us got together, and Emma immediately spent much of her time showing her displeasure at having to share Brenda with me (especially the first year, when I was finishing school and Brenda often left Emma alone in her apartment while visiting me at school). But in those first few years after Brenda got her, I also took care of Emma during the summers when Brenda was off doing summer theatre gigs. I quickly became very attached to her, as, I believe, Emma got attached to me. We sorted each other out.

In total, the three of us went through almost eighteen years of life together, marking loads of residences, moments, anniversaries, milestones, memories. There’ll never be another cat like her, there’ll never be another Emma the Cat. She died, one year ago today.

Emma would never put up with another animal in the house, so/but for a very long and fun time, we were “stuck” with “just” Emma. And so shortly after Emma died, Hooper the Dog came into our lives, and in many ways I see my amazing experiences raising and learning about this dog as Emma’s last gift to us. I suppose Emma continues to live on in Hooper.

We also added another cat—Ellie—to our family last December, and while I haven’t written much about her on here yet she adds an extra layer of complexity to this weird little ride of adapting to life without Emma. She’s different, yet similar, to Emma. So it’s been fun and sad, exhilarating and disappointing, interesting and boring, to get accustomed to this new feline resident. More to come about her in the future, for sure.

But the main act tonight is Emma. I miss her still, always will.

I wanted to share with you one of my favorite Emma stories (more specifically, one of my favorites not already published on this website).

We had just moved from our first apartment in Hoboken, NJ, to a new, bigger, two bedroom place. It was hot—really hot—and humid. O.J. Simpson had beaten a murder rap that very day. We had paid professional movers to move our crap from Tenth and Park to Seventh and Willow Ave in Hoboken, and despite being spared the pain of dragging our stuff up five flights of stairs, we were still currently surrounded by boxes, brimming with Our Shit, swaddled in immense amounts of pro-grade, puffy and fluffy, bubble-wrap and puffy-paper.

Hours and hours after the movers had left, we were sweaty, tired, and painted into corners with our things and packing paper. Emma had been exploring the new digs with the careful stalk and active nose of a cougar in a new zoo. Emma jumped up on the microwave cart, currently in the middle of the kitchen, and—this is important—next to a recently-emptied box that was now the receptacle for all discarded packing materials, and began to walk around and eye the box adjacent. Three feet high, and loaded with puffy things, she began to show an unhealthy interest in the box.

“Brenda…” I silently gestured towards the scene that was unfolding.

Slowly, Emma walked to the edge of the cart and lowered her head toward the box, sniffing. She waved and poked a paw into the abyss, seeing that the paper would not hold her weight. But the curiosity was too great, and we watched her slowly try to walk on water, if you will, and fail miserably. She ended up doing a head-first dive into the box, disappearing instantly into the paper. We laughed, but the fun was just beginning. The box began to tremble, the papers churned and flew about, and eventually Emma exploded out from the paper, perched impossibly on the edge of the box, and then as the box began to fall over, she did a gainer off the edge of the box and shot like a bullet for the back bedroom, not to be seen for quite a while.

We laughed so hard, I can still recall how hard my sides hurt.

These are the memories I think of today. I’ll think of her all day today, and I’ll think of her at least a little bit, every day, forever.