A Dingo's got my Barbie!!!

Willover's Travel's Pt 3

Parts 1 and 2 have been added to the sidebar (under Willow's Serials) in case you missed them when they were hot off the presses.

In an earlier WT Travel Tip, I explained how a few dollars could be saved by travelling a night, obviously this isn't the best way to travel if you want to see the country, but a lot of times the geography is pretty much the same as wherever you come from (unless you're travelling through tropical jungles or deserts). Well, in the premium version of this tip you can actually get some accommodation thrown in.

At a time when the Soviet Union was in it's final stages, and it's citizens were still being prevented from travelling anywhere other than within the USSR (although they liked to call it CCCP), one of life's little ironies was that Intourist was just about the largest travel agency in the world. However, in a prime example of why communism is ultimately doomed to fail, they had no idea of how to turn a profit. The whole thing was heavily subsidised, and run along bureaucratic guidelines, where everyone just did their job. This was great for the low cost traveller, as there were some glaring examples of stupidity that were capitalised on by many a seasoned traveller.

Here's the deal...Aeroflot flew to almost all European countries, but in a similar way to trying to fly anywhere in the States, you had to change planes at a Hub (which in Amercia's case, is a prime example of why capitalism is doomed to fail). Anyway, it's like this, you could fly anywhere you wanted to, so long as you were prepared to change planes in Moscow. This gave rise to some lateral thinking, what if you chose a flight from where you were (say, Bangkok) that didn't quite meet the connecting flight to where you were going? Answer: free accommodation.

Now the trick was to find the biggest gap possible, in my case I chose Athens as my destination because they only flew there once a week, on Tuesdays. I then found a flight out of Bangkok that landed in Moscow on a Wednesday morning, thus giving me 6 free nights at the Hotel Metropol, as well as three free meals a day! Mind you the meals weren't that flash. I doubt a commercial airline would have allowed that sort of scheduling.

So now here I was, sitting in an Ilyushin Il-62 (I didn't know what it was at the time,I didn't even now a minute ago for that matter, I just looked it up for you, thank you Wiki) waiting to take off, when I noticed two things that made reality seem even stranger than it had been for the last 3 months, due all the drugs I'd been taking. Firstly all the stewardesses were really big (not as big as the women I saw in Moscow, but way bigger than any stewardesses I'd ever seen before), and secondly, there was some sort of vapour coming from the overhead lockers. It seemed like I was at an Alice Cooper concert, with an out of control dry-ice smoke machine! As near as I could tell, that was the cooling system.

Oh I almost forgot, the in-flight meal consisted of a big old sausage and a potato (both boiled) in a cardboard box. While that may not seem unusual now in an era of cheap low frills flights, 30 years ago when you got real cutlery, actual steak and all kinds of nifty little containers on international flights, this was pretty unusual. But the plane worked fine, unlike some I've been on (more about that later maybe).

Next time, my week in Moscow.... (don't hold your breath it wasn't all that exciting)

* Unfortunately there are no photos of this period, as I didn't have a camera at the time. I eventually bought a Rollei 35T trip camera in Canada, which I still have.

Willover's Travels Pt 2

I paid the extra for a First Class ticket on the Indian Pacific since it was such a long trip (one of the longest in the world in fact) and I wanted a cabin to myself, there's diagrams if you follow the link. I also booked the ticket so that I was on the train in the middle of the Nullarbor at midnight on the 31st of December, that way I could celebrate New Years in transit. That turned out to be a good decision becasue it was one of the best New Years Eve parties I've ever been to. Seeing as I had a first class ticket, I was able to use the club car, which not only had a bar, but a piano too, and there was a Japanese girl who could play quite well. I had my harmonicas so we played duets and sing-alongs all night. At midnight the chef brought out huge bowls of King prawns and champagne. It was one of the best nights that I can almost remember.

Three days after I left Sydney,  I arrived in Perth (again)...

While I had enough money to get me further than I got last time, I decided get a job just to give me a bit of a buffer; plane tickets always leave a bit of a hole in the finances. So for the second time (hmm, that link is actually better than this post), I phoned a number in the classifieds and was told what time to be at the airport the next day. This time I ended up in Mt Newman.

Three months later I was sitting on a plane to Bangkok. Having learned that hooking up with a hooker can really stall your travels, I determined that I wouldn't hang out in Bangkok at the Atlanta Hotel* like I did last time, with all the associated risk (wow, just looking at that link, they've really cleaned up their act, it used to be pretty seedy). So the next day I caught a bus to Phuket. One day I may go into detail about the pitfalls of spending too much time in Bangkok.

You may well ask, "Why the hell would you even go to Bangkok again? Given that it brought you undone last time". A valid question that deserves an answer...well in those days, airfares were really expensive in Australia (they still are a bit high, but not as bad as way back in the 70s), so the idea was to fly to Bangkok and buy your tickets there, as they had the cheapest flights in the world at the time.

Phuket is a great place, it's free from hookers, it has cheap food and cheap accommodation and it's right on the beach.  In addition, it's one of my favourite places in the world, I've been there with ET (my best man and best friend), Mel (I was his best man),  MDW (I was her groom) and several times by myself, and every time was better then the one before. This particular trip I was there with Mel, my Canadian best friend who I actually met there. Funny, but I met both ET and Mel in Thailand 30 years ago and they are still my best friends, although I'm in contact with ET a bit more, (we talk once a week).

After about six weeks of just hanging around enjoying the beach and the seafood, it was time to leave, so we went back to Bangkok where Mel bought a ticket back to Canada (he'd been working in Oman for the past two years), and I bought one to Greece via Moscow. I really didn't feel like doing the whole overland trip thing through India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey this time, so I just flew over them. I had been to India, and frankly it didn't hold much of an attraction to me, and it just takes so long to get through those countries...

* A short note on travellers hotels in Bangkok. During the Vietnam war, the two most popular destinations for American servicemen were Bangkok and Sydney (with Bangkok being way ahead of Sydney), the result being a proliferation of western style hotels to cater for the GIs. After the war, these hotels fell on hard times for a few of years until in the mid to late 70s when Bangkok became a mecca for young travellers.

Willover's Travels Pt 1

My first two expeditions were neither spectacular nor particularly successful. The first overseas adventure was to New Zealand, which is a bit like going to a convent and hoping to see a strip show. It would have been completely forgettable if it weren't for the fact that I was robbed the second night I was there, I wasn't mugged, my room got burgled, but the result was the same; I ended up with no money (I had cash rather than travellers cheques), no clothes and no idea.

Two valuable lessons were learned from this unfortunate experience, (i) the value of security, and (ii) the wisdom of having travellers cheques and a money belt, I also got to work in a brewery for six months while I saved enough money to get the fuck out of there.

The second expedition, while being slightly more spectacular, was only marginally more successful. It started with a cross country trip in a  big rig that belonged to a friend's father (that's not the actual rig, but it was just like it, and the terrain is the same), followed by a bunch of buses, trains and ferries through Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand and ended with me being fucked and far from home. I eventually limped back to Perth with about three dollars in my pocket, after having gotten as far as Ceylon (yes, I know it's Sri Lanka, but Ceylon sounds much cooler).

I got a job in a mine to get enough money to get back to Sydney where I could recover and figure out how I screwed up so badly (I was supposed to get to England). As with the first trip, this too was a learning experience, here I learned a) an absolutely brilliant way to pack my bag, b) heroin isn't very good for you, and c) Thai girls are great, but they don't make such great life partners.

Now back in Sydney, I was determined that the next trip would be more successful. So after working as a builder's labourer long enough to get a thousand dollars, I packed my bag (it's best to travel with just one bag) with what I now knew to be a successful combination of clothing. ie, t-shirts to swap for local clothes, enough underpants to last a week, some socks, and most importantly some border clothes; these are a nice shirt with a collar, tailored pants and decent shoes (it never ceased to amaze me that there was always a line of boneheads in wife beaters and shorts waiting to have their luggage inspected and wondering how come they always seemed to be the ones getting searched!).

Another thing I learned was that backpacks are like having a sign stapled to your forehead saying "Hi, I'm a Tourist! Please rip me off", therefore I always used a leather barrel bag that allowed me to blend in on arrival. In addition, this time I also figured out a way to include a cut down version of my tool kit so that I could work along the way.

I booked a First Class ticket on the Indian Pacific and was off again...

Epilogue

And a few Gratuitous pet pics....

So let's wrap things up shall we?  A few points that should be made:

Percy and Marge are very nice people, in addition to being quite clean. It's just a shame that they are a bit cavalier in their approach to keeping pets. However, having said that, all of their pets seem very affectionate towards them and none are the slightest bit afraid of them, that would indicate no mistreatment other than not having enough to eat.

Laddie has come back a few times since I brought Belle home, and he gives every indication of wanting to stay, but that's more to do with the fact that I feed him. Now that I know he has a home, I no longer feed him, and whenever he shows up I take him back home. Because I don't want them to know he's been out and about, I usually just drop him off at the front gate as I don't want to see him tied up. Unfortunately Marge caught me the last time, and she tied him up immediately.  I don't think he's been off the chain since, as I haven't seen him.

Yes I would have liked to take the other pups too, I strongly suggested they give them to the vet to find homes, and even offered to take them in for them, but they declined. Last time I was there they were running around happily enough, but they did look a tad skinny.

If anyone can tell me exactly why they are called Percy and Marge there may be a prize in for you. But I stress, you have to tell me exactly (postage is brutal, so you really have to earn it!).

And now for the gratuitous pet pics, (lots of gratuitous pet pics, my apologies to those with dialup)...

and finally, the last time Bobby was here...

I just looked at the photo info and this was taken 6 months ago.

If you look at the first photo, you'll see how long  Belle as been dragging stuff around, she dragged that thing all the way from the other side to the room. Oh, those photos are in chronological order (except for the last one).

The saga of Bobby (vi) Belle

Belle.

Having poured Marge into the passenger seat we left Hooterville [1] in search of her palace. Having someone in your car that you don't know plus total silence, can lead to the situation becoming a little uncomfortable. As I cast about for something to say, and here's the really weird thing; out of nowhere, like a bolt of lighting came the fully formed question "Do you own a dog that went missing for a few weeks a bout three months ago?"

"Yes." And with that one word (which by the way, was was all she said) the mystery was solved. As it turns out, I stopped one property short in my quest to find Bobby's owner! But having graduated from the Sam Spade School of Advanced Gumshoeing, I had to be certain that I had the right man, err woman, err dog, ah shit ! you know what I mean, so I continued with my interrogation.

"Did he show up one day wearing a collar?"

"Yeah, and it was one of those really expensive ones". I know it was a fucking expensive one, I paid for it!

She had replied to both questions with absolutely no hint of surprise, curiosity, excitement or any form of human emotion whatsoever for that matter, which I found somewhat disconcerting, and just a little annoying since we were talking about a missing dog.

She wasn't incomprehensible as I'd earlier thought, in reality she was what the Seinfeld gang called a 'low talker', and you really had to strain to hear what she said. Having then described Bobby to her, just to make sure, she confirmed that he was their dog and that his name was Laddie. It was then that the penny finally dropped and I realised that the beagle that I couldn't get to come to me was probably the mother.

After about 15 minutes we arrived at the convergence of two of my favourite TV shows. I couldn't believe my eyes, the Clampetts [1] seemed to have moved into the Douglas' farm [1]. We drove up the long dirt track to what would have been pretty good lodgings for chooks [2], but left a little to be desired in terms of human habitation. Having pulled up at a gate who's sole purposed seemed to be to hold the fence up, I solved the mystery of why Bobby/Laddie hadn't been back for a while; he was tied to a tree.

Marge opened the gate and we entered the house yard, which was teeming with life. There were at least 8 cats, 2 goats, a sheep, a handful of chooks, 3 or 4 dogs and  4 pups (Bobby and the beagle were tied to separate trees about 100 yards away). If you gathered them all together and put them on a scale (except the goats and sheep, they looked pretty well fed as I assumed they were meant to be food one day), I think the total weight would have been about 3lbs. I have never seen such skinny animals.

Two of the pups seemed to be in almost reasonable condition (albeit extremely dirty), one looked like it had a broken leg (I found out a few weeks later that it was just swollen because one of the goats had stood on it) and then there was Belle. I know most of you think I am a pretty superficial kind of guy, and that I would pick the best looking pup, but you're wrong ( when I arrived there, I had no intention of leaving with a pup). Belle (who at the time was wretched pup #4) was a real mess! Apart from being less than half the size of the other pups, she was a mass of sores. There were patches where there was no hair at all, and what hair she did have was so thin you could easily see the skin through it.

She was such a wretched little thing that I just couldn't leave her there to freeze and/or starve to death. Sometimes I'm even glad I got her.

So there you have it. The story of how Belle came into our lives. I'll do a little housekeeping tomorrow (or whenever I get motivated enough) to tie things up, but that about covers it. You can all thank Melissa in NZ for this serial.

*Update: I forgot to mention, those sores really stunk! Which wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for her being such a fretful little thing, and the fact that it was freezing cold when I first got her. This meant that I let her sleep on the bed, and I'm telling you, it's really hard to get to sleep when there is a really stinky dog on the bed. The good news is that it only took about a week and a half to get the sores to stop weeping, so that pretty much fixed the smell. It took a little longer for the hair to grow back.

[1] I added the links later when I realised that not everyone is as old as me, not do they have my obsession with 60s TV trivia.

[2] That's chickens for those who don't speak strine.[3]

[3] That's Aussie speak.

The saga of Bobby (v) Percy and Marge

Marge

While it was difficult to determine exactly how old Percy was, Marge was another matter entirely. With shoulder length white hair that had all the lustre of a bail of hay, and deeply tanned skin that can only come from years of tobacco and booze (and you thought I was going to say sunlight; no I mean tanned as in leather), she was without doubt, somewhere between ninety five and a hundred. I had assumed up until this point that she was Percy's mother, and the two kids aged roughly eight or nine that hung around occasionally, were Percy's grandkids. As I was to find out in due course, they were in fact, a nuclear family.

I don't normally copyright my pictures, but this one is extremely valuable, to the best of my knowledge it's the only one in existence without either Percy or Marge or both, propping up the table.

And so it was that about three or four weeks after my initial conversation with Percy, as I waiting at the post office (which is really just a counter in the corner shop), I saw Marge. She was at the cash register mumbling something to nobody in particular, and I was absolutely fascinated by her actions; she would take stuff out of her basket, and return it to where she got it, then come back to the register and mumble some more. She then seemed to have a change of heart and go back and get what she had put back (or at least I assume it was the same thing). After a while I gathered what she was doing; she was getting the girl to ring up various combinations of goods until she found one that was within her budget. But then, when everything seemed done and dusted, she decided that the meat was nothing more than a luxury, so she took it back to the fridge and got a pack of cigarettes instead.

At some point during all this, she looked into the air somewhere around where I was standing and began mumbling something that I could quite catch. Then, much to my surprise, she lunged towards me and said "Aren't you talking to me?"

As I recoiled in horror, I managed to reply "Sorry, I didn't realise you were talking to me". She repeated her previous mumble (much more coherently it seemed, now that I knew she was talking to me) "I said, do still you want to come and have a look at the pups?"

Now in truth, I don't ever remember saying that I wanted to do so in the first place, but what the heck, I was ready to say anything to get out of this situation! "Sure, that sounds fine, when should I do it?"

"We can go right now".

"Ah....ok".

"Can you give me a ride home?"

"Argghhh Fuuuck!!" (if this was a comic strip, that last one would have been a thought bubble).

"I'll be back in a minute" she said and then shot back across the road to the pub. So here I was standing by my car thinking "What the fuck have you done? And where the fuck is she?" Ok the answer to the second question is obvious, she was downing another glass of white lightning. The first question was a little more difficult to answer.

After about five minutes of debating whether or not to just piss off, she came wobbling back across the road and announced that she would be ready to go as soon as she got her groceries. "Hmm, I though that what she was doing before she went back to the pub!"

After she disappeared back into the shop and then reappeared a couple of minutes later, we were ready to go.

It was an interesting experience...

The saga of Bobby (iv) Percy and Marge

Percy.

Percy was of indeterminate age, his pure white hair and 12" long white goatee and relatively youthful features made it difficult to tell.  I guesstimated him be in his late forties to early fifties. He stood about 5'4" and was probably about that wide; he drove one of those cars that you were never quite sure if it was dumped or parked.

I knew Percy and Marge long before I actually knew them. Hmm, something about that doesn't sound right, how can I put this?... You know that where I live is a very small town, actually it's not really a town at all, it's just a pub, a corner store and a battery shop (don't ask me, I've got no idea why there's a battery shop in the middle of nowhere!), and about 15 to 20 houses. Well, I used to see them every time I came to buy groceries, I don't know if they ever bought groceries or not, but they were always at the pub, and that's straight across the road from the shop, so I had seen them for around three years.

Oh, I forgot, there's a Rest Area too! All those funky marks on the photo are bugs on my windscreen

Despite all the propaganda to the contrary, country folk aren't really the friendly, welcoming 'glad to make your acquaintance' types that TV and movies like to portray them as. In fact they are downright standoffish until they get to know you, and since they are standoffish, they rarely get to know you (specially if you wear citified clothes like I do)...you see my dilemma? With Percy and Marge, there was about a year of them just staring at me, followed by a year and a half of nodding as I went into the shop, and finally one Sunday morning as I was getting my newspaper, Percy asked "Is that a beagle in your car?"

Now I don't know if it was becasue I was just so gosh darned excited that he finally decided to talk to me, or if it was just becasue I don't have anyone besides cyber friends to talk to, but I became positively effusive and replied "Yep".

"Is it a full beagle?" he Percy pressed. Here's where I'm pretty sure I was just being a prick when I answered "He was a while ago, but I made him have a crap before I let him in the car, but he is a pure bred beagle". Surprisingly, he found that funny and the ice was broken.

"I've got a beagle that just had a litter" he offered. ''Hmm, this talking caper isn't so hard after all", I thought to myself, and decided to try a question of my own, "Are they pure bred?"

"No they're Border Collie cross", he replied in an almost disappointed tone, "but I want to put a pure bred over her, I hear they are worth a bit". Not wanting to sound like too much of a smartass when I delivered the bad news, but needing to explain the situation quickly, I told him "Ah, well we've got a problem, although mine's a pure Beagle, he's not a complete Beagle, on account of me letting the Vet keep his nuts", or words to that effect.

"Too bad, but you should come around and have a look at them anyway, they look just like beagles". (He'd obviously never seen a beagle pup). And with that we went our separate ways.

When I got home, I got to thinking "you know, if you could get a Beagle's temperament combined with a Border Collie's smarts, you'd have a pretty good dog". I should tell you that all of this happened about three months after I last saw Bobby, and amazingly, despite the fact that you have already put two and two together, it didn't dawn on me at all (derr!). To this day I can't figure out why it didn't click, but it didn't! So, having not long ago had three dogs and then finding myself with only two, I had decided that two was an easier number to deal with, and with that,  I dismissed the idea of a third dog out of hand, and never really gave it another thought.

Stay tuned for Marge....

The saga of Bobby (iii)

In the first two weeks that Bobby was with us, I tried my best to find his owners. I asked at the little (actually only) store in Willow Tree. I told them that I would hang on to him as long a possible so that if the owners showed up they could just give me a call (the only pound around here seems to have a 100% kill policy, which is not unusual in rural areas). I also took him to the vet to check for a microchip, but there was none, this is not unusual in rural areas either, despite the 'Companion Animals Act' stating that all dogs must be chipped (most dogs around her are considered plant and equipment rather than companions). I went to the neighbouring properties and asked if anyone lost a dog; zip, nada, zilch. So I had I assumed that he wasn't a local and had probably fallen off the back of a ute (this is common in both rural and urban areas).

About three days after he went out for a piss, Bobby showed up looking for a bite to eat. Normally I would be a bit put out by this, I mean shit! I've got three cats that totally ignore me and then expect me to feed them, why would I need a dog to do that? But there was just something about Bobby that was truly endearing, like the way he would come over once he finished eating, and put his head on my lap. And the fact that he seemed to be house trained (which was even more amazing since, as I found out later, he was not a house dog).

So for the time being, it was back to business as usual, as if he had never took off in the first place, and he really did fit in quite well, so much so that I decided if no-one claimed him, he was welcome to stay here. But then roughly a week after he came back he disappeared again, this time it was for about four days I think. Then just as before he showed up again. This happened couple more times before the light finally came on! I eventually came to the conclusion that he must live around her somewhere, even though I found it strange that I'd never seen him before. There was a house being built about 2 miles from my place, so thinking that he could belong to one of the tradesmen, I took him to the site, but no-one knew him.

I decided to put a note in his collar asking the owners to call me. I was getting a bit sick of feeding someone else's dog! But before I could do it, he disappeared for the final time (the final time from my place, not the final time as in never to be seen again).

In case you didn't believe me the other day when I said there were heaps of Pig Dogs around here, here's a stray that I had for about 3 days before I located his owner.

And here's Bentley trying to pork a pig dog (sorry, I couldn't' help myself).

The funny thing about this picture, is that between the three of them, there were only two testicles, and neither belonged to my guys!

Stay tuned, tomorrow you get to meet Bob and Julie (think Ma and Pa Kettle, but without the class)...

The saga of Bobby (ii)

For those of you who seem to only look at the pictures, I must remind you that all this happened a year ago...

Bobby spent a glorious two weeks with us, running along the beach holding hands, enjoying picnics in the forest amongst the quaint woodland creatures and spending idyllic nights sipping French champagne and eating beluga caviar. He was proving himself to be a better pet than either of the two ungrateful, unresponsive and downright dumb bastards that actually were my pets.

He was way more affectionate than either Buddy or Bentley, because he would come and hangout with me even if there was no promise of food. And as for responding to commands, well let's just say that he did and the other pricks didn't. Without even realising it, I was starting to favour Bobby over the others. Ha! of course I realised it, do you think I'm stupid? This eventually led to some ill will between Bentley and Bobby. Buddy was ok with it though, he's used to being the low dog on the hydrant.

This period was not without it's laughs, you see, Bobby was a Border Collie, so the fence that kept the other guys in, except for when they made holes in it like this (which is pretty often, I'll tell you about it in detail one day)...

As I was saying, the fence is only waist height, and while that's fine for beagles and pugs, border collies just laugh at it, in fact Bobby could jump it without even touching it. So I had no way of keeping him in, which didn't seem to matter as he would always come back anyway, which is where things got really funny.

Whenever Bobby would jump the fence, Bentley would do is darnedest to keep him out. He'd go to wherever Bobby was about to jump back in and position himself roughly where he was expecting Bobby to land, and just bark at him. Bobby would counter this by running to another spot on the fence-line, but  Bentley would try to block that entry as well. This could go on for an hour or more, and it probably would have been a good idea to get a picture... d'oh! The closest I got was this one...

This is an actual photo of what I just described, unfortunately they were too quick and Bobby was out of frame to the left. Sometimes they run the entire perimeter many times, and other times they just go back and forth along about 50 feet of fence. They'd do this until one of them gave up. It if was Bentley who gave up, Bobby  would just go a few feet down the fence and jump back in, if it was Bobby who gave up, he'd just wait until Bentley came inside, then he jump back in.

Everything was fine, until one day Bobby simply didn't show up after I let him out at around 4:00am to have a pee...

The saga of Bobby (i)

So let's begin...

A year ago we were in the grip of a devastating drought, and many of my neighbours had reduced the their stock numbers to match the available food, which was extremely limited. My nearest neighbour, Brett, the guy I bought my place off, has a paddock that borders my place. This paddock had enough ground cover to keep his five bulls going for a while, but with the creek completely dried up he couldn't put them there unless he got some water from somewhere. That somewhere was me.

Brett had called me the day before to ask if he could use my bore to fill a stock trough for his bulls (these things work on a float valve so he didn't mean he just wanted to fill it once, it's an ongoing thing). Seeing has Brett has a nice big tractor and lots of meat, and the water doesn't cost me anything anyway (except the electricity for the pump), hmm did I just write that? What I meant to say was...being the fine, charitable neighbour that I am, I said "Sure why not".

While we were out the back of my place talking about getting the water hooked up two dogs appeared out of nowhere, and began sniffing around my feed shed which was about 100 yards away. One was a Border Collie, a fairly common breed around here (although Kelpies are even more common as they seem to be more hardy, plus they are good with cattle too), and the other one, much to my surprise, was Beagle. I was surprised because most dogs around here are working dogs, either Border Collies and Kelpies as I just said, or Heelers and Pig Dogs. That link to the pig dogs is interesting (I found it through google), he actually lives not far from me, and he does most of his hunting in this area, scroll to the bottom to see what they hunt. So to see a Beagle, which isn't good for much of anything really, was quite a shock.

I called them, but while the Collie came straight to me, the Beagle was was more wary, and wouldn't come anywhere near us. We tried for a while to coax the beagle but it would have none of it, eventually trotting off across an adjoining paddock. As I was just about to leave to do my monthly shopping, I put the stray in the yard with Bentley and Buddy. When I returned home about five hours later (it's an hour's drive each way), I found that Bentley had yet again managed to make a hole in the fence and had escaped with Buddy, and there was no sign of either of them. The stray however was just sitting there on the front porch.

He had the sweetest nature, despite being filthy and apparently on the brink of starvation. It looked like he'd been on he road for some time, although in truth it's hard to tell, as most dogs where I live are working dogs and tend to be both very dirty and very skinny, unlike my guys who are companion dogs. So I called him Bobby and gave him something to eat. The next day I gave him a bath...

He scrubbed up pretty well, and he fit right in, though as you can see from the photo, Bentley wasn't all that impressed with the turn of events! If fact his initial standoffishness eventually developed into an all out hostility, which was more humorous than dangerous, plus Bobby didn't even seem to mind anyway. He did get on pretty well with Buddy though. Actually Buddy gets on with everyone, which is strange becasue he always barks and growls at dogs  on TV.

Continued...

When Hari met Kiri Pt 4.

It was my destiny to join in a great experience. (I just didn't know it yet, but do you know the book without googling the sentence?) It seems the more that  I assemble my thoughts in order to write the story of how MDW and I got together, the more I realise that I was just a innocent, and clueless, bystander in the whole process. So much so, that now even I'm interested in reading how she managed to snare me, and how things turned out!

After our official first date there was no contact for a several weeks as I was in Truckee, and she had a strange work schedule, something like ten days on then four off. But eventually I came back down to San Jose. The guy I was building the house with had a few apartments in SJ that always seemed to need some kind of work done, so for a while we went back and forth between projects.

It was on one of these trips down that I called MDW and asked if she felt like doing something, and she told me that Bread and Roses was on and we could go up to Berkeley to see Jimmy Buffet, Neil Young and Robin Williams. Sounded good to me, so off we went. We were hurtling up I17 trying desperately to keep up with traffic in her VW beetle (if you've ever driven on a California freeway you'll know what I mean), when suddenly the cars in front stopped, causing MDW to hit the brakes hard. As she hit the brakes, she reached her arm across and stopped me from lurching forward. That simple act was one of those things that really sticks in your mind, here she was in the middle of an emergency having enough regard for me to try and protect me. Or so I thought at the time at least, turns out as an OT she regularly drove old and infirmed people around and it was just a reflex action, but hey, ignorance is bliss and it was kinda nice to think someone wanted to keep me safe.

After a week or so in SJ it was back to Tuckee for me. But this time, we spoke by phone every few days, this was before cell phones, but the trailer I was living in had a phone so it was no big deal. Anyone want to see the view I had? OK why not, here ya go...

That's the Truckee River in the right foreground and the back of the shops, restaurants and hotels in the main street of Truckee itself. I was happily working away when one day I got a phone call from MDW saying she had a few days off and that she was coming up to visit. She came up and we had a great time playing house and doing all those touristy things that I never got a chance to do, like whitewater rafting on the Truckee River (we're talking kindergarten rapids here, not  like the Russian River), and going to the casinos in Reno (Las Vegas's dirty, retarded little brother).

After about five days she went back to work, and I realised that this was the first time in years that I had spend a lot of time with someone in close quarters and felt completely comfortable being half of a couple. It was another four weeks or so until we saw each other again.

When Hari met Kiri Pt 3

Call me Ishmael. Just don't expect me to respond because that's not my name. After successfully getting the seat covers on, MDW invited me up to her apartment for a visit where she poured some champagne and added a strawberry. This really impressed the shit out of me as I'd never it seen done before (it also made me think that Mrs ET may have had genuine cause for concern, as MDW didn't know I would be pinch hitting for ET, so why did she have this ready to go?).

Whatever her expectations were, we spent a pleasant afternoon watching TV and getting drunk, well at least one of us spent the arvo getting drunk, she spent it hanging on my every word with rapt attention. Or so I thought at the time, it was only some years later that I overheard her describing the afternoon to a friend at a BBQ, and came to understand that the intense gaze was simply her trying to understand my accent.

So it was, with an ill founded sense of conquest, that I left her company to wobble the five miles home on my bike. The next day I ruminated on the situation in the clear light of day and with a clear but pounding head, and came to the conclusion that I would continue my quest for a Marilyn Monroe look-alike and leave the short stout Asian women for those who had set that as their goal.

As fate would have it, about a week later a friend of mine was interested in a particular girl and he called me to go out on a double date with them to see Loudain Wainwright III and Leon Redbone. He was pretty shy and he needed me along because I knew her (she was the friend of a girl I used to date). It was pretty short notice and I had no-one to go with, having broken up with her alcoholic loser friend a few weeks earlier. But I did want to see those guys, so I called MDW and asked if she would be interested in going. She said sure, why not?

We arranged to meet my friend and his date at the venue in San Francisco. Loudain Wainwright was one of the best acts I've ever seen, and MDW and I ended up having a pretty good time, except for the bit where we were waiting to meet my friend on Market Street in the Castro and I couldn't understand why all the guys were looking at me instead of MDW.

This time when I thought about the date the next day (technically this one was a date), I realised that she seemed pretty nice and had a lot to offer. Too bad I had to leave for Tahoe to work on the construction of a house two days later.

When Hari met Kiri Pt 2

It was a dark and stormy night. Or it would have been if it wasn't a beautiful balmy Sunday afternoon in the middle of a Californian Spring. Truth be told, there was nary a cloud to be seen (sorry, there's still a few pirate words hanging around), but a storm was brewing inside the house, one that would change my life forever.

ET and I were doing what we did best, smoking waccy tabbacy and idling away the hours talking about the things we should be doing, when suddenly the phone rang (ok, it didn't ring any more of a sudden than it usually did, but this is a story, so everything has to have an adjective, or in this case an adverb). It was MDW. Both ET and Mrs ET (although she wasn't at the time), had known MDW (who also wasn't yet) for a long time, in fact ET had travelled extensively with her and Chuck (maybe more on him later) in South East Asia.

This shared experience was not looked upon fondly by Mrs ET, who was at the time trying to ensnare ET on a long term basis, so a phone call from MDW was about as welcome as a fart in a space suit. There was an ensuing conversation between ET and Mrs ET full of hushed tones and strained looks, with the upshot being the statement to me to the effect that "MDW needs you to go and help her put some carseat covers on". Now if you're anything like me (and even if you're not), you'd be thinking 1) why would she need me, she doesn't even know me and/or, 2) why would she need help putting carseat covers on?

As it happens, she didn't ask for me because understandably, in much the same way as I didn't know her, she didn't know me too. (now that's some English right there!) What had transpired was that Mrs ET put her foot down, and ET put his in his mouth and volunteered me for the job to get Mrs ET off his back (if you knew Mrs ET you'd know this was not a comfortable position to be in, we're talking serious back strain). So it was with high hopes and a hard member that I threw my bike in back of ET's pickup and we headed to MDW's apartment, where ET dropped me and my bike off, and then took off like the scurvy bilge rat he is!

Both my high hopes and my hard member were dashed when I realised that MDW really did just need a hand getting the seat covers on, and it wasn't simply an elaborate ploy to get her some man meat. But the deed was done and here I was, plus there's no way Mrs ET would have ever believed that MDW wasn't after her fella, so it was probably all for the best. Anyway, these bastards weren't your usual stretch terry towelling numbers, they were the real deal, made out of the same vinyl as the originals and were even the same colour. They were, in fact, a DIY reupholstering kit that required the removal of the seats and a couple of hours of genuine grunt work!

However, and if you've been reading me for any length of time you know there's always a however, we eventually got them on and then retired to her apartment for some refreshments and stimulating conversation. Well, at least that's how I saw it...

When Hari met Kiri

I know some of you read the Dingo in the morning, so for those of you who aren't fully awake yet, I'll take a moment to explain the title. Always one to see how convoluted I can get, and how many meanings I can squeeze into the same few words, the title of this post is a combination of the name of the movie starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, as well as a Japanese term for voluntarily ending your life. Are you with me? No? Then pay attention, because this is about when I met MDW*.

(Oh, and Tiger Lamb Girl, it will be serialised so you may want to come back in a few days, unless you just want to come here to take the quiz (which may prove to be even more frustrating than having to read a serial if recent comments are any indication)). Wow nested parentheses, how very mathematical.

Why would I write this story in detail right now, especially since I have already written briefly about it in the past? Simple, I just noticed that Ree is writing a serialised account of how she met Marlboro Man, and she got 250 comments on the latest instalment alone! So I figure if she can get 250 with the Mills & Boon version (not my words incidentally, I got that from one of her commenters), I should be able to get at least 25 with my Hemingway like treatment of my story, humility alone should be worth some kudos.

Let's face it, her stuff is ok but really, do we need all the sweet sentiment and girlie emotion? Not to mention all the unnecessary stuff, like adjectives and adverbs and descriptive phrase and...mmm... such like (thank you Miss South Carolina, I was momentarily lost for words). And don't even get me started on all that punctuation crap she uses, what a waste of time!  No, I'm going for the guy's approach, clear concise and to the point, just like when Julius Caesar uttered those immortal words "Veni, vidi, vici" to sum up the situation completely when he finally got the recipe for his salad dressing just right.

And just like Mr Caesar, my whole story can be summed up in a simple statement of fact,  "We met, we screwed, we married", unless of course you're one of those who are opposed to pre-marital sex, in which case it's "We met, we married, I got screwed".  I was going to translate it into Latin for you but it was too much trouble, plus I think they must have used something else instead of screwing to describe fornication back in the old Roman Empire days because I had a hell of a time finding screwing in the Latin English dictionary.

So starting tomorrow, tune in for the full story behind how I managed to get myself hooked by a scheming, desperate, aging spinster. Jeez I hope she's not reading this!

PS. I have a confession to make. Yesterday's problem of losing the post, while starting out life as small glitch with TP, was really my fault. Had I been paying attention to what I was doing, and had I not been trying to be quite so clever (you should have seen all the formatting in the original post), I wouldn't have lost anything. But hey, come on, hands up those who have never blamed their screw up on the technology. The worst day on TypePad is still better than the best day on Blogger.

*MyDearWife.