Merlot stares at me when I eat. He watches each bite go into my mouth. He watches me chew. He waits for the last morsel. If I am paying attention I sometimes give him the last bite.
My wife cautions me about which foods I am not allowed to feed Merlot: onions--because onions create some sort of chain reaction in canine intestines that causes dogs to slowly die--chocolate, and corn starch, because it tartars up his teeth. I'm not sure how much science her dietary opinions are based on, and, to be honest, I don't necessarily believe in scientific research. Not because I grew up as a fundamentalist believing in creation (I did), but because I've lived long enough to know that scientific predictions seldom come true--at least not the hysterical ones.
The biggest scientific prediction I remember was AIDS. Ninety-eight per cent of hemophiliacs were going to be dead from AIDS tainted blood transfusions by 1986. Never happened. Forty per cent of the U.S. population was going to die of AIDS by 1990. Never happened. 40% of Africa was going to be dead by 1995. Lots of money raised--in the billions, but no prophecies fulfilled. So I look at all hysterical predictions from scientists the same way I look at the Boy Who Cried Wolf: Maybe there is a genus of wolf dying of heat stroke, but I'm not going to come running. I've been betrayed before.
Which brings me to global warming. Maybe the glacier that fell into the ocean and melted is an omen of coastal flooding, and maybe the loss of habitat for polar bears is a portent of the collapse of our entire ecosystem, or maybe not. (And why, may I ask, did polar bears think they had endeared themselves to the world population? The only positive PR move they have made is to be white, and by white I mean cuddly, furry white, not Caucasian.) A psychoanalyst might say that my cynicism was planted in me as a child when my parents' predictions that if I drank even one beer I would become alcoholic, or if I watched an R-rated movie I would become an adulterer, failed to come true. (Though the one about the teeth could be true since I have never gone to bed without brushing, except when we were camping, and that doesn't count.) Or perhaps I have a blasé attitude about global warming because I live in a really cold region of the country where a few degrees might be more than welcome when I'm trying to warm up my toes in bed on cold winter nights.
Not that I don't recycle. Our trash hauler handed out recycling bins the other day according to how much recycling we have been setting out next to the curb. They gave us a huge bin, the largest for residential recycling. I felt honored, and a little intimidated. It is a real challenge to fill that thing up every two weeks--or at least get it full enough so that we don't look like we have been chucking everything into the landfill. And to memorize all the things that go in or don't go in the recycling bin, which changes every year. My wife was aware that all plastics with numbers now go into the bin. I thought we were still on number one only. Cardboard, but no cardboard with packing tape. No packing peanuts. No metal, but you can dump metal for free at the dump. No batteries. My killjoy friend says recycling is a scam, that recycling creates just as much of a carbon footprint as throwing it in the landfill. I have no idea, but recycling somehow fits my personality, so I will continue to recycle regardless.
Merlot ran off the other day. I unhooked his leash when we arrived at the grade school playground. He usually lopes along the edge of the woods sniffing to find out who has been there ahead of him, and I hook him back up at the end of the playground before we go into the street again. This time when I turned around he was nowhere to be found. Sixty seconds and he was gone. I walked back home along the busy street and called to him. He likes to cross the busy street, usually in front of big SUVs who honk at him. If someone catches him and returns him to me, they look at me as if I am the worst dog owner on the face of the earth. I snuck into the house. My wife did not look up from her computer screen. When he was a young dog and she found out he was gone she would first address me: "Don't you love the dog? You don't care! You don't care if he dies!" Then she would grab dog biscuits and run down the road, tears streaming down her face, crying, "Merlot, Merlot!" Not only did the neighbors think she was a particularly picky alcoholic, but the dog always came home before she did.
Someone told me when your dog runs away, never punish him when he comes back home. If you do, the dog will think that you are punishing him for coming home instead of for running away. Merlot barked a single woof an hour later at the back door, his signal he wants to come in. He was thrilled to see me and wagged his tail and hopped up the stairs and into the house. He didn't bother telling me where he had been, nor did he apologize. Some dog trainers believe that dogs can't even remember running away, but I think these are the same scientists who believe that criminal behavior is genetic and criminals are somehow not responsible for their crimes. I resent Merlot running away and I feel a rift between us. The trust has been broken. I pet him less. I talk to him less. I push him out of the way if he stands in my path. I feel a sense of betrayal.
Somewhat like the way I felt when I learned that one of our trash haulers had been throwing our recycling into the trash--because they didn't like us requesting our recycling be picked up every week. Or the day I found out that when the recycling dumpsters are full at the landfill then they just dump the recycling in with the household trash. It tears at the fiber of our social order.
My wife cautions me about which foods I am not allowed to feed Merlot: onions--because onions create some sort of chain reaction in canine intestines that causes dogs to slowly die--chocolate, and corn starch, because it tartars up his teeth. I'm not sure how much science her dietary opinions are based on, and, to be honest, I don't necessarily believe in scientific research. Not because I grew up as a fundamentalist believing in creation (I did), but because I've lived long enough to know that scientific predictions seldom come true--at least not the hysterical ones.
The biggest scientific prediction I remember was AIDS. Ninety-eight per cent of hemophiliacs were going to be dead from AIDS tainted blood transfusions by 1986. Never happened. Forty per cent of the U.S. population was going to die of AIDS by 1990. Never happened. 40% of Africa was going to be dead by 1995. Lots of money raised--in the billions, but no prophecies fulfilled. So I look at all hysterical predictions from scientists the same way I look at the Boy Who Cried Wolf: Maybe there is a genus of wolf dying of heat stroke, but I'm not going to come running. I've been betrayed before.
Which brings me to global warming. Maybe the glacier that fell into the ocean and melted is an omen of coastal flooding, and maybe the loss of habitat for polar bears is a portent of the collapse of our entire ecosystem, or maybe not. (And why, may I ask, did polar bears think they had endeared themselves to the world population? The only positive PR move they have made is to be white, and by white I mean cuddly, furry white, not Caucasian.) A psychoanalyst might say that my cynicism was planted in me as a child when my parents' predictions that if I drank even one beer I would become alcoholic, or if I watched an R-rated movie I would become an adulterer, failed to come true. (Though the one about the teeth could be true since I have never gone to bed without brushing, except when we were camping, and that doesn't count.) Or perhaps I have a blasé attitude about global warming because I live in a really cold region of the country where a few degrees might be more than welcome when I'm trying to warm up my toes in bed on cold winter nights.
Not that I don't recycle. Our trash hauler handed out recycling bins the other day according to how much recycling we have been setting out next to the curb. They gave us a huge bin, the largest for residential recycling. I felt honored, and a little intimidated. It is a real challenge to fill that thing up every two weeks--or at least get it full enough so that we don't look like we have been chucking everything into the landfill. And to memorize all the things that go in or don't go in the recycling bin, which changes every year. My wife was aware that all plastics with numbers now go into the bin. I thought we were still on number one only. Cardboard, but no cardboard with packing tape. No packing peanuts. No metal, but you can dump metal for free at the dump. No batteries. My killjoy friend says recycling is a scam, that recycling creates just as much of a carbon footprint as throwing it in the landfill. I have no idea, but recycling somehow fits my personality, so I will continue to recycle regardless.
Merlot ran off the other day. I unhooked his leash when we arrived at the grade school playground. He usually lopes along the edge of the woods sniffing to find out who has been there ahead of him, and I hook him back up at the end of the playground before we go into the street again. This time when I turned around he was nowhere to be found. Sixty seconds and he was gone. I walked back home along the busy street and called to him. He likes to cross the busy street, usually in front of big SUVs who honk at him. If someone catches him and returns him to me, they look at me as if I am the worst dog owner on the face of the earth. I snuck into the house. My wife did not look up from her computer screen. When he was a young dog and she found out he was gone she would first address me: "Don't you love the dog? You don't care! You don't care if he dies!" Then she would grab dog biscuits and run down the road, tears streaming down her face, crying, "Merlot, Merlot!" Not only did the neighbors think she was a particularly picky alcoholic, but the dog always came home before she did.
Someone told me when your dog runs away, never punish him when he comes back home. If you do, the dog will think that you are punishing him for coming home instead of for running away. Merlot barked a single woof an hour later at the back door, his signal he wants to come in. He was thrilled to see me and wagged his tail and hopped up the stairs and into the house. He didn't bother telling me where he had been, nor did he apologize. Some dog trainers believe that dogs can't even remember running away, but I think these are the same scientists who believe that criminal behavior is genetic and criminals are somehow not responsible for their crimes. I resent Merlot running away and I feel a rift between us. The trust has been broken. I pet him less. I talk to him less. I push him out of the way if he stands in my path. I feel a sense of betrayal.
Somewhat like the way I felt when I learned that one of our trash haulers had been throwing our recycling into the trash--because they didn't like us requesting our recycling be picked up every week. Or the day I found out that when the recycling dumpsters are full at the landfill then they just dump the recycling in with the household trash. It tears at the fiber of our social order.