I still Believe

GO SOX!

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Still

"Dense." That's the word I would give it if I were limited to one word. Dense with history, people, cars, buildings. Even the trees cling to every curb, determined to crush out any sense of space. I grew up with fields and pastures, and I need to see sky sometimes. There is no sky in that New England metropolis, just age and culture. Consequently, I found myself wanting to strike out at people on the subways and sidewalks in panic for a little elbow-room, some air to breathe. From buying groceries to having a drink with friends, everything is hard there, dense and hard. There are just too many people in too small a space - all of them scurrying to secure for themselves what you want for yourself. They are your unwelcome competitors for materials, attention, and space, and you are theirs. Certainly they can be nice, if you can slide beneath their hard exterior, their instantaneous "No!" But if you want to survive, you have to push them before they push you. It is a constant struggle in which even the weather beats at you, a cold that seeps into your bones until you think you will never be warm again.

I cannot live there anymore.

And yet…I miss. I miss tea at a café on Newbury Street on a spring afternoon when the snowmelt puddles on street corners and drips from the awnings of Armani and Prada. The air so heavy it dampens the sounds of cars rushing past and sidewalk conversations carried out in Mandarin and French. I miss brick townhouses that remember the Revolution, plain and solid on the outside with glimpses of marble fireplaces and crystal chandeliers through rippled, centuries-old glass. Things were built to last there. I miss narrow, winding streets that never quite come out where one thinks. Every journey is one of confusion, followed by discovery. I miss the river that freezes so hard in winter people drive on it, and in spring, breaks out with Ivy League crew teams that glide over its surface like maroon-clad swans. I miss used-music stores in Harvard Square where millionaires' sons in second-hand clothes haggle with sales clerks over $10 CDs. I miss the Museum of Fine Arts where blue-collar workers from Southie spend a Saturday admiring Van Goghs and Renoirs with no more self-consciousness than they would feel at a construction site near Fenway. I miss Robert Frost, Hawthorne, and Thoreau. I miss fresh lobster in summer and flame-colored trees in Autumn. And most of all, I miss the pubs, places where my friends and I listened to Irish bands and talked about our classes while drinking Guinness served by people who know how it should taste, the feel of warm camaraderie on cold, winter nights.

I miss Boston.

Crossing the Line

The rainy season is beginning here in California's central valley. That means our months of cloudless blue skies, blazing sun, and scorched earth are finally at an end, and the plants and people breathe a sigh of relief. But it has also had an unexpected side effect for me in my new occupation, so I thought I would take this moment to elaborate on the negative aspects of my job that I hinted at before. There are only three, which means that on the whole I still enjoy what I do, but they are seriously annoying. So here goes.

The first one, as I indicated, relates to the weather. Being a crossing guard involves standing outside on the sidewalk for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. I'm a rather outdoorsy kinda guy, so this really doesn't bother me. In fact, I quite like it. And unlike most people here, who seem to think that God ordained that their lives be filled with only sunny and beautiful days and who feel betrayed and horribly put out when this imagined promise isn't kept, I enjoy a little variety in my weather. I love a sunny day, but I also like a little rain and the occasional bluster. Heck, even a spot of cold and snow would be welcome to me. Besides, I'm only outside for an hour. If I get hot, I always know that I'll be back indoors before it gets intolerable. And if I get wet and cold, I know I will shortly be able to go home and change clothes. It really, really isn't a big deal. But any time there is a speck of dark cloud in the sky, every parent crossing my intersection feels the need to threaten me with being soaked to the skin. For some of them, it is a casual observation, but for some, there is a slight note of belligerence in their prognostications that I cannot for the life of me understand. Perhaps they are so used to ordering people, ie their children, around that they cannot comprehend that I do not instantly obey their directions and donn a rain coat in fear and trepidation of the terrible outpouring from the heavens; therefore, they feel the need to repeat their dire warnings at every possible instance. Or perhaps they are just trying to make conversation with me. But either way, I think I'm aware enough to notice that it is raining, and I further think I am old enough to decide for myself whether or not this rain warrants any extra measures on my part. I don't need to be told, let alone harrassed, about this. And in all honesty, I swear to you that this happens when the "rain" is no more than a slight mist that I find pleasant instead of alarming. I sometimes wish that people would just cross the street and be done with it.

The second issue is a less personal one, and it relates to my city's standing as the number one bike friendly city in the US. I, myself, am a cyclist. I prefer to walk or ride my bike rather than drive if at all possible. I would love to claim I do this for the environment, but the truth is that I just think it's easier. I don't like all of the hassle that comes with a car. Being able to just go out the door and get to my destination without the extra thought about gas, directions, parking, etc. is one of the best reasons for living in a major city; it is just so much more freeing. And though my town is a small one, it has this in common with a much larger metropolis. You can get anywhere in town quickly and efficiently on a bike. Every street has bike lanes; there are additional bike roads in many areas; and bike racks abound. The university even has entire bike parking lots. However, many cyclists seem to forget that a bike is, in fact, a vehicle. That means that one cannot, or should not, ride a bike on sidewalks or crosswalks. The word "WALK" in these compounds is there to indicate that these areas are for pedestrians. If one wishes to move within them, he or she must push the bike while. . . WALKING. And when one is in an area designated for vehicles, such as the public street, one must obey the rules of the road, even if one's vehicle is pedal powered rather than mechanically powered. That means that cyclists are required, just like cars and trucks, to stop at all traffic lights and stop signs, including the one held in the hand of a crossing guard. And one must remained stopped until the crossing guard lowers his or her stop sign and steps onto the curb. Most cyclists think they are exempt from traffic laws. They speed right through the intersection, sometimes even weaving in and out of tiny children toddling across the street. This is not only dangerous; it's illegal. And even when it appears that the kids have gotten safely into the opposite lane, that doesn't mean the cyclists (or motorists for that matter) can decide for themselves that it's time to go. Little kids are not to be trusted when it comes to crossing the street. That is why there is the need for crossing guards. They can turn around and run back across the lane at any moment, or a child that you didn't even see on the curb behind a line of cars may see a friend on the other side and decide to make a dash for it. And though a bike might not directly hurt a child much if it struck one, it can knock the child onto the pavement, leading to potentially serious or life-threatening injuries. Cyclists really need to learn that the decision is not theirs. They must stop as long as the crossing guard is in the crosswalk with his or her stop sign held aloft. Period.

And the last thing is a regular pet peeve of mine: cell phones, Blackberries, iPhones, iPods, etc. I cannot tell you how many times someone has blown through the crosswalk without even seeing me or the four small children traversing the intersection because they were talking on the phone or fiddling with a Blackberry. And often parents begin to cross the street with their precious loved ones following obediently behind them without making certain that I have stopped traffic or motioned them to proceed because they were preoccupied typing in a text message. And even if I blow my whistle or shout, most cyclists do not hear me because of the iPod permanently implanted in their ears. I don't care what anyone says, the primary convenience of these devices is that they allow people to do one thing while they are actively engaged in another, and this is dangerous! The human brain is not capable of doing two things at once. It's just not. You may think you are multitasking, but you are not really doing either task well. Diverting attention to an electronic device removes you from your surroundings so that you are not completely aware of what is going on. As long as everything goes smoothly, you can handle this. But what about when a car pulls out in front of you or a child darts across the street or a crossing guard waves a big red "STOP" sign before you. You will likely not notice it. And once you do see it, your brain will take a moment to refocus and realize what is happening. Then you will have to consider how to respond, drop the device you are holding, and move you hands/feet into position to halt your movement or alter your course. The delay it takes to perform these steps is longer than you think, and a child or children could be killed. Is having a meaningless conversation with you BFF or maintaining constant background music to your life really worth that? This isn't hypothetical. It almost happens every single day, multiple times a day, at my one crosswalk alone. Just wake up to reality and turn the damn machines off. Not down. Not on vibrate. OFF!

Dulce Domum

Every dictionary I check has at least six definitions for "home" -one had more than twenty- but none of them captures my sense of the word. To me, home is not exactly a place but a feeling. It must be a place I feel I know well, a place where I am familiar with the people and the landscape; it's where I am in sync with the rythms and comfortable in the surroundings; it's where even the atmosphere feels right. It is where I belong.

Listen to the word. h-OOO-MMM-e. It even sounds like strength and comfort, doesn't it? Yet, I'm not exactly sure where or what home is for me. I knew once, or thought I did. But now. . .

I grew up in a suburb of Nashville, TN. It was an odd sort of in-between place, too rural to be the city and too developed to be the country. It was houses, houses, houses all around without a single store and only one small horse pasture. Certainly, I had friends who lived close by; my school was pretty good; and our house was roomy enough. But the place was totally lacking in any sense of atmosphere. I never considered it home.

"Home" in my youth meant our family farm in Mississippi. No one remembers exactly how long the land has been in the family. My great-great-grandparents lived on part of it when my great-grandmother met and married my great-grandfather. The latter bought and added most of the rest of the 80 acres before he died when my grandfather was 8. There is a small cemetery on this "new" portion, containing mostly unmarked graves and two tombstones with the name "Scott" on them, but my grandmother has no idea who these Scotts were. I always loved the farm and spent as much time there as I could. The barn, fields, pastures, and ponds all seemed a part of me. But after my grandfather died, a tornado blew away the barn and other farm buildings, and my great uncle sold off the cattle herd, the place just didn't feel like it used to. In addition, everything is poverty and ruin in the deep South, and a radical conservative faction has such a strangle hold on the economy and politics that I no longer feel like I belong there and haven't for some time.

As a young twenty-something, I moved from the suburbs into Nashville. I had a good job downtown, good friends, and I walked the streets like I was born to them. I knew all of the best cafes, and each tree and statue was like an old friend. At night, I would go out on the town. I always knew where the best bands were playing and when, and I was a regular at several clubs and pubs. But then I moved away to start college. When I go back to Nashville to visit family, I feel like a stranger in the city. There are new buildings and new venues, and I am out of touch with the spirit of the place.

The small town my university was in was never really home to me. It was always a temporary stopping place, and it quickly felt alien once my friends and I graduated. I've been back there too, and it is comfortably familiar, but I cannot imagine living there now.

While in college, I participated in a summer abroad program and lived in London for a time. There again I found home. The cosey blend of cutting-edge city and centuries-old tradition suited my personality perfectly, and my long love of British literature made me intimate with the people, spaces, and culture like no place I'd ever been. I would gladly have remained there forever, but it was not meant to be. I had to return home at the close of the program. I have since paid it an all-too-short visit, and the old sense of returning home was with me just as strongly. But it is not practical to consider living there. It's too expensive, and immigration to the UK is difficult for non-europeans. I will have to be satisfied with occasional visits and a name of expatriot.

Then came Boston. My affiliation with "Beantown" began when my sister's family moved to western Massachusetts in 1992 or '93. They lived there for 5 years, and whenever I would travel north to visit them, we would go into Boston. It reminded me very much of an American London, and I knew that someday I would live there. And I did, for three years. At first, it required a lot of acclimation. I came from a world of Walmarts, suburban malls, and sprawling ranch houses. Boston is a dense city of boutiques and townhouses. I adapted to many things quickly, but much of the everyday took a little more effort. Still, I felt like I belonged there as I walked the streets, rode the "T", hung out in the pubs, or had lunch on the Common. How I miss it.

But I could not stay there. Again, it is too expensive, and no matter how comfortable I was in this bustling old city, I longed for a sense of space that it seems hostile to. Eventually it wore me down until I was tired and angry like most northeasterners, and that just didn't feel like me. So, DW and I moved to California.

If I lived here until the day I died, I would never feel at home here. Everything from the food to the trees makes me aware at every moment that I am an outsider. A lot of people, thousands each year, move to this sunny state, desiring exactly the things that alienate me. And to be sure, there is nothing innately wrong with these things. They just aren't for me.

But by this point, I have forgotten what is. I have lived and loved in so many places, each with it's good and bad, each feeling a little like home for a day or a season. . . but none of them, ultimately, filling the bill. I know all of the platitudes: "Home is where the heart is." "Home is where you hang your hat." "Home is where DW is at." "Home is..." "Home is..." Perhaps it is, in the final analysis, not that which is known, but that which is unknowable.

Crossing Expectations

I am a people watcher. Like most things, people tend to annoy me when I am focused on a specific activity and they are in my way. Even their very breathing seems to interfere with my ability to complete my task. However, if I take the time to stop and pay attention to them as living, sentient beings rather than obstacles, I often find myself entertained, amused, or even sympathetic toward them. I see their humanity. And even if I still notice them perpetrating incorrigible acts, I am often more tolerant or, at the very least, less agitated by their behavior. This may have no direct affect on them, but I feel certain that it encourages me to be less hostile toward them, which must indirectly make things better for them in some small way.

My new job as a crossing guard has given me a superb opportunity to observe people. In fact, one might say that this is my primary function. I watch people trying to cross the road, and I watch people driving cars/riding bikes down that same road. I always have to be alert and watching. And I admit that I was shocked by people's behavior during my first week on the job. But not in the way you might imagine.

You see, I tend to think of people, Americans especially, as self-centered automatons that will do anything to make their own lives better or more convenient while ignoring everything and everybody who will not further that end. Oh sure, people pay superficial lip-service to caring about others. We watch "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," we donate money to Habitat for Humanity, and we experience moments of sadness when we see some tragedy on the news. This makes us feel better about ourselves. And if a life-threatening situation arose, I truly believe that many of us actually would sacrifice ourselves to save someone else. Nonetheless, these general truths do not change the fact that on a day-to-day basis in a thousand little ways, we slight and belittle our fellow human beings while we strive to build lives of increasing isolation and personal luxury.

But perhaps I might have to revise this estimate somewhat. As a crossing guard, I am a public servant. I expected people to take me for granted, some seeing me merely as a necessary machine that enables them to get where they have to go but possessing no life of its own, and some as an annoying impediment in their progress down the road, something to be put up with for a few seconds before pressing down violently on the gas pedal with an irritated glare. On the contrary, most people are polite and respectful. They acknowledge me as a person and express their gratitude at my assistance, although sometimes this takes the form of trying to engage me in conversation, thereby inhibiting my ability to be as watchful as I need to be. Still, they mean well. Even the drivers usually show far more respect and patience than I anticipated. To be sure, some of them are motivated solely by a personal desire to be a good role model to their children - not because they actually care about me - but that desire in and of itself is a positive thing. It shows that they possess the right instincts, even if they do not always practice or consciously recognize them.

And the children are even better. They wait patiently at the curb, look me in the face as they pass, and almost always say, "Thank you." I had really not expected such courtesy and politeness. I suppose they are young enough that they still obediently follow their parents' orders and utter these words out of habit. And I suppose my orange vest and association with "School" makes me an unquestionable authority figure in their minds. Not to mention that my height of 6'4" must make me appear awesome to individuals who seldom exceed 3' themselves. Nevertheless, this has been a pleasant surprise.

That is not to say that some people have not reacted exactly as I expected, or worse. But for the moment, I'd prefer to allow my faith in humanity to expand a bit, so I will address these exceptions at a later date.

On a Mission

Continuing our sightseeing with my mother last weekend, we drove down to Monterey. We've been there several times before, but it really is an incredibly beautiful place. After hanging out on Cannery Row for a bit, we had lunch at one of the many beaches.

I could have stayed there all day. The sun is warm, and the breezes are pleasantly refreshing. True, the water is too cold to swim in, but the colors make a feast for the eyes. And with sea otters, comorants, brown pelicans, hermit crabs, etc., the wildlife is an endless source of delight.

But we didn't stay. We pushed on to see another of the CA missions, San Carlos de Borromeo de Carmelo. Carmel, actually named Carmel-by-the-sea, has a vibrant downtown and a great beach of its own, but we spent most of our afternoon at the mission. This one, one of the most attractive of the remaining missions, contains a minor basilica that is still a functioning Catholic church.

And a sizeable courtyard overflowing with brightly colored flowers.

I was glad we dropped by for awhile. But I still want to go back to the sea. Maybe Darling wife and I will have to hang out on the coast for a bit after we drop mother off at the airport in SF tomorrow morning.

Bad blogger!

I know that my posts have been few and far between of late. This is because my mother is still visiting, and I have very little time to sit at the computer.

There have been only minor developments lately, anyway First, I got another job. (The tutoring company hasn't provided me even one tutoring session yet. I hope their new business takes off soon, for their sake as well as mine, but I had to seek something additional for the time being.) I will be a school crossing guard. Yes, that's right. I will take my place amongst the ranks of little old men and soccer moms making sure the children of my fair city get safely across the street before and after school. It's a little humiliating, but the pay is good and the hours are great.

Darling Wife and I took mother for a visit up to Apple Hill for harvest time this past weekend. DW says she's getting a little tired of going up there every year, but I love apples and I love fall. So I had a nice time, and I'm sure DW won't complain when I bake her an apple cake this week.

There has been no news from the scottie breeder, but I still have high hopes. If she breeds her dog soon, we can still get the little tyke sometime in February. If she doesn't breed soon, I have had some promising leads from another breeder. We'll see.

Our holiday travel plans are beginning to shape up nicely, and we are hoping to go down to Monterey this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes... if I have the time. But I should be back up to writing more regularly in October.

The Other Valley

My mother has been visiting for a little over a week. She's been here before and seen most of the major tourist attractions, so we have been choosing some of the more engaging B-level sites to explore during this visit. Last week that took us up to Lake Tahoe and Reno. We also toured the home of Leland Stanford, one-time governor of California, president of the Union Pacific Railroad, and founder of Stanford University. All of this was fairly familiar to me and interesting to her.

But over the weekend we embarked upon the unknown. We ventured into the Sonoma valley wine country.

Of course, Sonoma is pretty well-known amongst wine drinkers, but it has always been overshadowed by its more famous neighbor, Napa. Darling Wife and I have toured Napa on numerous occasions with just about every houseguest we've had. They all want to go to Napa. And it is a short freeway ride from our house, so of course we indulge them. Certainly Napa is set up for tourism. It has wine snobs, wine trains, wine buses, wine limos, and vineyards that are more like amusement parks than wineries, some of them even charging $20-$30 just to let you through the gates.

Sonoma has its fair share of elaborate wineries too, but it is a little less popular, therefore, less crowded and less flashy. It also has much more than just wineries. It has some pretty cool history. The town itself has a plaza/square packed with buildings from the 1800's, including the last and northernmost mission on the Mission Trail, aka El Camino Real.
These missions, constructed by a joint-venture of the Catholic church and the Spanish government over a period of about 150 years, cover eleven of the southwestern states. They have always fascinated me, but I've never actually been to one until now.

Then we toured the adjacent Spanish fort and the nearby home of General Mariano Vallejo, who once owned most of northern California and was instrumental in the "Bear Flag Incident" that made California a US state.

Finally, we dropped in to visit Jack London and the ruins of his "Wolf House."

There was definitely a "call of the wild" about the place, and I can understand why the location appealed to London. It was also a little eerie, but perhaps that had to do with the approaching night. We had to leave without sifting through the manuscripts in the museum or seeing the small house where he wrote most of his famous works.

Perhaps we will return to this "other" valley on some future excursion to drink in the beauty of the land and its famed liquid and to commune with the spirits of the dead.

We have reached the End

Native Americans believed that California was the end of the world. They believed that the world literally stopped at the California coast. Travelling beyond the land of one's people meant leaving the physical world and entering the spirit realm. Western Europeans and early US citizens had a somewhat similar view. For centuries, they had travelled west, but California was as far as they could go, if you don't count the Hawaiian Islands, which they didn't. It represented the end of exploration and expansion, the final destination, which gave it a larger-than-life status. And even today, California has a mystical quality. Just say the name and visions of palm trees, orange groves, white sandy beaches, lean and tanned bodies, Hollywood glamour, and a wealth of gold dance in one's mind. People imagine that it is paradise. And in truth, much of it is magnificent beyond words. Isolated on the west by the ocean and on the east by the mighty Sierra Nevada mountain range, California is a strange and exotic place.

I never dreamed of living here. I wanted to go to the Pacific Northwest, but after failing to gain admission to my preferred universities, I accepted northern CA as close enough. But once we moved here, I was intoxicated with the place. There is so much to see and do, and everywhere nature's bounty seems to drop freely from the vines and trees. I could easily understand why people told me, "You'll never want to leave."

All of this changed after living here awhile. I came to realize that the bounty is not free. Hardly free. California's great central valley is farmed by means of elaborate irrigation systems and hard-working immigrant labor. Left alone, little if anything would grow here. The valley has what is known as a "mediterranean climate." We get a lot of rain in the winter, almost three solid months of it. And everything floods. Storm drains become overloaded, and fears of New Orleans-like levee breeches dominate the media and people's minds. Then after March, the rain stops like a dammed river, and things begin to die. What was once green and beautiful quickly takes on the golds and browns of dryness and death. The ground becomes rock hard, and the harsh winds rip the moisture from the leaves, hurling them crunchily to the ground, often still emerald in their brittleness.

And the insects! Ants invade our house several times a year. We never know when, where, and in what numbers they will strike. We awake in the morning to find ants in the kitchen cabinets or stumble to the bathroom during the night to find the countertop crawling with tiny black scavengers. Spiders envelope every bush, every home in webs, and these webs catch the dust that the farms and the wind stir up. Everything takes on an air of decay. One cannot even step outside without a coating of Deet or risk getting West Nile Virus.

And all of those wonders, those magnificant landscapes that you hear about, you must drive for hours and hours to reach them, and in between... nothing. Poor farms and empty desert. True, CA is the most populous state, but the people cluster in large cities on the coasts where houses are small and expensive and the seasons never change. In the south, it's always dry and hot, and in the north, neither warm nor cold, but chilly and damp all year round. Or they fashion modest towns in the valley, like the one we live in, where people struggle against nature with sprinklers and immigrant gardeners to create artificial oases where God never intended, ever vigilant against the barrenness and the bugs. And eventually, even those far-flung places of grandness begin to annoy. They are too far to be convenient and too sublime to be lived in. One longs for modest or normal in a land that does not understand the concept.

Yesterday, I did something I have avoided for months. I went out into my garden. Oh, I'd made brief forays into it, but then I'd turned away in disgust. But my mother is coming for a visit, so I had to brave the elements and survey the damage. And what do you think I found? You may recall that I spent much of last year entirely relandscaping our home. I cleared overgrown ivy, observed light patterns, carefully developed a garden plan, installed irrigation hoses, and planted, and planted. There were some deaths in the beginning, but nothing beyond acceptable losses. Even after the heat of July and being away for over a month, we returned to find most of our shrubbery in decent, if not perfect shape. But the months of continued nastiness have eventually taken their toll. Whether from too little or too much watering I do not know, but nearly everything I had planted with care, attention, and much expense last fall, winter, and spring has succumbed. Little remains of my wonderful garden except a few vines (homes for the ubiquitous spiders), dry sticks, and a collapsing privacy fence.

I was very frustrated at first to say the least, but now I am starting to find relief. It is apparent to me that I have travelled outside the land of my people, and this is the end, this California. The wanderlust I have had all of my life is beginning to abate. Contrary to what people said, I do want to leave.

Of course, we'll have to live here for awhile, but I'll just imagine that it is a spirit world where reality does not exist. There is little need or use in expending money or time trying to make a home here. We don't belong here, we mortals. But as in the Native American legends, it is possible to return from the spirit world after a time, and in many ways, it feels good just to realize one's true place. Yes, I will go home. Just not today.

Great Scot!

I have mentioned before that Darling Wife and I would like to have a dog. Specifically, we have wanted a Scottish Terrier puppy for many years. ...or rather, I have.

My parents had one when I was a child, and I adored him. I've wanted one of my own for decades, but my life has been too unsettled to make a good home for a dog. Besides, Scotties are expensive and relatively uncommon. Oh, one frequently sees Scottie merchandise. You know, the necktie or scarf with the Scottie print or the christmas tree ornament depicting a tartan-covered scottie peering into an unwrapped gift box. That stuff is everywhere. And West Highland White Terriers, which many people mistakenly believe are white Scotties, are somewhat common, too. But one seldom sees a real, live Scottish Terrier. In addition, pure-bred Scotties are prone to certain genetic diseases, so one has to be careful to buy from a reputable breeder who is knowledgeable about Scotties and breeds for the best health of the puppies. That means a lot of painstaking research into a breeder's background, etc. before buying.

I know that there are millions of perfectly good dogs in shelters around the country, so I do not need to be lectured about that. I'm not a dog snob. Some day DW and I would like to adopt a rescue pet. But dogs inherit a considerable part of their temperment from their parents; different breeds generally exhibit personality traits specific to their breed. Certainly, nurture can diminish the effects of nature, but it is never 100% sure. Dogs can and often do revert to type. One cannot completely eradicate hundreds of years of instinctual behavior just by how one treats the animal. Rescue dogs are usually mixed breeds, which makes it difficult to know what one is getting. And even if a rescue dog is pure-bred, they often come with psychological or physical baggage from their previous owner or the shelter. This will be our first dog, and we don't have much space. I don't think we can deal with special needs right now. We want to be pretty sure of the dog's health and probable temperment beforehand, and we want a puppy that will develop habits in keeping with our own.

I think Scottish Terriers are perfect for us. They have short legs, so they are smallish, which is perfect for the size of our home.

It's also much easier to get friends to look after a small dog when one goes out of town, which is important because we have no family nearby, and we go back east for weeks at a time once or twice a year. But despite their small stature, Scotties are fairly stocky, so they are hale and hearty, unlike the yappy, rat dogs that are so popular with the Paris Hilton types today. I can't stand those tiny, nervous things with their trembling, delicate natures. Plus, Scotties are not lap dogs that jump up on visitors and must be carried around in obnoxious little bags. They are independent, dignified animals that are fiercely loyal, playful, and friendly companions to those who respect them, but they are usually reserved with strangers, and they will tolerate no coddling.

With all of this in mind, I have been contacting breeders for the last few years, but I've never found just the right situation.... until now. About two weeks ago, I e-mailed a show breeder in a suburb of Reno, NV, about two hours across the Sierra Nevada mountains from where we live. Everything in our e-mail correspondence was very promising, but DW was still not convinced. Despite all of the internet research and all of the things I have told her, she just wasn't sure about Scotties. She's never known one.

The breeder invited us to visit her facility and meet her and her dogs, which we did this past weekend. It was fabulous. We talked for hours, and the breeder's philosophies and practices satisfied me entirely, and her dogs were wonderful! Darling Wife played with them the entire time, and she smiles from ear to ear anytime you mention them. She doesn't understand how I have been so patient for all these years. She is convinced that our home is missing a Scottie and wants one now.

The breeder is expecting her "bitch" to come into season at any time, and she will, with luck, have puppies in late October or early November. Once they are four weeks old, we can visit them as often as we like, and we will be able to bring one home in late January or early February. We will be travelling and have houseguests through January, so this is perfect timing for us. We are terribly excited!