The reports emanating from Australia alleging that I do not believe in same-sex marriage are completely untrue.
I am in fact a long-time supporter of gay rights. Please don't confuse my beliefs with those of an unstable Australian politician named Jacqui Lambie.
Also, FYI, I have indeed thought about the deplorable Russian discrimination against LGBT people.
At the close of the day I like to sit in my recliner chair and catch up on all the news that's fit to print, even if it is sometimes over my head.
So much to catch up on. The past two months have been exceptionally action-packed, even for me.
In October we went on a stair walk with Teresa.
In early November Aunt Margie drove down in her new car for a visit.
The next week Thomas and his friend Devin were here for a few days on a film shoot.
And the end of November was marked by fireworks: Charlie's 21st birthday, Thanksgiving, and, most remarkably, a wedding (to which I was inexplicably not invited).
The poodle seen marching in the parade above is not me.
Instead, I was the guy on the sidelines watching the festivities unfold.
It was the Fourth of July and, as is my wont, I took an understated approach.
Instead of the traditional tri-color red, white, and blue, I went with a simpler white and blue. I like to leave something for the onlooker's eye to fill in.
Oliver and Winnie and I attended the parade together.
We saw lots of bands....
and received some fashion inspiration.
In the end, though, it was really about relationships.
It was a chance to enjoy the day with individuals who were all happy to share in the celebration of our magnificent albeit flawed democracy.
So, what's been going on with me? I've received a number of emails desperately importuning me for information.
In fact, there have been some significant and newsworthy adjustments taking place.
Here is a list of key recent developments:
(1) LESS TIME AT BLUFFS. Due to the seasonal re-appearance of foxtails and burrs at the bluffs, I have been spending less time there. I've observed that other dogs are also avoiding the bluffs, presumably for similar reasons. For the moment my morning and evening walks tend to be on pavement.
(2) CHARLIE'S RETURN. My life has improved immeasurably, because Charlie is at home. He plays with me, throws my rawhide, and emotes with me.
(3) SHIFT IN SOFA FOCUS. Because Charlie is at home, and is conducting his summer work from a reclining position on the sofa, I am choosing to do more of my sofa sitting near him. That means I have switched from the living room sofa to the family room sofa.
(4) CHAIR. I have also colonized a chair near Charlie. I use it when I am feeling a flash of independence.
(5) REFORMULATING IDENTITY ASSUMPTIONS. Charlie decided to undertake some genealogical research about me. His conclusion: I am not a poodle, as I have always believed, but, rather, a bichon frisé (see exemplar photos below). Naturally, I was shocked, as this calls into question everything I've always held true regarding my personality and physique.
I am still assimilating this explosive revelation.
(6) EAR INFECTION ELIMINATED WITH ANTIBIOTICS. Self explanatory.
In the course of my research regarding the memorial bench brouhaha a couple of months ago, I had an opportunity to speak with Manny Glaser, who lives across the street from the bluffs. Though I knew, and had mentioned in my post about the Berman-Yoshpe bench, that Mr. Glaser is a longtime critic of dog owners who let their dogs go leashless at the bluff in violation of leash laws, until now I had not understood why he feels so strongly. Talking with him gave me food for thought.
Mr. Glaser's points, as I understand them, follow, along with my evaluation of each one:
1) The bluff is a people park. It is not a dog park. Mr. Glaser regrets that the Palisades doesn't have a dog park, but he emphasizes that the bottom line is that the Asilomar bluff is posted as requiring dogs to be on leashes.
My take: Mr. Glaser is accurate: Legally, this is not a dog park. Although, it is also true that laws sometimes lag behind changing social mores.
2) Mr. Glaser and the neighbors on each side of him, all of whom have dogs, are all frustrated because their own dogs become overexcited and bark constantly as they look out their windows at dogs across the street running wildly. (Here Mr. Glaser highlights in particular the people who use long ball-launchers to throw balls for their dogs to chase.) When Mr. Glaser is trying to work or to read, his dog is barking away. Mr. Glaser believes, as apparently also do his immediate neighbors, that the bluff is being hijacked in a way that frustrates their quiet enjoyment of their lives.
My take: Even if the dogs on the bluff were on-leash, the dogs looking out the window at them would be barking. As a sofa-sitter myself, I can attest that one's natural tendency is to bark when one sees a dog go by. If you live in front of a park, you're going to see a lot of activity.
3) The dogs who populate the bluff can be off-putting, in particular to older people who may be scared to walk there, and to young children. In particular, Mr. Glaser feels bad that when his Israeli grandchildren come to visit they have been leapt upon by very large dogs. Mr. Glaser says that in Israel dogs are not routinely kept as pets, so his grandchildren are frightened of these large and unrestrained dogs jumping on them when they go over to play on the bluff or even just to sit on a bench.
My take: This is a valid concern. Dog owners who bring their dogs to the bluff need to be more attentive, more sensitive, and more aware that not everyone else is as comfortable with their dogs as they are. I am thinking in particular of a few dog owners who have the nerve to take umbrage when asked whether or not their dog is friendly. The burden of proof is on the dog owner here. And rather than an unfortunately-titled 'one bite at the apple' rule, there should be no tolerance for any 'bites'. If a dog is possibly unreliable, that dog should not be on the bluff unless tightly leashed and supervised.
4) Dog owners do not always pay attention to their dogs, and thus may miss dog defecation which remains on the bluff and is like a minefield to persons such as Mr. Glaser who might want to walk on the bluff at night. Here Mr. Glaser identifies two categories of culprits: (a) People who come with their dogs to the bluff but may be socializing and miss seeing a poop occur; and (b) One particular neighbor, living a block from Mr. Glaser, whose dogs historically have crossed the street to the bluff while that neighbor stayed at home.
My take: This one is also a valid concern. The bluff isn't a forest; it's a public park where people like to walk. Anyone who repeatedly ignores their dog's defecation should not be permitted to return.
So, here we are. Mr. Glaser is certainly within his legal rights to complain, and some of his arguments are compelling. Is there a way to balance the concerns of the residents whose homes adjoin the bluffs with the desires of everyone else to come to the bluff and enjoy the sunset with their dogs?
Can dog owners stlll gather to socialize while keeping closer tabs on their pets? (I know... easy for me to suggest, since I have no desire to wander far from my owner and in an ideal world I would be carried by her at all times.)
Can the neighbor Mr. Glaser complains about better supervise her dogs?
Would the Glasers and their neighbors be OK with people gathering more decorously but minus the throwing balls?
Can bluff-goers police themselves better?
Can't we all just get along?
Last week's Palisadian-Post featured an impassioned letter to the editor from Peggy Calamaro, the widow of Fino Calamaro, expressing her frustration and dismay at the L.A. Parks Foundation's (a) replacing her husband's memorial bench without consulting her, and (b) affixing to the replacement bench a plaque memorializing another person.
As Lambiedog readers may recall, back in August 2010 I surfaced my own concerns about the LA Parks Foundation's thuggish practice of stacking an additional person's memorial plaque on a bench site that was originally dedicated to a single individual. Ironically, at that time I identified Mr. Calamaro's bench as the only replacement bench that had not yet had an extra 'tenant' added, and quipped that perhaps the Calamaros had paid the Parks Foundation to leave their bench alone.
In fact, soon thereafter a plaque honoring a lady named Marge Lynn Currie was added to the replacement Calamaro bench. Although Mr. Calamaro's plaque remains in the rear of the concrete base of the bench, most people coming to sit on the bench will read it as a bench in honor of Ms. Currie since her plaque is affixed to the front of the bench itself.
So, where do things stand now?
May 2009 August 2010 January 2012
Most of the original benches have been replaced, and all those that have been replaced have had a plaque memorializing a second person added to the front of the bench, while the original plaque honoring the original dedicatee remains embedded in its original concrete pad, behind the bench.
The only ones of the old benches that have not been replaced (and, therefore, haven't had an additional dedicatee added) are the Anna Walker Steere bench -- probably because it is so close to the edge of the bluff that it was deemed unsafe or pointless to replace, the Stirling bench (no idea why it was spared), and the Berman-Yoshpe bench, which was perhaps left alone because the dedicators live across the street from the bench and were or would be quick to complain.
The one new-style bench on the bluff that has only a single 'tenant' -- the Melodie Mooz bench -- did not replace an earlier bench memorial. Rather, it was an addition to the bluff, in a spot where there had not previously been any bench. Presumably the Parks Foundation charged substantially for the privilege of single tenancy. [Revision - 2-6-2012: For some reason I've been ignoring the Saul Stark bench, which was also added around the time of the Mooz bench.]
Perhaps the saddest story is that of the bench honoring David Robbins, who died of epilepsy in 1994. His parents are gone, and no one is left to stand up for him or complain that the replacement bench bears a shiny plaque honoring Ed and Donna Betts, while the Robbins plaque sits dirty and unattended in the foundation behind the new bench.
A further tragedy here is that, by adding the additional plaques to existing memorials, the Parks Foundation has turned Marge Lynn Currie and the other bench piggybackers into unwitting carpetbaggers. In fact, Ms. Currie sounds like a lovely person. Like Mr. Calamaro, she was a resident of the El Medio Bluffs area. She was a runner and a supporter of Heal the Bay; a children's book author and L.A. Unified School District administrator who grew up in Queens, New York and died young at age 59, after 37 years of marriage and four children. (In her letter, Mrs. Calamaro took pains to note that she bears no animosity towards the Currie family, who had nothing to do with the decision as to where to situate their memorial plaque: "I don't blame them; they did not know the history.")
The full text of Mrs. Calamaro's letter to the Palisadian-Post follows:
I write from complete frustration and sadness. I am one of the victims of the memorial benches that were destroyed along the Asilomar bluffs, which Howard Kern wrote about last week in his letter "Memorials at Asilomar" (December 29).
My husband, Fino, died in 1996 and as a family we decided to put up a bench where we had his service, directly at the end of El Medio on the bluffs. It is where our whole family has enjoyed many a sunset. We have lived in the same home since 1961 and all of our family has enjoyed that spot.
About two or three years ago, I got a call from a friend who told me Fino's bench was being bulldozed down. I couldn't believe it. I raced down but it was already gone. I was never ever consulted, nothing. It took me quite awhile to find out what happened,
A woman who works for the L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks took it upon herself to replace all the benches -- not ever consulting the owners. When I finally spoke with her, she was very uncaring and all she kept saying was she felt the benches were old. Fifteen years, which is hardly old, and then she kept saying, "Well, what do you want from me?" I said, "I want my husband's bench back." She said, "It has been destroyed."
Dear readers, how would you feel? She did not want this conversation. I told her I paid quite a lot of money for it and she should reimburse us for his bench. She did in fact destroy it. She said fine. Now the story gets worse.
I can barely go down there knowing it isn't the bench I picked out (which by the way was one of the first down there). As a family, we decided to grit our teeth and accept the bench she chose. That is when to my heartbreak I saw she had sold it to some other person. So now, our bench is dedicated to someone else. I don't blame them; they did not know the history. So now, every time one of my family members goes to think of their father, or one of his many friends goes there, they are sitting on someone else's bench.
I have held this in for such a long time and I have cried so many tears over it. I hope, dear readers, this doesn't ever happen to you.
Enough about the deficit -- now here is a newsworthy story, from Australia. It concerns a dog named Bibi who is blown from a pier but saved by a heroic young man who happens to be at the pier to scatter his family member's ashes.
Bibi's rescue actually occurred almost two years ago, but news is slow to travel across the Pacific. Here's what happened:
Bibi, who is a Maltese / Shih Tzu mix, was walking on the Brighton pier in suburban Melbourne with his owner when he was blown into the water by gale-force winds. He tried to dog paddle back, but the wind was strong and for a while blew him even further from the pier.
A hero named Raden Soemawinata happened to be on the pier for a ceremony to scatter his grandmother's ashes into the Melbourne bay. Mr. Soemawinata stripped to his underwear (conveniently, he was a part time model), got into the water and swam Bibi to safety.
Bibi and his owner were both very grateful.
When I went out to the bluffs the other day I found a new dog, Olive by name, as well as all the complications that crop up when a new individual is introduced into a tight social world.
There was a lot of curiosity about Olive, especially from Oliver, who didn't want to share his name.
I tried to get Olive off to the side, where I could speak to her privately and warn her to tread lightly with Oliver.
She got the gist of my message. With my mediation assistance, the two of them spent some quality moments together and worked their issues through.
With that problem resolved, I left for my next assignment -- some delicate matters requiring my attention in Kosovo.
Although my departure was felt deeply, everyone understood that I was needed elsewhere.
Seventy-five people, including the fire department, gathered at the bluff this morning to await the arrival of the tsunami wave generated by Japan's terrible earthquake.
The expected time came and went but the wave did not appear. Finally, everyone went home.
