beingstray.com

I am quick to say that I don’t watch much tv. I think tv is more often a habit than anything else. Aside from most things PBS (my equivalent to cable), I watch few programs: Ellen for the simple, hardy belly laughs, Grey’s Anatomy for the characters and Brother & Sisters for the family relationships. Oh, and Nightline — something I have been a fan of for many years; even prior to the platform change.

TV is mostly background noise for me. If my house is too quiet, the dogs will hear things that are miles away and get distracted by it. Generally the background noise is music. I plug the iPod into the stereo dock on my way to the coffee pot each morning, usually select the option to shuffle the songs and let it run until bedtime. As though that is not enough, I sometimes go to bed with the iPod plugged into my head. I select an album to play to slow my brain and generally fall asleep before it’s done.

A few days ago, I tried to turn the tv on, but no luck. Nothing happened. Was it the hairball on top of the tv causing the problem? I tried a few things, walked away confused, returned to try a couple more things and again walked away confused. However, after a brainfart, I think I may know the answer. I think the same cat barfed a hairball into the digital tuner thereby shorting out any digital service to my tv. Damn!

I went to WalMart yesterday looking for a new tuner, but they don’t sell them anymore. Don’t sell them anymore? They were stocked in huge piles months ago (or was that a year ago?) just before the conversion to digital tv and now it’s like it never happened. They suggested a few places I might check, but I didn’t have the time yesterday to chase “mights.” So I am home again and tv-less. Perhaps I can keep up with what I like via the computer.

When you live with animals, you can quickly realize how unimportant most material things are (except for my iPod and my computer). Years ago, one of my dogs, Brie, found that the glue in the binding of some very old books was very tasty. She chewed it from the backs of 3-4 books printed in the 1920s. They were from a collection my mother had as a child. It was the complete collection and they WERE in mint condition.

Once eaten, there is little you can do but utter a few choice words under your breath and move them. And so it goes here at the bit-by-bit ranch… it’s always something.

Posted on March 20th, 2010 by isak
Filed under: Miscellaneous | No Comments »

People are often admired for their passion to a cause, a belief, an idea; respected even.

But what of the passions that fail, falling short of their mark, their goal. Where does that energy go?

I am in the throes of just such a failure (though my friend Viktor would tell me it is not a failure, but an outcome).

I compare it to a car traveling down the road at a high rate of speed heading straight for a tree. At this point, the front end of the car has already wrapped itself around the tree and its momentum has gone from 90 to nothing in an instant. However, the back end of the car is still moving forward, still anticipating the crash but unable to do much about the inevitable.

Looking at it from that perspective, I can better see that my continued efforts to prevent a very bad crash are long past. Best to make what I can of what I have left.

Being the optimist that I am — a “utopian” as a friend used to call me — I am hoping that perhaps the rear of the car will survive the collision so that all the momentum to this point will not have been in vain.

Those screeching brakes so often heard just before a big crash? That is my passion and my energy screaming to not be stopped in it’s tracks, to not die. Perhaps I can separate the back of the car from the rest of the car and it can be useful somewhere else.

Passion is powerful and passion is addictive. It is sometimes blind. It is the round peg in the square hole that pushes the envelope of what is often complacent normalcy. We owe a debt of gratitude for the minds that think with passion.

It need not always crash into nothingness. And it need not be viewed as failure… it is simply an “outcome.”

I shall live to fight another day, and I shall continue to act with passion, bruised as it is right now, but intact.

I have not lost everything in this crash.

Posted on March 11th, 2010 by isak
Filed under: Observations, Thoughts | No Comments »

Every morning for two weeks, I have jumped on the computer first thing to see what needs to be done to roll out the message for the day’s campaign. It gets written, translated, passed along the appropriate paths, messaged, posted, tweeted… a process of some hours and certainly a tad more complicated than just suggested.

So it’s Day 13…. nothing to do right now but wait to hear what the judge says at the end of the day.

Ever seen a photo of monarch butterflies at the end of their migration? Their wings are torn and tattered; they are pretty beat up. That’s how I feel.

Martin Luther King said: Never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

In this case, I think both a person and an animal are in need; for me, I could not look away.

I am so grateful for all the people that felt the same.

Thank you for the opportunity to work with such great people. I live to fight another day… hopefully with you all by my side!

Un besos all! Ciao.

The judge has granted an adjournment so Francesca Rogier can have Brindi assessed by a dog behavioralist. Court resumes April 16, 2010.

Posted on March 9th, 2010 by isak
Filed under: Activism, Animal Stories, Dogs | No Comments »