Cainele care latra numai la pisici

For the English version, please click here.

De ce o facem?! De ce vrem sa avem animale de casa? Stim ca ne atasam sufleteste de ele. Stim ca ele se vor duce inaintea noastra si ca vom suferi cand le vom pierde. Si cu toate acestea le dorim. In mod constient. Cu ochii deschisi le cautam ani de zile si ne deschidem usile si inimile catre ele, atunci cand ne caute ele pe noi. De ce?!

Cred ca o facem din aceleasi motive pentru care vrem sa avem copii, desi stim ca nu ii vom putea proteja intreaga lor viata – e o lege inexplicabila a naturii. Simtim nevoia sa ne conectam sufleteste. Sa dam si sa primim dragoste, neconditionata. E superflua explicatia acestui fapt natural. O facem pentru a ne onora umanitatea!

Tatal meu si-a dorit dintotdeauna un caine. Mereu a vrut sa aiba un caine ciobanesc german. Dar cand eram noi copii, a iubit mereu cainii altora, pentru ca mama nu voia animale in apartementul in care am crescut. Cand a costruit in sfarsit o casa, primul lucru pe care l-a dorit in curte a fost un catel. Astfel, catelul va putea sta afara, fara sa murdareasca in casa si sa o supere pe mama.

Si asa a facut – tata a adoptat in sfarsit un catel. In august sunt 10 ani de cand a adoptat un caine ciobanesc german de la un prieten de al lui caruia ii fatase cateaua. L-a numit Bobby. Sau mai précis “Bobby Capucino”, datorita culorii maronii. Tata voia sa aiba un caine care arata fioros, pentru ca strainii sa se teama de el, si sa nu se apropie de casa. Bobby arata fioros, dar era departe de a fi fioros.

Bobby a fost cel mai tacut si supus catel din cati am vazut eu vreodata. Iubea oamenii, prieteni si straini, deopotriva. Si desi tata il voise la inceput pentru a latra tare la persoanele straine, asa cum o fac de obicei cainii ciobanesti germani, Bobby nu latra niciodata la nimeni, decat la pisici. Niciodata nu latra la oameni. Manca din mana oricui, se sprijinea de piciorul oricarui om statea la masa, spunea “buna ziua” la oricine intra in curte, si ii conducea frumos la bucatarie, sau oriunde erau cei de ai casei.

Era mereu in preajma tatei, desi tata fusese rau cu el in anumite ocazii, cand i-a calcat gradina de legume, sau cand a disparut de acasa si nu l-a gasit decat dupa ore intregi, speriindu-l pe tata care credea ca il calcase vreo masina.

Bobby a fost mereu dezlegat. Niciodata nu a fost legat cu lantul, asa cum o fac multi oameni in Romania. Si dupa ce si-a invatat teritoriul, Bobby era extrem de ascultator si cuminte, si nu mergea unde nu avea voie.

Vremuri mai sanatoase si mai fericite: Bobby in fata bucatariei si a portii

Ca orice animal de casa, Bobby a devenit parte din familia noastra. In primul weekend pe care l-a petrecut la noi in casa, a fost nunta sorei mele. A fost cu noi cand a murit maia; era mereu langa noi cand veneam in vizita, si mancam pe terasa; a fost langa mama si tata cand a murit Dolly, pisica noastra; era mereu langa tata cand facea gratar; a fost acolo cand l-am dus pe Patrick in Romania pentru prima data. Era mereu tacut si daca nu il vedeai, nu stiai ca exista caine la casa parintilor mei. Sau daca nu era cate o pisica vagaboanda prin curte si atunci ii auzeai scheunatul. Ca nu era chiar ca un latrat. Era mai mult ca un suspin sau oftat!

Nu prea se pricepea la tinut pisicile afara din curte. Suspinul lui frustrat cand le vedea insemna mai mult ca le atentiona ca desi primesc mancare acolo, curtea ii apartine lui.

Bobby a fost fara discutie cel mai destept caine din cati am vazut vreodata. Grija cu care se misca pe langa copiii mici, obedienta tacita fata de adulti, discretia cu care statea sub masa fara a cere flagrant de mancare, il aratau ca pe un caine destept. Si, fara discutie, a fost un caine plin de dragoste, pentru toti cei care l-au intalnit. Dragoste si umilinta.

Cred ca tacerea lui i-au cauzat si moartea, poate, pe de o parte. Parintii mei nu si-au dat seama cat este de bolnav pana a fost prea tarziu, pentru ca nu se plangea de a-I fi rau.

Bobby a murit astazi. Avea doar 10 ani. Si spun “doar” pentru ca ar fi trebuit sa traiasca mult mai mult! A murit la fel de silentios cum a trait. Asa cum a zis si mama, a fost ca si copilul lor; chiar daca l-am mai certat, l-am iubit, asa cum iubesti si certi un copil.

Deci, la dupa doar 10 ani, noi, si mai ales tata care si l-a dorit timp de peste 40 de ani, nu suntem pregatiti sa ii spunem “la revedere”. Dar adevarul este, cand oare suntem pregatiti sa spunem la revedere unui “copil”, unei parti de familie, unui animal de casa?!

Sper ca daca exista vreun “rai ai cateilor”, Bobby alearga acum liber si fara durere prin el, rastindu-se doar din cand in cand la pisicile care ii ies in cale. O sa imi fie dor de tine, Dle. Capucino. Esti de neinlocuit!

Mai putin "servitor si stapan" si mai mult "prieten si prieten" - tata, cu Bobby

The Dog Who Barked Only ... at Cats

Why do we do it?! Why do we ever consider to have pets? We know we will get attached like they are family. We know they will die before us and we know it will hurt when they go. And yet we choose to have them. Consciously. With eyes wide open, we seek them, or we open our doors and our hearts to them when they seek us. Why?!

I am guessing for a similar reason that some of us choose to have kids, although we know we won’t be able to protect them forever – just from some kind of unexplained law of nature. We feel the need to connect. To give love, and to receive it. Unconditionally and totally. Explaining why is superfluous. We will do it at some point in our life, to celebrate our humanity!

Ever since I can remember, my dad wanted a dog. He was very specific about what kind of dog he wanted: it was going to be a German Shepherd. As my sister and I were growing up, we watched him love other people’s dogs, because mom never allowed pets in our condo. But once he built his house, the very same year, he was on the lookout for a dog. This way, the dog can live outside, and not bother mom.

And a dog he got. Ten years ago this August, he had a friend who had a German Shepherd female dog who had puppies. And he adopted one and named him Bobby. More precisely, Bobby Cappuccino, because of his “cappuccino” color. Dad wanted a mean looking dog, so people would stay away from his house (in Romania the notion of a guard dog is not at all extinct). A large and mean looking dog Bobby was, but a mean dog he was very far from.

He had to be the quietest and meekest dog I have ever seen. He loved friends and strangers just the same. And although dad wanted him for the known, loud and intimidating Shepherd’s bark, the only thing Bobby ever barked at were cats! Never at people. Ever. He would eat from anyone’s hand, and lean onto anyone’s leg at the dining room table. He would greet everyone, friends, strangers, the mailman, anyone at the gate, and show them into the kitchen or where dad was.

He was dad’s shadow, all these years, although dad has been known to be mean to him when he trampled his veggie garden and when he wandered off into the streets for hours causing dad to panic that he might have gotten killed by a car.

Healthier and happier times: Bobby outside the kitchen and in front of the gate - he never quite grew into his paws and large head.

He was always free to roam. In Romania chaining a dog is routine, but dad never ever chained Bobby. He trusted him, and Bobby behaved always, after he learned everyone’s needs.

Like any pet, he became very much part of the family. During his first weekend in our yard, my sister got married. He was there when my grandmother died, when we visited my parents and had all our meals on the patio, he was there when Dolly, our cat, died; there when we grilled out, there when we brought Patrick for his first visit to see my parents. He was always quiet, and unless you saw his large frame, you never ever knew there was a dog living there. Unless stray cats would happen in the yard, and you’d hear his whining. Not as much as a bark, but a frustrated whine. He was not very successful at keeping cats at bay, though: dad has had throughout the years many-a-stray cats in the yard to feed. His whine was just a warning to them, perhaps, that yes, they may get food in that house, but the yard still belongs to him.

He was without a question the smartest dog I have ever known. His diligence to move around babies and small children without hurting, his nonintrusive closeness to humans, his discreetness and never begging for food made him smart to me. And definitely, without a question, he was the most loving dog I have ever seen. He was nothing but a big pile of love for everyone. And meekness!

I think his silence almost killed him: my parents didn’t realize he was as sick as he was, because he never complained. His congested heart was found too late.

He died today. He was only 10. And I say ONLY because dogs should live longer than that! Much, much longer! He went as quietly as he lived. As mom said “he was just like a child of ours; we loved him, although we sometimes scolded him, just like you do a child”.

So, at only 10, we – and definitely dad who waited for him for 40 some years – were not ready to lose him! Truth is: when are you ever ready to lose a “child”, a part of your family, a pet?

Hopefully, if there is such a thing as a doggie heaven, Bobby is peacefully roaming it free and painlessly, only whining at the random cat up there … I’ll miss you, Mr. Cappuccino. You could never be replaced!!

Dad and Bobby. Not as much "master and servant" as "pal and pal"

Idiocracy … Now ?!

There was a story told in my philosophy class, of an ancient man, who, while he was young, found a big, golden ring on the street. He picked it up, sold it, and lived well for a little while. Starting the day he found the ring, he always, for as long as he lived, walked with his gaze to the ground, looking for more gold. He became hunchbacked, and lived to be very old, but when he died, he realized: because he never looked at the world, he had missed all the beauty of it. The sun in the sky, the birds, the spring blooms, and yellow leaves in the fall, the beautiful woman who passed him by and could have been his wife, the stray puppy who could have been his good friend.

He never did find another ring. He died poor, lonely, and never knew the beauty of life.

I keep thinking about this man watching the world around me “evolve” (read: regress) into this techy age. More and more people keep their head buried into their Iphones, Ipod touches, blackberries, hand held devices … what have you. A computer device used to be a privilege, a gift, a treat at the end of the day, where you caught up with the world. Now, it’s the extra pair of eyes and ears that are attached to humans. It’s a given. It’s expected. It’s a taken for granted.

And in the process, I watch humanity dehumanizing. They become just as much the machines they are hand holding! It doesn’t matter whether they cross a parking lot, they drive a car, they watch a movie, they “talk” to a group of friends, the world is tuned out, because they need to keep up with the latest Facebook update about someone’s breast milk tasting funny today!

The most crass example of such de-humanizing, I think, came to me while going to Salt Lake City for a show, this past weekend. We were there to spend 90 minutes with the chef and author Anthony Bourdain in a half stand up – half “Artist’s Studio” type of evening . It was a good show. Not a great show, but a good one.

We had tickets in the third tier, which meant … way up high. Those were cheaper, but they also allowed me to see the whole concert hall. Looking down, at the main floor, while the show was going on and the lights were dimmed, you saw a field of bright, lit screens everywhere on the main floor. Every tenth person or so, just looking at their cell phone screen. Texting. Surfing. Emailing. Who knows?!

And this is while the guest was actually talking on the stage. It was not a boring show. Bourdain has a very vivacious, colorful, extremely visual way of speaking. He’s a great story teller and he had lots of stories to tell! You had to tune in to keep up with each story. And people were completely, and deliberately ignoring his speech. I was floored! Pun unintended!

Why do people bother to pay $70 tickets to a show, if all they do is tune it out to “watch” Facebook, The World Cup, or whatever else?! Why have people have become so darned self absorbed and rude to completely ignore the huge notices hung in the concert halls that kindly ask them to turn off their freaking cell?! Why are they so selfish as to not care about the beeper going off every ten seconds, as they get another IM update, bothering everyone around them?

My parents always told me: if you bother to pay for a show, that means you found it interesting enough to make it worth your buck! If so, respect the people traveling from long distances, who are standing in front of you working and trying to entertain you during the time you’re there! You don’t have to stay, if you hate it. But be polite and leave! Don’t blatantly ignore the people who are doing their jobs and don’t blatantly bully your seat neighbor!

It was a sad, sad scene for my eyes. We see people being replaced by machines all day long. We have 24 hour ATMs and coke machines, 24 hour gas stations with no one there. You can even mail a package at the post office without ever seeing a human being. Even buy your ProActiv supply at the mall, from a vending machine!

But, do we have to become machines?! Do we single-handedly have to cause ourselves to get A.D.D. and Alzheimer’s when we’re 40?! Do we have to consciously tune out the world in order to chase trifles?! Because no one is going to invent the next cure for cancer while surfing the Iphone, I can guarantee you that much! It’s trifles! No substance. At all!

I guarantee you that whatever all those people were after on their phones during the show would still have been there long hours after the show was over! If something was that life-and-death (really, really doubtful, considering the amount of people “cell-ing”), then you should not have been there – you should have been where life or death needed you!

But the show in front of your eyes, the one you paid $70 for a front row for … will be gone in 90 minutes! Never to be seen again! Unless one of those bozos in the audience bootlegged it and put it on youtube – in today’s world, that would be highly possible! But say they didn’t: you want to waste a lifetime (maybe) opportunity on 10 seconds of stupid “pleasure”?! Honestly?! Has the world come down to this lowest, below the ground level of easy entertainment?! Do I still call myself “human” like the rest of them?! Really?!

Images from Idiocracy, the Mike Judge movie, flashed through my head. We’ll be a world of nothing but gadgets and no brain usage. Facile entertainment and tuning out. No, I won’t cancel my Facebook account. Nor sell my cell phone. But I will try to keep a smidgen of humanity and common sense in me, and use them when it’s appropriate, while trying to remember what my parents taught me before I ever went to school: when someone is talking to/ at you, pay attention!

Plus, I don’t want to be that old person when I die, lonely and completely empty, devoid of what the world had to offer me! When my followers will ask me on my death bed what I have seen in life, I don’t want a loopy-loop Facebook scrolling screen to go in front of my eyes, while I mumble “not much”.

... And Now, with Pictures

Last week, I was talking about the love and the hatred, and the hardships of trying to get our yard cleaned up from all the construction debris and human carelessness. This week, my great husband was kind enough to break his own back and pick up all the junk I had stored at various ends of the yard. He then loaded it in the “Hemi”, aka our (to me, very large) Dodge truck. Now, we’re both in pain!

Here you can see a picture he took of all the rock I pulled out of the yard (the trash went in a different can), along with the mower that died trying to cut through it.

One good thing out of this though (along with hopefully having a clean yard) is that should I ever get dragged in community service to dig ditches in Utah, I’ve got the digging through this rocky soil down pat!

The evidence ...

Yard Laws

Too bad that I didn’t move to Utah back in the Wild West days! Because if I had done that, I would have taken my gun, and made one or two laws of the land of my own! One of them would definitely be: no builder should ever turn a house to a buyer without cleaning the junk in the yard first.

And I am not saying plant some trees, or some grass, or landscape before they sell it, I am just simply saying: CLEAN UP after yourself! My late English teacher back home used to ask himself why in the world do human beings feel the need , when they go out into the world, to leave their human “scarnavia” (impossible to translate correctly, something like “foulness” but much, much, much stronger!) behind themselves, like they would want to mark their territory or something.

That’s what I have been asking myself for the past two days while removing hard materials from our yard.

As I have said before, our yard is sort of challenging. The little grass that’s growing is overwhelmed by weeds. I like them, though, just the same – at least they’re green! There are many bald spots in the grass and a huge one right outside the back door. The little bit of greenery is also littered with rocks. Lots of little and big boulders and pebbles, like the house was set in a former river bed or something. We already, only after three mowings, lost a (brand new) mower to this yard, because the blade kept hitting the rocks (and other hard stuff), and the engine burned out from overworking, since the whole area is very uneven, too.

And when we waste money like that is when I lose it. So, that’s when I went out there with a hoe, a shovel, rakes, a mini rake, a mini scoop-like shovel, my bare hands, my gloved hands, my strong will and mushy muscles, determined to un-earth whatever hard materials are out there, and try to leave the soil unlittered and soft. Or as soft as the desert Utah soil can be.

For weeks I have heard Aa. telling me about the junk in the yard, and the impossibility of unburying it, because the soil is so hard and stuff is just stuck in it, but I never knew how bad it was out there. Till the mower broke and I actually got close to the ground to see what bothers it!

I picked up stuff you cannot even imagine. Sure, there were rocks! There were stones, too, and some of them even pretty. But most of the overflowing wheelbarrow I have parked out back is full of much more human yielding materials than just those “natural” ones.

You can practically tell, in our yard, where the contractor dumped the gravel pile, and the flat stone pile, and where the wood was cut for the cabinets, perhaps. You can tell where they mixed the concrete, from the huge slabs of concrete mixture buried in the yellow soil, and where they had their lunch, from all the flattened coke and water bottles and cans. You can tell where they had their smoke break. Along with concrete, gravel, plastic, half pipes, cigarette butts, you can find pieces of paper (made me wonder if those were someone’s toilet paper before they had a Porta John handy?! – sorry for the image), pieces of cloth, mesh, duct tape, lots of nails, electrical wire and rubber.

I cannot feel my knees from bending them for a day and a half, picking up all this litter. I hope, with a clean, breathing yard, and a smooth surface, and with “fluffed up” bald spots, my grass seed will take root and soon this yard will at least have green in it.

And let me tell you: after all this work to just have grass out there, I will never take a yard with nothing but grass in it for granted! Never!

I also hope that our new (again!) mower will not have any of this junk to hit anymore and it will at least last us a season. The soil is still uneven, but hopefully, with new growth, the mower will not try to cut rock and rubber, but actual grass. Now, I pray for rain, as the junk is gone and the seed is waiting to sprout. I hope.

If you ever wonder where those bottles that take a million years (or something) to decompose were dumped, come to my yard and find them. And I betcha, the yard of any new construction out there, for that matter … Just unbelievable how careless (and ignorant) humans can be!

And since there is no law to punish a builder for leaving a yard so junky, and since there is so much physical work involved in cleaning after a builder, I think the time one takes to make a yard clean and at least livable should build right up into the equity of the house! So, our house, when ready to be sold, should read like this in the MLS: “house built in 2007. Junk removed from yard in 2010”. That would make the yard three years younger than the house! And I think it should matter.

The Beauty of Our Back Yard. Sort of.

You may remember, from way back , I have always wanted a back yard to my house. I love the simple pleasures of just going out there, sleepy eyes and pj’s, coffee mug in hand, to read a book, magazine, or browse the net on a lazy Sunday morning. There is nothing like recharging with no frills, just like that.

One of the many snow covered peaks around Mount Timpanogos, in American Fork Canyon

Well, our new back yard happens to be a little … Spartan, for lack of a better word. Actually, I can come up with “worse” words to describe it, but … I don’t want to project worse karma on the poor thing. I need to be grateful that it’s there and pray that one day, we can make it into the heaven I want for the lazy days above mentioned.

There is almost no grass (really, just lots of weeds) in our back yard, and we live close to a semi-busy street (some times of the day and week are better than others). We have no patio, and the small chairs and table that are on the stair landing are barely fitting – not very conducive to “lounging”. There is no fence, really, so you’d be in everyone’s business and everyone’s business would be into your life if you were sitting out there. There are no trees. Not even one. It’s a space. Not much a “home” feeling there. It’s our job to make it into one. One day. And we will. I am sure. One day.

It's hard to imagine with such altitude today that Utah was once at the bottom of an ocean - but finding sea shells like this on the trails of American Fork Canyon reminds us of that.

But sometimes I am thinking: will we truly put the effort into making it into the heaven I was talking about with all the natural beauty we have around town? We have a little bit of everything around here, minus the ocean. But we do have huge lakes with beaches if we must have standing water. We took a couple of rides around our small town of Spanish Fork’s vicinity this weekend and the breathtaking scenery recharged our batteries more than three lawn furniture sets and fifteen grills could have had!

In the span of barely two days, we took in the mountains, and cold streams, and all the beauty they come with: beautiful flowers, freshly popped buds of aspen leaves, chipmunks, deer, countless butterflies, even humming birds that were too restless to be pictured, winding trails and roads, blue skies, and lots of waterfalls, fresh with the (still) melting snow.

I have never seen columbines before, but they are precious: very frail and yet sturdy enough to grow almost out of rock - grace under hardship for sure.


View from our picnic trail off Alpine Loop: who needs flat stone patio at home, when in less than an hour we can have lunch here?! (just half kidding, really)

On Sunday, we drove the Alpine Loop that winds about American Fork Canyon to Sundance.
Mount Timpanogos stands tall, snow covered year round, at 11,750 ft in the middle of the loop. After a day of driving, hiking, picnicking along beautiful mountain views, and lots of picture taking, we stopped in Sundance for dinner.

Alpine Loop is studded with tens of waterfalls; but the "must see" place is Cascade Springs: a spot in the middle of the loop where several streams converge in a beautiful marsh, full of wildlife and moss - nature's own Japanese garden


This guy seemed not very concerned at all about the cars on the Alpine Loop - he was just enjoying his lunch, feet away from the asphalt.


I loved, loved, loved the aspen woods! The leaves were just popped on most of them. I cannot wait for the fall, when they will turn screaming yellow - a sight that made Utah and Colorado famously gorgeous in pictures.

The next day, we went to explore the Whiting Campground in Mapleton, which is a small town next door to Spanish Fork. Only minutes from our house, we found a serene and extremely not populated and quiet camping ground, beautifully managed, clean, with a noisy stream running through it, amazing overflows, trails and wild life! We even picked a spot for our next camping trip! We can camp out there even without a notice one evening. It’s so close and so well done!

Mini-lake overflowing into a nice stream, and over the bridge/ road - in Whiting Campground, Mapleton, UT

Some of the hundreds of butterflies in various colors, along the stream
flowing through Whiting Campground

I will let the pictures speak for themselves. I still cannot believe, every day, with every time I open my eyes around me, that I live here! “Lucky” and “blessed” don’t begin to even describe it! And once you see the pictures for yourselves, you will (hopefully) understand why our literal back yard must wait for now. The trails are endless.

Simple beauty: aspen tree in the sun - American Fork Canyon/ Alpine Loop, UT
Please click on the picture to see the entire trip in photos.