The End of a Long Week

A while back it seemed life was bent on tripping me up. Nothing was going right. My dogs were misbehaving. I thought I was losing my mind or falling prey to Alzheimer’s. I was even afraid I was losing my sense of humor. I used to be considered one of the funniest people you could know. In fact, my eulogy at my funeral is going to be five words long. “Damn, that woman was funny.” I will be honest and say that my humor wasn't quite dead.  Every now and then, something pops into my head. With that in mind, let’s talk about my idiot dog, Bella.

Bella is a Rottweiler I have had for about eight or nine years. She has no clue she is a Rottweiler. My ex and I were away from the house one day and returned home to discover that the lawn tractor and all our yard tools had been stolen. Bella had free reign of the back yard and the garage. We scratched our heads in wonder. It didn’t appear she was frantic about anything and she barks her fool head off at the sound of just about everything. Surely she wouldn’t let total strangers in the yard? About four hours later, Ramon’s youngest son, John, called. He said, “Hey, I borrowed your mower and stuff.” We asked how he got past the dog. “Easy,” he said, “we talked to her over the fence. Told her she was a pretty girl and asked if she was friendly. She wiggled her butt, and we put one of the kids over the fence to pet her.” [I was horrified that they put a child over a fence with a strange dog.] Once distracted with someone to lick, Bella was happy. And she probably showed them where the key to the tractor was.

The week prior to this blog story was an ‘if it can go wrong it will’ week. Bella’s tummy rejected dinner Wednesday night. Then it rejected breakfast Thursday morning, this time there was blood showing in the offering she placed at my feet. I called the vet. The vet actually asked me if I could [I’ll put this delicately] transport some of the rejected stomach content. So I scooped up the dog towel I mopped with and threw it in a garbage bag. Knowing this vet trip would make me late for work, I called in the situation to the office, got the leashes out and hooked her up. Yes, I said leashes plural. I run one around my waist to link to her and have one I control with my hand. This madness is based on the fact that I am a pianist. Bella could snap an arm or a wrist if she got carried away. My thought with the waist leash is that my whole body weight would help hold her back. If nothing else, once my body hits the ground, there is the possibility that I might be able to wrap myself around a tree to stop her. At any rate, we are a sight going anywhere. Plus, picture in your mind how short I am and how big this dog is. Everyone stares.

Speaking of big is where this story is going. After the Thursday trip to the vet, where Bella got a couple of shots, I had weekend plans she seemed intent on destroying. She had either an allergic reaction to one of the shots, or she was stung by a wasp when I put her out at noon on Friday. While I was on the road, she managed to chew and lick her hip until there was no hair on a 3.5 inch area and tore her flesh until it was raw like hamburger. Back to the vet.  After treating it with medicine, Dr. Amy said I had to keep Bella from licking it. Since the clinic didn’t have a cone of shame large enough for Bella’s neck, I spent the first two nights connected to this dog with a leash so I could tug her head away from her hip. Neither one of us slept well.

Sunday afternoon, the vet tech called my cell phone and said they located a cone. I picked it up and we buckled Bella into it. This cone was so large I had to fold it for her to go out the door. She was literally scraping the paint and plaster off my walls as she navigated the house. And I think she banged it on the bars of my brass bed about 80 times a night to let me know how much she hated it. In the picture you can see my other two mutts hanging their heads as if to say, "Uh, we didn't do anything. Please don't make us wear one of those fashion statements."

I leave you with the comments from my friends on facebook:
How many channels can she get with that?
Holy Cow! Did you get a permit from NASA for that satellite?
How’s the reception for Russian radio?
That’s one big cone of shame.
Latest technology in satellite dishes – moves room to room with you.
Can I borrow her? Our network is down.
Geez that thing is huge! But Bella’s huge!
Bella to Mars. . . better be watching for those green people.

LOL I feel sorry for Bella, but, I’ve had my laughs for today for certain.

Bisbee, Arizona

Just a couple of miles north of the Mexican border, perched on the rocky outcrops of the Mule Mountains in Cochise County you will find Bisbee, Arizona. Copper, gold and silver were mined there from 1880 to the 1970’s. When the mine closed in the seventies, the city was virtually abandoned. However, there were some residents who NEVER left. . . .more on that later. A couple of years rocked along and hippies from the sixties and early seventies gravitated to the place. City officials didn’t seem to mind these folks who made Bisbee home and a haven to smoke pot and hang out. The new residents actually helped clean up the place and put a stop to graffiti. Soon artists of all genres were drawn to the town. Once it turned into an artist colony type of place, tourists started picking up on it. Housing went from practically free if they had squatted on the property long enough, or dirt cheap at one hundred dollars for a house, to exorbitant prices for a shack hanging off a hill. Our handsome-cowboy-bus-driving-tour-guide told us the city went from being “the mile high city that cared” to “the city so high it had no cares.”

It’s a quaint and charming town with some streets so narrow and winding you cannot navigate a vehicle down them, or up them as the case may be. Walking or cycling are a few of the options. It was also interesting to note that the access from the street to houses on the second and third level of the mountainside was via stairs – yes, stairs – sometimes as much as 60 – 70 steps straight up! Can you imagine doing that trek with a load of groceries? Every October they host an event called The Bisbee 1000 Stair Climb. It is a five kilometer run through Bisbee that goes up and down 1,034 stairs. Billed as "The most unique physical fitness challenge in the USA!" by the organizers, it includes being serenaded by musicians at various locations across the city of stairs. The event has grown to include the Ice Man Competition, designed to honor the history of men delivering blocks of ice by hand before the advent of refrigeration. In the Ice Man Competition, entrants race up 155 steps carrying a ten-pound block of ice with antique ice tongs. It helps raise money to renovate the stair systems of the city crumbling as they age. People from all over the world come to this event to compete. With a bed and breakfast on every other corner and several vintage hotels, the visitors get to experience how life was back in the day. They also have a chance to meet the locals – and those OTHER residents . . . more on that later.

My trip to Arizona had the usual agenda of cool places to eat, things to see and do with best friend Sue and a trip to Tombstone and Bisbee. Tombstone, by all accounts of the tourist industry, is supposed to be fun, historical and interesting. Let me tell you, Tombstone is a wart on the hind quarters of a hog compared to Bisbee. Bisbee had the first public golf course in the country. Yes, you read correctly. It also had the first professional baseball field. Yup, again, correct. Lil’ old Bisbee’s Warren Field predates Chicago’s Wrigley Field by almost five years, and it boasts that it is the oldest baseball field in continuous use today. And some of those spectators from 1909 are still hanging  around today . . . more on that later.

Our hotel of choice was the Bisbee Grand. It was constructed in 1906 and restored in 1986 in the Old West Victorian style. I have created a photo album on my Facebook account for those interested in checking it out. We had to check in at the bar.  I thought that was very appropriate for the old west and made a mental note that Sue and I needed to plant ourselves at that bar sometime later that evening. We were given keys to the front door and to our rooms. The clerk informed us the front door was locked at a certain hour in the evening, but our keys would allow us to come and go as we pleased. When one enters the front door of the Bisbee Grand Hotel, you walk straight up the grand staircase to the second floor. A lovely landing wraps around the stairwell and hallways break away to the different suites and rooms. Now, let me confess that I didn’t have time to surf the web and read up on everything about Bisbee. Our attendant led us to Sue’s room first. We entered, and his first words were, “This room gets a lot of activity.” ACTIVITY? WHAT KIND OF ACTIVITY?  They have a ghost. Wait, let me correct that. They have two ghosts – one upstairs and one downstairs. The lady upstairs, he said, is harmless – all she does is check on you. My brain made a mental snort and said, “Yeah, right.” (I attended a mini-convention in Jefferson, Texas and stayed in what was supposed to be a very haunted hotel.  Not a one of us in the group saw anything.) Next we made our way down the hall to my room, which was perched over the bar. Sue’s room was very Victorian and cute. My room was called the Hunter’s Room, with a hunting theme décor. It was also pretty neat. We spent the rest of the day with Sue’s friend who gave us a private tour of the area. We did some snooping around in the shops and bar hopped a bit.

At some point we decided to call it a night. I watched some late night TV. The band downstairs rocked out until way past eleven. I turned off the TV the minute the band shut down, even though the occupants of the bar were still quite rowdy. Jimmy Fallon was talking about a comedian coming on after the commercial break as I was pressing the off button. I rolled over and flipped the covers up over my shoulders, telling myself to ignore the noise from downstairs. When the bed depressed at the location of my calf on the mattress my instant thought was that something fell off the ceiling onto the bed or a critter had jumped up on the bed. I immediately started to roll over to turn on the lamp and the bed depressed with a heavier impression at my hip level with two smaller depressions landing on either side of my head. In the instant it took to roll over, someone sat beside me and leaned over me to look me in the face. It was a dark enough image to block the light streaming through the lace curtains of the transom over the door with longish hair hanging down. Noise gurgled in my throat. I was frozen for that split second before a groan of a scream came out of my throat. It was gone as fast as it came. I hit the lights. Turned on the TV and Jimmy Fallon’s comedian was starting his bit. It was that fast. I was not asleep and dreaming. I called Sue. No answer. I bolted down the hall to her room as I called the bar downstairs. I frantically asked them if there was ever any report of ‘activity’ in my room above the noisy bar. The answer: 'Honey, there’s activity in every room. Did she visit you? Come on down to the bar if you need to relax.' I hauled Sue down to the bar and got a gin and tonic. Once for each hand. The bartender told me they don’t close up alone because the male ghost downstairs is a prankster who likes to turn on the beer taps when they’re not looking and lets the beer spill over the clean floor. He also likes to enter the ladies’ restroom and bang on the garbage can.

I spent the rest of the night with the television blaring and every light on. The next morning I was in a shop and the shop owner asked where I was staying. After I mentioned The Grand we discussed the ghost situation. I bought a book about the haunted places in Arizona. I read that all the hotels and bed and breakfasts in Bisbee have house 'residents' who cannot be explained.  It is a town well noted for its non-paying-continuously-staying guests.

I can still feel the sensation of it weeks after it happened.
It was a very cool place to visit.
ONCE.