Domestic Partnerships and Slobber Love

Bitkine  

Any pet owners worth their salt believe their domestic partners are god’s gift to the animal kingdom. And that’s only because it’s true.

But while I am full of shit, I fully believe Teddy and Esme are the shit.

It had been too long since I’d seen them Sunday. Ten days, thanks to two road trips that required their boarding. It would be our longest time apart. And it didn’t speed by like dog years.

When it did finally pass, I couldn’t help but marvel — again — at their differences. From color to size to demeanor, they are polar opposites. Even intelligence (let’s just say one may not be, um, MENSA-eligible).

But I also discovered that while they look and behave so differently, they are so alike.

Esme, I think, is the first dog to ever look at me condescendingly. If she has a ball within reach, she will bring it to me, friends, family members, hobos. She’ll set it on the ground and look at me. Then the ball. Then at me. Then…She is saying, ‘Come on, little guy, throw the ball. That’s it. Just throw the ball over there and play fetch. Good huuuuuuuummmmmmaaaaaaannnnn…’

EsmewithBall

When we are driving to the vet (or anywhere involving unpleasantries), she will sit in the front seat and simply stare at me. She is saying ‘I know where you’re going, and what you’re doing. Sonovabitch.’

Teddy speaks a different language. When I awaken and open the bedroom door, he is invariably, inevitably waiting, saying ‘Well good morning! Feel like a drive?! How about a walk to the washer-dryer?! Look, dad, look outside, look! It’s the backyard! Oh. My. God…DOG FOOD BREAKFAST!!!!!’

Even heading to the vet, he seems ridiculously happy with his head out the window, his tongue lolling. ‘Oh boy! A drive! The vet! RECTAL THERMOMETERS!!!!!’

teddyatcounter

esmeforeground

So I watched their reactions at our reunion. Not only was it our longest time apart; Teddy had to be hospitalized for an epileptic seizure the night before boarding. It was their longest time alone.

Esme came out first, with a ‘Where the hell is he, that sonovabitch?’ scowl with which she greets the planet. But when she saw me, she dropped the facade, hopped on the waiting room couch next to me. She pressed against my thigh, trembling slightly, not making a sound in the animal mayhem around her. She simply burrowed into my lap.

She was saying, in a pure, heartfelt, perfect way, “God I missed you. You owe me so much love.”

Next came Teddy. All clatter. Veterinary assistants calling out his name as he walks out, pats goodbye, the scrape of claws as he tries to Fred-Flintone it on the tile floor to get to me.

Fred_Flintstone

And I realize: they say the exact things, just in polar-opposite fashion.

He was saying, equally pure, equally heartfelt, equally perfect: “God I missed you. I owe you so much love.”

We stop for a Coke at the drive-through, a favorite hound haunt. I notice that Esme, for once, wanted to ride in the backseat with Ted. I could have taken umbrage, but how can you deny the beauty of a sister wanting to see her brother?

I smile and look back at the pair, to welcome them home.

Teddy greets me with a slobbering lick that covers the entirety of the right side of my face, from open grin to the lens on my glasses. And here I thought they were so different, when they are simply both sides of love.

Sonovabitch.

Dogsoutwindow

 

Electric Word, Life

May 24, 2015

Welcome, friends, family, friends of family. Dearly Beloved:

We are gathered here today to get through this thing called life.

That line comes courtesy of Prince and Annetta. When I asked the couple what they’d like in their vows, Annetta quipped that the first thing that came to mind was the opening line to Prince’s song, Let’s Go Crazy (which just also happens to be one of Spencer’s life mottos).

But when you think about it, Annetta and Prince have a point. The next line in that song begins “Electric word, life…”

Life is electric. For what are we, but bundles of energy and stardust, as brilliant and abundant as the heavens above?

And in those heavens — scientists say once every 500 years — two stars hurtling through the cosmos will brush by one another. And their gravitational force will commence a circular dance, as each draws nearer the other. And at that moment of contact, the supernova will emit as much energy as every star in the universe, combined.

Seasoned love is like that.

Certainly, new love is a miracle. It’s bold, adventurous, fearless in the leap.

It is also distracted by shiny things, startled by sudden sounds, frozen in rough waters. That’s why it’s called puppy love.

Seasoned love is a more profound and rare phenomenon. 

Like those hurtling stars, seasoned love joins two established worlds, already anchoring a solar system of friends and family, work and home.

But true seasoned love makes a choice. A choice to blend planets, share moons and swap shooting stars. If a supernova is one every 500,  seasoned love — true seasoned love  — has got to be one in a million.

We saw this dawn approach. We heard them  say, ‘I’m going on a date.’

Then it was, ‘I liked that. I think we’ll see each other again.’

Then, ‘This could be something.’

spence and annetta day

We saw their worlds change. Soon, they spoke in the collective. ‘We are taking a trip. We are going on vacation. We are moving in together. We are getting married.”

And here we are, to witness their new daybreak.

May we please have the rings?

Much has been made of the symbology of rings. And who are we to question the poets?

But, if you catch them in the right light, you can’t help but notice how much they look like little stars we wear, within reach of our hearts.

Annetta:

Do you choose Spencer?

To be the sun to his shine?

To be the good to his night?

To be the heart to his beat?

Do you choose Spencer to get through this thing called life?

Spencer:

Do you choose Annetta?

To be the sun to her shine?

To be the good to her night?

To be the heart to her beat?

Do you choose Annetta to get through this thing called life?

By the power vested in me by the state of Arkansas — and by the power vested in you by the gravitational force of love — I now pronounce you husband and wife.

(plant a smooch)

Ladies and gentleman:

Spencer and Annetta Tirey

spence and anneta night

I’d Like to Teach the World to Sting

 

where can i buy disulfiram Warning: spoilers and curves ahead

Mad Men was a profound show that flirted with a profound ending.

Instead, it chose a mildly ambiguous one. Which, by today’s standards, could qualify as profound.

But you couldn’t help but feel unfulfilled by the final chapter of the eight-year odyssey of Don Draper. The slick adman and reality escape artist was grinning like Buddha at show’s final scene, having come up with the ad pitch of all ad pitches: the I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke jingle.

Don-Draper-AMC-Buddha2

Much hay has been made over the finale (sorry, Don, there’s no escaping your farm roots), which has been heaped with praise for neatly wrapping characters’ story lines and giving viewers the Matt Weiner sendoff we never got in The Sopranos. And no finale ruins the legacy of a series (look at M*A*S*H*, or Seinfeld, or any series finale).

But just as Tony Soprano’s final scene remains under-appreciated (in a television first, the viewer got whacked), Mad Men‘s final episode has attracted fawning like a gleaming blue Cadillac; it’s over-praise, and fleeting.

The problem may have been in the show’s genius concept: How the appearance of happiness often trumps the appreciation of it.

And for eight years, Weiner and writers took an unflinching look at that inner-conflict, creating one of the most complex anti-heroes in television history in Draper (played with deft narcissism by Jon Hamm). His was a protagonist capable of great nobility — and unspeakable trespasses.

Which is why Mad Men shouldn’t have ended on a punchline, however brilliant.

And there’s no arguing the cleverness of the joke. The real ad was conceived by the minds at McCann-Erickson in 1971. Draper was working for McCann-Erickson on the show, which also had reached 1971. And Mad Men can perhaps boast a television first: the only series to end on a commercial. Normally they’re followed by one.

But the real ambiguity of Mad Men is not in the finale’s contents, but its intent. What are we to make of Don’s last smile? That it takes a human touch to be a good salesman? That work can’t equal happiness? Or can it? That, if you run fast enough from your past, you can start over?

Perhaps Weiner telegraphed the ending in the opening graphics of the series eight years ago. Every week, the show began on a familiar graphic: A suited man, plummeting from a skyscraper hued by womens’ silhouettes, only to land neatly on a couch, still coiffed, cigarette perfectly in place. Maybe that was the setup to the punchline.

We may never know, which may be the point. Or perhaps the show ended on a punchline that Weiner had in mind years before the show’s final bow (he said often that he knew how he wanted the series to end).

Either way, there was no shaking the sense that we’d just seen a great sales pitch. And like most ads, the promise is far more grand than the payoff.