Dog People

There are "dog people" and there are "cat people" in this world. There are a few "animal people" who love animals of all kinds, but when given the choice, most people seem to have a preference for either dogs or cats. (This premise was tested scientifically during a recent chorus rehearsal, when our director asked the chorus members if they tended to be either cat people or dog people. Most chose one or the other; only a very small percentage said "both".)

As everyone knows, dogs love to be taken on walks or runs with their owners. (Cats, not so much.) I went on a walk on a recent sunny afternoon, at Los Gatos Creek Trail, not too far from my San Jose home and was accompanied by numerous humanoids walking or running with their pets. Los Gatos Creek Trail is very popular with 1) dog owners and 2) bicyclists. In fact, without an animal companion, or a bicycle, I felt quite in the minority.

I think cyclists like the Trail because it is a long, paved, fairly flat asphalt trail that runs next to the creek. And dog owners like it because there is a very popular dog park a short way down the Trail. (This fact has also been scientifically verified, by way of my talking to some of the dog owners as they exited the park with their pets. I didn't speak with any of the dogs directly, but most appeared to be very excited to be there.)

Most of the cyclists I see on the Trail are muscular guys dressed in black cycling spandex, who pedal furiously to get their exercise, and practically run over "walkers" like me. But on my trek the other day, I noticed this one particular guy on a bike who was not like the rest. He was a middle aged, slightly overweight fellow, pedalling slowly down the path. And every once in a while, he stopped some dog owner and offered to give the pooch a treat. He was a doting dog lover, no doubt.

Except after a while, I noticed that he had a particular pattern, since he was pretty slow on the bike and I kept catching up to him. He never stopped male dog owners, only female dog owners. Young, slim, pretty female dog owners.

Maybe he has found that giving out doggie treats is a good way to meet members of the opposite sex. After all, who doesn't feel comfortable talking with a fellow dog lover? Maybe he has found that meeting female dog lovers gives him better results than online dating.

But it kind of left me wondering - if he truly is a dog person, where was his own canine companion?

How to Find the Right Person

We spend a lot of time, money and effort trying to find the right person. We spend hours reviewing profiles online and go on innumerable, boring coffee dates in search of that person. However, most of us don't marry someone after only one dinner date. We usually spend weeks, months or even years in the company of that other person before "tying he knot". For good reason - it is difficult, and painful, to undo that knot once it has been tied.

Certainly, finding a lifetime mate is a very good reason to spend signifcant amounts of time, money and effort on the process. But, many of us spend more "awake time" at work than we do with our "significant other". So, it baffles my mind that, in order to get a job that we could end up staying at for years, we spend such little amount of time on the interview process.

Send in a resume, spend an few hours in an interview, and bam, if you are lucky, you are hired. Many people end up working in jobs they hate, for managers they cannot stand, for companies they do not respect. It seems to me there should be just a bit more "dating" in the hiring process before signing on that dotted job offer line.

Yes, separating from a company is defintely easier than going through a divorce, especially if you are moving on to a better position. But if the pairing is less than ideal, leaving a job can still be a painful process, regardless of whether you are laid off, fired or quit.

Once (or Twice) Around the Looney Bin

A young friend of mine has decided to write a book. She has written a humor blog (The Crazy Baby Mama) about being a new Mom for about two years now. She is really a good writer, a very funny writer. So, if the CBM can write a book, I figure, so can I. I have blog. I can write. I'm not intentionally funny, but I think I am a pretty good writer. And, since I do not currently have a job, I have plenty of time on my hands, so why not give it a try, even if my story is never published.

The question is, what would I write about? I am not interested in writing fiction, making up stories and characters and finessing plot twists and turns. Therefore, I would have to write about a subject I know something about, which seriously limits the topics available.

But it does bring to mind a subject I have had recent experience with: severe depression, from a patient's point of view. Not only a patient, but a patient who has been lucky enough to spend some time in a mental health institution, which just may be an oxymoron.

There is just one problem with actually publishing such an book - I might never get a "real" job again once my story gets out. This story is not going to be the crowning jewel on my resume; the corporate world will not be welcoming me back with open arms.

So while I prepare for an accounting job interview tomorrow morning, the possibility of writing my heart out lurks in the back of my mind. But if I don't ace that job interview tomorrow, maybe it won't be such a bad thing after all.

No, They Are Not Friendly

I went on my "usual" hike today, at Rancho San Antonio, where I seem to find myself several times a week. Rancho San Antonio is a bay area county park with acres and acres of trails and beautiful views of the entire bay on a clear day. Vegetation includes bay laurels, oaks, ferns, and lots of poison oak. This time of year, in the middle of the rainy season, new green shoots are bursting through last year's dead brown stalks.

Sometimes you are lucky enough to see wildlife - wild turkeys, deer, gophers and birds of all kinds are usually in close proximity, and not afraid of humans. And sometimes you see rarer species, such as coyotes stalking gopher prey or hawks circling above, as I was lucky enough to see today.

As I was heading up the last part of the trail to the very top of the hill with the fantastic view of the entire bay area, a couple was making their way down the muddy trail. They had just spotted the coyote on the hill, when, referring to the coyote, the wife said to the husband "Do you think he's friendly?"

Yes, I know he looks like your neighbor's friendly german shepherd, but a coyote is a WILD animal. While they have become accustomed to humans in their environment, they are NOT domesticated. They have very sharp teeth. For your own safety, please, do not pet the coyote.

And even though the shiny green leaves have fallen, and the tall, slender, upright stalks look innocuous, like any other forest scrub in winter, I also suggest staying on the trail. Unless, of course, you like being itchy.

Friends and Enemies

I admit to watching "Desperate Housewives" on TV. On tonight's episode, when one of the characters gets shot, the cops show up at the hospital and ask the wounded victim if he has any enemies.

I never thought that I had any "enemies". But now, I'm not so sure. There are certainly people who have "dropped out" of my life over the last fifty years for various different reasons. Old boyfriends, college and high school friends who no longer stay in touch, people I used to work with, former neighbors, and friends from various social networks (by this I don't mean online networks), such as folk dancing, outing clubs, chorus or my old soccer team.

There are certainly people who I have seriously disappointed occasionally, including a former boss or two, and certainly my parents at times. But your parents have to forgive you -- after all, they are your parents. Hopefully you never end up working with your former boss again.

In more recent years, there have been a few people who have hurt me by their actions or words and with whom I have not been able to reconcile. And for some reason, at the start of this New Year, I feel that I should try to mend fences with these former friends. The problem is, that down deep, I don't necessarily want to reconcile with these folks, because that means I have to forgive them for real or perceived offenses.

I am very close to my ex-husband, but I have not spoken to his forty year old daughter, my step-daughter, for many years, after being on good terms with her for over twenty. She has had some problems in her life, and I have tried to help, but ended up severing ties several years ago after she made untrue accusations about me.

I no longer speak with a once close friend, who was my housemate for four years. I cannot forgive how he and his wife took advantage of my generosity at a time when I was severely depressed over losing my job two years ago.

I have tried to remain on friendly terms with recent former boyfriend, who is a really nice guy, but I am having some difficulty being on friendly terms with him, after running into him with his new girlfriend. I don't want him back, but cannot seem to forgive him either, since he was the one who broke up with me at a very difficult point in my life.

Although he lives on the East Coast, and I have seen him only once in thirty years, I have never truly forgiven my college boyfriend, who broke up with me by sending me a "Dear John" letter one summer.

I did once hire someone to "protect" me from a jealous girlfriend of a former lover for a short period of time. But she had some understandable emotional issues to resolve and while not really ever a friend of mine, I no longer consider her a threat to my physical being.

I suppose none of these people currently considers me an "enemy", at least to the extent that they might want to kill me, which is not always the case in the television world. Perhaps I just have to come to terms with the fact that not every person I encounter in my life will become my friend, and not all of my friends will be my friends forever.

Being Jewish

When I was growing up in a blue collar area in Connecticut, right off "the thruway" (ie, I-95), I lived in a close knit neighborhood where people tended to stay for years. As matter of fact, I can still go back to that same neighborhood 30 years later and find one or two people I knew as a child, although they are in their sunset years now.

We lived on a dead end street, a great place for young families. As kids, we often played in the street, without any fear of traffic. The neighbors all knew each other, and each other's kids. Our house was smack dab in the middle of the street, at the "T" intersection of two dead-end streets. Kids took a shortcut through our yard to get to yet another dead-end street behind our house. Nobody minded kids taking a shortcut through your yard in those days. Well, except for the old couple across the street with the six foot tall evergreen hedge; we wouldn't dare try to get a ball back if it got accidentally thrown over that particular hedge.

I attended the public school, two blocks away, from kindergarten through third grade. Then, our parish school opened, so my dad sent all of his school age children to Catholic school, at great expense, since he had five children to educate. At the Catholic school, we wore uniforms, blue and green plaid jumpers over white shirts for girls and grey pants and navy blazers for boys. We got out of school an hour earlier than the public schools, and had different vacation schedules. We got out two of school weeks earlier in the summer, and had the day after Halloween off (yea! All Saints Day), which was great because we could sleep in after trick-or-treating the night before.

More than anything, I wanted to be like all of the other neighborhood kids. I wanted to wear my own dresses to school, not ugly uniforms. Most of the neighborhood kids, whose families tended toward the Protestant variety of Christianity, went to Sunday school. Our whole family went to Mass on Sunday mornings; religious education was just another subject to study during the school day.

But I just wanted to fit in. I wanted to go to Sunday school. I didn't want to be seen as special or different from the other kids in the neighborhood, which is the way the one Catholic family in the neighborhood (ours) was viewed by some of my friends.

And that is why have never understood why my (very few) Jewish schoolmates seemed so happy to be different, to be off from public school for special Jewish holidays, to go to Temple on Saturdays while the rest of us slept in and watched cartoons on TV. I figured there must be something really special about being Jewish that they would not want to believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. When I was six, in my childish attempt to make sense of this, I came up with the conclusion that Catholics believed in God, Jews didn't believe in God, and Protestants didn't know what to believe.

Fifty years later, I still don't understand why my Jewish friends love "being Jewish". Maybe one of them can clue me in.

Peace to All

Christmas Eve is almost upon us. And, I have done nothing to get into the holiday spirit. No tree, no cards, no gifts.

Christmas has never been one of my favorite holidays, thanks to the commercialization that we enjoy here in the US. I am not religious, and not into ostentatious decorations or spending more money than I can afford buying gifts. I would prefer Christmas be celebrated simply as a holiday about "Peace" and "Goodwill Among Men", the message preached by the man whose birth is remembered by many on December 25th.

But, the "youngsters" in our family, now teenagers, still expect festively wrapped packages, replete with shiny bows and ribbons, under the tree on Christmas morning, even though their belief in Santa was abandoned long ago. Fortunately for me, living 3,000 miles away, money or gift cards are very acceptable alternatives for teenagers.

This year I am starting a new tradition. The teens' presents will be New Year's Day gifts instead, given in celebration of the start of a new year, and winged across the country by an angelic cherub instead of a fat old man in a red velvet suit. And I will be very happily celebrating Peace and Goodwill Among Men on Christmas Day, in the company of good friends of various religious beliefs.