my tribute to betsylife and leilaland's weekly 'great list', here are 4 good things from this week illustrated by photos:
we are watching a sweet 12 year old golden retreiver maizey this week. she is blind in one eye but still prances around the yard and don't take no mess from pouncey. or anybody. she is extremely fluffy.
the river is pretty beautiful right now. freezing and full of flotsam from recent storms, but at a pretty level.
february 5 i spotted these crocuses in the yard. february 5! purple ones sprouted to the left of them the next day. to all those in the northeast preparing for a historic blizzard, good luck!
nacho helped himself to maizey's bag of kibbles off the counter last night while we were out. he ate 3-4 days worth. this picture is during the ensuing food coma. extra chunky nachos. but he's doing fine today! and happy!
last year kevin's sister did the DNA dog test to figure out what her "lab mix" birdie was really made of. turns out she is not a labrador retriever whatsoever, but she is a fox terrier and american bull dog. that explains a lot of her behavior. poor little birdie. after being asked by a man in the woods "is that dog mostly lab with a little pit?" about pouncey, we decided to test all 3 dogs and see if pouncey is in fact a pit bull. they send you a swab kit, with 2 swabs, you rub each one in between the dog's gum and cheek, send them back, and in 2 weeks your results are ready. nacho was the control. nacho has his papers. even though he was massively discounted due to his labrador overbite, and looks a little funny, he's a full blooded lab from decoy labs in oxnard california.
DNA test - confirmed! next up, eli. kevin got eli from a litter down the street in charlotte. he doesn't have papers. he was supposed to be all lab, and he pretty much looks like a lab and acts like a lab. but he has a white 'star' on his chest, so something doesn't quite add up. turns out eli is MOSTLY lab.
but hellloooo otterhound! please meet elidoggy, our little doberman spaniel. he is happy to be related to his cousin henry the king charles spaniel.
last but not least was pouncey the potential pit bull. unfortunately they were unable to get clear results from pouncey's swabs. they are sending another kit for a re-test.
there were many sweet dogs in the streets in havana. most of them looked like a 10-20 lb mutt combination of dachshund wiener dog, papillon, terrier, and/or cocker spaniel. there were certain dogs who lived in certain city squares. some had paper tags around their neck saying that they lived in that square and had been neutered. every day i saw cuban people giving food to street dogs. styrofoam platters of yellow rice sat on the sidewalks next to hotels. a woman brought steaming rice in wet newspaper to this pup in the park, and then walked away. it seemed like even the mangy ones were being taken care of. our cuban tour guide lived in a small apartment by himself and had a
dog. he said the dog was 19 years old (maybe another cuban myth) and he
fed the dog the same food as he fed himself. not his scraps, he made
extra of everything he cooked and fed his dog at the same time. the main adjective i would use to describe the dogs i met is MELLOW. they weren't friendly, as in coming up to greet a stranger friendly, but if you went up to them, they didn't mind, and wagged their tails. there was no jumping or freaking out, like pouncey puppy perrito would have been doing. no chasing, not much barking. just kind of sitting around. this was the cutest dog gang in havana.
their fur felt like steel wool. i saw one and only one labrador retriever who looked like nacho. he was being walked on a leash.
Meet Misty's litter of future service puppies. These five Labrador
Retriever pups were born on December 28th and have already begun very
important work — helping to heal the invisible wounds of our Nation’s
Combat Veterans. Recovering Service Members at Walter Reed National
Military Medical Center and the National Intrepid Center of Excellence
in Bethesda, MD are engaged in the critical task of socializing the pups
through puppy petting. The litter will spend the next two years lifting
the spirits of Wounded Warriors and giving them a therapeutic and
purposeful mission. By volunteering to train the pups through the Warrior Canine Connection program,
these Warriors will both address their symptoms of Post Traumatic
Stress and prepare the pups for future lives as service dogs for their
disabled comrades.
baseball is the national pastime in cuba. there were pick up games going on all day in every park. in the middle of the havana streets, little boys played "taco" - stickball using a cut off broomstick for a bat and plastic water bottle cap for a ball. i never saw a girl playing.
on friday night kevin, his parents, and i went to a baseball game. without internet it was hard to determine if there was a game, and what time. we heard it might be cancelled because the stadium lights were broken. the
stadium (estadio latino americano) is located in a rougher, darker,
part of town. we got in a taxi and said "beisbol? pelota? estadio?" and
the cab driver started yelling "beisbol! beisbol!" and was pretty sure
there was no game that night and the stadium would be dark.
we drove up and the floodlights were on and the game was on and starting at 8pm and excited fans were going inside. we were (nicely) directed by police to go buy tickets at a window charging $3 instead of $1 that locals paid, and ushered to seats on the visitors side through the farthest gate away.
the local havana team is called the industriales. their mascot is a blue lion, and they are like the yankees of the cuban league. they were playing the cigar makers from pinar del rio.
the stadium was big. and clean. and full of energy. and people. and people blowing vuvuzelas. air horns. there were drummers. non-stop. we walked around the entire stadium, and it was on the verge of out of control going through the home team side. they did not serve beer, which kept it from having a hooligan feel. it was exciting.
kevin was impressed with the pitching. 30 second video of the scene:
we had to meet people in old havana at 930, so after the 3rd inning the 4 of us left and went into the street and kind of wandered looking for non-existent taxis. a few older men were sitting on a corner stoop, saw us and said "taxi?" we hesitantly followed him down a dark alley and got into his small old honda civic-like car after he shooed a cat out of the front seat. he was not a taxi driver, he was a man with a car looking for some tourist cash. the gas light was flashing and his brights were on as he drove us over potholes back to town. we gave him $10.
if it seems i have been off the map lately, it's true. i spent 8 days in
havana, cuba, where US cell phones and credit cards do not work, and
the internet is sparse and difficult to access. it was the first time since 1994 that i have gone an entire week without checking email. slightly refreshing, slightly alienating. kevin's dad has
wanted to go to cuba for decades, and online research led him to a cuban
arts and culture tour run by a US college professor, they booked it,
invited us along, and there we were 2 days after christmas in the miami
airport boarding an unmarked charter plane for a communist country. the weather was endlessly perfecto. 70-80 degrees and not a drop of rain. the
air was deplorable. many of the cars driving around the streets are
from the 40's and 50's and have no catalytic converters, the newer cars
and buses were just as bad, and the smell of carbon monoxide exhaust was
omnipresent and overpowering. everything was covered in a dingy gray
film. we were on a tour (and tourbus) with 20 other americans.
the group tour thing can be tough, especially for people used to having
control, but we really lucked out and everybody was flexible and
positive and intelligent. the bus was newer and comfortable, though it
smelled of stale cigarettes and urinal cakes. i may be overly sensitive
to air quality. i would not recommend an extended trip to havana to
anybody with respiratory illness.
potable water. our tour bus in the background.
we were told not to drink the
water, or eat produce washed in the water. for somebody who would be
thrilled to have salad and only salad to eat every day, this was a
challenge. most of my meals were chicken and rice, most of my vitamins came from the peppermint in the mojitos. the
buildings are made of concrete because it is cheap and resistant to
hurricanes. many buildings are in ruins. the ones not in ruins are
painted vibrantly and kept neat. the streets are treated like a garbage
can. littering was rampant. there were also many street cleaners so it didn't accumulate, but it's still jarring to see people throwing trash on
the ground 4 feet from a dumpster. the people in havana are not
aggressive or hostile. i did not see one person who seemed strung out on
drugs. didn't even catch a whiff of weed. (sad face). seems like rum,
rum, rum is the drug of choice.
the street dogs were awesome. more stories and photos to come. (found this cuban woman's blog last night: http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/ which speaks out against the human rights violations, repression, and censorship cubans are experiencing under the castro regime. not surprisingly, we were exposed to very little of this sentiment on our state-sponsored tour.)
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