The Sweet Songs of Bela G.

I am a bit of a performer. Always have been. My mom enrolled me in dance at age 4. Recitals were yearly. I would dance my way through class, month after month - but when the curtain came up - that's when I really came alive.

There is a marked difference in the way I feel when the spotlight is on me. I shine. I shine from the inside. My moves may not differ entirely, but the emotion behind them does. I feel completely and utterly alive.

Now, I did not go into a performing profession. I sit at a desk all day. The desk cannot contain me, however. My co-workers would attest to my [work-upsetting] performances throughout each and every day.

When I am home, I perform as well. I make up songs, oodles of songs! I sing, I dance, I create an environment fit for the stage.

Many songs are nothing more than moments in time. I think them up, spat them out - and move on. Occasionally, though, one has sticking power. It's so good that I can't bear to do away with it, so I let it stay on. I keep it alive through repetitive solitary performance.

My songs don't really have a central theme. Cilantro....the weather...the passing of time...a pen. They refer to the object in my vision when the need for creating strikes.

Bela is often in the room when these creative hazes take over. She usually just stares at me, habituated to my voice raising and my feet shuffling. Sometimes she becomes more than the observer; she becomes my inspiration.

After two years with her, I've written enough top hits to fill a Pandora station.

A few of the greats, by name:
LMB (i.e. Little Miss B) [a spoken-word rap]
BDB (i.e. Brown Dog Brigade) [also, a rap]
Come and See Your Mom
Little Brown Dog
Superior Lovin'

My family and friends are privy to private performances, that they may or may not enjoy. And though I tell a lot of Bela stories out and about, I have managed to keep my songs under wraps.
For the most part.

BDB (possibly my fave) has been on the backburner for a bit, as we moved, thereby braking up the brigade. But would that stop me from performing the rap for a group of people I barely knew at a party a couple of months ago? Oh no. I even waited until the birds had quieted until I began. Then I hunched over a bit (I find rapping is done better with the legs in a loose lunge) and let it fly.

I can't say much for the reaction of the observers. They seemed....confused. Amused. And thankfully, most were, at least partially, drunk. (Too bad I can't say the same for myself.)

Their reactions were amost preferable to that of my first performance of the same song. I speak of our old neighbor, the father of the remaining two brigade members. The song was offered up in his very honor!

I certainly caught him off guard, as we would normally run into eachother in the early morning...
When I spotted him on the sidewalk, I practically galloped up to him, eager to share the ode to our brood.

"Hey, I wrote a RAP about our DOGS!!!", I exclaimed.

"Uh............okay......" (Still likely not knowing he was about to HEAR said rap, at 7:45 in the morning.)

Then -- and bear in mind, this was one of the last times I saw him --
I closed my eyes for a split second before letting him into my world.
I rapped, the excitement audible, and then threw my hands up at the finale.

"WOW", he said.

Not 'wow' in the way I wanted; not 'wow' in the way I'd hoped.

I walked away sufficiently embarrassed, from the look on his face.

But about 5 minutes later, as I continued down the street, I replayed the rap in my head...
And I'll be damned if I didn't light up again, thinking just HOW GOOD it was....

Summer Lovin

Sandra B had Danny. Bela has Zico.

They met months back. They were easy acquaintances, if not fast friends. Zico was usually attached at the hip with a small black-and-white creature named Zena. I never actually saw one without the other. Every single evening I ran into a double date: Zico & Zena, Carla & Kathy (the mothers). Bela would 'play' with them, in the sense that she played fetch with me while the two of them romped together, in our vicinity. There was an ease, however, to her with Z & Z. She normally gets possessive when she has a ball in the presence of other dogs. Not with these two. There was a naturalness to the trio.

I enjoyed our 3-man pack and looked forward to running into them, even though Bela never actually played with Zico & Zena. Carla and Kathy knew that I dreamt that Bela would one day run with the Z's, but the odds didn't look good. She's just not the rollicking type, I'd tell them and myself repeatedly, in an attempt to accept it.

I thought Bela had done us in one day when she found smashed birthday cake on the cement. She was lapping it up, happily, when Zico came over to see what it was all about. Bela immediately turned into one of the hyenas from the Lion King. Her head flew up, her teeth bared, and she snarled. Zico (rightly) snapped back at her for a moment and I went ballistic, reprimanding her. The two of them heeded my voice and (seemingly, bregrudgingly on Bela's part) gave up the fight. I totally lost it. In that one greedy move, she had smashed my dreams of the 6 of us playing while the sun set, while the birds sang...hell - on a yacht! I apologized to both Zico and Carla, then grabbed her leash and tore out of the park. I shamed her - first with words ..."Nevermind that Zico is one of your only true dog friends; nevermind that that wasn't your effing cake in the first place!"..., then with silence - all the way home. When I arrived home, I sat in a chair and cried. Well, I didn't cry. I wailed. I wailed for all my lost dreams, all my missed chances, all I'd ever feared I'd fucked up. Bela had done nothing but be a dog. I let her little sass act give rise to all my anxieties, and all my incompetencies.

Needless to say, no relationships were harmed due to the cake. Carla is a rational person -- and Zico is A DOG. He forgot (and/or, forgave) the fight about 15 seconds later. And so we all remained friends.

This summer, Zena has been absent. And in her wake, Bela has given herself to Zico in ways we never thought she would. She plays! She runs, she chases, she rolls and grazes!

Multiple nights a week, Carla and I send off texts, organizing meetups. The location never changes, the time only slightly. We meet in the heat and we chat while our dogs play.

July was so hot, sometimes they would just sit and stare at each other.

Summer has never been a bright spot for me. I'm usually pretty pissed off for the affected months. All activity is deemed unbearable, save the spooning of sherbert into my mouth.

But this summer was different. Bela had Zico, which gave me something I needed. A place to go and sit under the stars, while my dog ran about. A person to talk to. A joy in the summer that I had not previously had.

And while I look forward to the coming of fall, I will always look back to this summer as one of the finest.











 

How Stella Got Her Groove Back

My boss has a 'little white dog'. You know the kind. She's little, she's white. A maltese, or malti-poo, or shih tzu... She was purchased from a wierd little pet store where we can assume the dogs within came from puppy mills. She's actually quite cute, but a dog...well, a 'dog' she is not.

Her name is Kiki. Well, it's Blake, but they call her Kiki. They got her just a few months before Stan's wife gave birth to a baby girl. The baby girl's name? Tei Tei. Well...it's Blake, but they call her Tei Tei. That's right, folks. If we can pinpoint one of this dog's problems right off the bat -- it's in the lack of a solid identity.

And so - when Kiki is here, she's Stella.
A neighborhood dog mother/friend had thought that I called Kiki 'Stella' one night, and so began referring to her as such. It took a minute for me to realize the mistake, but by that point, she was Stella. It made sense! She is so right as a Stella! The stars up above felt the same. For the very night she bacame known as Stella, as she sat in my lap in the park, I looked up and saw shooting star.
It was a sign. (Just in case, I will spell this out: 'star' is 'stella' in Italian!!)

Amongst Stella's other problems:
She hates to/doesn't walk well.
She hates to/doesn't eat well.
She hates/doesn't like dogs.
She is both racist and ageist. 
She barks/growls unendingly.
She is pad-trained but not pad-centric. She refuses to use the outdoors for a bathroom facility, period. Only the pad. Or - my laundry. Or - my kitchen rug. (And so begs the question then, is she pad-trained at all?....)

We're ending three weekends of Stella at Kelly's. My house smells like urine and my patience is worn.

But I have done my best to give this dog what her adoptive parents didn't.
I walk her endlessly, hoping that a special fire hydrant here or pee-stained tree trunk there will be just enough to do the trick.
I throw her at Bela. Yep - I toss her into Bela's face, just to see what will happen. (Nothing ever does.)
I let all sidewalk dogs sniff her. She runs in circles, desperate to get away, but there I let them stay.
I take her to the park. Most recently, this resulted in her crawling into a park-goers lap, where she stayed quite satisfactorily, while I tossed the ball to Bela.
I hide her hoity toity rotisserie chicken way the fuck under her kibble. You can have the chicken, girlfriend - but not without eating your required fare. Little kids must eat their broccoli to get the cake. You're no different.
I shush her to no end. She's not allowed to make so much as an engine purr on my turf. Her intimidation tactics are no good here.
I yank on her leash with vigor when she decides she can rule the sidewalk. She honestly doesn't seem to notice or care about other people, i.e. the general public. Much like her father...

But these three long weekends have not been without progress. Changes are in the air. I swear I saw her dribble some urine outside and it appeared she was okay with the beagle half-mounting her today. She has been eating nearly all her kibble, instead of spitting every piece out until she uncovers the chicken underneath. At this current moment in time, she has been silent for a solid 25 minutes.

Stella will certainly return home and forget all of my teachings. She will piss freely indoors, eat only the finest-seasoned chickens rotisserie, bark and growl until she forms polyps on her vocal cords.

But if Kiki comes back, I will re-introduce her to the ways of the canine world. And maybe next time, she'll ease back into her groove....