Omi's 9th Birthday

It is hard to believe, yet true just the same, that our Greyhound, Omi will be nine years old on June 1st.  Yes, Omi has aged in body, meaning now she sports white around her amazing Cleopatra eyes, though not in spirit.  OK, maybe a slower gait during the morning walk but otherwise, still uncharacteristically hyper and frenetic in her fine self.

Omi talks.  She has a verbal language whose translation has eluded us for many years.  It sounds mournful at times or simply a question repeated over and over.  Whow, whow, whow or something like that.  Sometimes it makes you want to scream but mostly, you wonder what she has been saying?

Omi, an ex-racer who raced in Mexico, one of the worst Greyhound betting countries which still uses live lures to get the dogs to hurl themselves down the track towards their prey, sometimes hitting the wall and busting their skulls open, sometimes winning but mostly losing only to be shipped to the U.S. for more of the same.

Omi won a few races in Mexico but she was still shipped off to Arizona to be kept in squalid kennels at some run down track where humans came to bet on her chances. She is a beautiful red fawn Greyhound who appears to have had her eyebrows penciled in by a professional.  She is a Gemini after all.

Today, I bought new collars for Omi and Jade and because it is a hot, hot last day of May in our neck of the woods, a couple of dog baths in a few hours to cool down.  I remember the day that Jade and I travelled to Auburn, CA to meet Omi and she raced up to me and licked my ear.  We drove home a few hours later and the rest is our history.

May all Greyhounds find their new homes, shedding the exploitation of track racing and horrifying conditions and may their humans all be as lucky as we are to have our birthday girl.

Happy Birthday Omi!

Time With The Buddha

I must work tomorrow, a paid holiday for many folks in our world.  For me, I try not to think about the families that will be gathering tomorrow eating dried out BBQ, macaroni salad dosed with enough fat to stop a beating heart, time together and dessert, ah dessert. It is Monday and I am going to work and no, it isn't time and a half I shall be earning.  Still, I have a job today.

The only benefits besides getting a paycheck that I receive is a helluva discount to purchase nursery items.  Working inside a thriving business means you walk by things, see plants delivered fresh out of the grower's grasp- stuff you think about buying with your very hard earned wages, at a discount.  It feels like something though not dental insurance exactly.

I began, weeks ago to walk by this Buddha statue and pause to rub his bald head.  Sure, one is supposed to rub his belly but his head is hip level for me.  A smiling Buddha, I began to ask for hope to visit my heart, for painful times to melt away, for release, for success, for a good day or just about any kind of magic that might help me understand how I got here. I passed him several times a day.  I rubbed his head, usually counterclockwise.

I know that The Buddha had a few things to say about suffering and so, he is an entity, though no less made mystical than Jesus or Joe Smith.  "Life is difficult, the Buddha said...The Buddha acknowledged the struggles of ordinary life-we age, we get sick, and eventually we die; we don't get what we want, we get what we don't want, and even the good times pass..."-Coffee With The Buddha by Joan Duncan Oliver.

Sometimes we do get what we want using our 40% discount on hard goods in the nursery like The Buddha himself planted on our patio at home!