You can read more about it here.
Wednesday, August 7, 2024
The Spanish Judicial System vs. President Puigdemont
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Sweet Pea the Trooper
This was yesterday when we were on our evening walk (still considered
afternoon here, even though it was around seven o’clock). She was bouncing
along, as she does, and we were crossing a street where road work has been
going on and all of a sudden she started limping. It was her back left leg. I
examined her paw but found nothing stuck between the pads so I put her down. But
the limping continued and seemed to get worse every second. My vet closes at 8,
so, with Sweet Pea in my arms, I high-tailed it over there.
Salomo felt around and told me she had a torn a ligament in
her knee. Had she fallen? No. Then she must simply have made a misstep, maybe tripped
without my noticing it. It wouldn’t take much. At her age, those joints are
brittle. I understand; I know that something similar could happen to me.
This torn ligament is not going to heal. The only way to fix
it is with surgery. But Sweetie is an old dog and although she’s practically a
whole new old dog from the one I adopted a little over year ago, in her former
life she had not been well taken care of. The recent improvements in her environment
have helped, but they haven’t erased her history (whatever that might have
been). He legs are all bowed and crooked. The funny way she walks is one of her
many endearing characteristics. The vet said initially that she had probably
suffered one or more falls and had never been seen to. And her heart is much
enlarged, which, together with her age, does not make her a good candidate for
major surgery, which this knee operation would be.
Salomo gave her a shot for pain and gave me pain pills to
give her for the next twenty days. Let’s see how this develops, he said while
also talking about possible future medications. We both noticed that her front
leg on the same side was also doing strange things – bowing out at an alarming
angle. She’s compensating, he said, trying to keep her balance. Of course that
could mean that she will end up injuring that leg too. I should keep her walks
to a minimum; just take her out to the street and let her do her thing under
the nearest tree out front. I am to carry her up and down the stairs (I live
on the 2nd floor, which in the U.S. would be the third floor). There
is no elevator
At home I got on the internet and started reading about torn
ligaments in the knees of dogs. It didn’t look good. Everyone says it’s very
painful. It doesn’t heal, it can only be fixed with surgery. In an older dog,
if it happens in one leg, it is likely to also happen to the other because they
would both be in the same state of deterioration. Of course that might not
happen. Compensating for the discomfort could mean inflicting injury on one of
the other legs.
I was plagued with doubt. I don’t want to keep her drugged
for the rest of her life, and I don’t want the rest of her life to be painful. She
loves to walk and to sniff. If she won’t be able to walk except to go to a tree
and pee, what pleasure is she going to have? I got very little sleep.
This morning when the vet clinic opened, I was there with
Sweet Pea. I told Salomo I had more to understand. I needed to know what the
best possible outcome could be. If it was going to be lifelong pain, I wasn’t
sure there was any reason to continue. I don’t believe in just keeping a pet
alive if the pet isn’t able to enjoy his life and there is no cure.
But he said no. The tear would never mend, but the pain
would subside after three or four weeks so we would reassess her need for
medication when the pills run out. He said that Sweet Pea was a real trooper.
You could see how in her life she’s managed to successfully deal with all kinds
of physical problems. If all goes well, the pain will subside, and she will
learn to compensate for the leg that won’t function properly as she did with her
legs before.
As for now, she’s eating, she has the desire to go out and
once out she wants to walk, even though she can’t and has to stop. At home she
gets all excited about going out, like before (although now she doesn’t jump up
and down), and she gets excited at meal times. She still likes her treats and
she still enjoys a belly rub. She’s still shows signs of being a happy camper.
I’ll know when the time comes, he said. She won’t want to eat, she won’t want
to walk, maybe she won’t be able to walk, she’ll be lethargic, or we just won’t
be able to help her with ongoing pain. That was what happened with Cupcake.
You have no idea how relieved I am. Now it’s just a matter
of taking care of her, letting nature take its course and Sweetie’s
determination drive the next twenty days, and hope for the best.
I had wanted a senior dog, so when they told me at the
shelter that she was at least ten years old that was fine. Two days later, when
I took her to the vet and a long list of physical and health problems came to
light, I thought, well, that’s okay. Maybe she only has a few weeks left, but
she will spend them in comfort with me. I was more or less prepared for a short
relationship. But Sweet Pea blossomed during this last year so that now, I am
not at all prepared for her to leave. She’s my wonderful companion, she’s
funny, she’s sweet, and she’s incredibly stubborn. I hope Salomo is right and
my little trooper will get the better of this latest problem and keep on being
her cute, sweet self for many more happy years.
Sunday, June 30, 2024
Rooster, Tomatoes, and Death
My first Tot Sants (All Souls) here in Figueres, back in
November 2012, I did what I usually do on that holiday, I took myself to the
cemetery to take photos of all the flowers people were leaving at the tombs of
their loved ones. But on that Tot Sants the cemetery turned out to be not as
peaceful as cemeteries usually are. When I arrived the police had it cordoned
off. There had been a shooting inside and a man had been killed.
It was a drugs-related shooting. The man killed was from
France, and the assailant was from Figueres. Later I heard that they had
arrested the perpetrator and I thought that would be the end of it, but it
wasn’t. This was because both the French man and the Figueres man were gypsies
and the aggrieved clan had a score to settle. A few days later the French clan
began taking revenge on the clan here in Figueres by killing some of the
livestock of an uncle and wrecking some of the homes of other family members.
Suddenly Figueres didn’t feel so European.
Last Sunday, on the 23rd, the Eve of Sant Joan –
midsummer night – there was a shooting in Girona where four people were shot.
They were all taken to the hospital in Girona where two of them later died of
their wounds. About 100 members of the clan of the victims showed up at the
hospital and were kept at bay by the police.
When I heard the news and heard that the victims were from
one clan and the perpetrators from another, I knew they were talking about
gypsies. Everyone has families; gypsies have clans.
The victims were shot by a man called Guillermo who was
using an AK-47. This is the first time I’ve heard of that kind of weapon being
used here. Firearms are much less prevalent than in the U.S. and many attacks
are with knives.
Guillermo disappeared immediately. And so did members of his
clan who live in Figueres where he was originally from. So when 300 members of
the victims’ clan, known as Los Tomates, showed up Friday night to take
revenge, their three homes were vacant. The Girona clan had already destroyed
Guillermo’s apartment and car in a town near Girona, now 70 of the clan went in
and destroyed all three of the homes here. According to gypsy law, those three
homes now belong to Los Tomates. While Los Tomates were destroying the
properties, the police basically waited and kept people away. They have said
that trying to confront three hundred people, many of them wielding axes and
bats, would have called for an enormous police presence and would have resulted
in escalating the violence. This way, at least no one was injured.
At this point, no one knows where Guillermo or the members of his clan are, and the question remains, who will find Guillermo first? Los Tomates or the police?
When I first came to see apartments in Figueres, I was shown
one that bordered on Sant Joan, the gypsy neighborhood. Of course I didn’t know
that at the time. Lucky me I didn’t buy it. I remember coming back from a drive
a few years ago and following a sign that made my return route different than
the one I used to go. All of a sudden I was in Sant Joan where the streets and small plazas were packed
with people sitting on benches, chairs they had brought down, chatting, playing
guitar, milling around, passing the time. It was nothing like the rest of
Figueres where, except for la Rambla, the streets are meant for walking.
Suddenly Figueres felt like another world.
Oh, the photo? Yesterday’s brewing storm.
Sunday, June 16, 2024
In Honor of Father's Day
This photo was taken in Poland in about 1932 when he would have been 20. As you can see in the photo, my dad was not the typical Eastern European Jew of his time.
You can read all about him (and see more photos) in my book Stories My Father Told Me: From Warsaw, Moscow, Algeria, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Dominican Republic. Yes, he lived in a lot of places, and this is not a complete list.
The paperback and ebook are available at Amazon, paperback is available at Barnes & Noble or your favorite bookstore (by special order).
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
Stories My Father Told Me
Just Released!
Stories My Father Told Me: From Warsaw, Moscow, Algeria, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Dominican Republic
I wrote this book based on a memoir my father wrote for me
late in his life and stories I had heard at the dining table over the years. These
are stories from far off places, in far off and very different times. And yet
they are of everyday people doing everyday things. They are the stories of my
father, Rafał Feliks Buszejkin who was born in Warsaw in 1912.
In his stories he explained what he and the other children
did in Russia in the 1910s to entertain themselves in the winter. He never
attended cheder, but with a tutor, he memorized his speech for his Bar Mitzvah
at the Great Synagogue of Warsaw. In high school there was that band of youths
who played poker and got into mischief. He was one of them. He boxed, he worked
out and built his muscles, he did track and field, raced bicycles. He failed
his last year of high school. He was not a typical Eastern European Jew of that
time.
He told stories of wolves in the forest in 1917, and
bankruptcy at home in 1933. Stories of university days in France and months
spent with Sephardic Jews in a small desert town in Algeria where he set up a
Maccabi sports club.
There are love stories, stories of rich men who lose it all
and poor ones who become rich. Because he had studied agronomy, he was employed
all through the war and all through his life. His war-time stories from Siberia
tell of hard work, trying to have enough to eat, and avoiding the NKVD. The
Kazakh stories tell of a mix of western and eastern cultures, working for a
government agency supervising the agriculture at five kolkhozes, living among
the Kazakhs, sharing their food, drink, and yurts, and of spending two months
in a Soviet prison for refusing Soviet citizenship.
Postwar brought him from the steppes of Kazakhstan to the
French Riviera, then to the Dominican Republic where he farmed in a collective
Jewish refugee settlement. And finally, the United States, where there were
jobs, the possibility of making a good life, and no secret police.
The book is available as ebook or paperback on Amazon,
other online retailers, and your favorite bookshop where you would probably
need to order it. If you read it, please let me know what you think. And if you
like it, please leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or other social media if
you can. Thanks!
Saturday, April 27, 2024
Berkeley's Falcons
Annie in 2023 |
The university, via the Cal Falcons group, set up
livestream cameras a few years ago. Right now everyone is watching the one
pointed at the nest where there are four tiny, fluffy, white chicks. When they
get older and start to move around and leave the nest, there will be more activity at the other cameras that are pointed
to different ledges. All the cameras run 24/7 and can be found on YouTube or the Cal Falcons website. (Cal Falcons is also on Facebook and Instagram.)
Today, Saturday, we are watching the five-day-old
chicks having their breakfast. At first
you see them on their own. (Know that one or both of the parents are nearby.
The chicks are never unattended.) Then they start to squeal and a few seconds later
one of the adults enters the nest. This is Archie. A few moments later Annie
comes with breakfast and Archie leaves. There is no doubt that Annie is queen
of the roost and calls the shots.
Click here to see the clip of today’s breakfast. Yum.
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Living with a Bitch
Sweet Pea, poor old girl, is in heat. They told me when I adopted her that she hadn't been sterilized but that she was considered too old for the operation. She is now sticking her butt with her tail straight up into the face of any dog that comes along. It's embarrassing! I have to be vigilant that nothing comes of it. One old pooch moved really fast! That was Teresa’s dog, Rubio, a senior she rescued who was once probably a hunting dog and who is now lame. Sweet Pea is in heat and love is in the air.
I wrote that to a friend a
few weeks ago in the middle of this upsetting time which, now, thank God, is
over. Bitches, it seems, are never too old to have their periods, and in many
cases, as in the case with Sweet Pea, each time it lasts for a good four weeks.
The little girl is a
sprite with lots of energy. In heat she’s superdog. Or should I say superbitch?
I made the mistake of taking her out for one of our country walks so she could
get some exercise, and let her off the leash when we were on the path. She was
fine on the way out, but when I turned around to go back, she ran ahead and
never stopped! I was afraid she would get to the end and run out into the road.
She wouldn’t come when I called her, and I couldn’t go fast enough to catch
her! But thank goodness, she happened to find a male dog along the way and
stopped to stick her butt into his face. If not, I don’t know what would have
happened.
I have trouble referring to Sweet Pea as a bitch. I mean, it just doesn’t sound nice. In Catalan it’s nicer. Dog is “gos” and a female dog is “gossa.” A small dog is “gosset” and a small female dog is “gosseta.” It’s all very sweet. When you curse at someone, you don’t call them a female dog, you call them the son of a whore or “cabron,” a goat. A male goat.