Evening, Friday, June 26, 2009 • No responses
Five years ago today on a farm in northwest Illinois, my wife and I drove to our wedding on a tractor. She was wearing a dress she made herself and I was wearing a traditional ceremonial Indian outfit (complete with curly, pointy shoes!) brought to the U.S. by relatives. The tractor, a six-wheeled John Deere Gator, was a fitting chariot for an excursion through an apple orchard, a mud puddle, across a land bridge, and up a small hill to a throng of people wondering exactly which cultish ritual they had signed up to attend.
Our dogs and 80 or so humans were in attendance while a judge who, in a ceremony about as long as a trip through the Portillo’s drive-thru during non-peak hours, read vows we had written ourselves. We then stuffed our faces first with Indian food then a three-layer cake (carrot, chocolate, and Indian rice pudding flavors) which Nara and her mom made the day prior.
It was by far the best wedding I’ve ever attended and easily one of the best days of my life so far. Even though whole endeavor was completely improvised from start to finish it still managed, I think, to convey that the eclectic, creative, crafty, irreverent and beautiful aspects of her personality could blend rather successfully with the best I have to offer: emotionally distant anal-retentiveness (and a freakish absence of body odor). And I couldn’t be more thrilled to say that five years later, that nothing about that has changed. We’re still improvising, and we’re still blending successfully. And I still smell good.
Our wedding invitation, a postcard, aptly paraphrases the last 1800+ days:
Love you, honey.
Early evening, Thursday, June 11, 2009 • 17 responses
Today I had to say goodbye to my dog, Lakshmi. I’m not one for sentimental monologues—in fact I’m patently bad at them. I’m obligated, however, to at least a few words, as so many people absolutely adored Lakshmi. I was reminded of this just recently when I was in Portland, Maine, for the Food Bender. I lived in Portland for three years and anyone who knew me while I was there also knew Lakshmi—we went absolutely everywhere together. As I was walking down the street a few weeks ago, I thought I recognized someone walking toward me, and as she slowed down with a puzzled look on her face, it was clear she thought she recognized me as well. She said, tenatively, “Lakshmi’s dad, right?”
Lakshmi’s dad indeed. And this happened three times over the five days I was in Maine last month, a full nine years after I left Portland.
Granted, this phenomenon is common among dog owners. But some of these people would also just stop by sometimes—not to see me—but to walk my dog. And this has happened everywhere I’ve lived (except now in the burbs). There were a handful of people who actually couldn’t wait for me to travel somewhere by plane because if I couldn’t drive there, Lakshmi didn’t come with me and would need someone to care for her at home. People who hate dogs have professed love for Lakshmi, and she did her fair share of recruiting dog owners-to-be.
We really did go everywhere together. She crossed the continent with me at least 4 times and went on every single one of my epic two-lane highway roadtrips. I gather that over her fourteen-year lifespan she probably logged 150,000 miles. She slept in the car and in tents with me most of those trips and for a couple of months, we even lived out of my car, graduate student office, and a few Santa Cruz laundromats and cafes due to a pathetic housing situation. We traveled to glaciers and through deserts, to the center of North America, and the Center of the Earth (she’s got an official, signed certificate of her own for the that last one). She rode the subway in NYC as I had to get her uptown somehow and I had to pretend like I was blind to get her past the ticket booth. She backpacked with me all over the U.S. and Canada and has gone swimming in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. She’s growled at moose, beavers, raccoons, bears, buffalo, bison, whales, fish, and hippies. And she ran. Boy, did she run.
Last September she had a buildup of fluid around her heart which almost killed her. When she made a completely unexpected recovery (she had lost about 1/3rd of her weight and there was a very high likelihood of the fluid buildup returning), the vet christened her “Miracle Dog”. Though she was as sweet as she had always been since that incident, she was noticeably older and more tired. Today I noticed that her back leg had swollen and brought her into the vet thinking she had sprained it or something. Unfortunately, an ultrasound revealed that the fluid was back in her chest and the swollen leg was probably related somehow to the root condition. And I really didn’t want to put her once again through the medical treatment which a few months earlier saved her life but seemed to take her spirit.
I’ll admit, regrettably, that in the last few years, the business of life with Ray has made us interact with the dogs more as furniture than as pets and as such, Lakshmi didn’t get the kind of opportunities she’s had in the past to run back and forth at light speed on a beach. But she seemed to understand her new role. When Ray was a baby, she’d sometimes lick his face while he was crying. And she was so patient with him as he grew from a helpless larvae in a bouncy chair to a kid who liked to make loud noises, pull tails and stroke her head with more vigor than he should have.
As she went to sleep for the last time today, I probably also stroked her head with more vigor than I should have as memories of all the crazy adventures we had together came to mind. It was a lot harder than I had thought it was going to be. But she had a great run of fourteen years and played such a significant role in making my last fourteen years as memorable as they have been. So yeah, I’m extremely sad. But also extremely grateful.
Here’s a photographic tribute to Lakshmi.
If I can, I plan on taking her ashes to the family farm in Illinois and burying them there in a box I’ll make myself, by hand, with as much love, compassion, and devotion that she showed me all those years. If you knew Lakshmi and have a few words to say in tribute, do leave a comment below. I’ll print out this entry and put it in the box with her ashes.
Evening, Monday, June 08, 2009 • 2 responses
My family has been attending the SF Bay Maker Faire every year since its inception. It’s relatively easy to describe what The Maker Faire is—unsurprisingly, it’s a gathering for people who make things—but it’s very difficult to articulate its scope in a way that can be understood for those who don’t or can’t attend.
The horizon of creativity witnessed at the Maker Faire is mindboggling. In attending the faire one imbibes equal parts art, science, craft, hobby, delusion, and obsession, witnessing everything from master yo-yo performances to roving squadrons of cupcakemobiles to battle robot arenas to pipe cleaner art. I think of the faire as a local Burning Man but one which, in ways I find refreshing, substitutes the pleasure and delight of “just making stuff” for the increasingly annoying pretense of “being cool”.
One of the things I love about the Maker faire is that it’s so incredibly kid-friendly. This is really the first year that Ray is substantially cognizant in his exploration of anything, so even days later he’s still raving about the giant hydraulic hand (he’s fascinated by hydraulics—go figure) and the lego trains and the underwater robots.
It’s fair to say that despite the flashing lights of walking robots and the spectacle of flamethrowers, the highlight of the 2007 faire for us was this gentleman, Zach Houston, who ran a “Poem Store” in the expo hall.
For whatever you think a poem is worth and on whatever topic you fancy, Zach will bang out a short poem on his tiny typewriter. In 2007, when Ray was just 1, we spoke for him, and the topic we chose was of course, Ray. Zach tapped out the following:
We looked for Zach in 2008 but unfortunately could not find him. We were thrilled this year, however, when we found him sitting under a tree, and we immediately queued for a sequel. When asked what topic Ray wanted for his poem, he thought for a few moments before saying, “ticket” (?!). Zach went to work:
Thanks, Zach. We’ll see you next year.
Here’s a bunch of photos from this and previous years compiled into a Maker Faire Flickr photoset.
