Are You Living It?

The trip across the Arizona desert was exactly what I had hoped for.  What I mean is, it provided every excuse to whine that I had expected it would.  The weather projections the previous day had slated a 110 degree forecast. I hadn’t felt that kind of heat in 20 years, since my youthful summers in west Texas. I looked forward to it like some people look forward to war and natural disasters. The only bright point was my knowledge that the end of the day promised a classic southern California sunset, with possible surf.

Max, my newly adopted Corgie/Bassett Hound/Lab had never left the tiny fishbowl that was La Plata County, and lay in the passenger seat of my truck with is head in my lap, tongue hanging out lazily as he watched me drive. Leaving Sedona at 9 am, the mercury had already reached a balmy 86. Four hours later at a rest stop near Phoenix, Max had his first lesson in solar dynamics, scorching his tender paws on the blazing asphalt of the parking lot. His look said everything to me; it was almost a gaze of sheer dissapointment, not as much in the predicament we had found ourselves in, but in MY decisions that had led us there. Such is Max’s nature however, like some super-hero-dog alter-ego, he trots through life completely non-plussed by anything smaller than a grizzly bear in physical size or seriousness, posturing an air of competence typically reserved for history professors.

The charmed life of the itinerate surf bum/sales rep knows no bounds, and soon I found myself standing on the deck of the Mission Beach penthouse condominium of a close friend’s parents, with a startling view of the Pacific ocean.

Sensation 1: I am envious as hell of people that have beachfront property, but there is a feeling one gets after not seeing the ocean for awhile that brings sharp focus to the fact that homes at sea-level are very near a frothing, crawling beast that has been known to swallow entire coastlines on a whim. The sheer, pulsating, roiling energy that cascades through the shore break contrasts definitively with the rigid geometry of glass panes and stainless steel decking that adorns the boardwalk, like a hurricane stuffed in a bottle.

Evening found me surfing in front of the house, seals hunting to my left (uncomfortably close), and dolphins patrolling in pairs along the outside of the rip. One veered towards me. Seen from the corner of my eye the dorsal fin advertised only a straight line, and made me second guess his species, and intent, for a moment. The matter was never truly settled, except for the hand-me-down assumption that Great Whites are rarely invited to dolphin cocktail parties, and eventually I let my hands and feet back into the water, slowly.

Sensation 2: My sense of self has convinced me that I would bleed out after a femoral laceration with the utmost competence. They would ask “Was he really as brave as they said?” and others would answer “No, but massive blood loss and overwhelming shock tend to inspire a sensation of peace and contentment, so, he went very… passively.”

Walking to one’s vehicle only to discover that the place where it was parked has either warped into a black hole, or your vehicle has been towed (or worse) is a a sensation unto itself, and not unlike the slow realization that the beer you just drank from at your best friend’s house party was not your beer, and that the contents of the bottle were not, in fact, beer at all. Welcome to California, Big City Jay.

Sensation 3: The ability to remain polite and smiling while you blatantly steal another person’s money (Impound fee), regardless of the mandate provided by municipal authorities (meter maids) to do so, is an elegant art form. $263 dollars later, I feel violated.

When you own a dog that weighs 40 pounds, of which 39 of it is pure muscle and sinew staked atop 8 inch piston-like legs, it’s best to find an anchor point for his lead that is lodged securely within a compound of rebar, concrete, and titatium.  The leash itslef must be devised of some sort of wrought iron link, of a gauge similar to that used on the U.S.S. Missouri for her anchors. The dog should be deprived of all external stimulae, except for any large carnivorous animals (tigers, giant squid…) that you find a need to dispatch.  Rest assured, Max will destroy them for you, as he did my friend’s electrial cord, Christmas lights, garden hose, the entire left side of her landlord’s flower garden, and the cute little glass hummingbird feeder that has, although physical evidence has yet to be found, disappeared like Emelia Erhardt on a foggy day.

Sensation 4: California is a place where real life occurs without an airbag, and objects in mirror have probably already passed you by.