downtown doggies
Dolph and Loki are my dogs. Rico is a Chow who lives in our building. Bubi I am pretty sure has cattle dog origins, she is shaggy white with gray and black spots, and lives in a loft. (Bubi has more money than any of us, if she can afford a downtown loft.) The card is for sure from my dog walker.
My dog walker's name is Honour Maxwell. (That is the coolest name, I get totally jealous.) Honour looks like a taller (damn it) and younger (damn it) version of me with hair a little shorter and darker. The resemblance is probably why my cat, who loves me and hates all others, thinks Honour is okay too. Honour is like a Max stand in to him. He will even bite her. He only bites people he really loves.
I first met Honour by the elevator. I was getting on with two dogs. She was getting off with three. I knew right off either she was insane or those were not her dogs. Only an insane person would have three dogs in a condo. Probably, only an insane person would have two dogs in a condo. (No cracks!) They were not Honour's dogs, though. She is a professional dog walker. So I got her card. It is a nice card. It is in a tasteful pale brown. Just like the envelope this card came in. It says "Downtown Doggies." And "Honour Maxwell." It has her phone number on it.
When WTO rolled around, Honour was one of the people in turtle suits. Wearing a turtle suit is hilarious to me. I guess turtle suits make people look dangerous, though, because after only an hour in the turtle suit, a policeman became so enraged by the turtle suit, he grabbed Honour and ripped her right out of it. And Honour was one of the first people sent to Sand Point. Sand Point is a special concentration camp place Seattle authorities set up just to incarcerate people arrested during WTO. They were really thinking ahead. They even studied crowd control with German police, who are supposed to be especially good at crowd control. (I wonder where they learned that?) It did not go well at Sand Point, though. None of the arrested people would tell police their names. I don't know how German police deal with that, maybe German people are just more thoughtful when they get arrested, but we are Americans and Americans are unruly. Seriously. We are. Check your history books. And with no names, police could not "process" anyone. They did not have anything to put on their forms. (You know it was paper that killed the Roman Empire, right? Those Romans would have been fine, except someone invented too many forms to fill out and everyone passed out from exhaustion trying to fill them all out and there went the Empire. Ooops.) So the police had a nifty camp, but no way to process the people. I mean, they couldn't slap bar codes on them. How would that look? Also, now Honour wasn't wearing the turtle suit, she looked pretty harmless, so police dropped her and some other turtle-suit-less people off by the side of a road and told them to just go home and be good. That seems reasonable to me. The judicial system cuts murderers and rapists loose and tells them to just go home and be good. Why not dangerous turtle suit wearers?
Of course Honour did not go home or be good. She went straight back downtown, short one dangerous looking turtle suit, with a first aid pack and bottled water to wash people's eyes with when they got tear gassed. And ended up chaperoning two thirteen year old girls. That was a good thing for those girls. (What were their parents thinking?) WTO was no place for thirteen year old girls and tear gas is no fun. I was not even in a turtle suit or protesting anything and I was not having tear gas fun.
The first time I hired Honour, I did not know about her turtle suit ways. The first time I hired her it was because I was disastrously ill with some affliction that was not tear gas induced but did make me cough and get dizzy. So I dug out Honour's card and called. Her mom answered and asked which dogs were mine and I said well Honour had never walked my dogs, we had just met by the elevator. And her mom said, "Oh, the Golden Retriever!" Which was hilarious to me. That Honour told her mom about dogs she met by elevators. That her mom remembered.
Now when I get sick or leave town, Honour takes care of the dogs. She brought them Halloween cookies -- biscuits the woman at the pet store makes shaped like little bats for dogs. She invites them to dog birthday parties. Honour really likes dogs. Sometimes on walks the dogs and I run into Honour walking Rico. Rico gets jealous if Honour loves other dogs, but they all know each other from walking together so they just bark for show and it stops there. Honour even introduced the dogs to Hannah The Irate Daschund. Who doesn't even try to attack us any more when we go by. I guess they are all friends now. I am wondering what sort of cookies they have at dog birthday parties. And thinking there are worse offenses against God and country than wearing a turtle suit.
*originally published on NiteTime.net
