Everyone wears Nikes

It is late, but I have a few minutes while my dog comes to her own decision that “Pepperoni, come!” is a reason to come towards me instead of run to her friend’s house. I’m just back from an interesting afternoon in Albuquerque. I visited the infamous Sagebrush church, hung out with a few great people, and landed at Barnes & Noble for a while where I huddled up to read, “Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love.” I’m not over my pitbull patient yet. But that’s another story. Instead I was handed “Navajos Wear Nikes”and couldn’t put it down. I only got to page 32, but I suspect the author is headed for a turn-around where growing up as a white boy on the Rez transformed his views into a realization that people are people everywhere and this culture isn’t that different from our own, at its core. I thought about it on the way home, and I think that I’ve been bouncing around that conclusion myself. I meet people who think it’s so interesting that I’m down here and I should write a book or something; however, on a day-to-day basis I forget that I’m on the Rez sometimes. After working here Monday through Friday I feel culture shock going to Albuquerque. I swear I start thinking I’m Navajo. It really doesn’t make any difference to me who is bringing their animal through that door. Reading through that book… there were stories of kids beating each other up on the playground, bully kids picking on the different kids, homeless animals in pathetic states, racism, abuse in families… what’s so different here than in Detroit, MI? Every culture has their pride, their issues, their wacky sense of priorities… 100 miles from abject poverty “my people” are ground breaking an 11 million dollar church building. So people want to drive fancy trucks and live in trailers, so what? (Pause as pup is now obsessed with fetch…) What else do I have to say about this. I’m feeling decidedly unprofound right now. Anyway, I don’t feel the need to write books. I feel like they’ve all been written. I’d rather just be nice, do my job, and see if some of these ideas that we are so vastly different could be knocked down in the minds of some of the people I happen to interact with. We are just people. We love dogs. The good people get mad when boxes of puppies get left on the side of the road. Politicians often parasitize their people when they are supposed to be serving them. Teenagers need to learn to do their homework. Some do well at developing their God-given talents, and some waste their potential being selfish and/or stupid. (Okay, when is this pup going to quit peeing in my house? Seriously.) As a whole it would be nice if we all would just stop classifying people based on the ones we’ve met or what we’ve heard. For instance, I am a Christian. That does not mean that I’m an asshole, I hate homosexuals, I go to church because I have a guilt complex, I love everything Republicans do, I think I’m better than you, I don’t know and don’t care about any other belief system, and I reject science. It basically means I think Jesus walked around on this earth a couple thousand years ago and told the truth, and now I’m pretty sure I have a mentoring type friendship/relationship with an alleged dead person. Making Him not dead. Wow that sounds weird. It’s not too big of a stretch for me though, honestly. Life and death are over my head. When I watch the light go out of a dog’s eyes I already know nothing. A Superpower making planets hang in place and then sneaking Himself into a world He created and gave away seems pretty plausible. He had some pretty awesome Superpowers while he was here. Those folks got to see stuff and believe, I have to read about it most of the time, *BUMMER*, but that’s life. I think if my community college English teacher read this blog she would cry. There is no main point.

Clinic days this week… really good cases. I fell in love with a big, ugly, super-adorable pitbull with some serious anemia issues that I couldn’t fix in time to save him. His weak little tail-wag stole my heart and I cried my eyes out on the way home after euthanizing him. All dogs go to heaven, especially pitbulls. I went to Gallup for a drink with some friends and saw several cultures represented in the drunks at Applebee’s, had my own drink with my fav nachos with spinach-artichoke dip, and came home again. You can occasionally have some very interesting conversations with the drinkers at the bar. Everyone has their reasons for being there, and it’s often rewarding to ferret them out. It was too loud for much chat last night though.

Well my dogs have all crashed and it’s time to crash. I sure love my little car. We have many awesome adventures together J