"Woah!" exclaimed Maddie. "What in the heck is that?"

This was yesterday morning. Maddie and I were out walking along with Jennifer and one of our friends (strangely enough, also named Jennifer). We were headed back to the house from Wickersham Park, having just walked off a wonderful brunch of tri-colored potato and egg burritos (with a blend of Spring Hill firehouse cheddar and veggie jack cheese), fresh strawberries, and juicy blueberries (booty from the Marin farmers' market). I stopped to look down at the object Maddie had discovered. "It looks like you've found a dinosaur, Maddie," I said.

"No, way," said Maddie. "Dinosaurs are big and green. This guy's teeny-tiny, not to mention white."

"Maybe he's one of those rare dwarf albino dinosaurs," suggested Jennifer.

"This is so cool," said Maddie. "I didn't know we had dinosaurs in Petaluma." She sniffed at the little thunder lizard, hoping to glean some secret information from his scent.

"How's he smell, Maddie?" asked Jennifer (the other Jennifer).

"Kind of like plastic," replied Maddie. "I don't think a dinosaur is supposed to smell like plastic." She examined the miniscule monster a bit closer. "Hey, he's got writing on him," she announced. "What's it say?"

I bent down for a closer look, trying to make sense of the raised letters on the posterior of the plastic prosauropod. "It says 'Made in China,' Maddie."

"Woah! Do you think he walked here all the way from China?" asked Maddie.

"Maybe," suggested Jennifer.

"Maybe he's not a dinosaur at all, Maddie," I suggested. "Maybe he's a made-in-China-saur."

Maddie sat down to think about what I'd said. Finally she spoke. "That's a really bad joke," she said.

"She's right," said Jennifer. "That's a terrible pun."

"A pun like that," suggested the other Jennifer, "ought to be extinct."

---

Earlier yesterday morning, we'd wandered downtown to get a glimpse of the fire-damaged Tomasini's Rex Ace Hardware & Country Store in the light of day. The damage is heart-wrenchingly impressive; to my eyes the store looked to be a total loss. Charred brick walls and a chimney still stood defiantly among the blackened timbers, a nearby street sign looked warped, as if bent by the force of the conflagration. A television antenna topped the wreckage, strangely undamaged and skeletal above the ruin. Fire trucks sat sentinel, guarding against further outbreaks, and a yellow tape barrier kept back curious lookers-on.

Through the gathered crowd, one emotion prevailed: loss. However, it was loss tempered with hope. Almost everyone spoke of their wish that the neighborhood hardware store would rebound, rebuild, recover, and return. Neighbors shared stories of growing up in the shadow of the corner hardware store, a store that stood strong as a staple of Petaluma life for ninety-nine years. Folks reminisced of the almost endless stock of odd and hard to find parts, and the dedicated, knowledgeable, friendly staff that made return trips worthwhile.

What strikes me most about the fire is the way in which reports of the inferno filtered through the Argus blog community first, long before the story hit radio, TV, and newspapers. In addition to my photographs, posted as the blaze was still spreading through the historic building, I noticed some excellent posts from fellow Argus Corier bloggers Frances Rivetti, who relayed the eyewitness account of a friend that arrived on scene just as the fire was breaking out and called for help, and Vanessa Dodge, who emotionally framed the tragedy through the eyes and tearful comments of her young son, Reilly, who is going to miss the lollipops and looking at "all those great tools."

"We will reopen," said store owner Jeff Tomasini in an interview quoted in this morning's Press Democrat. I hope he's right, and that Tomasini's Rex Ace Hardware & Country Store will return to Petaluma. I've got my fingers crossed. After all, I'm sure I'm not the only one in town who would rather do my shopping at the locally-owned corner hardware store than drive off to one of those "big box" stores. Good luck, Jeff. When you do re-open, we'll be right down. I'm sure by then I'll have a nice, long list of things to pick up.

Just last weekend, Randy said how much he'd love to photograph the building before the inevitable developers bought out yet another Petaluma landmark and got rid of it. Unfortunately, he's never going to get the chance. Tonight, as Jennifer and I drove home from grocery shopping, we noticed smoke and a procession of official vehicles. Rex Hardware was in flames.

I parked the car down by the Mail Depot, left Jennifer waiting, and ran over to see what was going on. The fire department was already there, its members heroically fighting a losing battle. Waves of heat pealed off the building. Timbers cracked and sparked. The paint room erupted into a thousand firework pots. "Get back!" shouted one of the firemen to the gathered crowd. "Get back around the corner." I ducked, shot pictures, then ran back to the car, to safety, to Jennifer.

Arriving home, I carried in the groceries as she ran next door to tell Jan and Randy. The house smelled of smoke, seeped in already through our open windows from blocks away. Maddie paced about nervously, excited by the smell of smoke and sounds of sirens.

Rex Hardware was one of my favorite places in Petaluma, one of those last bits of small-town charm. After watching this fire greedily devour the building, I'm sure that it's gone, forever. How many lives will be affected? How much have we, as a community, lost?

"Who won? Who won?" asked Maddie, tapping me on the leg with her front paw as I carried in the morning paper.

"Won what?" I asked, handing the paper off to Jennifer and reaching down to scratch Maddie's ears. "Have you been gambling again?"

"No!" interjected Maddie, "It's time for the World's Ugliest Dog Contest, you goof. All the dogs are talking about it. Since Sam passed away, it's up for grabs this year."

"Maybe you won," I teased Maddie, allowing my scratching to migrate from her ears to her back as Jennifer began leafing through the paper.

Maddie pouted at my suggestion. "Oh, foo," she huffed. "That's just mean. I went to the groomer yesterday, I'm pretty... right?"

"Cut that out," Jennifer glared at me over the paper. "Of course you're pretty Maddie. He's just teasing you. Here we go. The winner was Archie, a Chinese crested hairless from Phoenix."

"A Chinese crested!" exclaimed Maddie. "Nuts to that. I mean they look like Jiangshi and all, but that's just too easy. They always win."

"Jang-what?" asked Jennifer, looking at me accusingly. "What in the world have you been teaching this dog?"

"Chinese vampires," I mumbled, looking down at my shoes.

"Jiangshi are mean and scary," said Maddie excitedly. "They know kung fu, and they can jump real high, and you can only stop them with sticky rice and post-it notes. We watched a movie about them. The one-eyebrow priest Master Gau had to fight them, and there was a girl that would take off her head and try to bite people."

"Ricky Lau's Mr. Vampire," I mumbled.

"I see," said Jennifer, setting down the paper. "You two didn't happen to watch this movie that night she wanted to hide under the bed, did you?"

"Ummm... maybe," said Maddie.

"So, hey, Maddie," I said, trying to change the subject. "Which dog do you think should have won?"

Maddie thought about this for a few moments, then said, "Maybe Oscar, 'cause he's a Pug, and Pugs are weird. After that, probably Munchkin. He's cool looking. He looks like a monster. I'd vote for him."

"Do you think that any of the dogs you know should enter the contest next year?" I asked.

"Charlie could win," answered Maddie. "And Peanut. Peanut should definitely enter."

---

We just got back from our traditional Saturday morning walk downtown. It's a festive day, accordion music was everywhere, and it fortunately wasn't as hot as yesterday. We stopped for coffee, then hit Copperfield's, where I picked up the new audiobook of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly, used paperbacks of Colin Wilson's The Space Vampires (one of my favorite bad movies, Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce, is based on this) and Richard Matheson's Third from the Sun, as well as the latest issues of Fantasy & Science Fiction and The Believer, taking advantage of today being the last day of their 25% off sale.

After that, we stopped in over at Heebe Jeebe for a glance at the Munny Show, and Jennifer picked up another blank Munny to customize. I think she's hooked. While we were there, Drew (the owner) coaxed Maddie and I into taking a turn in her photo booth.

While out walking, we noticed that Kevin Harris has autographed yet more of Petaluma, including the newspaper machines in front of Jungle Vibes and three of the banners hung on the fence of the construction site (Theatre Square) across from Boulevard Cinemas. Now I don't as a rule mind graffiti, as long as it's creative, but young Master Harris's numbskull scrawl doesn't quite meet my criteria for creativity. Since nobody in authority's thought to call all the Harris-es in the phone book and ask for Kevin, here's a suggestion: why not appoint a task force to go around to all of Kevin's eponymous inscriptions and add the verbs and direct objects necessary to convert these tags into derisive sentences. "Kevin Harris chokes goats." "Kevin Harris gargles grease." "Kevin Harris licks thickets." "Kevin Harris loves limburger." "Kevin Harris wets his pants." Once Kevin Harris becomes the laughing stock of Petaluma High School, I can guarantee you, the tagging will stop.

If your name is Antoine Bailey, and you're waiting on a letter from the rental department of Grenadier Realty Corporation, then I have news for you: Your letter came to the wrong address- mine.

It happens. Just try delivering 212 billion pieces of mail over the course of a year, some things are bound to end up in the wrong boxes. Bills, catalogs, credit card offers, birthday cards, love letters, correspondences - most of the time, you have to admit; the post office does a pretty decent job of getting the mail where it needs to go. However, at least once a month I end up with mail intended for one of my neighbors casually stuffed into my box, parcels and postcards that should have been dropped off a street or two away at a house with a matching number. Generally I'll drop these back into the big blue box the next morning and call it a day.

Your letter, Antoine, was something special, something unusual. You see, we have the same address number. True, I'm on 5th Street and you're on 5th Avenue, that's an easy enough mistake for a postman to make. What I don't get is how something intended to go to "NYC 10001 9th Fl" could possibly end up in Petaluma, California, especially because it was originally mailed from Brooklyn. How could a mere sixty-three cents carry this thing from coast to coast? Just how many blue-uniformed hands did this thing have to pass through before it ended up in my box? Was everybody en route asleep at the wheel?

What makes the whole situation even weirder is the fact that earlier this week I'd checked out China Miéville's Looking for Jake from the local library and had, the same morning that the letter arrived, read his short story "Reports of Certain Events in London." The story posits Miéville's eponymous first-person protagonist receiving a misplaced package (addressed to a Charles Melville). This package contained documents providing clues pertaining to a bizarre mystery of shifting streets and strange, transforming cityscapes. Chills ran up and down my spine as I turned the letter over and over in my hands. Was this a case of life imitating fiction? Was I somehow destined to receive your letter, Antoine? Was I intended to open it and sort through its hidden contents? My curiosity wracked my nerves.

Just what could the Grenadier Realty Corporation rental department possibly be sending you, Antoine? Was it an acceptance letter? A contract? Did you get the apartment? Was it an eviction notice? Hundred dollar bills? Sheets of blotter LSD? Flemish pornography? Some other kind of contraband? Was it evidence of life on other planets? Illicit, explicit blackmail photographs? Government secrets? Proof that 9/11 was an inside job? Assassination orders? Smallpox cultures? Schrödinger's cat? A universe of possibilities hid within the oversized white envelope. The temptation to resolve these questions was almost overwhelming.

But I resisted. Antoine, I discretely dropped your letter back into the mail this morning. With any luck, you should be receiving it shortly (unless, of course, it ends up in Florida next). Oh, and best of luck with the new apartment.

"Oh, boy," said Maddie. "We're going to an art show. Do you think that there will be cheese?"

"Of course, Maddie," I answered. "Cheese at an art opening is obligatory."

"Good," replied Maddie. "I like cheese."

This was earlier tonight, as Maddie and I tromped along behind Jan and Randy and Jennifer as the five of us headed down to Heebe Jeebe to check out the Munny Show artist reception. Rumors had been abounding; word had it that Jennifer's "Free Your Mind" was getting all kinds of pre-show buzz, and that my "Ancient Astronaut" had already sold. We were all pretty excited about the show. Between the chance to see what everybody's artistic take on Munny redecoration might be, the opportunity to mill about and chat with other arty Petalumans, and, of course, the possibility of cheese (Maddie's favorite reason), we could tell that this was going to be a fun evening.

And it was. I carried Maddie around as we checked out the Munnys, we schmoozed and chatted a bit, saw some fun art, and had a great time. Jennifer got to meet a few people whose work she'd seen online, and was genuinely surprised by all the great reactions to "Free your Mind." It was a good crowd (even if it was a bit too hot inside Heebe Jeebe), and I took lots of pictures. Some of them even came out fairly well (though I may have to go back and take a few more shots- too many of my pictures came out blurry).

Eventually, however, the time came for us to head home, even though the party was still going strong. As Maddie, Jennifer, and I headed out the door, Maddie paused. "Can I do something before we go?" she asked.

"What, Maddie," I responded. "What do you want to do?"

"Do you have a quarter?" she asked.

I fished in my pocket, finding a single coin at the bottom. "Yeah."

"Can I go for a ride on the horse?"

"Of course, Maddie," I said. "Anything to make you happy."

The Munny Show at Boomerang Gallery/Heebe Jeebe (46 Kentucky Street) runs through July 12. Come on by!

It's been a buzz of activity around the church compound for the last week or so, as everyone's been customizing Munny figures to be included in this weekend's Munny Show at Heebe Jeebe/Boomerang Gallery. We're all doing something a bit different: Jan's Munny looks like a chicken in ballet shoes, Randy's incorporates distressed doll parts and is named "Desert Rose," Janine's is teddy-bear cute (except for the nail piercing its heart), and Jennifer's is a high-concept interpretation of the phrase "free your mind," complete with an open-zippered head, protest sign, and escaping newspaper butterflies.

For mine, I went with an "Ancient Astronaut" theme, removing the top of the figure's head, replacing it with a clear plastic hemisphere, and placing a fish tank replica of an Olmec head inside of the dome. Originally, I'd used a shiny and reflective metallic chrome spray paint for the space suit-clad body of the Munny, but came to the unfortunate realization that chrome paint eats plastic and had to repair and respray with plain old silver. Still, I think it turned out well.

This afternoon, I dropped my Munny off at Heebe Jeebe. Jan brought theirs by this evening. I'll deliver Jennifer's tomorrow. The show's on Saturday, come on by!