"Oh, nuts!" exclaimed Maddie, stomping her foot for emphasis. "Does that sign say the park is closed?"

We'd just arrived at Wickersham Park, after completing our morning romp around the block, and had been talking about spending an hour or so just sitting at one of the benches, writing and watching birds. I bent down to read the sign: "Herbicide application."

"That means they're spraying the scary stuff, doesn't it?" asked Maddie.

I scratched her ears. "Yeah, it does," I replied. "But look here," I pointed at the date. "They're not spraying until the twenty-seventh."

"Oh," said Maddie. "When's that?"

"Well," I answered. "We gave you your flea treatment on Sunday, right?"

"Yeah, I remember. After you put that stuff on me, I shook and got it on you." She grinned. "Now you won't get fleas."

"Anyway," I changed the subject. "Sunday was the twenty-third. That makes yesterday the twenty-fourth..."

"Yesterday was hot," observed Maddie.

"Yes it was," I answered. "And today's the twenty-fifth," I added, steering the conversation back to my intended track. "So if today's Tuesday, and they're spraying on the twenty-seventh, what does that mean?"

Maddie thought about this for a few moments before answering. "It means that we're going to Walnut Park on Thursday and Friday, right?"

"That's right," I said. "So, since they're not spraying until Thursday, do you want to go hang out in the park?"

"No," said Maddie, yawning. "Figuring out stuff is hard. I'm ready to go home and take a nap."

"I think that guy is coming over," said Maddie, trying to act nonchalant. "Do we know him?"

I looked across Wickersham Park to where she indicated. Sure enough, a little gray dog was approaching, wagging as he came, apparently rather excited at the prospect of meeting Maddie. His person trailed behind him, trying to keep up with the little guy's steady pace. "He doesn't look familiar," I said. "But he does look like a nice dog. Are you in a friend-making mood?"

"I guess so," said Maddie. "Just as long as he doesn't get fresh or try to sniff my butt."

The dog turned out to be Nicky, a ten-year-old Shih-Tzu with an endearing overbite. Within a few moments, we were joined as well by Nicky's half-brother Murphy, the biggest Shih-Tzu I've ever seen. Murphy, although he lumbered along like a tank and grunted a bit, had a very friendly disposition and was a pleasure to meet.

Although Nicky and Muphy's person introduced her dogs, she never got around to introducing herself. Instead, we talked for a little while about the unbearable hot weather, and she expressed her shock over those insensitive people who leave their dogs in hot cars on hot summer days (don't be one of those people). She pointed out the bench where her husband sat with their other dog, a lackadaisical Golden Retriever.

Eventually, Nicky and Murphy wandered off, satisfied to have met Maddie, and she and I got back to our walk. As we headed back home, I asked, "What'd you think of Nicky and Murphy, Maddie?"

"They were a couple of nice guys. I wouldn't mind bumping into them again."

---

I've been trying to come up with a top ten list of ways to beat the heat, but unfortunately, for the last couple of days, the heat has been pretty much unbeatable, so I've only come up with four (for what it's worth, Maddie suggests sleeping on the tile floor of the bathroom. If it gets any hotter, I'm going to take her suggestion.). Feel free to comment with your own suggestions:

1. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade; however, if life instead gives you ice, rum, and lime juice, make daiquiris. If you haven't got either, hope that the enterprising kids across the street decide to set up a lemonade stand. If the kids in your neighborhood decide to set up a daiquiri stand, please give me a call.

2. Mexican Cokes. Not only do these refreshing beverages come in nostalgia-inducing 12-ounce glass bottles, they're made with real sugar instead of allegedly-harmful high fructose corn syrup. We're talking the original recipe! Sure, Mexican Cokes are hard to find, but I know of at least two places in Petaluma that carry 'em, Petaluma Market and Cotija Taco Shop. If you can, stock up. Refresco!

3. Lie down in a bathtub filled with ice and pretend someone has stolen your kidney.

4. Utilikilt. We've seen a few of these around town lately, which has me seriously wondering whether I've got the legs necessary for rocking the man-skirt look. In any case, the ventilation possibilities offered by an unbifurcated garment are certainly tempting, and the fact that Utilikilts are made with a "modesty snap" is downright genius. Still, $125 ($250 for the "survival" model) does seem a bit steep.

---

This week, I finished reading L. Sprague de Camp's Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers, and am now convinced that I'm going to have to track down a copy of the book for my own library (I had to request this copy from the Mendocino Public Library via inter-library loan). As far as genre literary criticism goes, this is an amazing book, chock-full of biographical detail and in-depth analysis.

I've just started on the second of my three Robert E. Howard Conan books, The Bloody Crown of Conan. Next up, I'll probably read either James ranch Cabell's Jurgen or Jack Vance's The Dying Earth tetralogy, unless, of course, something else decides it needs to be read first. Books for the fall semester should be arriving soon, and between the two literature classes I'm taking (The Lord of the Rings as English Epic and Noir Vision and American Culture), I'm going to have my nose in a book indefinitely. I wonder how many required books I can get read before the semester begins-

"Hey," said Maddie, looking around. "Somebody stole my rock."

We'd just stepped into the back yard, finally home from the groomer and running the day's errands, and I'd just begun spraying another coat of paint onto the Munny I'd spent the last week repairing, so I wasn't completely sure what Maddie was talking about. "What rock?" I asked.

"My big white rock," answered Maddie. "It was here this morning." She sniffed at a corner of the sidewalk. "Somebody swiped my rock."

"Are you talking about Jan and Randy's headstone?" I asked.

"I dunno," said Maddie. "What's a headstone? If it's something big and white and cool, then I might be."

"A headstone is a grave marker," I answered. "If you're talking about the big marble stone with writing on it that was sitting right there," I pointed. "Then a couple of guys with a truck picked it up earlier this morning."

"While I was at the groomer?" Maddie paced back and forth, worried. "You let them steal my rock while I was at the groomer? Why would you let them do that?"

"Well, Maddie," I replied. "First off, it wasn't yours to begin with. It didn't technically even belong to Jan and Randy. They found it at a house they used to live at. Whoever stole it in the first place had left it there. The guys that picked it up this morning were taking it back to where it belongs."

"But that was my shade rock," said Maddie. "I liked to lean against it on hot days. It was always cool."

"That's because it was carved from marble. Headstones usually are."

"Oh, like some of the walls downtown that are always cool." said Maddie. "I like marble." She thought for a second, then looked puzzled. "I still don't think I understand what a headstone is."

"People mark graves with them."

"What's a grave?" asked Maddie.

"It's a place where they bury people," I answered. "When somebody dies, their friends and family will generally dig a big hole in a graveyard, put them in the hole, cover them back up with dirt, and then mark the spot with a headstone."

"That's really creepy," observed Maddie. "Why would anybody want to bury somebody in a graveyard? I've seen graveyards in movies. Monsters hang out in graveyards."

"That's just in the movies," I explained. "I think that part of why people like to pretend that monsters live in graveyards is because they feel weird about the places. After all, once somebody gets buried, their family generally only visits the spot on special occasions for the first year or two, then they stop visiting completely. They feel guilty about that, so they imagine that graveyards are spooky, monster-filled places."

"Oh," said Maddie. "Graveyards sound like lonely places. So where did the rock- er- headstone come from? Whose grave did it mark?"

"It belonged to a little boy named Manuel. He was only four years old when he died in 1914. That's ninety-two years ago. Somewhere along the line, somebody stole the stone."

"That's sad," interjected Maddie. "And mean."

"Yeah," I answered, sitting down next to Maddie and scratching her ears. "Eventually, like I said earlier, Jan and Randy ended up with it. They moved with it a couple of times, not really knowing how to get it back to where it belonged. A month or two ago, Randy found out about a group of people that return stolen headstones to where they belong, so he called them up. They researched it, and figured out who Manuel was. The guys that picked it up this morning are going to take it back to Manuel's grave and replace it."

"Will that make Manuel's family visit him more often?"

"Hopefully, Maddie. Ninety-two years is a long time, so it's hard to say whether anybody would remember him or not."

"Do you know what I'd say to Manuel if I could?" asked Maddie.

"No, what?"

"I'd say thanks to him for letting me sit by his cool rock," said Maddie, wagging her tail. "And I'm really glad that he's going to get to have it back."

"Hey," said Maddie. "I want to go meet that dog over there."

"What?" I asked, snapped back to reality by Maddie's request. This was Monday morning, and I'd been daydreaming, sitting on a bench in Wickersham Park and listening to the hum and buzz of the world around me. I looked around. "Which dog?" I asked Maddie, noticing that there were three different dogs wandering around the park with their people.

"That little guy over there." She pointed to a cream-colored puppy hanging out by the feet of a woman seated at one of the other benches. "He kinda looks like my cousin."

"You think he looks like Peanut?" I asked, puzzled by Maddie's assertion.

"No," she replied, pouting. "I do have other cousins, you know. Lots of them."

"Really? I didn't know that."

"Anyway, he looks like one of my cousins that I haven't seen since I was a puppy. He walked with a limp, so we all used to tease him that he was a lopsided-apso."

"That's not a very nice thing to say," I commented.

Maddie looked down at the ground for a second. "Yeah, well, we were puppies," she said. "I said a lot of things back then that I wouldn't now." She looked up at me, then wagged her tail. "I guess that's what growing up is all about."

I stood up, then bent down to scratch Maddie on top of her head. "You're right. Come on, let's go over there and meet that puppy."

The puppy turned out to be a boisterous little Lhasa apso called Shan, named for one of the Five Sacred Mountains separating Tibet from China. According to Nan, his person, Shan likes to steal things, including slippers, bits of paper, and plastic bottles, which he carries around in his mouth like cigars. Maddie and Shan barked back and forth among themselves as I chatted with Nan, Maddie answering his piercing barks with her low rumbling growlf. Eventually, Maddie and I returned to our walk. "So, Maddie," I asked. "What'd you think of Shan?"

"He was okay," said Maddie. "For a puppy." She looked up at me. "Puppies have entirely too much energy."

Would anyone out there be interested in doing a book swap? I've got the following handful of titles available, all leftovers from the Henry James and Oscar Wilde class I took last semester. I tried to sell them to Copperfield's, but while they liked the selections, they decided to pass on these because they've been lightly marked and annotated with pencil and highlighter (but are otherwise in excellent condition). If you're interested in any of them, drop me a comment and make me an offer (I like vintage SF and Fantasy paperbacks, but am open to all genres, and would also consider DVDs, CDs, records, art, or toys - all offers will be considered), and if I'm interested, I'll mail or deliver the book to you.

Henry James, The Ambassadors: A Norton Critical Edition

ISBN: 0-393-96314-4

546 pages

Linda Dowling, Hellenism & Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford

ISBN: 0-8014-8170-8

173 pages

Edmund Gosse, Father and Son

ISBN: 0-14-018276-4

270 pages

It's been a weird week, filled with strange and annoying episodes (blame the full moon), but capped off earlier today by a bit of bad news; the customized Munny figure I had on display at Heebe Jeebe/Boomerang (and which had sold before the show even opened, although at this point no money has crossed my palm) decided to take a nose dive off of its shelf, smashing the clear plastic dome and seriously marring the paint. Of course, I didn't hear about this directly from Drew at Heebe Jeebe; instead, she called Jan, who in turn told me, in the process making the story sound as if a meteor had crashed through the store's skylight, smashing into the Munny, leaving it a smoldering ruin.

After talking with Jan a bit (and asking her about the bumper sticker that mysteriously appeared on the back of Randy's truck this morning), I headed over to see what the story was and surmise the damage. According to Drew, It was somebody thumping around in the process of doing some miscellaneous work around the gallery space that dislodged the figure (even though it was tacked down) with a particularly forceful thump. Drew was quite apologetic, and she packed up the Munny up for me to take home and see what I could do with it, offering to forgo her commission if I repaired it. Fortunately, it looks as if the little guy will be fix-able with a few hours work (like I needed another distraction). A bit of sanding, a bit of masking, a bit of repainting, and a new clear dome, and Ancient Astronaut should look as good as new. Hopefully.