Deep Tissue Massage Impostor

My friend Elissa sent this silly video to me with the message: “Nigel and Leo!” Nigel is her cat.

The video cracks me up to no end. And it got me thinking that maybe Leo could use a massage (though not by a cat; he’d sooner engage in extreme fighting with a cat than allow it to “massage” him anywhere). He has arthritis and hip dysplasia and judging by the looks of his x-rays, he’s probably in pain most of the time: the “c” joints in his hips have been worn to resemble more of an “l” joint. There’s nothing really left to support his back legs, which explains his stilted gait and overall clumsiness (stairs are a challenge).

The night I adopted him at the Humane Society, one of the volunteers who worked closely with Leo told me how they had brought in massage therapists to give the dogs massages. Leo had a reputation for being aloof and wary with strangers, she explained, but once the massage was underway, he stretched himself out and reveled in the contact.

When I was eight years old, I decided I wanted to be a masseuse. Something I saw on TV must have planted the seed—it was probably a soap opera. I used to pretend that I worked in a very fancy spa. First I would carefully fold one of our bath towels (it had to be a white one) over my left arm. Meanwhile, I would make my 5-year-old brother take off his shirt and lay face down on my mom’s ironing board. Standing on tippy toes, I would liberally pour baby oil all over his back. Then I would spread the oil around, give him a few rapid chops like I’d seen on TV and call it a day. (I was never quite sure what the towel was for but it came in handy for mopping up the baby oil.)

When I had one of many identity crises a few years back, the masseuse idea resurfaced. Why not leave my comfortable marketing job in San Francisco and become a massage therapist? I took classes in basic Swedish massage at night and quickly determined that a) I’m not comfortable touching people I don’t know b) I like getting massages a whole lot better than I do giving them and c) I just plain suck at giving massages.

My hands are always cold; that was the first hurdle. And I would get so nervous before giving a massage that my hands would tremble uncontrollably. Cold, shaky hands are not a recipe for a great massage.

But Leo doesn’t seem to mind my cold hands. And touching him doesn’t make me nervous. In fact, petting him is quite relaxing and enjoyable. Maybe it’s time to study up on canine anatomy and really work his muscles instead of just luxuriating in his thick fur. This time, though, I’ll skip the baby oil and the ironing board.

Flossin’ the Clean Chompers

For as long as I’ve had him, Leo has had foul breath, the kind that makes you recoil in horror when he gives you a kiss. I knew I should get his teeth cleaned but I balked when I heard the price: $360 minimum, plus extra if extractions were required.

Sheesh. Don’t people have anything better to spend their money on? (Shoes, for example?) That was my thinking. But after a conversation with his vet where she warned of the potential health problems that could occur as a result of plaque and tartar build up, much like in people, I decided it was time to drop the cash and invest in this old dog’s mouth.

Cleaning a dog’s teeth is no simple task. Like surgery, it requires general anesthesia and monitoring of vital signs. I dropped him at the vet’s office early in the morning, after a quick walk and no breakfast (the first assault to his system that day). In the afternoon, the vet called to tell me that the procedure had gone well but that Leo’s teeth were badly worn. “It looks like he’s been chewing on a chain for years,” she said.

Well, he probably had been chewing on a chain for years—in New Orleans, I explained. She went on to tell me that three of his teeth were cracked and beginning to get infected around the gum line, and so had to be extracted (bringing the cost up to $460). Yikes! I’d had a bunch of dental work performed recently myself, so the sensation of having teeth pulled was still fresh in my mind (double yikes). Poor Leo.

When I went to pick him up, his eyes were glazed and he was bouncing off the walls. Apparently, he’d been given something to bring him out of the anesthesia. He was agitated and restless in the car on the ride home. I decided to skip his evening walk and brought him inside.

Leo is always hungry, and always underfoot when we’re trying to make dinner. He’ll position himself wherever you happen to be chopping the onions, peeling the garlic or grating the cheese, waiting for any small tidbit to drop from the sky and become fair game.

With no breakfast and three teeth missing, he was hungry as ever. But the vet had warned that anesthesia can cause nausea so I was advised not to feed him that night.

Dinner was not in the cards for old Leo—the final assault of the day. As we went about our dinner prep and ate our dinner and cleared our plates, Leo wandered slowly behind us, head hanging low, stopping now and again to stare at the floor.

Poor guy. He looked like Eeyore. A sad, broken Eeyore with gleaming white teeth and minty fresh breath.

Alas, Leo will never appreciate the importance of good dental health (and if you have any doubts, you should take a look at the findingDulcinea Dental Health Web Guide), but I will certainly appreciate a healthier dog and better-smelling doggie kisses—a far better investment than new shoes, eh?

So About My Dog…

In 2005, I decided to move from San Francisco to Portland for a lot of reasons, loneliness being one of them. Portland felt smaller, slower, friendlier. I envisioned myself living in a little house with a yard and getting a dog who would take long walks with me in the gloomy Oregon rain. Surely I could live happily ever after there?

And so in between the online hours devoted to job-hunting and burrito-finding in my new city, it was dog-searching time. The Oregon Humane Society (OHS) was my favorite bookmark. I looked at the photos and profiles of each and every dog on the site—every day, sometimes several times a day. Whenever my new neighbor came by and found me mooning over the dogs, he said, “Oh geez, she’s looking at her doggie porn again.”

“But look at this one!” I pointed at my computer screen. He was an older dog, a chow chow mix with a giant, goofy head that made me laugh. His profile was equally captivating: “Leo has a big personality. He is fun loving and comical, but definitely likes things on his own terms. We expect him to bond closely with his person and be a great friend. He'll also give lots of kisses.”

I was smitten.

But also unemployed. With my savings rapidly depleting, I was afraid to get a dog until I had a job. So my long days spent trolling the Internet (and visiting Leo’s profile) continued. October rolled into November rolled into December and my online visits to Leo began to be filled with dread: would he still be there? Would someone else adopt him before I could?

On January 4, 2006, my phone rang: I was offered a job. And the next moment I was in the car, speeding to the Oregon Humane Society.

When I found Leo, he was sleeping. His back was pressed to the front of the kennel, black fur sticking out between the bars. Unlike the other dogs who rushed to greet me as I walked by, full of showmanship for the prospective adopter, Leo just snored.

I sat down beside him, afraid to touch him in his sleep, and glanced up to see a sign on his kennel: “I survived the Louisiana Flood Waters. I am a dog that has been brought from the South as part of the Hurricane Katrina pet rescue.”

I had heard that OHS was rescuing dogs from New Orleans and bringing them to Portland to find new homes for them. Yet until that moment, I didn’t know that Leo was one of those dogs. Suddenly it felt like so many tiny, interconnecting threads had brought me and this old dog together.

Leo was from New Orleans; I had lived in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina brought Leo to Portland; I moved to Portland on the very day that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. I first heard of the Internet’s existence when I lived in New Orleans; it was on the Internet that I found Leo. His name is Leo; my astrological sign is Leo....

...admittedly I got a little crazy with this “interconnectedness” thing. But as I sat there next to this dog and contemplated all the quiet decisions and momentous events that had led to our paths crossing in this place at this time, I felt like we were part of a grand web.

And I knew, with absolute certainty, that I had found my rainy weather walking companion.

How Do I Love The Internet? Let Me Count the Ways…

I first heard of the Internet in 1995 while living in New Orleans. I was in Saturn Bar, my Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood bar, sipping on a Dixie beer as this guy tried to explain what it was and how it worked. “The ‘Internet,’ huh? Lots of information at your fingertips?” I listened politely but inside I was thinking “Snooze-o-rama. Sounds like a big waste of time.”

When I moved to Portland, Oregon at the end of August 2005, a full 10 years later, the Internet had, to put it mildly, taken over the world. However, my initial impression of it had been partially correct: the Internet is indeed a gloriously easy way to waste time. How did I ever make it through a full workday at one of the boring office jobs I had held over the years without the Internet? I shuddered to think of it.

But the Internet was also a tool I couldn’t live without. Hurricane Katrina was raging in New Orleans when I arrived in Portland. I went online daily to get the latest updates on the disaster and watched in horror as the city I loved was destroyed.

I also used the Internet to jump start my new life. Apartment? Quickly found on Craiglist. Job? Eventually found on Craigslist. Directions around my new hood? Google Maps. Social life? Some assistance provided by MySpace. Tips on a burrito that didn’t suck? Citysearch. Last minute ride to that show I wanted so badly to see? Craigslist again.

I’d spent my 20s roaming around the country (Albany, Buffalo, New Orleans, Minneapolis, San Francisco) doing mostly temp jobs, trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I loved the thrill, then, of moving to a new city, gathering the local newspapers, and piecing together the necessities of life.

But I was the ripe old age of 36 when I arrived in Portland. I was ready for some assistance. And the Internet provided—and continues to provide—just that. I found my dog on the Internet (more on him later). I found a new and far better job on the Internet, working at findingDulcinea.com, writing and editing Web guides for the Internet. I even found my boyfriend (now fiance) on the Internet.

Last night, The Fiance and I were watching All the President's Men (you know, the movie version of the Woodward and Bernstein super duo who uncovered Watergate). One scene showed Woodward (Robert Redford) surrounded by walls of phone books, flipping through each one, trying to locate a suspect. A collective “ugh” settled over the couch as we contemplated the drudgery of such a task. Snooze-o-rama.

Then The Fiance and I said, almost in unison, “Ah, the Internet!”

We love you, Internet! We love you for almost as many reasons as there are Google search results. Ok, perhaps our love isn't that cheap and indiscriminate. Just know that we love you. A lot.