Pets
I had to conduct an interview for a class I am taking as a pre-requisite to my Master's work, and so I decided to interview one of the guys at the labor center where I volunteer. Most of them are from Guatemala. A lot are from the same town (which turns out to only have about 25,000 people).
The part that makes this blog worthy is that I asked if there were any cultural attributes that he found puzzling about Americans. He did not hesitate, but answered with a question, "Do you have any pets?" Often in Ukraine, Ukrainians would tell me that I understood their culture better than themselves. I always chalked this up to the fact that I was studying (something they had never done), and I was starting from a different perspective. I was interested to hear the Guatemalan version of myself commenting on America.
He asked about pets so as not to offend me with his answer. So I will do the same courtesy. If you have pets whose birthday you celebrate on has their own seat at the table, stop reading now, or at least be forewarned.
What he found puzzling was how we treat our pets like children. He said he had a dog, but that was all it was, not truly a member of his family. He couldn't understand why Americans treat their pets as they do, but he guessed it was because they wanted children, but not all the responsibilities. That we liked our big houses, and ordered lives and the companionship of a pet was all that fit with those things, even if we really wanted more.
As I believe I had done for many Ukrainians, he opened my eyes. I have always been a great lover of animals and the outdoors, but never much one for pets, and I didn't understand this dichotomy in myself, but I think he helped me. I would keep an animal, but not a pet. My Ukrainian brothers used to joke with me because of how I liked to watch the chickens roaming around the yard. They more or less lived a natural existence; our pets live a modified existence - not human but not animal. I think the purist in me is bothered by this. I would rather respect an animal in the wild, and revel in a sighting; or raise a domestic animal for the purpose in which it was bred, but I will always prefer a human roommate.
Amazing!!
I had another blog for today, but I have been overwhelmed with new information.
In the last week, I have been doing lots of genealogical work, and found many interesting things. I have also had to enter the death dates for two of my relatives.
In addition, in the last two weeks, I have had the honor of meeting to new additions to our human family: Gracie Ann Crooks, and little Landon Johns, Jr have entered the world!
I have been accepted to two universities for my Masters in Social Work.
And finally, today, what pushed me over the top was that in an interview for a class I am taking for a pre-req, I learned that some people want to come to USA so badly that they will travel for 28 days, 2 of them across the dessert at night on foot, just to get here. How could you turn them away?
Rabbit, Run
I recently finished this book by John Updike. It was interesting, but even more interesting than the book itself was that it reached such critical acclaim. It seems from online research that each book in the series came out at a time when its main issue particularly resonated with the common person of the day. That is even more amazing. The book was so predictable and yet I was never sure what was going to happen. It was quite suspenseful and depressing.
Here are two interesting passages:
[response to the doctor's news of a normal baby from the expectant father]
"That's wonderful. Thank you. Good grief, thank you."
Dr. Crowe stands there smiling uneasily. Coming up from the pit of creation, he stammers in the open air. Strane: in these last hours he has been closer to Janice [the wife] than Harry ever was, has been grubbing with his hands in her roots, riding her body in its earthquake, yet he has brought back nothing to confide, no curse, no blessing. Harry dreads that the doctor's eyes will release with thunder the mystery they have absorbed; but Crowe's gaze contains no wrath. Not even a reprimand. He seems to see Harry as just another in the parade of more or less dutiful husbands whose brainlessly sown seed he spends his life trying to reap.
----
[then when Harry takes his older child to the park]
Over at the pavilion the rubber thump of Roofball and the click of checkers call to his memory, and the forgotten smell of that narrow plastic ribbon you braid bracelets and whistlechains out of and of glue and of the sweat on the handles on athletic equipment is blown down by a breeze laced with children's murmuring. He feels the truth: the thing that has left his life has left irrevocably; no search would recover it. No flight would reach it. It was here, beneath the town, in these smells and these voices, forever behind him. The fullness ends when we give Nature her ransom, when we make children for her. Then she is through with us, and we become, first inside and then outside, junk. Flower stalks.
----
fun stuff, huh? (to be read with strong, bitter sarcasm)
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