Mayflies and mayonnaise

According to the letter-sized sheet of paper taped to the wall of the seaside provisions market, “Justin” was a lost pet.

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Justin, the poster claimed, would answer by name and be attracted to ham and cheese sandwiches, but only those that weren’t slathered in mayo, owing to his vegetarianism.

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He’d been missing since May.

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I’m sure it was just a cheeky coincidence.

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What I was looking at in the super-detailed photograph that took up half the page’s real estate appeared to be that of an ordinary Musca domestica Linnaeus, though he was magnified about 300 times.

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That’s “housefly” in English.

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No relation to Ephemera vulgata … the “mayfly,” which, as a cousin to the dragonfly, should have stuck around through August.

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I snapped a picture as a souvenir and moseyed onward. It’s been a hot summer. The bustle on this crowded street is lacking its usual haste.

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Strange how a bit of whimsy poking through this straight-laced place, no matter the origin or authenticity, always brings me a fleeting amount of joy.

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I smiled most of the way down the block, towing our own found-hound behind.

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Despite the progress we’ve made to lengthen our walks from just a few steps to all along the beach and all the way into town, we can admit the puppy still likes to lollygag.

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He flits from person to thing, sniffs here and there, and sits with his head angled sideways. Eyes looking upward, past his wrinkled brow.

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We tell ourselves we need to socialize a dog of his demeanor. Open him up to a world of chaos and noise, and let him make sense of it; something our other dogs had been too anxious to work out.

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The shops here have been accommodating with their strategically placed water bowls, inviting us in to browse inside, not just the sidewalk sale.

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There’s always a line that promises a little taste of bliss, and with it a shady spot where the rest of the party can hunker down as we wait. You can talk to strangers. They will ask if they can say hi to your dog. There will be enough delight in that little interaction to go around even if the store sells out of whatever magic elixir it had been selling.

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Though it’s meant a pretty penny — what with the fancy accessories here and the adorable, handmade treats over there — the value of feeling welcome has few limits.

Being welcome is the thing that feels weightless.

His cute puppy face, I know, has an expiration date. Soon enough it will expand, turn rugged, his wrinkles will harden and become tightly defined. The curious expression he shows now will seem cooler and more calculating.

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The tones will translate their “oohs and ahhs” differently. Folks will stoically reclaim the space they’d given us.

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May would come again, and August would follow at a frightening speed, and everything would shift from small-world charm to large-world normal. The dog will be waiting for us at home while we stand in the queue for ham and cheese sandwiches. We’ll think nothing of the fly buzzing through the line.

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I wonder if he might be the long-lost Justin; I heard the aioli was vegan.

Police state

 It is reassuring to see so many county residents stand in opposition to the powers in Rensselaer County that are and will forever be on the wrong side of history.

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Dozens attending a public forum spoke in favor of the Governor’s law to end the so-called 287(g) agreements between federal immigration enforcement authorities and local police, which allowed some local officers to perform the functions of immigration officers, and also permits correctional facilities to house civil immigration detainees. Residents also took county leaders to task for their open defiance of the new law, which stipulates that agreements between the entities must end by August 25th.

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Both the Rensselaer County Executive, Steve McLaughlin, and the County Sheriff, Kyle Bourgault, have condemned the law, which stipulates that existing agreements between the entities must be terminated by August 25th. Both men have stated they will defy the law.

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They. Will. Defy. The. Law.

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What does that make them? Heroes? Or Outlaws?

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My belief is they are the latter.

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When they equate civil immigration actions with criminal behavior, they are more interested in politics than community.

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When they say they should be allowed to search for deportation-reachable prisoners in their system and turn them over to ICE, they are saying that justice for the local victims is of no importance to them.

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How exactly do police who will not be tethered to laws that regulate them make anyone safe?

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The answer is simple: We are not safer.

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This is what we truly need to be asking ourselves.

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Where is the oversight? Who are they accountable to?

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None of us seem to know, and no body (meaning legislative body) has the ability to tell police what to do.

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There seems to be no shared training, no true oversight; there aren’t even statutes describing what police work should entail. They make the rules they follow, and we agree to foot the bill.

ICE doesn’t even pay these deputized police to do their bidding. We do.

In deed, The Supreme Court has held on multiple occasions that police have no legal responsibility to protect anyone – even those with court-ordered protection except in very narrow instances. And that to give police any such a mandate would mean we would live in a police state.

But aren’t we in the same state when police are above laws?

I still reel from the sickening understanding — underscored by unwinnable lawsuits against departments that did not intervene in times of grave and mortal danger, qualified immunity, and the mostly toothless oversight by citizen boards — that accountability for police harm and corruption is almost unattainable.

How safe are we when police refuse to wear body cameras or turn them off, or when they provide contrary accounts than witnesses? What happens when they lie with immunity?

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Immigrant criminal defendants are entitled to all the rights that citizen defendants are entitled to; it’s the most effective way to ensure CITIZENS are treated fairly and have access to our rights. It’s also important that crime victims have access to justice, too.

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Democracy depends on the rule of law; it also depends on holding power to account.

Love in tatters

  I noticed the fraying bits and groaned.

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Ughhh.

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Another power cord turns into just another found-object art piece … made possible by the natural talents of the artist’s sharp puppy teeth working quickly against the momentary inattentiveness of whichever adult was in the room. Quite possibly me.

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Ughhh.

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I attached the wonky wire – now looking more like a gnarled, thorny vine – to my laptop, and it immediately started glowing with a satisfying orange light as electricity flowed.

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The repair list gets one, the replace list gets nil, though the two inventories are currently racing neck and neck.

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So far the tally includes two wicker baskets; three pairs of shoes, leaving all the right shoes unscathed; seventeen puppy pee pads, none of which had been soiled; four power cords, one for a vacuum cleaner; one for a cell phone, aforementioned lap top, and cord that came out of my favorite purple hoodie, which was still sad even though that cord only electrified me.

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Deep breath. Take a deep breath. Just breathe.

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Maybe it’s a gentle little reminder not to get attached to things.

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“Ah, I had almost forgotten those days,” laughed our neighbor as we greeted each other over the fence to swap news of the day … and various vegetables, as neighbors tend to do. Neither of us could remember when their dog was as small, or as destructive, as ours. The kids, however, could pull all the receipts, starting with a kitchen table that had so much of its foot whittled away that it seemed to be a fido-feat that it was still standing at all, let alone level and sturdy.

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One look … head cocked at a certain angle … a little whimper  … and all is forgiven.

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Though we know the blame is ours: we should retract the cords, or coil them up and put them away when not in use. We should confine the puppy to a crate or to a part of the room where he can be safe, and where things can be safe from him. It just takes a little more time, a little more effort, and a ton more resistance to his plaintive howls that such minor restrictions are causing him to suffer.

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Horror upon horror that he should sleep alone. In his bed. Without us cuddling with him under the cozy blanket. Without him pushing us with his paws to the farthest edges.

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He’s smarter than we are.

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I suspect this, not only because we have fallen prey to his sad eyes and the adorable puppy prance he performs when he hasn’t seen us ALL minute, but also because he has never once destroyed, damaged, or even performed a non-invasive squeaker-ectomy on a single one of his toys. He will drag them through the house, toss them up in the air, and nibble them as if he’s grooming them for fauxfleas, all the while cranking every decibel possible from each squeaker and every piece of crinkle fabric hidden inside. Yet not one tuft of fluff will be harmed. Not even the tag.

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But turn your head for long enough to listen to the sound of water boiling on the stove (watch pots), and somehow the toe loop on the left sandal you were still wearing is missing.

​I am not unmoved by this memory still in its making. They are like the noseprints on the window glass in the bedroom … the ones the puppy covers with sniffs and light kisses… The ones I couldn’t bear to wash away this time a year ago. The sandals won’t harbor space in my memory the way these translucent smudges have held space in my heart.