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Paco died.
It doesn't feel like it's been a year, it feels like it's been 10. So much has happened in that amount of time that it literally feels like a lifetime ago. It's like life was going along with a certain trajectory, and then suddenly went way off course.
By certain measures, I'm in a much better position than I was before. My business was on the brink of failure last year and now we've grown in ways I never imagined. We have a store, a great group of people, international sales, all with no sign of slowing. My dog, relationship, house, and friends are all fantastic, but it still feels strangely empty.
I don't know why I thought I'd be over it by now, but I haven't gone a week this past year without crying and I still can't talk about it with strangers. It doesn't help that my life is constructed around him so completely.
But there has been growth. At least now the positive memories outweigh the sad ones. And now that he's not around to act like an ass and prove me wrong, he's reached a status of near saint-like proportions. I can extol his virtues for hours, tell the story of he chased the car thieves away at 2 am or how he fingered the one hoodlum who later went on to murder a homeless man (it was one of only two people in his life Paco could not settle down around), and now it's impossible for him to ruin the illusion by going into one of his crazy car ride fits (he's scream his fool head off and do handstands the closer we got to home), get amped up and embarrass me during a CGC demo, or be a jerk around another dog... now I understand how legends are made.
People want to know when we'll get another dog. The answer is, "I have no idea." We've done a great deal of dog shopping this year, have traveled long distances to see candidates, fostered one possibility, but nothing feels right. I think everyone has their own rate of recovery and we're just not there yet. I'm sure we'll know it when we see it, but that may only happen once we stop looking.
In the meantime I feel the best thing for me to do its continue building something positive in his memory.
RIP, little guy, I miss you every day.
For those who don't know, Aaron builds robots. Robots like this one:
The latest project necessitated an in-person delivery to Berlin. Never having been to Europe, I begged. I pleaded. I didn't care that January was the second-coldest month in Germany, I wanted to cross the pond. But what would I do while Aaron assembled the robot all day, was the concern? I'd make it a business trip myself, I argued.
Somehow it worked. Here are the pictures, in no particular order...
Proof of how cold it was in Berlin. Check out the icicles on the car,
the ice on the river,
and the boys in warm clothes.
In Europe a "double bed" means just that.
We did the tourist things, like visiting the Berlin Wall (yes, mom, I'm wearing your old jacket),
and KaDeWe, the largest mall in Germany.
But we also strayed off the beaten path by playing foosball in dive bars,
(as in, anti-establishment dive bars where you do snuff with a Polish guy covered in facial tattoos til 5 in the morning and this is the chandelier)
and hanging out with local friends.
After 5 days in Berlin, Jeff headed home and we made a b-line to Paris.
Notre Dame at night
Cappuccino 'stache
Catching your own dinner at a sushi restaurant
Look, a Paco Collar!
Overall the trip was fantastic. The whole time it was windy, cold, snowy, or rainy but somehow that didn't matter and the whole thing just ended up... perfect.
Oh, and the post-script for those who might accuse me of just partying the whole time: I did manage to get some work done and am proud to announce that Paco Collars is now in two pet stores in Berlin and with one distributor in Paris... woohoo!
I'm not gonna sugar coat it. I'm pretty pissed right now. Someone is copying our designs... again.
This isn't a unique situation. In fact, it's happened several times and I've even written about it before (and, I might add, both companies/individuals referenced before have had positive outcomes and we actually refer customers to them now). I'd come off sounding like a broken record if this situation wasn't quite so unique and painful.
Basically, this individual made and posted a collar design that is my current dog's collar (The Xdog) layered atop of my deceased dog's collar (Paco's Ruadh collar). If it was an accident, I could forgive it, but it's not. I won't go into the details, but it's clear that it's a calculated move.
As an artist (*shuddering at my least favorite statement ever*), I find it really offensive when other people copy work exactly.
Now, I totally understand the concept of "inspiration" and "derivative." Let's face it, pretty much all of the cool things in this world have been invented. There is only so much room within which you can maneuver unless you are willing to create something totally outside of the realm of what the mind can handle, and when that happens it doesn't always have a great outcome.
Take music, for instance. The guitar is a medium that has been played for hundreds of years, yet even with all that time for innovation, there are only so many notes in existence. Try as you might, you can't change that. You also can't change the fact that "Wild Thing" and "Louie Louie" have the exact same chord progression and nearly identical strumming. To the average listener, however, they sound like totally different songs because, well, they are.
You can have things that are similar at the core and then take off in very different directions, and that's fine. That's the basis of design, of songwriting, etc.
But when you take something that's already made and do it again without making any significant changes, well than that's just copying. It's like the imitation designers you see on "The View" the morning after the Oscars, showcasing the duplication dresses they stayed up all night making, only out of crappier material. There's no improvement, no differentiation, you're just replicating something that's already been done. Where's the art in that? Where is the dialogue, the wit, the innovation?
The fact is there isn't any of that, and that's what bothers me about copy cats. And when you drag Paco (the dog, not the company) into something, then you make it personal.
With great sadness I admit that I'm probably a fucking hipster. The greatest piece of evidence being at how offended I get should somebody try and brand me one... everyone knows a true hipster will deny it 'til the bitter end.
Now, with that out of the way, I can tell you about my holiday without you pointing out how just about every fun thing I mention is a hipster staple (though my attitude towards it all is not one of irony but, rather, neo-sincerity, so there).
The plan was for Aaron's parents to come down but his dad got sick at the last minute (like, hospital sick) so they couldn't make it. He's doing better now so we've rescheduled everything until late January and we simply considered this Christmas "practice." In fact, we plan on keeping our tree up until then, which is fine by me since it smells nice and is pretty to look at. Being our first, we didn't have a box of decorations lying around so we simply went to Fantastico (aka. "the best party store in the world") and got a ton of birds and a string of large bulb lights. Here's our topper:
Y0u can also see the tree in the background of this next picture, which also prominently features [drum roll please]... my new bike!
Yep, Santa was good to me this year. I haven't owned a bike since my cruiser was stolen a few years back. Not a naturally graceful or athletic person, I always thought I needed fat tires or extra wheels in order to be a bike rider, but my test run on this guy proved me wrong. I can't wait for the weather to get a little better so we can bike all over this town.
My other favorite gift was the loop rug kit given to me by my grandma. She's an avid crafter and has accumulated all sorts of crafting crap over the years. Every Christmas she brings down a car load of goods and lets us grandkids fight it out. This year I scored big time and got the faux zebra skin loop carpet which I've been constructing feverishly since we got back from my family Christmas. I'm about 6 hours and two hind legs in. The goal is to get it done some time during the year 2010.
While I've been obsessing over the rug, Aaron has found the time to explore a hobby he's been dreaming about for months: pickling vegetables. The goal is to make baby carrots as good as the ones at Tartine.
Bad food pictures always remind me of bad porn... you be the judge:
He's also got a batch of sauerkraut going which might be done around the time we head to Berlin in about two weeks. Since Germany is the land of the pickled foods, I figure it's the perfect time to begin our education.
This was probably the best Christmas I've had for a while. Nothing super spectacular happened, we didn't really go anywhere, it was just a nice, relaxing holiday. And, in the true spirit of giving, I did give one gift I wanted so badly to keep for myself (but figured my mother was as equally worthy):
So the other day I got a Google Alert for "Ana Poe" (yes, I'm a nerd and keep track of these things... let's move on). Usually these alerts bring me back to either this blog or the Paco Collars page, so I hardly ever click on them. But this one was different, so I clicked.
Lo and behold, it seems as if someone cast "me" as a flute-wielding-ghost-Granny in a musical battle of the ages. Read for yourself (you have to read a bit until Ana Poe makes an appearance).
I'm sure it's just a coincidence... right?
Sacramento has always held a special place in my heart. In high school (and beyond) my friends used to play shows there so we'd make the trek every so often and hang out with the local kids. The punk rock scene in Sacramento was a unique one. Since there's a shortage of things to do there, the result is that everyone seems more creative as you need to make up your own fun. When you get bored you simply pump up the radio and drive through the alleys real fast, jump into the giant piles of leaves, have a drawing contest, a shotgunning contest, write stupid songs, etc.
But last night I saw a sad Sacramento.
A couple weeks ago Keith Campos was killed in a horrific manner. His friends banded together and held a benefit concert in his name with the proceeds going to BAD RAP. Carolyn and I went up to Sacramento to represent the group.
It's weird when you meet someone you've known via the internet in person for the first time. It's weirder still when you "meet them" via their wake. The faces are familiar, the names, the stories, but there's just one big absence around which everyone swirls.
In a way, it was the best show I've ever been to. A lot of the time at shows people like to stand around and look cool, but, at this show, no one bothered to pretend. Old rivalries were put aside and everyone joined together to celebrate his life. I don't think there was a single dry eye in the room (er, basement) as Keith's old band performed, one man short, and gave props to him. Keith was a strong presence who drew people together, inspired many, and was a passionate advocate for pit bulls. His friends told stories about he touched their lives and urged them to keep smiling, even when things suck.
It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day of life, but occasionally something so profound occurs that makes you stand back and reevaluate everything. This morning I awoke to a weird feeling halfway between loss and inspiration.
And I was also reminded to conserve water, for punk rock reasons.
Yesterday I found myself poring through the blog I kept when Paco went through bilateral tplo surgery.
I rarely look at the blog except for when someone has canine surgery questions, and the posts I forward are pretty routine ("Here's how you can make a sling yourself at home...") so I never go back and actually ready anything. But the question posed yesterday forced me to actually search through what I'd written for one small sentence, and I came across this:
"So one of the more unpleasant side effects of the surgery is that Paco now has 'cankles'. His hocks and ankles are so swollen with fluid that there's almost no distinction where one part ends and the other begins. I kinda want to get him some control pantyhose.
"Just look at the shame.
"The only way to relieve the problem is to massage them by by hand frequently in an effort to redistribute the liquid. It feels a little strange to rub the squishy, hairless parts of my dog, but it also feels cool, like petting a Sphynx or Xoloixcuintle [sic].
"Massaging him this morning I remembered that, ironically, when Paco was a puppy, I used to tell people he was an Ixcuintle [sic]. It wasn't a far stretch, since he was missing a great deal of hair due to mange (mostly on his head in an awesome imitation of male pattern baldness). I started the lie one day after a five year old girl recoiled in fear after I informed her she was petting a 'pit bull'. I mean, how can you be scared of a 5 lb puppy, regardless of what it is? But she was.
"From that day forward, for several months, we lived the lie. At the time I figured it was either my puppy's socialization or the truth, since it isn't easy for folks to give pit bulls a break (or even a chance, most of the time).
"Eventually, though, I realized there was no shame in Paco being what he was. He couldn't help it more than I can help being Mexican-Irish. We turned a corner, decided to turn our handicap into our strength, and we haven't looked back (or lied) since."
It's funny how words can bring you back to the time, place, and head space you were at when you wrote it, which in turn catapults you even further back as you were meditating and writing about events even years before that. And then to see yourself clearly in those two previous inceptions, armed with the knowledge you have now... what would they think of the present you? And would they be shocked to know you actually now have an itzcuintle?
In a random turn of events, I had an argument a few months back with a random woman on the BART platform who swore up and down that Xochitl was a pit bull. I just laughed.
