Ongoing Summary of the Sasha's Gang Blog at Sasha's Pet Resort

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?” –Albus Dumbledore  

 

The Continuing Adventures of Sasha’s Gang

Chapter One

 

Turquoise is an eight-year-old Australian Shepherd. A beautiful and soft-as-cotton battleship gray, ivory and black spotted altered female. Smart as AI. A tsunami of genuine personality and life! And this is where it begins to get a bit quirky if you will, almost a little Twilight Zonish in nature. Turquoise, I am to learn, possesses the ability to translate the thoughts of other dogs and transmit them to humans! 

I wouldn’t ever had thought this a possibility until I placed my hand upon Turquoise’s back when she first followed me into Sasha’s the day after Thanksgiving.  Instantly, my body tensed, as a gentle creek of vibrating warmth rippled up my arm, tranquil and relaxing. And my mind swarmed like a beehive, stampeded by a garble of unfamiliar voices that filled my head, a manic CB radio! 

I immediately stepped back, urgently snatching my hand away as if it might be stolen or vandalized.  Now the only sounds were coming from our large daycare room where a howling contingent of our squaddies, skeptical of a newcomer that they had yet to sniff. They couldn’t see her over the wall of  the daycare room, but they could certainly hear over it. 

 “What’s the matter?” My spouse, a most empathetic RN and part-time wrangler, asked at seeing my odd behavior.  “Static electricity?” 

For a moment, I hesitated, glancing down at Turquoise and trying to make sense of what had just happened. It was as if a hidden world of jabbering apparitions were rioting inside my head. I struggled to articulate it, feeling both astonished and slightly unnerved.

“I’m not sure,” I replied, truly bewildered. Turquoise looked up, surveying my face, her riveting azure eyes the genesis behind the nickname we eventually provided her. 

“And who do we have the pleasure of?” my wife queried, slim in a surgical smock from her early shift. “I think he’s enchanting.”

“She,” I corrected, squatting down to better assess gender, careful not to touch her private or public works.

“Goose or gander,” she twinkled.  “No matter.  He or she…whichever… will make an excellent playmate for both Maple and Mama Cass.”

Maple, a six-month-old Golden Doodle, appeared to presume her quest in life was to reign supreme in the high jump, practicing her leaping prowess on unsuspecting two-legged visitors--my wife’s surgical smock shielding her from Maple’s killer talons.  

 

Meanwhile, a five-year-old Rottweiler nicknamed Mama Cass, resembling a third-world terrorist in her short-haired brown and black ensemble—was Sasha’s original matriarch. Gentle as a butterfly, she was an extremely effective peacemaker, once towering over a riotous tangle of two dogs who were in an atrocious fight, threatening at minimum to draw blood.  Or worse, lacerate flesh, requiring a pricey vet visit and sutures.  Yet, when the two warriors glanced up to see the massive Mama’s undercarriage standing over them, they were startled, immediately ceasing their paw-to-paw combat, at which point mediator Mama retreated while the two ruffians slinked back to their respective corners. 

Later in the day when the same two dogs started to lob stink eyes at each other, Mama just casually sauntered in between the two of them, peacefully and without malice--neither willing to challenge her.  They both prudently decided to nap instead.

During her third year at Sasha’s, Mama spent many of her days at home tending to a brood of kittens who had lost their mother.  Hence, her moniker, Mama Cass.  While all our dogs possess owner-provided names, we much prefer to nickname them with handles humorously appropriate to their respective personalities and physical appearance.  And the canines didn’t seem to mind an inch.

At that moment, Mama Cass casually strolled through the double-glass front doors paying scant notice to spouse and I.  Instead, she immediately proceeded to sniff the new dog on the block, Turquoise, who daintily pranced her butt away from Mama’s inquisitive wet snout--her bucket list not including a canine proctology exam.

“Where’d she come from?” spouse asked.

“I was walking back from town…needed exercise after all that pumpkin pie last night…and I think somewhere near the Denny’s, uh… she started following me.”

“Name?” Spouse speaks with RN-pinpoint precision.  No extraneous words.  Empathetic, but not saccharin.

“No tags,” I explained.  “And she’s not chipped.”  Our chip reader located no blips in Turquoise’s furry alabaster neck.

“So what are you thinking? Spouse quizzed. “That she’s going to stay here?”  There was a hint of “this might be a bad idea” in her voice. 

“Well, I guess,” I fumbled momentarily, still dumbfounded by the bizarre but gentle arm massage and the cacophony of voices stampeding throughout my skull.  Confused and maybe a little frightened.   “I mean it’s already past six.  And she looks hungry. And it’s dark and cold outside.”

“No sweetheart. I think you’re absolutely right.  But we can’t just call her dog, can we?”

I smiled faintly, not willing to detour this conversation by mentioning the anomalous intersection of touch and sound. Perhaps even supernatural.

“I think she named herself,” I said, as I crouched down and better examined her angelic face without touching.  “With eyes that mesmerizing and sky blue…No contest.  Turquoise.”

Spouse clapped her hands with delight.  “Spot on,” she smiled while gently nodding her head. “I love it!”  She paused.  Annoyed.  “Guys…quiet!” she barked at the lynch mob sequestered on the other side of the wall.  

Fortunately, spouse is highly allergic to many breeds of dogs, so while Turquoise is cuter than a bug’s ear, her endearing fluff nearly mandating a hug, she would probably resist a wrestle with this intelligent bundle of fur.  At least for a few days.  And maybe in that time, I can figure out the genesis behind this insanity. 

Turquoise sat patiently on the floor beneath the horizontal Mama Cass, as both took voyeuristic delight in watching the rambunctious antics of their revolving peers: Bambi, Mark Spitz, John Madden, Socrates, Eisenhower and Hoss.

When suddenly, as if children playing the school-yard game of Statue, the dogs were paralyzed, their paws seemingly frozen. In the same instant, they all howled mournfully, as if a favorite toy had been pilfered. Even Mama Cass, while Turquoise remained quiet, almost meditative, awake but distant.

“What the hell...” I started, the second insane moment of my day. Within seconds I felt it...even through the thick insulation of the rubber flooring. A slight tremble soon followed by the roaring indigestion of an angry earth.

“What is it? Spouse’s head twirled about owl-like, eyes wide open. She lifted off the wicker couch, shared with Mama Cass —while the night wrangler, paralyzed, uttered not a single word, standing still in the moment.

Peering upward through the dusk of the two-story ceiling, the recessed light bulbs bounced epileptic, blinking erratically, as Sasha’s threatened darkness. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Turquoise curled up about my feet as the trembling became more pronounced, physically threatening. A commotion with more hamstring than just a passing truck or the rumbling to life of an ancient oil furnace.

Frantically, I reached downward for stability, my balance a few degrees out of plumb, as my hand alighted upon a bobbed tail, a cul-de-sac of fur!  Though with neither nudge nor sigh, I still knew it had to be Turquoise as the euphoric flow reignited, lava flowing upward in my arm, stirring a narcotic calm deep inside me. But none of the cacophony which haunted me earlier that day. It was eerily quiet other than for the faint crackle of white noise and the bewildered stirring of our collective breathing, human and dogs panting in frightened unison. No longer barking!

“Earth....quake...” I stuttered, as the lights succumbed to ebony, the ground’s movement accelerating, this terrestrial tsunami washing over us.

“Dan?” Spouse’s voice was diminished, apparently throttled by a sudden tightening of her throat.

Meanwhile, our little amusement ride had escalated into a cheap vertigo-inducing roller coaster without lights. I didn’t know which way was up and which was down. Nor did it matter. I was experiencing an out-of-body astral jet ride that was pulling about seven G’s. No reverse or fast forward. Just a moment stuck in time without parole or pardon. Maybe vomit.

“Just ride it...out,” I continued. “We’re safe here.” I said so...but didn’t necessarily know so. Sasha’s was constructed using massive 6-inch by 12-inch cedar beams...and maybe 20 feet in length, any one of which could decapitate or kill (most likely both) if it suddenly dislodged from the upper reaches. Arms over my head weren’t shelter. They were simply obese jay walkers with fat armpits, vulnerable targets, as this bucking bronco sped through the intersection, without a brake light of mercy or defensive driving.

“Stop...pleas...se. Stop!” Were the only syllables the night manager could extract from her trembling dentures, never having experienced a tremor before in her life. Surprising since she had spent three decades of that life in wriggly California--the epicenter of earthquakes!

I detected only slight movement from the dogs, their faint outlines motionless as they surfed the whitecaps of the new moon which reflected off Sasha’s wheat-colored walls and crimson steel roof.

Out of nowhere, a molar-rattling blast erupted! I reasoned it originated in the registration area of the ground floor—though it reverberations were disfiguring, a gaudy and brassy explosion that could have been birthed from any corner of the building. An unruly man’s voice took to the air--both terrifying and boisterous, outshouting the quake’s growl. “...a blue Christmas with...without you...”.

“Please...” The night manager xeroxed her panicked plea, as the singer’s voice didn’t so much rattle and roll as it liquified Alexa’s gonads. I recognized the distorted voice as that of the King, in his best holiday spirit. Alexa on a rampage, likely triggered by the earth’s ambitious salsa. But I could have been wrong. Nothing seemed to be what it appeared. For all I knew it was a demon clad in blue suede shoes, a snow-white jumpsuit and a low-hanging guitar.

“Dan!?” Spouse shouted out for a second time.

Yet, the shaking intensified. You’d have thought that we’d put out a welcome mat for Jehovah’s Witnesses!

“Hang in...hon,” I hollered over the ruckus. Turquoise, seemingly unruffled, was tethered at my feet, my hand now traveled to the top of her fluffy head. I could hear the collective blaring of car alarms...and watched as the branches of our leafless maple tree adjacent our parking was induced into a subtle blur as if the branches were tiny apparitions--or my eyes had suddenly gone sour. And the streetlights flickered before shutting down like illicit cigarettes in the boys’ room.

Meanwhile, the ascent up my arm continued unabated, though I was certain the sherpa amperage powering this offbeat trek would cripple poor Turquoise, tripping a breaker or something equally debilitating. But no, she remained steadfast, unfazed, on the cusp of meditative. No trembling or apparent stress. An extraordinary canine indeed.

While Elvis continued his holiday crooning at shuddering decibel levels--further fueling the pandemonium that had taken ownership of Sasha’s— Turquoise remained calm, in full control.

I didn’t know how long we’d been rocking and rolling. Fifteen seconds? Or fifty? I was pretty certain it was nowhere near four and one-half minutes, the duration of Anchorage’s Good Friday quake in ’64! For me time had ceased to exist, at least as I knew it in its primal form. Altogether a different epicenter when filtered through near total darkness and one’s transient foothold on a convulsing mother earth. I skied the rubber floor, my knees flexing and unwinding as if navigating a mogul field.

There wasn’t a single utterance from the dogs, Mama Cass and Turquoise included. Just the roar of the earth and the grind of Elvis’s hips. I didn’t know if I was going to fall, pass out or both. But with the stealth of a midnight bandit, the quake suddenly disappeared riding upon a curtain of silence--other than for the multitude of car alarms and the nearly indecipherable slosh of water in the dogs’ closed bowls. Even Elvis had left the building.

Still, my arm reverberated with Turquoise’s inexplicable sway, a tangle of voices cross-breeding themselves out of existence, leaving in their wake a very faint (and I might add pleasurable) white noise.

“Dan!” Spouse shouted again.

“I’m good,” As non-chalantly as my quivering voice would allow. “Earthquake,” I added, and smiled for no reason. It couldn’t be seen.

“You think?” Spouse’s sarcasm had survived the pummeling.

“Oh my God!” The night manager exclaimed.

“It’s okay,” I assured the room. I had not heard any glass breaking, which supported my later theory that the quake might have been (at maximum) in the six point something range. Not likely any stronger than that. Maybe a few deaths. Power probably out for a few days, outlying areas for a few weeks. I was breathing easier. This could have been so much worse. As I turned to head for a flashlight in our reception area, a voice magically took to the air. Or so I assumed.

“Hi Dan.” It was a soft reassuring female voice. Strangely both alien and familiar in the same breath.

“Who’s that?” I assumed a neighbor had hurried over to check on us.

“Just us,” Spouse replied. “We need to make sure the gas is turned off.” Her stint as a first-responder RN emerged. She was spot on.

“I miss you dearly,” the voice, light as mist, soothed me, though I didn’t know its origin nor the genesis of its magical poultice.

“Who are you?” I blurted aloud.

“Who’s who?” Spouse questioned, caution slackening her words.

Apparently, neither spouse nor night manager had heard the gravity of the siren call—one which was tantalizing and beckoning me towards...I don’t know where. I was stumped. Towards where I had no clue. But it felt like such a warmer, softer place.

“It’s me. Sasha. Love you guys...”

I ceased breathing. This was my girl who had also ceased breathing--but five years earlier, as we frantically sped down to the animal ER in Redmond!  And for ‘reals’ as I explained to our daughter.

Spouse--a hopeful spirit and early advocate for reincarnation —could embolden her overactive imagination that possibly could have instilled more life into our girl, Sasha. But that didn’t appear to be the case as spouse mumbled, digging out from the spider silk of a bewildered yawn. “Bill Haley,” she made no mention of Sasha’s words. Just the flotsam of a dying King.

“Huh?” My confusion was Darwinism in action. Evolving from pedestrian chatter to a Twilight Zone script in a single breath.

“Wasn’t him.” Spouse’s words drifted through the darkness, the earth tranquil in this respite. “Bill Haley and the Comets...was a cover.”

Reluctantly, I unplugged from Turquoise, as I heard the faint scratch of dog talons coming awake on the rubber floor.  (Click here for more on our rubber floors).

The Continuing Adventures of Sasha’s Gang

Chapter Two

Turquoise sat patiently on the floor beneath the horizontal Mama Cass, as both took voyeuristic delight in watching the rambunctious antics of their revolving peers:  Bambi, Mark Spitz, John Madden, Socrates, Eisenhower and Hoss.  When suddenly, as if children playing the school-yard game of Statue, the dogs were paralyzed, their paws seemingly frozen in time.  In the same instant, they all howled mournfully, as if a favorite toy had been pilfered.  Even Mama Cass, though Turquoise remained quiet, almost meditative, awake but distant.

 

“What the hell…” I started, the second insane moment of my day.  Within seconds I felt it…even through the thick insulation of the rubber flooring.  A slight tremble soon followed by the roaring indigestion of an angry earth.

“What is it? Spouse’s head twirled about owl-like, eyes wide open. She lifted off the wicker couch, shared with the Rottweiler Mama Cass—while the night wrangler, paralyzed, uttered not a single word, standing still in the moment.

Peering upward through the dusk of the two-story ceiling, the recessed light bulbs bounced epileptic, blinking erratically, as Sasha’s threatened darkness.  Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Turquoise curled up about my feet as the trembling became more pronounced, physically threatening. A commotion with more hamstrings than just a passing truck or the rumbling to life of an ancient oil furnace.

Frantically, I reached downward for stability, my balance a few degrees out of plumb, as my hand alighted upon a bobbed tail, a cul-de-sac of fur!  Though with neither nudge nor sigh, I still knew it had to be Turquoise as the euphoric flow reignited, lava flowing upward in my arm, stirring a narcotic calm deep inside me.  But none of the cacophony which haunted me earlier that day.  It was eerily quiet other than for the faint crackle of white noise and the bewildered stirring of our collective breathing, human and dogs panting in frightened unison. No longer barking!

“Earth….quake…” I stuttered, as the lights dimmed half past ebony, the ground’s movement accelerating, this terrestrial tsunami washing over us. 

“Dan?” Spouse’s voice was diminished, apparently throttled by a sudden tightening of her throat.

Meanwhile, our little amusement ride had escalated into a cheap vertigo-inducing roller coaster without lights.  I didn’t know which way was up and which was down. Nor did it matter. I was experiencing an out-of-body astral jet ride that was pulling about seven G’s. No reverse or fast forward.  Just a moment stuck in time without parole or pardon. Maybe vomit.

“Just ride it…out,” I continued. “We’re safe here.”  I said so…but didn’t necessarily know so.  Sasha’s was constructed using massive 6-inch by 12-inch cedar beams…and maybe 20 feet in length, any one of which could decapitate or kill (most likely both) if it suddenly dislodged from the upper reaches.  Arms over my head weren’t shelter.  They were simply obese jay walkers, vulnerable targets, as this bucking bronco sped through the intersection, without a brake light of mercy or defensive driving.

“Stop…pleas…se.  Stop!” were the only syllables the night manager could extract from her trembling dentures, never having experienced a tremor before in her life. Surprising since she spent three decades of that life in wriggly California--the epicenter of earthquakes!

I detected only slight movement from the dogs, their faint outlines motionless as they surfed the whitecaps of the new moon which reflected off Sasha’s wheat-colored walls and crimson steel roof.

Out of nowhere, a molar-rattling blast erupted!  I reasoned it originated in the registration area of the ground floor—though it reverberations were disfiguring, a gaudy and brassy explosion that could have been birthed from any corner of the building.  A snarly man’s voice took to the air--both terrifying and boisterous, outshouting the quake’s growl. “…a blue Christmas…without you…”.

“Please…” the night manager xeroxed her panicked plea, as the voice didn’t so much rattle and roll as it liquified Alexa’s gonads.  I recognized the distorted voice as that of the King, in his best holiday spirit.  Alexa on a rampage, likely triggered by the earth’s uncontrolled salsa. But I could have been wrong.  Nothing seemed to be what it appeared. For all I knew it was a demon clad in blue suede shoes, a snow-white jumpsuit and a low-hanging guitar. 

 

“Dan!?” Spouse shouted out for a second time. Yet, the shaking intensified. You’d have thought that we’d put out a welcome mat for Jehovah’s Witnesses! 

“Hang in…hon,” I hollered over the ruckus. Turquoise, seemingly unruffled, was tethered at my feet, my hand now traveled to the top of her fluffy head.  I could hear the collective blaring of car alarms…and see the branches of our leafless maple tree adjacent our large window induced into a subtle blur of a charcoal sketch--or my eyes had suddenly gone sour.  And the gyrating streetlights flickered before shutting down like illicit cigarettes in the boys’ room.

Meanwhile, the ascent up my arm continued unabated, though I was certain the sherpa amperage powering this offbeat trek would cripple poor Turquoise, tripping a breaker or something equally debilitating. But no, she remained steadfast, unfazed, on the cusp of meditative. No trembling or apparent stress. An extraordinary canine indeed. 

While Elvis continued his holiday crooning at damaging decibel levels--further fueling the pandemonium that had taken possession of Sasha’s— Turquoise remained calm, in full control.

I didn’t know how long we’d been rocking and rolling.  Fifteen seconds?  Or fifty? I was fairly certain it was nowhere near four and one-half minutes, the duration of Anchorage’s Good Friday quake in ’64!  For me time had ceased to exist, at least as I knew it in its primal form.  Altogether a different epicenter when filtered through near total darkness and one’s transient foothold on a convulsing mother earth.  I surfed the rubber floor, my knees flexing and unwinding as if navigating a mogul field.

There wasn’t a single utterance from the dogs, Mama Cass and Turquoise included.  Just the roar of the earth and the grind of Elvis’s hips.  I didn’t know if I was going to fall, vomit or both.  But with the stealth of a midnight bandit, the quake suddenly disappeared riding upon a vanishing curtain of silence--other than for the multitude of car alarms and the nearly indecipherable slosh of water in the dogs’ closed bowls.  Even Elvis had left the building.

Still, my arm reverberated with Turquoise’s inexplicable sway, a tangle of voices cross-breeding themselves out of existence, leaving in their wake a faded (and I might add pleasurable) white noise.

“Dan!” Spouse shouted again.

“I’m good,” As non-chalantly as my quivering voice would allow.  “Earthquake,” I added, and smiled for no reason, though it couldn’t be seen. 

“You think?” Spouse’s sarcasm had survived her pummeling.

“Oh my God!” the night manager exclaimed, her brunette wig askew, as she hurriedly nudged it back into place.

“It’s okay,” I assured the room.  I had not heard any glass breaking, which supported my theory that the quake might have been (at maximum) in the six point something range.  Not likely any stronger than that. Maybe a few deaths. Power probably out for a few days, outlying areas for a few weeks. I was breathing easier.  This could have been so much worse. As I turned to head for a flashlight in our reception area, a voice magically took to the air.  Or so I assumed.   

“Hi Dan,” It was a soft reassuring female voice.  Strangely both alien and familiar in the same breath.

“Who’s that?”  I assumed a neighbor had hurried over to check on us.

“Just us,” Spouse replied in the dark. “We need to make sure the gas is turned off.” Her stint as a first-responder RN emerged.  She was spot on.

“I miss you dearly,” the voice, light as mist, soothed me, though I didn’t know its origin nor the genesis of its magical poultice.

“Who are you?” I blurted aloud.

“Who’s who?” Spouse questioned, caution slackening her words.

Apparently, neither spouse nor night manager had heard the gravity of the siren call—one which was tantalizing and beckoning me towards…I don’t know where.  I was stumped.  Towards where I had no clue. But it felt like such a warmer, softer place. 

“It’s me.  Sasha.  Love you guys…”

I ceased breathing. This was my girl who had also ceased breathing--but five years earlier, as we frantically sped down to the animal ER in Redmond! But far too late, her lips and tongue a deadly shade of blue as she struggled to stand.  And for ‘reals’ as I explained to our daughter. 

Spouse--a hopeful spirit and early advocate for reincarnation—emboldened an overactive imagination that possibly could have instilled more life into our girl, Sasha. But that didn’t appear to be the case as spouse mumbled, digging out from the spider silk of a bewildered yawn.  “Bill Haley,” she made no mention of Sasha’s words. Just the holiday flotsam of a dying King.

“Huh?” My confusion was Darwinism in action.  Evolving from pedestrian chatter to a Twilight Zone script in a single breath.

“Wasn’t him,” Spouse’s words drifted through the dark, the earth tranquil in this respite.  “Bill Haley and the Comets…was a cover.”

Reluctantly, I unplugged from Turquoise, as I heard the faint scratch of dog talons coming to life on the rubber floor. And then I saw it across the room!  An extremely faint, nearly translucent glacial-tinted outline of a dog.  But it shed no illumination upon the others…

The Continuing Adventures of Sasha’s Gang

Chapter Three

With aching bones of timber, Sasha the building issued a faint sigh of survival while blinking alarm strobes punctuated the darkened windows of the condos across the street.  Home burglar systems now dueled for airtime with the car alarms and emergency generators that automatically came to life.

“Just hold on guys,” I shouted to be heard, reluctantly letting loose of my hold on Turquoise.  “Let me grab a flashlight.”  It felt colder, the lava flow in my artery instantly extinguished (or vein…after all I’m not a phlebotomist). No longer was I nurtured by the calming sea noise or soothed by the translucent voice and countenance of my ghostly girl, Sasha.

I followed Alexa’s orbiting blue/green light to our reception area, though it shouldn’t have been functioning with the power out. I blindly groped my way to our junk drawer which included a tiny steel flashlight with a heart of fusion.  I grabbed it as a collective of blood-curdling howls were incited by the agonizing blare of Redmond fire engine number 16 as it turned our corner. The police, already on the road when the quake hit, were but seconds behind.  Our post-quake silence erupted into pandemonium, barely able to hear myself talk or think, lightly stumbling. 

"Dan?" Spouse hollered.       

"Stay where you are,” I urged.

“Toilets working?” The strain in her voice made it an obviously personal and immediate query.

I imagined so.  Porcelain didn’t require electricity.  “Think so.”  I shined the flashlight on the howling pack.  No apparent injuries, though a hands-on blood search would still be required.  Especially on the longer-hair dogs where wounds could easily hide. But didn’t appear that anything harmful had fallen from our second story, though blood on a black rubber floor would be near to invisible.  

Mama, calmly laying on the rubber floor as if just another day at the beach, was encircled by the chorus of Sasha’s gang including big black John Madden and white water-lover, Mark Spitz.  Typically, in minor earthquakes such as this (everything is relative), the water continues to flow, though it may require boiling before use.  Again, I sensed we were blessed.  This was not the ‘big’ 1000-year earthquake that many doomsday proctologists liked to dangle in front of the populace like a ravaged sphincter muscle.

Turquoise, placid and demur, remained seated adjacent Mama.  Her mesmerizing neon eyes seemingly lending a bluish tint to the room.  Meanwhile, I fired up some Christmas candle decorations, ghosts of Christmas present bouncing off our mural walls.  Both spooky and warm.

But it was the continued commotion outside that captivated our notice.  At nearly six o’clock in the evening and without a spark of electricity, all would need to figure out how to stay warm for the night (lots of comforters and quilts) and at the same time remain vigilant to potential aftershocks. I learned later the trick was to hang a leather belt from the ceiling, so one could verify if it was another terrestrial hiccup or just an over-fearful imagination.

The night manager continued to pray under her breath, which would soon be visible in the chill. I encouraged her to head to home on the plateau to prepare it for the night.  Spouse and I could handle the duties at Sasha’s and having lost our three dogs at home over the past few years, our home up in the hinterlands was likely safe, even from looters.

“What are we going to do?” Spouse lightly wept, her mascara running.

“Just what we’re doing,” I encouraged.  Though there was no functioning internet detailing the severity of our situation and the only radios were in our vehicles, which we yet had time or reason to fire up. Beyond the swirling emergency lights, I also detected the faint sunset of flames somewhere further down the road towards Marymoor Park and the taint of smoke, hence the fire trucks.  As the dogs’ howls slowed to a simmer and they sniffed at the floor and each other, a few pedestrians, a bit dazed and disoriented, wandered by our drive, apparently more for the sightseeing than anything functional.

“Did you, uh…know…I mean see or hear anything unusual?” I asked her.

“Yeah…a damned earthquake,” she responded sarcastically.  “Hold that thought.”  She snatched one of the candles and hurried towards the downstairs bathroom (though not a bath to be found). Atop everything, I heard a helicopter buzzing overhead; likely a police chopper or television crew. 

“It even flushed!” Spouse spoke enthusiastically upon her return.   Strange how little things become so monumental sometimes. But then horror of horrors, I heard the undeniable sound of water!  Not a tsunami.  We were miles from salt water.  The only body of water nearby was five blocks away in the multi-miles-long Lake Sammamish.  Fresh water and likely not to make a stink over a tremor many miles out to sea. But it sounded closer, as if even in the room with us!  Did something go afoul when spouse flushed the toilet?  Maybe a pipe broken upstairs?  Perhaps I celebrated our unscathed nature far too soon or too loud?  God doesn’t encourage pride or much in the way of festival.

“Mister Mark Spitz!”  Spouse solved the dilemma far quicker than I as she peered in the direction of the water sound. Pointing my flashlight to the same bearing, I illuminated Spitz’s mountain-lion-like paws slapping at the five-gallon water bowl like a hungry bear swatting salmon as they swam upstream.

“You get outta that water right this second!” Spouse snarled as Spitz backpedaled a few inches, though not abandoning his watery preoccupation. It held his rapt attention, as he continued to pound it out of his bowl in a golden retriever frenetic frolic, saturating the floor as well as himself.  He was having a ball!  What earthquake?

The other dogs watched, seemingly bemused while the outdoors had been transformed into a sound riot, electronic reverberations of nearly every persuasion coloring the night air, feeling almost carnival-like except for the lethal fauna of the sirens.  And no popcorn or balloons!

“I turned off the gas,” spouse said, the shutoff near the restroom.  I took a seat, on the wicker couch, needing a moment of reflection as spouse sidled up next to me.  An admonished Spitz required his reservoir to be refilled if he was going to continue his chicanery, so he took a break.

“You folks okay?” A police officer popped her head through the front door, momentarily startling us.

“All good,” I shouted. “Thanks for checking.”  Turquoise quite calmly laid down beside my feet. 

“We got ourselves a little fire down in Marymoor,” she retorted.  “But nothing that should affect ya all up here.  We’re around if you need anything.”  With that she departed before quickly sticking her head back inside.  “Oh…If we do find some strays uh…can ya all help us with them?”

“No problem,” I replied.  “Just tap on the door if we’re asleep.” Though I suspected slumber was going to be as precious as hen’s teeth this night.

“Thanks.”  And off again.

“So poopsie…” Spouse started.  “Did you say you were hearing…like I don’t know…noises or voices?”  While it was spouse’s term of endearment for me, it reminded me of a fecal examination. 

“So you didn’t hear anything?” I asked anxiously.  “Or see anything?”

“Just an earthquake…and Bill Hailey,” she said, drawing a thick green sweater tight about her torso, the air chilling. “What is going on?”  She asked, frustrated by the fog of confusion. 

“I realize this is going to sound all woo-woo,” I started down the path of the inexplicable.  This was indeed going to be a slippery slope.  Once a whisker escapes the bag, the rest of the feline demands freedom as well.  “This dog?” I posed, looking down at Turquoise who appeared content and satiated--and maybe even sleeping.  “No other way to say it.  But…uh…she is…uh. well…superna…tural.”  I stumbled over my own words.

Spouse didn’t laugh, but rather tendered one of those non-committal Mona Lisa smiles.  Without opinion, agnostic in nature.  Neither positive nor negative.  “Supernatural?” she repeats with a hint of cynicism. “Clairvoyant?”

“Perhaps,” I volunteered, but all was so ambiguous. “Just some strange things happen when I touch her.”

“Okay?” It was more of a question, than a comment.

“Would you be willing to pet her?” I asked, hungering for a shred of credibility. 

“Pet her? Well of course!” She answered in a fashion that could be conservatively interpreted as discrediting.  Without further ado, spouse leaned over and softly ran her fingers through the scruff of Turquoise’s neck, who then emitted a dog’s hushed purr while I clenched my teeth in anticipation of the pending explosion.

I expected some sort of yelp or screech from either the dog or spouse but neither materialized.  “She is so soft!” That was comparable to pilfering the climax from a blockbuster movie. There had to be some pinnacle of emotion, some fireworks! But nothing. Only the scurrying of frightened earthquake victims.

“You didn’t feel anything?” I asked, my angst billowing like a full spinnaker.

“I’m sorry,” she sensed my discontent.  “But no…nothing….what am I s’pose to feel?

How does one go about telling their wife they have abandoned their senses?

“I know, well…this is…all, well just beyond belief.”  I could think of no words which aptly captured the insanity of this day. None. Except one.  “Sasha,” I whispered under my breath.  The dogs were quietly attentive as if making note of the conversation.

Spouse turned abruptly, having missed Sasha something terrible even though her rear view was six years and beyond. “Why’d you say Sasha?”  Even in the dim candlelight, I saw the diamond-trickle in her eyes.  Sasha’s exit, much like tonight’s earthquake, had stuck abruptly and without warning.  Here one instant and gone forever in the next.

“Maybe I’m losing it,” I anxiously proffered, my breathing restrained by the acoustical straight jacket outside our walls.

Spouse warmly took my hand in hers, still moist from wiping her eyes and a generous nurse smile.  “But what…I mean about Sasha?"

She tried to reach inside me and osmotically extract my words.

“Just watch this…” I said earnestly, surrendering to a moment as inexplicable as quicksand, my forehead damp and stomach on a romp.  Holding out the candle, careful to not set her ablaze, it faintly illuminated Turquoise, who had dozed at my feet. She blinked reluctantly, coming awake, gazing into the candlelight as if it were an invading UFO.

With my other hand I slowly drew close to her snout as she sniffed for clues. The instant I reached the top of her head, the sedative swirl of narcotics spirited back up my arm like a hypo from God.  Every muscle in my body went flaccid as phone lines in summer.  But there were no multiple voices as I heard earlier—just a singular soothing female voice.

“Thank you for welcome.”  Her words were extremely audible and stereophonic, even with my inefficient old man hearing.  I didn’t know where the words homesteaded.  In my head, bones or soul?  Just pleasant and surrounding and female. 

“You hear that?” I asked spouse excitedly, certain this couldn’t be denied.

“I heard nothing,” she answered, glumly, wanting to be supportive. “I’m sorry, babe”

I continued my hold on Turquoise, reminding me of high school and all those times I fell in love—which could be challenging when one drove a ’59 Ford Falcon as their muscle car!  But this felt very much like those initial pangs of adoration.  And I worshipped the sensation.

“You’re welcome,” I said tenderly, uncertain whether those were just my thoughts or had I actually verbalized them?  I glanced at spouse whose unaltered countenance spoke volumes.  She had heard nothing.  Perhaps I had said nothing…(To be continued).

 

The Continuing Adventures of Sasha’s Gang

Chapter Four

“So now what?” Spouse asked, a dim gloom backlighting her words, as she layered a hoodie over her sweater.  All as I hypnotically studied the nearly motionless Turquoise, still resting at my feet.  Tenuous as 220 volts, but appearing harmless as a butterfly, she didn’t seem the least bit unsettled. 

Meanwhile the other dogs wandered about, investigating the odiferous big dog roller-derby room with twitching noses.  It led outdoors via our doggy door to a miniscule but proficiently fenced green space, essential for time-efficient potty breaks.  The dogs loved it.  Some would even go out during a rainstorm and just sit.  As if taking a warm shower—though it was perpetually cold, even in August.

“It’s gonna be a frigid one tonight,” I warned.  “Maybe best we figure out where we’re all sleeping and how we’re gonna keep warm.” 

“A seven-dog night by my count.” Spouse said playfully, tenderly squeezing my thigh. “And instead of how we gonna keep warm…well, how about how we gonna get warm?”

“I hear you,” I joked, turning the table.   “But not tonight…I’ve a bit of a headache.”   

“Ha ha…” She kidded as she squeezed my thigh a bit harder, with a hybrid  joyful-sinister smile.  There was an old foam mattress packed away upstairs which had once been victim to myriad urine episodes and justifiably retired.  But could fill in during a pinch with a cladding of sheets to shield us from the bouquet and a clutch of Costco blankets to warm us.  And yes, plenty of heated air from seven snoring boarders, plus spouse and I.

Yet, my mind continued performing calisthenics over the sleight-of-paw sorcery created by the furry talisman at my feet.  How do I rationalize and accept all I experienced as existent and real? Feels as if I’ve taken a role in the Wizard of Oz as a flying monkey.  

Maybe this kaleidoscope day was all just a long overdue tie-dye hangover?  I freely admit I was a bit of a free spirit during the late-60s pursuing my new-age explorations. But that was many decades ago and haven’t had a flashback to this day!

But if even so, so what?  I’m engulfed by a dominion without visa, no possible validation of my own ears and eyes—or me!  Isolated.  Just one against the world.  A perilous position at best.  Who is going to believe my tale of a supernatural dog?

Suddenly, I felt it!  Just a tiny bump.  With the faint knock of a wind-blown branch, yet the abruptness of a sledgehammer—in its wake the faint creak of the building and momentary dizziness.  The rippled flow of candlelight splashed across our muraled wall. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing and I certainly didn’t need a dangling belt to know whether this was a genuine tremor.

“An aftershock.” As if explanation was necessary.  The dogs’ collective howl said it all.  Mother earth was doing her Pilates again. And then she immediately stalked off in a quiet huff.

“I figured as much,” Spouse said tolerantly.  “Hon…uh, I’m just so sorry I didn’t hear anything.  I really wanted to.” Her other arm landed maternally on my shoulder.

“I know you did,” I replied, in a cul-de-sac of confusion.  My prison for the night, if not longer.  “So make up our bed?”

“Sure poopie,” she replied, starting to rise. “Your phone working?”

“Nah. Didn’t expect it would be” I paused.  “But before we do that, think I should wake this girl up.” I glanced down at Turquoise who appeared unruffled by life.  Her radiant eyes were peacefully clouded, while her breathing was slow and rhythmic as the tide. 

“Maybe you should just let her rest,” Spouse urged.  “She could be tapped out.  I can see you are.”  She leveraged nurse dominance for which I didn’t have a matching sheep skin.  So as often was the case, I punted.  Nonetheless I still had this burning desire to understand more about what was happening with Turquoise. I felt a bit like a kid on Christmas morning who found his long-awaited chemistry set beneath the tree and then wasn’t allowed to blow things up!  But surrendering to spouse’s persuasion, I quietly disconnected fromTurquoise, while the other dogs, seven of our regulars, pranced about in their earthquake trots.  

We immediately crafted our sleeping quarters for the night, a king-size foam mattress with urine memories in the center of our roller-derby daycare room where the suspicious pack continued to sniff for terrestrial interlopers.  And we draped every sheet and quilt stored in our closets to create a textile pig-pile for both human and sherpa beasts to ascend.  It was already 34 degrees and dropping. No functioning furnace.  Just our collective breath and flatulence

“I’m freezing,” spouse declared as all began to sniff the community bedstead for their spot, a few argumentative growls along the way.

“Everyone, cool itI” I bellowed, agitated.   “Let’s play nice.  And knock off any farting!” 

“You don’t need to shout,” spouse reprimanded all, though her directive specifically targeted me. “Inside voices.”  And all seemed to recognize that space in the newfound bed was at a premium, thus their prowl as timely as an at-sea search and rescue.

“Hello?”  It was the Redmond female officer again.  “Just a quick update.  First off, the park fire was uh…an old motorhome someone was living in.” I could see her foggy breath at our entrance.  “Quake was 6.4 about 30 miles beneath Olympia In the Juan de Fuca plate.”

My knee-jerk prognosis earlier was relatively spot on.  Think this quake’s location was similar to the Nisqually earthquake which struck in 2001 and killed a few people. Again, definitely not the big one.

“Any strays?” I asked.

“None yet…but sure we’ll likely get some before the nights over.”

“We’re camped out downstairs here.  Just bring ‘em over,’ I said.

“Will do,” she said, departing again.  “Thanks.”

Mama Cass took her spot at the center of the mattress as the other pups demonstrated their deference allowing her to settle comfortably before ploughing their way beneath the blankets like famished snowplows.  Spouse snuggled up to me and the warming mound of dog fur as the candles continued to flicker.  I could feel that initial flow of biological heat, which was encouraging.  At the same time, I spied Turquoise as she wandered towards us, slowly, purposely.  What was her intent?    

“She’s coming over,” I whispered.  Though I wasn’t necessarily awaiting permission, I would however honor a spouse-nurse veto.  Her judgment usually reigned true more often than not. 

“At her pace please.” She too spoke in a whisper. 

“Yes, m’aam.”  I was schooled in the art of deference. “But…” I started as Turquoise sidled up to me, her snout but inches from my face, her warm exhale unusually pleasant for a dog.  

“Guess she really likes you,” spouse mused aloud.

Without intent, my hand mysteriously touched upon her head with the very same pomp and circumstance as earlier: the calming flow of lava up my arm and the cacophony of multiple voices sprinting down the auditory nerves and taking my brainstem hostage.  Not that this clarified the message, if there was one. It all came to me garbled and without any translation or curator.

“You okay?” Spouse asked, feeling my entire body tense.

“Think so…uh, but it’s happenin’ again.”

“Voices?”

“Everything,” I answered.  “Voices.  My arm again. Not sure what…”

“I honor your welcome.” It was the same voice that came to me earlier.  Calm, clear, inviting and female. 

“Who are you?” I said aloud. 

“You hearin’ it again?” Spouse asked with concern, while the dogs continued to settle in with gentle but persistent nudges.  Playing nice.

“You didn’t?” I hoped for a turnaround.

“Sorry love…no.”

“Where you from?” I queried aloud.

“Across the water,” she responded, calmly and matter-of-factly.

“Water?  What damned water?” My patience frayed.  I could only think of Mark Spitz who had tried earlier to frothfully divide Sasha’s Red Sea. 

“The waters of faith,” she responded serenely.

Now this was evolving into a gospel meeting for which my patience had little occupancy for.    

“And what’s that s’pose to mean?”  I restrained my angst best I could.  But it had been a genuinely trying day. 

“You okay?’ Spouse asked, feeling the tremble of my anger that not even the lava flow could contain.  I simply shook my head ‘no’ in mini-twitches.

“They send me,” she said softly.  “You say me Turquoise.  They say me empathy.”

My face unraveled into a fishing tangle of misery.  Enigmatically knotted and surreal. What was that supposed to mean?  I started to respond verbally…but was stopped.

“Need no words. I hear person direct.”

“You mean…”

“Yes,” she answered my question before it was even asked…(to be continued)

 

The Continuing Adventures of Sasha’s Gang

Chapter Five

“I hear brain.”  Her declaration startled me, throttling back my breathing. 

“I think she just said that she can hear my thoughts.” I mused quietly, eyes squinted as I tried to better focus, maintaining my gentle hold on her head. 

“Dan?”  She seldom called me that unless it was time for a serious heart-to-heart--which I wasn’t terribly proficient at—on a good day maybe scoring a D+. 

“Yes Hon?”

She paused.  “Are we going to feed these hounds at all tonight?”  She asked with RN punctuality; I had totally forgotten, having eclipsed their feeding time by at least a few hours.  Or maybe the quake had mysteriously satiated their hunger pangs.  But to the contrary, maybe they heard spouse using the word feed, one of the essential bi-species keywords in canine lexicon, their drooling response Pavlovian in nature.  I suspect dog DNA may come standard with it. And though we strive to feed dogs separately at Sasha’s, that’s not possible this fractured night.

“My bad,” I confessed. “In all the insanity…slipped my mind.”  I turned back to our ruffled bedstead of wagging tails and with a calm monotone voice, explained to both the pups and spouse how supper was being served.  “Better than the Edmunds Fitzgerald.” I jested. “I can feed ya’ all but it’s gonna be a group grope!” 

And with that I disengaged from Turquoise and raced the chill to the kitchen where I rapidly, and without elegance, poured half a 40-pound bag of salmon/rice dog food into half a dozen silver feed bowls and then hurriedly topped off their water bowls as well.  A couple of the dogs had followed me to the dog kitchen and were grazing as I rushed back to our makeshift boudoir where I tunneled into our flannel igloo. The temperature had dropped like flying turkeys (“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly". WKRP).

Most of the dogs had death-raced to the kitchen once they heard the telltale kittle-ballast pinging the feed bowls.  Once I was ensconced back in my blankets, spouse having kept my space warm, I saw that three remained. Turquoise, Mama Cass and Socrates apparently had a greater appetite for heat and sleep than they did for food at the moment.

First-cousin to a cuddly bear cub, Socrates approaches life much like a self-contained motorhome.  Very compact, self sufficient and subtly arrogant but more for the purpose of being left alone rather than feigning superiority.  A coal-black Chow Chow, Socrates is soft as cotton but her first half year of life was simply a brazen act of survival in a shelter scarce on both protection and love.  Hence, her defensive dance with life. She ignores most folks and dogs, but if she chooses to become your friend (and it will be her choice), she is that for life.  As often is the case, Socrates sequesters herself alone on the far side of our California King foam mattress and is contently dozing.

Mama Cass fidgets a bit, maintaining her sizable homestead in the middle of the foam urine bed.  Amongst the brightest of Sasha’s dogs--and with the hovering and inquisitive mind of a loving mother--she appears content to quietly contemplate the bizarre events of this day. 

Usually headed home with her owners most evenings after daycare, Mama will pillow down tonight at Sasha’s since the roads are blackened by missing stoplights and overrun by emergency vehicles--an absolute circus outside. 

It seemed odd, myriad helicopters overhead.  But why?  There are no lights anywhere, but for a tepid sliver of moon?  So there’s nothing to see.  It’s nighttime.  When people and pups snooze.  Save the avionic fuel. 

“You doing okay?” Spouse asks, her concern cornered by the flickering candlelight.  “It’s all so, so, uh…”. Words were elusive.

“Nuts,” is the only noun-adjective that came to my mind. 

Then of course there’s enchantress Turquoise.  Still fluffed and snoozing between spouse and myself.  From my brief experience, appears the magic—or whatever it is—is only activated when I touch her head with my hand.  She is lying horizontal to my leg and there’s no similar effect. While spouse’s touch was compassionate, it was not imbued with the magic.  No sedatives sprinting up her arms. No voices singing background.

“Anything I can do?” Spouse asks, planting a kiss on the tip of my nose.

“As you always do,” I teased.  “Sexualize me.”

“And what’s your second…more plausible wish?” She smiled as the other dogs--Hoss, Mark Spitz, Eisenhower and Bambi—slowly rejoined our pig pile after chowing down.  “Because that ain’t happening…at least not tonight, poopsie.”  That was the gospel I already knew, but still worth the ask.  It’s called marriage.

And then it struck!  At first I reckoned it was yet another tremor, but then realized what I was feeling instead was another Turquoise moment. The narcotic buzz of my arm as my hand unknowingly settled upon her furry crown and the subtle white noise. But the room wasn’t trembling.  

“Damn,” I muttered under my breath.  Spouse sensed my change in attitude, my body soft as summer butter.

“Again?” she asked.  I just quietly nodded, words useless as urinals in the pantry.

“I am friend.”  Turquoise’s voice was radiant and translucent, crocheted from angel wings. Her neon eyes cast a bluish tint across her adoring face.  “I’m for to wake.”

“She’s here for to wake…whatever that means,” I whispered.

“To better your world to know,” she added.

“Knowing our world better…I think.”

Spouse didn’t so much roll her eyes as simply blinked them repeatedly, as if lost in the forest.  Meanwhile the dogs focused on me, seven pairs of blood-shot alabaster eyeballs punctuating the darkness like falling stars. Studying my every move.

“We finally talk.” It’s not Turquoise’s voice.  Rougher around the edges like a newly dug grave, multiple octaves lower, yet definitely female. My sixth sense told me I was listening to Mama Cass who apparently intercepted my thoughts like an overzealous Richard Sherman, Seahawks defender and legend.

Again, rapid as AI, she spoke as if sprinting seconds ahead of her thinking. “The one who crosses the water carries this blessing.”

Then a vulgar rip of the air, as one of the dogs thunder-farted, even penetrating the inhibiting muffler of blankets.  But its odiferous nature made a prison break and the escapees immediately fill the room.
“What the he..” spouse sputtered waving away the air in front of her face. 

“Hoss,” Mama Cass scolded. “Really?” 

“It’s Hoss,” I draw closer to spouse, attempting to divert the nefarious jet stream.

“Not say it coming,” Hoss, the Great Pyrenees, spoke.  His glimmering white coat and well-nourished girth (morning treat is a hard-boiled egg that seasons his flatulence as well) resembles a polar bear.  Enormous, relatively slow, and a bit of a bully.  Instead of dog fights, he is more of a Suma wrestler using his cumbersome size to his advantage. Seldom drawing blood and instead leaving bruises. But usually no bad feelings.

There is little time or credibility to explain how I know the name of the canine-skunk. Or any of the other speakers in my head.  It just seems to come naturally to me.  In 17^th century Salem I would have likely been burnt at the stake.  Another reason for remaining mute.

“A happy fart never comes from a miserable ass,” Socrates provides her scatological philosophy on the matter before bowing her head again in sleep. 

“True dat,” Mama concurs.  “But please. No more happy farts.”

“That was a happy fart,” I whisper in spouse’s ear. 

 “Don’t smell happy,” spouse casts doubt my direction.

I’ve already decided I’m unable to subtitle the wisdom and parables of Sasha’s gang in real time, so my best will be to provide periodic summations to my wife. That’ll have to do.  I feel as if I’ve landed in Nigeria but only speak Icelandic.  Like the Beatle’s Magical Mystery tour!  An uncontrolled, spontaneous, and often absurd, trip.

Mama speaks again. “We have all hoped for this time.”

Before I could ask why, she answered: “For many days we watch.  We worry.  We know you struggle.”

This slightly irritates me.  Everyone struggles from time to time I wanted to argue.  But before I did she retorted: “You are our friend.” She looked at me compassionately with her large brown eyes. They might have even watered slightly.  “When you struggle. We struggle. We talk”.

All of a sudden, this feels like a referendum on me… …(to be continued)