But after awhile, finally, we did turn around and head back home, walking west on Avenue P. (For the beginning of this story, see “Reflections.”)
Pick your weapon!
As we passed an old two-story home, I noticed a woman standing out in her front yard with a garden hose, idly watering some newly planted marigolds. When she glanced up, I offered a friendly smile and a neighborly “hi,” and she quickly returned the greeting and then asked, “Is that stick for other dogs or yours?”
Let me explain. On my walks around the neighborhood with Tip, I always bring along a cut-off broom handle that I use as a walking stick or staff, and this is the stick to which she was referring.
Assuring her that only rarely do I pummel my own puppy dog and instead use my walking stick to gently dissuade any loose and roaming dogs that we happen upon from getting too friendly or, worse, not too friendly, she replied that a golf club might be a more effective tool. She even offered one of her own from an old golf bag that had been left behind by a previous owner and that she still had out in her back yard. I declined the offer, happy with my broom handle, but thanked her just the same.
Take that!
In the brief conversation that ensued—in a space of no more than twelve or thirteen minutes—I learned a great deal more from, and about, this nice lady, in addition to her handy golf-club tip:
- that the golf-club idea had come to mind because she used to see a man who went for walks around the neighborhood and always carried a golf club with him, probably, she opined, more to ward off any human vermin that might approach than a wandering dog;
- that she used to have two dogs—a Siberian husky and an Irish wolfhound/Weimaraner mix—but that after the dogs got old and “went to heaven” she decided not to get any more dogs and that she really is more of a cat person by nature;
- that she has a number of cats, all of whom “found” her and not the other way around, and one of whom, a fluffy tabby that strolled out to the fence to greet us, is named some foreign word that I didn’t quite catch (thanks to the swoosh of a passing car) that means either “shadow” or “squirrel” or maybe “shadowy squirrel” (would there be a single word, in any language, for such a term?), because when this cat made his first appearance at her home, he slinked up behind her and she wasn’t even sure at first whether he was real or just a shadow, and then later he warmed up to her by doing something apparently squirrel-like, although I didn’t catch the description of this behavior due to another swooshing car (and can’t imagine what it would have been in any case);
- that she hadn’t made it to church that morning but, to make up for it, had decided to water her flowers and figured that to be a fair trade-off and something worthwhile done;
- (in response to my statement that I was looking for work) that I should check into UTMB but then again forget getting on there without a human contact because their automated system is a “circular file” (which I took to mean “endless loop”) and that I might do better looking into the graduate school over there and she recommended a Dr. David Niesel (and yes, she spelled it) at UTMB who might possibly even be the chair of the department and who has a weekly radio show and perhaps I should try and contact him;
- (in response to my statement that I was looking for work as a technical writer, editor, Web designer) that she is herself a writer and has even done some freelance work for national publications and I should consider freelance writing because she had discovered that people who present themselves as freelance writers working on articles are never questioned about their credentials by the people they are trying to interview, not that she had ever used this tactic for any dishonest purpose and had only ever done proper freelance article-writing, but suggested I might try this approach myself and, once in the door, well why not give it the old oh-by-the-way-do-you-have-any-permanent-openings-here-for-a-writer-perchance? and just see what might develop…
[Note to reader: Hopefully, the intentionally run-on, free-associative character of the foregoing gives you some flavor for the unintentionally run-on, free-associative character of my new neighborhood friend.]
Verily, I had chanced upon a rich vein of a mineable motherlode. And on this muggy Mother’s Day, it was cleverly disguised as a little woman watering her flowers…
I’m learning that people in Galveston are a warm and friendly lot. And some of them really like to talk.
I think I’ll fit in nicely…