Sense of Adventure

Actually, they haven’t much this year. Yet.

Emma Dog has always had problems with monsters with giant round heads. Not long after I got her in May of 2004 we were driving down Candelaria in Albuquerque’s North Valley to our usual walking-place, the ditch that runs along the east edge of the fields of the Rio Grande Nature Center wildfowl preserve. It was afternoon, full summer by then, and hot. And walking toward us on the far sidewalk I saw a couple of people with a parasol. Oddly, that’s something I’m not sure if I’ve even seen before here in Albuquerque, although given the stinging - and burning! - quality of our UV-rich high desert summer sun, it makes all kinda sense.

And Emma did this Jim Carrey-in-The Mask eyes-stand-out-on-springs take. She clearly perceived this apparition as a horrible four-legged megacephalic humanoid monster.

According to the best and most sense-filled book I’ve read about dogs and their bizarre longstanding relationship with a certain primate, The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell, dogs don’t really grasp things like clothing and accessories. Given their limited ability to think in the abstract and eyesight that doesn’t appear very detail-oriented, they seem to perceive your putting on a hat or a bulky jacket as actually changing your body shape.

I’m inclined to believe that, not just because Dr. McConnell makes so much dang sense in her book, but because I saw it in action later that day. Emma and I had reached the northern extent of our walk for the day and turned back south. An older lady turned out onto the path about twenty feet in front of us and started walking south. She didn’t seem to notice us - dangerously poor situational awareness, but that’s a whole different realm of rants.

For some reason both Emma and I were distracted by something behind us. When we turned to look south again the lady, now twenty-thirty yards from us, had opened a parasol.

Again Emma did the cartoon-eyeball take. She snapped rigid and the hairs bristled on her back. She looks like the Hound of the Baskervilles’ understudy when she does that, I might add; she’s not the biggest dog, but she’s big enough, and fully formidable.

In her eyes, the reasonably harmless (anyone she doesn’t know well is on her watch list) old lady had been magically transformed into a manifestly evil parody of the human form.

To complete her distress, later on another lady passed us going the other way on the far side of the ditch wearing a wide sun hat. And Emma knew herself well and truly beset by monsters. Given how twitchy she still was from her experiences prior to joining the Milán pack, it’s a wonder she didn’t drag me straightaway home and hide in her pen for two days.

Some time later, that winter or next, I put her out of a morning, only to be awakened by her barking furiously. I went out back to see her staring fixedly up and to the south. She was visibly quite agitated - this wasn’t her usual barking behavior.

So I stepped out and looked up, to behold a fearful misshapen huge-headed kobold standing on the rear slope of my neighbor’s roof.

Or, as he would have had it, his brand new satellite antenna.

So, clearly, Emma dreads big round monster heads. How then is the tyke to cope with truly colossal heads, disembodied monster heads, that spurt flame and fly?

Truly, these can only be Great Sky Demons. And this, as my best friend Joe says, is when they attack en masse!

Welcome to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

That said, as I mentioned at the outset, this year hasn’t been that terrifying for Emma. Often when they have a mass ascension a great many of the balloons float right down the river valley, and consequently over or near the house. It’s an impressive sight, to be sure. It’s also loud: usually the blasts of their propane burners levitate me straight out of bed. The only time that’s happened so far this year was Monday. Emma happened to be inside when they came by, meaning she wasn’t traumatized totally out of existence. She just barked furiously at the flame-roars.

But I see by their website they’ve a mass ascension scheduled for tomorrow. That may get derailed since the weather’s not been altogether cooperative this year. But if it happens, once again poor Emma may experience the horror when Great Sky Demons attack!

And if I’ve time tomorrow (and life doesn’t intrude again), I will, as promised, tell the senses-shattering story called Bring Me the Head of Mickey Mouse.

Stay tuned!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, 2007 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Emma!, Life, Me, Shameless Pandering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.