Being a Republican

Hit her with a giant pillows.
San Francisco, California - March 2005

Boy, been busy the last couple of days. I haven't had time to really even think about writing too much. But, I've been sort of laughing over this thing that happened to me on Sunday. Tanja and I went to a great, amazing brunch in the morning (more on that tomorrow), and late in the day, I was out walking Millie.

We got to a corner on Valencia Street, and we stopped to wait for the light to change. People in the Mission, possibly in other neighborhoods, too, often don't walk their dogs on leashes. Sure, it's cool to have the dog walking around on their own. I agree, I'd love to be able to walk Millie off the leash, but it's the middle of oe of the densest cities in the country. It's not a great idea for many, many reasons. So, whenever I'm out with Millie, I need to be extra careful to make sure she doesn't get into scuffles with other, usually off the leash dogs. These dogs are usually owned (yes, owned) by people who validate the dog being off the leash beause "he (or she) is friendly," the fact that other dogs aren't aside (also, the fact that the dogs themselves oftne aren't aside).

So, we're at the corner, I've got my finger where it belongs, in my ear, and we're just waiting there, singing "You don't bring me flowers" to each other as a shaggy ol' thing comes up behind Millie. They sniff, the hackles go up, there's bare teeth and growling.

It takes a couple of seconds, but I manage to get myself between the dogs (not one of my smartest ideas), and pull Millie off. The dog's owner is probably about a half block away (on a Manhattan scale, a whole block), a little less. He calls "Edgar!" or whatever, and the dog turns and runs back to his owner who has jogged up a little closer.

At this point, I was really fed up. This seems to happen to me a lot, and it's such a pain in the ass to have to deal with other people's pugnacious pooches that it simply gets tiring and winds up ruining an occassional part of my day that I've, otherwise, really grown to enjoy.

"Get a leash!!" I yelled. See how pissed I was?

From down the middle of the block, where the other dog's owner was crossing Valencia, "You consumerist! Republican! Why don't you go vote for Bush!?" The fine line between dog walking and politics crossed. We'll ignore the factual problem surrounding the present lack of opportunity to vote for Bush, and just wonder how it is that I've become labeled as the end-all evil, as perceived by the people in San Francisco.

Is that all it takes? Is merely obtaining (notice I said nothing about buying anything) a rope to tie around the neck of an animal, domesticated or not, for security purposes enough to be labeled as a horrible, vile person who... buys... stuff and then votes badly? How did this happen? So, here I am, folks. The world's only Jewish guy from New York who lives in San Francisco and voted for John Kerry who is a Republican.

-=-
On Saturday, I decided to take my sadly-thought-to-be dead Minolta X700 out for a walk with a zoom marco lens on it, and fire off a roll while I went for a walk to get a haircut. Have a look at the photos. All 38 photos I took came out. What a great day.