Coffee heat rising

Wafting on the Wind…

It’s 10:00 p.m. and I just finished the last revamped syllabus for the summer courses, which begin to incorporate my various schemes to make life terrifying interesting for my students. Been a bit silent on the blog because of the workload and the various adventures.

This morning my friend KJG came into town to socialize. She lives on the far side of the galaxy, halfway to San Diego, and so getting together can be a project. She brought her doberman pinscher along to schmooze with Cassie the Corgi. That was entertaining.

KJG’s dobe was a rescue dog that came to K and her husband with some serious behavioral problems. Today, though, the dog is impeccably well mannered. She’s mellow, quiet, and amazingly intelligent. Amazingly alert, too: very little gets past this animal.

Contemplating that very beautiful beast, it crossed my mind to wish I could still handle a big dog. As much as a large, powerful animal can be a challenge, it’s also reassuring to have something that will take out an intruder or die trying. Cassie slept through the guy trying to get in the side door a while back and remained silent while the alarm was squealing. KJG’s dog would have shot out of the bedroom and down the hall before I could’ve regained consciousness from the deep sleep that the door alarm interrupted.

A week or ten days ago, a couple of guys practicing the same MO—quietly breaking in at four in the morning—tied up an elderly couple and beat the bejayzus out of them. Imagine beating up a pair of 80-year-olds!

Nothing like a little meth to cut the boredom factor.

Speaking of the which, yesterday along about 2:30, after I’d come home from eight hours of driving around the city, I picked up the phone to chat with La Maya. Carrying it around the property, I walked into the garage for something and remarked that Phew! It smelled like something had died out there!

La Maya said she’d smelled a bad odor when she got home, too: when she walked from the garage through the courtyard into her house, she thought she smelled gas.

I said it didn’t smell like gas; it smelled like sulfur. And yes, it was indeed outdoors…I could smell it in the side yard and in the sheltered back patio.

But by the time I got inside, the stench had wafted into the house so that the family room and dining room stank to high heaven! Dayum!

La Maya also could smell it at her house. We debated whether we should report this, and if so, to whom. Ultimately we decided she would call Southwest Gas and I would call the City.

The City sent an engine full of firemen, who did nothing.

Southwest Gas sent a guy who inspected both houses and the gas lines in the alleys. He couldn’t find a gas leak. He agreed that he didn’t think it smelled like natural gas and speculated that it could be sewer gas released by some of the construction in the area.

I said I used to live near 15th Avenue and Osborn, where, because an excess of high-density housing has overwhelmed the sewer system, the air stinks of sewer gas most of the time. So I know what sewer gas smells like, and that ain’t it.

He allowed as to how it didn’t smell exactly like sewer gas to him, either. Whatever, he opined that it was not flammable and that it was outdoors, and so he went on his way.

Yes. Smells like natural gas or rotten eggs (i.e., “sulfur”).

A fair breeze was blowing in from the southwest, meaning we were upwind from the nearest construction, about a mile away. And also meaning it was blowing in from the gang-infested slums that have risen from the blight between us and the freeway. I suspect we were smelling meth in the cooking process.

It’s not the first time a whiff of it has perfumed the family room, either. I’ve smelled it several times over the past few weeks. Figured it was eau de doggo, since I haven’t committed an excess of cleaning while I’ve been working myself stupid lately. But Cassie is not a smelly dog at all. If she smelled like that, I’d have noticed the odor on her, not in the air.

gaaaahhhhh! I need to move away from here! Sure would be nice if I could afford a comparable house in a safer part of town. Or a safer part of the world.

But I can’t.

Makes a large dog with sturdy fangs and hair-trigger nerves look like a charming pet.

Image: European dobermann pinscher. By Ilicivan at en.wikipedia. Public domain.

2 thoughts on “Wafting on the Wind…”

  1. Got to love those well trained Dobies. The Mrs. used to raise and train them years ago before we met.

    At the same time she was a bass player in a lounge band that played in the west. Zeke, her Doberman traveled with her.

    The band played venues into the wee hours of the morning so the Mrs. would sleep in her hotel room until the late afternoon.

    One morning there was a knock on the door with a holler ‘Maintenance’.

    She was groggy and as the door opened and her eyes opened Zeke snarled.

    The Mrs. had her hand on Zeke’s choke collar holding him in place.

    The man exited, the door closed and to this day the Mrs. says that was Ted Bundy who used a ‘bump key’ to break into her room.

  2. The smell, sewer gas or probably a ‘meth lab’.

    We are right on the California border and the gangs do invade unoccupied houses to do their ‘cooking’.

    Our town covers almost 400 square miles and that is a lot for our Sheriffs department to patrol.

    Crime, you bet. I listen to the police scanner and there is always several ‘home robberies’ not in progress each day. People come home and find their house ransacked.

    We live on 2 fenced acres and the gate is always locked.
    Set foot on my property and you are mine.

    I won’t say ‘Get off my lawn’ like Clint Eastwood did in Gran Torino’.

    I have a lot of land and a shovel.

    Our 3 mini Daschunds make a lot of noise when they are outside but they really are inside dogs and just noisy ankle biters.

    Mr. Dusty and Big Paulie are outside most of the time. Mr. Dusty is a GSD.
    Big Paulie is half bear and half coyote.

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