09.07.01 slow dog


the mission district is sneaky. one minute i'm walking past burning garbage cans and people selling blankets out of vans and - poof! - the next minute i'm in a gargantuan old theater that's exploded from the back of a furniture storage room. i watch the morning fog roll over the hills from the ocean, then i walk down the street to work and everyone's trying not to retch because some bullet tore a dog's intestines apart.


we have this big street fair every year, and it's this weekend. the adoptions people run the doggie drag show, the PR people talk to the guys from KRON-4, and we do this fund-raising stuffed animal clinic where we suture and splint teddy bears. i was asked to volunteer, but i said no: it's too similar to what we do the rest of the time. your average joe talks about his animal's injury like little susie talks about barbie's head popping off: "ha ha, so i sat on my chihuahua and broke his jaw. can you wrap it or something? i have to get to work." the teddy thing is cute in the abstract.


bronson's a blood donor tonight, or i'm donating his blood, or something. i got back to the hospital after the first half of this post and looky, here's a cat hemorrhaging like crazy. does anyone have a healthy young cat who can be here in the next half hour? sure, i do, and i made it most of the way home before i started to feel presumptuous. got him anyway, and fancy that! their blood types match and charlie has ten zillion red blood cells to spare. he has to go under full anaesthesia for the pull, but i'd want someone to do this for him, right? no big risk, oh sure, not when he's so young, despite the fact that the cat who needs the transfusion was a botched surgery. i crawled in his cage and sat with him for an hour. i'm an ass.

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