Heefy just got his annual shots and we did a consult on pain and anxiety management.
There's a new doggy antianxiety medication just out the last 18 months to try,
we have been using benedryl. I bought two weeks' worth and have not yet steeled self to look
at the itemized vet bill to find out how much it is per dose.
He has anxiety before storms and when boarding, though I think the true issue
when boarding is sleep deprivation rather than anxiety per se.
After three days of not sleeping, imagine what state
a 4 year old child would be in-- imagine one in a kid daycare 24/7.
From there he does stress
licking and is prone to acting out. When GSDs act out, it's kind of a bigger issue
than when a 15 pound dog gets cranky and snappish. Squabbles and displays of
teeth and hitting other kids are not forgiven. Nor should they be... the point is
that GSDs never get a break on the exact same behaviors the little dogs of Yap routinely
exhibit.
Anyway, the vet said just looking at him, he seems like a nice young GSD and
she would have to check the records to know he's 10.
We do everything we can think of to do for his health, mental and physical. He
does get massively spoiled and we don't realize it because in him it
manifests as, well, switching the letters d and g in the word
dog.
He gets really assholishly noxious if we dare to change
the routines, break one of his commandments, or otherwise ask him to do something he
does not expect to do or want to do. To fix we make him do a bunch of obedience
work before he gets fed and petted for 2-3 days and then his head is right-sized again. Until the sense of entitlement creeps up again.
Paying the vet bill was as always a chance to reflect on the absolute luxury
of owning a pet and providing for it as we do. I painted about it a couple of years
ago.
roses are red, oil/mixed media on canvas, 20 x 64"
The newsprint forming the worker housing is from the local paper, classified ads
to rent labor camps.
I wrote about it for the show I just had in Louisville.
roses are red 21 x 64” oil and mixed media on canvas
roses are red is about living alongside and participating in the extreme income disparity in Lahore and in Abu Dhabi. The same extreme disparities exist in the US, but they are harder for most middle class people to see. Since the Great Depression, we’ve become quite good at hiding away our poor people.
I give my dog a better life (good nutrition, health care, physical safety and emotional warmth) than many are able to provide for themselves and their children no matter how hard they work. In the UAE and South Asia, they work in conditions that would drop me in half an hour (50C/122F heat kills). In the UAE, anyone there legally has health care, and most people are there legally. I do not see people who are sick and not treated, or homeless.
Manual laborers mostly live in unadorned concrete labor camps outside the city and are bused in each day to work. When I first moved to Abu Dhabi, they napped at midday in whatever shade they could find. I’ve seen four men curled around the base of a road sign, sharing what shade they had. A road sign at high noon provides not much.
I imagined one such man prayed to Allah for strength and miraculously sprouted sunflowers which shaded him and gave him rest. The better miracle is what actually happened. The Abu Dhabi government this past summer forced a midday work break, 12:30 to 3:00 June through September, and required employers provide shelter, cooling and water. And they are inspecting, and we are watching too.
I look at this painting and a small and not-nice voice inside says, well,
there's
one more painting that is
NOT going to find a flipping home. Do I have to paint such paintings SO DARN BIG?
I am 100% committed to doing and showing non-commercial work, and doing it
just as big and as well as the pieces I know will easily find homes.
It's just hard sometimes.
When I was working the gallery in Louisville a grifter came in and did his con, and after
we got it sorted that I already knew he was't repping a legit charity but
I also wasn't going to scream at him, he really wanted to discuss this painting. I think I wrote
about it when it happened.
(I love, LOVE that moment when efforts at deception fall away but the person is strong
enough not to run. I live for them, actually. So much of social life (for me) involves
me laboriously pretending not to see through such deceptions because the other
person cannot handle being seen for what they are. I do think artists are not exactly
positioned to judge small scale grifters. Wall St. crooks are a different matter,
those most artists can judge with impunity.)
Of the 30+ pieces I had up in the main gallery, he zoomed in on it like it was framed
in three shades of blinking neon. "Did YOU paint that dog sipping wine in the lap of luxury?
While that man has to sleep in the street?"
(I never know who is the real audience for
something I paint. I don't know who will feel understood, comforted or uplifted by it.
It's not my business, literally or metaphorically. I do the work and put it out in the
world. It's what I have to give. And some people have money to give me and some wall space,
and it works out. It has been working out since '95 through all kinds of art markets
and there is no sign it's not going to keep on working out.)
And then Mr. Grifter asked for a buck for coffee, which I happily gave.
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angiereedgarner at 02:49pm on 25/01/2012
