Luky's Birthday

Yesterday, December 21, 2009, was Luky’s birthday. He turned 12. He’s still celebrating, so I have yet to hear his thoughts about being another seven (human) years older.

It seems ironic, but as brief as a dog's life might be - comparatively - a lot of interesting events have come to pass getting the two of us to this point. For example, we've shared four homes, though it feels like more due to a few extended visits. He learned to navigate the horse stables, music studios, quasi-professional kitchens, and numerous urban and suburban parks and natural expanses.

Of course, Luky suffers the same disadvantage of anyone born this close to the holidays. His birthday is generally overlooked for all the end-of-year celebrations. One of his canine pals - a girlfriend, as one must presume - Sky, a Border Collie from a neighborhood across town, came to stay for a few days. Sky is 12 also, so today's Lake Avondale (www.lakeavondale.blogspot.com) walk was properly slow and respectful of shared arthritis.

Still, we enjoyed some frisbee chasing and Geese gawking. All in all, it was a bright, sunny, cool day, and perfect for shaking some fur among the fallen leaves.

Happy Birthday, Luky!

Our Reflections On “Dean Spanley”

Luky and I watched the 2008 film, Dean Spanley, together the other evening. He has not stopped talking about it since. According to him there are too many dog life accuracies for it (the story) not to have some root in reality.

Dean Spanley – based on the short novel, “My Talks With Dean Spanley” by the Irish fantasy author, Lord Dunsany (Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett) – is a film of metaphysics and love, directed by Toa Fraser and featuring indispensable performances by Peter O’Toole, Sam Neill, Jeremy Northam and Bryan Brown. I’ve been forced to return to the cable box to view it at least twice again. In addition to my predictable response to its meaning of life-oriented message, I have to admit that, for me, part of the movie’s attraction is O’Toole’s dependable demonstration of our best intention of the term, “actor.”

Putting my own thoughts and reactions aside for now, I can only say that Luky has gone to a deeper place with the whole experience. He stops short of attributing sixth sense sorts of powers to anyone in particular – with the exception of Lord Dunsany (whom Luky is convinced must have held some spiritual connection with canines somewhere along the way) – but the argument I keep hearing from him is that, for whatever reason and by whatever mechanism, there simply is no way the Dean Spanley story could have been imagined and told without a human-dog mind meld of one kind or another.

I don’t even try to delve. He’s thinking and feeling something personal, and it’s leading him to ideas about Irish authors and fantasy literature. The last thing I want to do now is mention that Lord Dunsany’s family name, “Plunkett,” is also the name of O’Toole’s character, Peter Plunkett, in the 1988 haunted castle comedy, High Spirits. I’m afraid we’d be packing for a transatlantic flight.