I like to know my exits. I will not live in a place with only one door. I sit in the back corners of restaurants facing out. I like to know alternative routes out of everywhere and will study the escape plan of a hotel before I even go to my room. I never check in beyond the third floor. I always drive my own car.
Fire hazards. The French Exit. Hurricane preparedness. Plan B. Why am I like this?
I cannot answer. I've always been this way. I'm not really nervous, but I've been described as 'wound tight' and ' good in a crisis' which isn't going to land me any seats at the dinner party, which is fine. I'd rather be in the kitchen anyway. There are very few people I feel comfortable breaking bread with.
I don't really worry about what others may worry about, driving alone for months through Mexico in a 15 year old van, for example, did not worry me. Living next to a drunk couple in Florida who often fought to extreme violence where a stray bullet could go through my wall? Worry. (I moved but heard that they started a fire and the building had to evacuate, so I wasn't far off)
But for someone who likes to know how to get out of physical structures, I sure do get myself involved in a lot of situations that require intervention (and investment) to leave. Commercial leases. Huge remote "quirky" farm properties in the woods. Restaurant ownership. And now, a dog rescue.
Stranded in a forgotten place, that I realize is kept this way on purpose, it is going to take a focused effort to leave. And the joke is now I don't have a car, but a dozen more dogs. And less money. Sounds like a bad premise for a reality show.
Before the desert gods flipped my van and dropped me here, I was a wandering soul who had been on the road for 3 years. Sure, you could call it lack of commitment, that's the low hanging fruit of it all. But after a long stint of "waiting for the market to recover" I was enjoying a real estate free life. Hotels, bless them, and some okay from time to time Airbnbs have been it for a few. I did some car camping but I'll admit that I like a full bed and a full bathroom if I'm honest. But none of that matters, it's gone. All of it, totaled and scraped off the pavement and hauled away by the wreckers. Poof. So now what? I feel like each dying dog or quivering puppy I take in is another layer of silk around my body in the web of my dusty demise.
Yes that's dramatic but it's no easy feat to find a place that is suitable for both a pack of 12 dogs and a human caretaker. I'll just fix these doggos up and rehome them! But they aren't easy to adopt and when they go, the dogs end up back here in a week after neglect sets in at their new home. But it doesn't stop me from picking up a bag of bones like Miss Violet from the curb and bringing her inside. Another nail in my coffin I think. But honestly, it never crossed my mind to leave her where she lay. Even just to give her a proper burial or have some soup before she died. I mean what am I going to do? Head to some Todos Santos juice fast retreat and get my chakras realigned while drinking a hand squeezed mezcalrita at $14? Puhleeze.
I didn't come here on purpose. I ended up getting a purpose by getting dropped off here. So I have to stop looking for the EXIT ramp. How anyone could not want to immediately buy a warehouse of feed and meaty bones and tick tweezers and open a clinic and make doggy houses all over and water pit stops is beyond me but there are definitely days that I look for the escape hatch. A little recharge that didn't come from a few days in bed with a head cold or migraine. A change of scene. A ride somewhere. A restaurant. Someone who followed through and did what they said they would (pay me back, bring a package back from the city) a fellow dog lover. Some fresh tshirts. And as mentioned in every previous post, A Desk Chair. I've figured out how to make the dogs comfy, but I have no idea what I want and I guess a ripening age knows better than to just go out looking. We did that already.
…….
Thanks for reading, thanks for sharing. For more info on the rescue go to linktr.ee/lolasdogrescue