Operation Senior Dog Transport

Pocita's a little nervous at first

Los Angeles can be a hard place to be a homeless senior dog.  Shelters here are crowded and there are tons of lap-sized dogs available. So what's a dog to do if she finds herself without a place to call her own?

If she's lucky, she gets noticed by someone like my Facebook friend Claudia. I've "known" Claudia since a mutual friend "introduced" us a couple of years ago when we were looking for help with an abused dog that Gabriel had found near our house. But I hadn't ever met her in person until this Friday. She's a very dedicated animal rescuer, and I'm so happy that we were finally able to help one of her charges. Two years is a long time to owe someone a favor!

Earlier in the week I saw Pocita's photo on her wall, and that she needed a ride to Muttsville, a senior dog rescue in San Francisco. Coincidently, Gabriel and I were heading that direction to do some research for a comic book project we're working on. What luck! A couple of messages back and forth, and we were ready to take on our small passenger.

Starting to get interested in the trip

She was a bit worried at first. She'd lost her person to cancer and ended up as a foster at the age of 8 or 9. And here she was getting in a car with a couple of strangers after already traveling all the way from Long Beach to Los Angeles with Claudia! No wonder she was too nervous to eat breakfast.

She was too well mannered to whine or complain though, and after we'd been on the road for a little while she decided that my lap wasn't too terrible of a place to sit.

Life looks better with cheese

Then, after I bribed her with a tiny piece of cheese , she decided that maybe things would be okay after all and started to relax.

More cheese?

We stopped a lot more than we usually do on the LA to San Francisco run. Six hours in the car is a long time for anyone, let alone an elderly pup, but we still made it to the city in time to stop by the amazing Isotope Comics and meet James Sime, who sold us some very nice books and recommended that we visit Blue Bottle Coffee which did indeed have fabulous coffee. Many thanks to James for making us feel so welcome!

Either Pocita is very short or Gabriel is very tall

Before we got to Isotope we met up with Pocita's new foster, who couldn't have been nicer. Convinced that she was in good hands, we were free to travel the city and get the reference we needed for our new project. Happily, Ron Richards of iFanboy was nice enough to meet up with us and give us some tips. Without him we would have never been able to get everything we needed in just one afternoon. We also would never have found the bar we ended up at afterwards. Specs is in an alley right across from City Lights Books. Who knew? It's quite a fun place. I have to believe that only in San Francisco would Gabriel have been able to have a conversation about Tombo pens with a guy at the next table in a pub.

Sadly, we had to head home after just 24 hours. The trip back was a lot less fun without our co-pilot, but I have high hopes that she will get a permanent home soon. And now, back to making comics!

Pocita's first look at San Francisco

This Just In: Sea Lions Love Comics!

A few months ago we finally made it back to San Francisco. Much as we love it there it's just far enough away that we seldom get around to making the trek. True, we did attend the Treasure Island Music Festival last fall, but that was all about the rock and the roll and the giant Ferris wheel, not about sight seeing.





This time, though, was for my birthday. So along with visits to all the museums and bookstores (and of course the Tiki Room) we had to visit the sea lions that hang out on Pier 39. I helped to rescue more than a few marine mammals during my tenure as a wildlife vet tech a few years back, so I thought they would be happy to see me. Boy was I wrong! Hardly any of the big stinky critters even bothered to show up.

As it turns out, I shouldn't have felt slighted. In fact, we were lucky to see the few that did show up. Last November the 1,700 or so sea lions that had been hanging around Pier 39 for the last 20 years decamped suddenly for parts unknown. Only recently have a few stragglers returned. No one knows why they left, no one knows where they've been, and no one knows if they'll return.

Today, however, I learned where they are right now: Oregon. That's right, all those sea lions just packed up last fall and moved to the Oregon coast. What could possibly be in Oregon to tempt them? More fish? Well, maybe. Rain? They're already soaked. Hipsters? They can see plenty of those in San Francisco. I believe that leaves just one thing: comic books. As far as I can tell, a large percentage of American comic book creators live in and around Portland. The sea lions must just be getting as close as they can to this comic book mecca.

Will they ever return to Pier 39? I think it's unlikely. The rents in San Francisco are a little high for most comics professionals.

Live! At the California Academy of Sciences!

First, a small disclaimer. There wasn't really any live music at the Academy of Sciences. But there was a DJ, and drinks, and a whole lot of living animals, and fish, and plants... So I think that, in aggregate, I can get away with calling it "live".

We spent a total of about 36 hours in San Francisco last week, where it fell to me to set the agenda. My birthday, my tour priorities! Compared to Los Angeles there is a lot to do and see there, but I knew that we couldn't pass up what Wikipedia says is one of the ten largest natural history museums in the world. Then I found out that they host a 21 and over night every Thursday. I remember touring a museum after hours with my girl scout troop when I was a kid; the mystery and illicit feeling of being there after the unwashed masses had gone home. No way was I going to miss the opportunity to do that again, especially if champaign cocktails were on hand.

When we arrived I was astonished to see that the place was packed! Even in February, in the driving rain, this was clearly the place to be on a Thursday night. And with good reason. The museum has been in existence since 1853. It was formed just three years after California joined the Union, but even back then it was striking blows for gender equality. Almost immediately a resolution was passed to "approve of the aid of females in every department of natural science, and invite their cooperation". At the time it was housed in China Town, but soon the 80,000 visitors it attracted each year forced it to move to Market Street. Sadly, it was badly crippled in the terrible 1906 earthquake, but it rose from the ashes to set up shop in its current location in Golden Gate Park.

Disaster struck again in 1989 when the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged the grand old building and rendered the aquarium portion almost unusable. Never a backwards-looking institution, it was decided to take the opportunity to completely re-imagine the building. Today it is one of the "greenest" museum designs in the world, right down to the insulation in the walls which is made out of scraps of recycled denim.

Incorporated into the new design are bits of the old art nouveau Stienhart Aquarium, which lend a bit of intimacy to the shiny new public spaces. Since we were there after dark there were added bonuses too: most of the nocturnal animals were wide awake and extremely active, including a giant Pacific octopus which was much wider than my outstretched arms. Was it responding to the music or just annoyed at the invasion of its privacy? I won't speculate, but I will say this: child or adult, nothing beats a night at the museum.