The Sawx Suck, Boston Does Not

The oddest selfie I have ever taken.

The Boston Red Sox are pretty bad this year. The local sports radio station, which lives to tear apart struggling local teams, has been having a field day. The Red Sox are for sale! Their manager shows up late for games! They're moving the team to Vermont! Ahhhhhhhh!

And that's just NPR.

The Red Sox are an inescapable part of living in Boston. Though I was kidding about NPR, a few weeks ago the local NPR station (WBUR) did spend 15 minutes breaking down a Red Sox trade. Usually, NPR announcers can't pronounce players' names correctly. It's a different kind of town.

Around 10:30 p.m., during a rain delay.

That's what has made the tradition to city life a difficult one. It's a different kind of town. Obviously, I've had some trouble getting myself, my dog and The Wife acquainted. One thing we were not prepared for: Humidity. July and August are pretty miserable months just about anywhere, but to have them as your first two months is rough.

We have two small window-unit air conditioners in our condo. They could barely keep the apartment tolerable during the warmest (and most humid) summer on record. I currently think living on the West Coast sounds spectacular, due to an utter lack of humidity. I've long argued that if it wasn't for money factors, everyone would live in San Diego. I would hire a moving company for the first time in my life if that were to actually happen.

But hold off on registering Good Evening From San Diego as a blog name. Temperatures have dropped. TW has started her work routine and likes it, generally speaking. The last three days have been cloudless, with temperatures in the 70s.

It's funny that things like weather have a profound effect on our perceptions. For instance, if you go skiing at a ski resort that hasn't had snow in two weeks, your experience will be a little different than if you go during or just after a big dump. That's what skiers call big snowstorms. I apologize for skiers.

Boston's South End is amazing and incredibly expensive.
My Dad needs to win the Powerball lottery if we're going
to live there.

A multitude of people have asked the obvious question: Do you like Boston? Until a few days ago, the answer was a pretty firm no. We don't have any friends. It's hot. We don't live in the nice part of town. Boo hoo. Etc.

And then the last 48 hours happened. I drove 12 minutes to pick up TW at work. We had a lovely Thai food lunch. We'll be doing that every week, it's been decided. That wasn't our only date. We met last night at an Irish pub with an amazing beer list and a few cheap appetizers. Then we took the subway home.

I took another 12 minute drive this morning. Dove through the tunnel with Daisy Duke riding shotgun, then up onto Storrow Drive. If you're a tourist, Storrow Drive is the highway from hell. It has weird left exits. There's generally traffic and there's generally people honking.

But at 11 a.m. on a beautiful sunny day, Storrow Drive is absolutely stunning. The road winds along the Charles River, basically on top of it, really. There's sailing clubs, runners, and most importantly, convenient access to a Trader Joe's that had a near-empty parking lot. I forgot the gluten-free macaroni and cheese, but that's OK. I'll go back tomorrow.

Daisy Duke and I were bombing down Storrow at 40 mph (no easy feat, I assure you), when I saw my favorite part of Boston dead ahead: A gigantic Citgo sign. It's not the sign so much as what the sign sits behind, Fenway Park.

On my first trip to Fenway, I was coming down from a job interview in New Hampshire. I had no freaking idea where I was going. With no map and no pre-planning, I just figured I'd drive down the river and look for Fenway. It was the dumbest thing I'd ever done to that point while driving a car, but amid 5 p.m. traffic on Storrow Drive, fighting for my rental car's life, I saw the Citgo sign and knew exactly where to go.

The river. Trader Joe's. Fenway Park. Date nights on the subway. Do I like Boston? I do, but it would be great if the Red Sox would fire Bobby Valentine.

A Doggone Fool

There's a lot of stories about Boston. There's a little dog park up the hill from our condo that's about an acre of open land. At the top of the hill, there's a large rock with a plaque that tells of the park's history as a military for the British in the 1600s and the Americans in the late 1700s. 

A more recent story involves skunks. To an outsider, "Boston" and "skunks" seems like a contradiction, but they're everywhere in Eastie. I saw one within my first few nights of living in East Boston. You see them only at night, in fact, but you see them relatively often. 

The Wife heard a story at the dog park up the hill about the skunks. Supposedly, the skunks were brought in by the city to control the rat population. Maybe they've had success with that. I have yet to see a rat in Boston.

Join the smelly side, Daisy.

There is, however, another mammalian in East Boston, and it was always likely they would meet. Daisy Duke is an affable chocolate Lab who is prone to late-night bowel antics. In Portland, Maine, she made a habit of tearing after squirrels, often into traffic, just to say hi to the things. I honestly don't think she would ever bite another living animal. She's that tame.

Unfortunately, to a 2-year-old Lab, squirrels and skunks kind of look alike. And they both have names that star with the letter "S." Daisy Duke has been well aware of the Eastie skunk population. Daisy Duke goes for a quick walk to the park around 1 a.m. on nights I get home from work. She has seen the skunks, oh yes. She's just so damn curious about them. Do they want to race her? Play fetch against her? It's just so different.

It was inevitable that the two great forces, Daisy Duke and the Skunk, would collide. Like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, they were drawn to each other. 

Last night, at 1:10 a.m., I left the house to take Daisy Duke on her nightly constitutional. The Wife had gone to bed early, leaving the late-night chore to us. That's not unusual, but some nights are easier than others.

As we approached the park, I did my usual skunk check. I smelled. No skunk. Then I made the critical error. I let Daisy Duke off her leash. 

Daisy Duke took off like a laser-guided missile. The skunk was about 75 feet to our right and, at 1 a.m., the city lights don't light every corner of the park. Time went into slow motion for me.

"Well, I always figured this was going to happen," I thought.

The skunk wasn't quite facing my dog as Daisy Duke slowed her approach. There was a 1-second pause, a slight hissing sound, then DD skittered away, confused. What the hell is that thing?

Then she smelled it.

I couldn't smell it. But you could just tell. Daisy almost immediately flopped (and when I say flopped, I mean she threw herself) onto the ground. Thankfully, it had just rained and the grass was wet. She writhed for a minute. She got up. She looked at the skunk. "My God. What the hell is that thing?"

She ran a little farther away and flopped. And writhed. Got up. Flopped. And writhed. She was inconsolable, not that I was trying to do any consoling. She'd gotten herself into this mess and I was content to let her writhe on wet grass as long as she was willing.

After about 5 minutes, I texted TW. "Your dog got sprayed by a skunk."

Then, a follow-up: "It doesn't smell nearly as bad as you think it would."

That was true. I don't know if it was a young skunk or a whole-grain, organic-food-only skunk, or if the skunk had somehow missed spraying Daisy Duke. The smell was only about a fifth, maybe one-tenth as bad as you think it's going to be.

Still. It was bad and it would not (WILL not) go away. 

Back at home, TW was Googling "deskunk a dog." Always great in a crisis, she also updated her Facebook status to let the world know what she was Googling. TW's Best Friend just had a baby and was all over the post at 4 a.m. Dislike.

I arrived around 1:30. The bedroom doors were closed. Contain the damage. TW found a cleansing recipe for skunk smell. It called for hydrogen peroxide. A couple of things struck me funny about this de-skunking recipe:

1. You can't mix it ahead of time because it can explode. Like with fire and such.

2. You can't leave it in the dog's hair for long because it will bleach it. 

The good thing about living in Eastie: It takes about 2 minutes to get to Walgreens, which is open 24 hours. Also, hydrogen peroxide costs $1.50 for a pint, cheaper than beer. I bought five.

Back at home, TW was naked. Normally, this is a very good thing. But here's the thing about the de-skunking process. You don't want to smell like skunk and you don't want your clothes bleached. I joined her, because dog bathing is a two-person job in the best of circumstances. Least sexy duel nudity in history. Sorry, Mom.

Daisy Duke did something she never does: She jumped into the tub. Normally, she despises baths and has to be airlifted into the vessel. Not at 1:40 a.m. after a skunk attack.

The mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish soap was applied, rubbed in, and rinsed out. Daisy Duke was then given a regular soap-and-water rinse. Then she was banished to her crate for the evening.

We were laughing almost the entire time, aided by the fact that, blessedly, it didn't stink that much. We've seen far, far worse. 

If we can glean a positive, other than the fact I got to see TW naked, it is the attitude adjustment in Daisy Duke. TW reports that DD was very hesitant to go outside this morning. That's just as well. We don't need to add any more episodes to the lore of Boston.