I woke up when the pit-bull jumped on me and started licking me. He seemed very interested in me. Conceivably I smelled of wolf, as I'd been scritching one 18 hours earlier, though how that might affect a pit-bull I don't know. To be frank, from my experience of them, it takes a fairly large amount of sensory input to affect bull terriers at all. I remember standing next to one for about four minutes once before he registered that I was there. When he did he reacted as if I'd just appeared out of thin air (referring to Stanley Corren's 'The Intelligence of Dogs', which Kimba sent me, the Bull Terrier is ranked 113th out of a field of 127, on a scale of working intelligence. The dumbest, according to this list, is the Afghan, and the smartest is the Border Collie - which must make Jess understandably insulted at such times that Dog gets interested in Scheharezade.)
We got organised, went out and got some breakfast (Americans, on the whole, do not seem to eat breakfast at home very often), and headed up north for the rendezvous which would begin the Plush Crawl. As someone with no particular interest in plush, I don't really know how Rainshadow felt about taking me along to this event, or how he felt about being visibly part of what I suppose was a fairly conspicuously oddly behaved group. In any case I very much appreciated him agreeing to take me.
On the way we passed a place called 'Los Gatos', meaning, Rain said, 'The Cats', and so named because the existence of cougars in the area when it was first settled by Europeans.
We arrived at Lynx Meerkat's house. I'm sorry to say I don't remember where this was, or for that matter, where any of the places we drove to that day were located. If someone mentioned the place names, I would probably remember them. Unfortunately most of coastal California South of San Francisco and north of Los Angeles is a bit of a blur to me. The only places I seem to remember with a great deal of clarity are Santa Barbara, and that Dutch town with the windmills in it, which is mentioned in Koontz's 'The Watchers' - but we certainly weren't there.
Eventually a few other people rolled up, and we set off in two vehicles: myself, John Marco, PJ Silverfox, Rain', Porsupah, Unshetek, Foxglove, Lynx, and at least two or three other people whose names managed not to lodge in my memory.
Although it was a Sunday, everything appeared to be open (nevertheless Woody Allen said, "Not only is God dead, you can't get a dentist on weekends", which is certainly true here, and the reason for my recent dental visit on the eve of my US trip). addendum, November 99: These precautions for my 1999 trip nevertheless failed, and I ended up visiting 5 dentists and having 2 root canal operations, one of which was done by a not very good French dentist, and had to be done again when I got back. I am presuming I've exhausted my dental bad luck on that trip.
Our first stop was a sunny, affluent looking suburban shopping strip. A shop on the right side of the road specialised in plush, and though I was fond of the cheetah plush which purred or growled when you squeezed it, I didn't buy anything. On the other side of the road was a shop which sold bric-a-brac and paraphernalia all devoted to a feline theme, which I found rather dull, but which we spent a long time milling around inside. This may have had little to do with what was in the shop, as furries in groups of more than 3 are inclined to mill around aimlessly regardless of where they are. I seem to suffer from this syndrome a bit less than most, and often found myself alone, because I'd rushed on ahead, just for the sake of going somewhere. I did manage to sit still long enough to be in a couple of group photos which were taken adjacent to the cat store, outside a shop with the name 'Backdoor Boutique," - though it seemed only to possess a front door, and wasn't, so far as I could see, gay-themed.
After this we headed off to a toy store opposite one of those monolithic Californian shopping malls. I remember that there was a plush, or a doll of some sort on display here which said or did something rather bizarre, and possibly unintentionally suggestive or vulgar. I have a photo of John Marco and several others laughing uproariously as someone manipulates this plush or toy. Unfortunately, the ends of their fingers are tantalisingly out of shot, and I can't tell what it is they're holding. A little down the aisle to the right, I found a Barbie Doll which recited the 95 theses of Martin Luther. A bought a Cascade River Otter to give to someone as a gift. I had an argument with the woman at the checkout, about what the price tag read. She eventually conscripted another customer, who agreed with me. The friend already had this otter as it turns out, so he came home with me.
In the big mall across the road we stopped and had lunch. A sign on the table said "Collect 25 seals for a free meal." I kept the sign with the intention of giving it to Farallon, since he must have enough Seals for two or three free meals. While we were eating, Lynx Meerkat got into a conversation with me about Australia, during which he proposed that 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' is the best Australian film ever made. This made me wonder what other Australian films had made their way to the US. I subsequently found out, almost none, and certainly none worth watching. I think I told him that 'Priscilla' made me want to vomit, which probably didn't do wonders for our relationship. On the way out it struck me that Porsupah, who has a beard, and a rather upper middle class British accent, seemed very much like he ought to be a member of Jethro Tull.
The next stop was one of those monster shopping malls, where we visited the Warner Store. I wondered whether the staff were accustomed to largish groups of adults in animal T-shirts turning up and oohing and aahing over the merchandise like kids. Porsupah showed me a Pepe and (whatsisgirlfreind's name? I forget) cookie jar, which he coveted, and which I would have liked to buy (it was $40, which may be a lot for a cookie jar, but believe me, that Warner merchandise is an outrageous price back here. If you could buy that item in Tasmania it'd probably be a couple of hundred bucks, so $40 didn't seem that much to me. It was mainly that I didn't think I'd get the thing back without smashing it. Six months later, when I was in San Diego, I eventually did grab one, at a discount price.)
Finally - and this is where I think things started getting pretty surreal - we ended up in a pet supply store. I don't really know who's idea this was. I don't know if we had just plain run out of ideas, or what we expected to find there. It was a big sort of supermarket affair. We stood around reading books about dogs. Why, I don't know. There were some little beanie-baby sized plush ferrets. I didn't really want to buy one, but I stood behind the bookstands and flung the ferret up at the ceiling fifty or so times. I thought it might amuse people at the front of the store to see this ferret repeatedly leaping up above the bookshelf. Eventually we must have come to the consensus that things were petering out, and we left - though I did grab a plush Dalmatian from 101 Dalmatians, who was on sale at 1/4 price. That's Lucky - over there on the arm of the couch.
I might seem to have been taking the mickey a bit with this plushcrawl, but in truth it was a great time. I was really grateful to the Bay Area furs for setting it up for me, and to Rain for getting me there.
Lynx's proposal to go the movies seemed to evaporate. I don't know if that was because he forgot about it, or because he was a bit put off by my bagging Priscilla. Before heading home Rain and I stopped off and visited Unshetek at her place. She has a little shrine to the Goddess (is there more than one? I'm not very up on these things) in the yard, cats, and a large number of plushies, including the big Douglas Wolf - Hispo is his name, if I remember rightly. I knew all about Hispo from the PML, so that was a bit like meeting another friend.
Back to Santa Cruz, the couch, and the pit-bull, who was less pleased about finding me at the front door than he was about finding me on the couch. Tomorrow, a run up to SF, then me on a bus and out of there.
Rain, has your ex-neighbour got a record deal yet?
