St. John Bosco
Hold on: this one's going to be a bumpy ride.
St. John Bosco, whose feast day is the last day of January, was known for his work with kids, particularly poor kids in bad neighborhoods. One of the ways he'd get their attention was to juggle--which has made him (although I'm not sure the Pope knows about this) the patron saint of jugglers.
When we went to get our dog, I woke up in the middle of the night the night before, and thought, "Bosco," before I went back to sleep. So when we got her, that was clearly her name. There was no reason for me to wake up and think "Bosco," but sometimes you just have to accept these unexpected gifts from the universe.
Bosco (the dog, not the saint) has always been a wee bit strange. She's a whippet/Aussie shepherd mix, and that means that her natural instinct is to round things up and then kill them. She was left at the pound much too young, and never learned many of the normal ways to be a dog, so she had to make up her own rules. She really likes rules, and once she has made a rule, she sticks with it. For instance, the rope with the ball on it has different rules than the rope without the ball, and if you play by the wrong rules, she'll stop and stare at you until you decide to behave.
Now, Bosco (again, the dog, not the saint; we're pretty much done with the saint) is a white dog, but she has light brown blotches across her back, as if someone spilled some Bosco over her (the chocolate milk, not the dog or the saint). If you're deeply interested in Bosco the drink, the appropriate website is www.boscoworld.com, and you can buy Bosco hats and t-shirts, etc. there.
Bosco (the dog) also, strangely, has always liked to juggle. This goes back to her strange genetics. She'd go into the backyard, pick up a few oranges that had fallen from the trees, bring them in and carefully place them on the antique Bokhara rug that she always thought belonged to her. She'd then put the oranges into a line, bat them back and forth, making them weave little patterns. Quite good juggling, really, for somebody with no thumbs.
And when she was finished, she'd kill them, ripping them to shreds.
Here in Skagway, there are three mountains visible out my livingroom window. The closest, about a quarter mile away (this is a very narrow valley) is maybe 1500 feet high or so. The one behind that is perhaps twice that high. The third is over 4,500 feet, and the way I know this is that the first two mountains are soft and rounded, the third is hard and spiky. During the Ice Age, the glaciers in this part of the world were about a mile deep, so round mountains are under a mile, spiky mountains are over a mile. Easy to remember.
Today, it has snowed off and on all day; first one mountain, then another, then another will disappear, and they'l reappear in different order each time the snow lets up. Sometimes I can see the spike of the tallest one; sometimes, all I can see is the one that's right here close.
And all I can figure is that the storm is juggling the mountains.
A nod to St. John Bosco.
And, much as I know how much Bosco (the dog) hates cold and wet, how much she'd hate it here--
there are few things harder than trying to make a new home when your dog is thousands of miles away.
St. John Bosco, whose feast day is the last day of January, was known for his work with kids, particularly poor kids in bad neighborhoods. One of the ways he'd get their attention was to juggle--which has made him (although I'm not sure the Pope knows about this) the patron saint of jugglers.
When we went to get our dog, I woke up in the middle of the night the night before, and thought, "Bosco," before I went back to sleep. So when we got her, that was clearly her name. There was no reason for me to wake up and think "Bosco," but sometimes you just have to accept these unexpected gifts from the universe.
Bosco (the dog, not the saint) has always been a wee bit strange. She's a whippet/Aussie shepherd mix, and that means that her natural instinct is to round things up and then kill them. She was left at the pound much too young, and never learned many of the normal ways to be a dog, so she had to make up her own rules. She really likes rules, and once she has made a rule, she sticks with it. For instance, the rope with the ball on it has different rules than the rope without the ball, and if you play by the wrong rules, she'll stop and stare at you until you decide to behave.
Now, Bosco (again, the dog, not the saint; we're pretty much done with the saint) is a white dog, but she has light brown blotches across her back, as if someone spilled some Bosco over her (the chocolate milk, not the dog or the saint). If you're deeply interested in Bosco the drink, the appropriate website is www.boscoworld.com, and you can buy Bosco hats and t-shirts, etc. there.
Bosco (the dog) also, strangely, has always liked to juggle. This goes back to her strange genetics. She'd go into the backyard, pick up a few oranges that had fallen from the trees, bring them in and carefully place them on the antique Bokhara rug that she always thought belonged to her. She'd then put the oranges into a line, bat them back and forth, making them weave little patterns. Quite good juggling, really, for somebody with no thumbs.
And when she was finished, she'd kill them, ripping them to shreds.
Here in Skagway, there are three mountains visible out my livingroom window. The closest, about a quarter mile away (this is a very narrow valley) is maybe 1500 feet high or so. The one behind that is perhaps twice that high. The third is over 4,500 feet, and the way I know this is that the first two mountains are soft and rounded, the third is hard and spiky. During the Ice Age, the glaciers in this part of the world were about a mile deep, so round mountains are under a mile, spiky mountains are over a mile. Easy to remember.
Today, it has snowed off and on all day; first one mountain, then another, then another will disappear, and they'l reappear in different order each time the snow lets up. Sometimes I can see the spike of the tallest one; sometimes, all I can see is the one that's right here close.
And all I can figure is that the storm is juggling the mountains.
A nod to St. John Bosco.
And, much as I know how much Bosco (the dog) hates cold and wet, how much she'd hate it here--
there are few things harder than trying to make a new home when your dog is thousands of miles away.
posted by e. Readicker-Henderson at 3:56 PM
2 Comments:
I assumed the dog was named after the chocolate syrup. Had no idea there was a saint. Maybe the syrup was named after the saint.
I never knew of the saint until I met Bosco the dog, those years ago. But Bosco the chocolate syrup was ahead of both in my awareness - it used to be advertised on TV ca. 1968, with the jingles, "Bosco puts rockets in your pockets," and "Bosco puts hustle in your muscle." My mother, wisely, refused to buy any. I would think that Bosco, ca. 2006, would be among the defunct products of the world, but no. The web site says that I can buy it at Jewel, about a mile from my home. But no clue as to whether it was named after the saint.
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