After leaving Canada Dry ( https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/08/15/lohw-canada/) we continued our pet trail travels, eager to uncover the uniqueness of each place. The plan was to visit different places living as locals by animal sitting. As very responsible pet sitters, we never felt comfortable leaving the animals in our care for more than a few hours at a time, so the sitting part of this situation was very real. While some of the pets could walk as far as we could, others got winded after half a block. We have thankfully not done any cat-walking, although we have seen plenty of cats being walked on leashes. Further planting us in our house sits, is that we are carless and at the mercy of public transportation or our feet https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/05/15/van-gone/.
To visit family and to round out our Southern van trip last fall/winter, we covered Northeast, Mid West, California and Pacific Northwest. We have gone or will have gone from Los Angeles to Belchertown to Boston to Providence to Deerfield to Amherst to Minneapolis to Edina to San Francisco to Mendocino to Shoreline to Broadview-Seattle to Olympia to Fremont-Seattle to Steilacoom to Portland to Mendocino to Los Angeles to Valencia, Spain. https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/07/06/the-dog-days-of-summer/
Many places boast about being so unique or weird, but over the last 6 years of traveling, very few places feel distinctively or pleasantly weird. The motto for Portland (where we are currently sitting) is “Keep Portland Weird”. Actually, several cities have adopted this motto Austin, TX (which actually was the first to use it), Louisville, KY (what?), Indianapolis, IN (Really? Their twist on the slogan is “Keep Indy Indie”. Not bad but really?) and Internationally- Brno, Czech Republic (“Udržujte Brno divné”), that we agree with just for the spelling alone. Everywhere apparently wants to be unique, wants to be weird but if everyone is weird, does that become ordinary? It is all kind of silly and annoying, except for pet sitting. Pet sitting is truly weird, but pleasantly weird.
The truly weird. With each sit, we step into the houses and lives of complete strangers and begin to understand these random acquaintances in more personal ways. Completely bizarre and yes, a little creepy. A little uncomfortable to sit on their couches, put away their dishes or locate a pizza cutter in idiosyncratic kitchen arrangements. We need to figure out the TV remote(s), learn the trash and recycle schedule and what time the mail is delivered. We live in constant fear about breaking something or losing an animal. We slide into the daily patterns with their animals (although Nick successfully changed every pet’s feeding schedule, and walked every dog farther and more frequently than the dog wanted. Even the horses got up and out earlier).
We assumed odd animal routines, with the pinnacle being the dog whose breakfast included literally tossing a handful of coleslaw on the kitchen floor, followed by collagen sprinkled on canned tuna water, followed by spoonful of offal, followed by frozen vegetables tossed on the living room carpet.
The various owners have been a community theater actor, optician, christian pastor, long distance runner, collector of mid-century euphemia/tchackas, painter, realtor, TV news writer/on air personality, model railroad hobbyist, psychotherapist, former owner of a bowling alley, historical novelist, regular novelist, professional quilter, and a self-proclaimed groupie for the band the National.
The pleasantly weird. What is nice about pet sitting, is it is truly a mutualistic relationship, where both parties benefit. The best type of symbiosis. We get to help someone go somewhere by watching their pets, watering their plants, picking up their mail, tidying their house or obliterating pantry moths (see part 2). We get to travel and live in a new place and they get to travel. After 2+ years of being home-bound, the travel for some of our owners was rather poignant and very needed. A trip to see friends before another round of chemo therapy, weddings, a spiritual retreat, seeing adult children/elderly parents/grandchildren or just an escape.
While seeing bears out the window (https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/07/06/the-dog-days-of-summer/ ), was a definite highlight, we have had some other pretty lovely views.
East of the rockies…
West of the Rockies
Northern California….
Pacific Northwest
Los Angeles
The conclusion is that towns are not as weird as the people who live there. Or maybe it is just pet owners who are truly weird, not just us, and everyone is pretty weird in their own ways. No need to “keep” people weird, they just will be. But the weird people were kind, thoughtful, have a lot of shoes and don’t take care of their pots and pans well.
Pets watched here https://chosenfugue.wordpress.com/2022/10/29/sitting-part-2-animals-animals-animals/
Chosen Fugue 
2 thoughts on “Sitting Part 1: Location, Location, Location”