Sun’s Jim Grisanzio interviews Chad Mynhier, the first outside contributor of DTrace code.
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Duchess, a Dog
From 1967 to 1972 my family lived in Bangkok. My dad worked for the US Agency for International Development, so we were officially part of the diplomatic community, with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto.
One of which was to live in a sort of expatriates’ ghetto, an apartment compound called Red Rose Court – eight or ten rows of three-story townhouses, all rented by falang (foreign) families. This little village was administered by Orapa, a Thai woman so fierce that her title – “landlady” – was synonymous with fear (for me, at least – I was a timid child).
Red Rose Court had a large driveway running its length, on one side bordered with a tall hedge of red – not roses! – hibiscus. The main gate opened onto the large, heavily-trafficked avenue that was Red Rose Court’s official address. Out the front gate and half a block to the right were a few shops that I was allowed to visit to buy candy.
The back gate gave onto a smaller, dirtier street where I was forbidden to go at all. Both gates were usually open during the day, but by some unwritten rule (I don’t remember whether there were guards) no one came in except people who were supposed to be there. And some of Bangkok’s teeming population of mangy, underfed, abused stray animals.
I was a timid child, but not stupid, and I loved animals. I learned early the trick of: “Mom, it followed me home, can I keep it?” My mother loves cats, so it wasn’t difficult to persuade her, and we acquired two cats that way. Dogs, too, realized that we foreigners were a soft touch, especially compared to Thais, who were often cruel with strays – I had seen Thai kids throwing rocks at dogs, and hitting them with sticks.
It didn’t take much street smarts for any animal to realize that Red Rose Court was a gold mine: 40 families with kids, many of them nostalgic for pets they had left behind in America, and most far more disposed than the locals to be kind to animals. When a small, skinny street dog made overtures, the kids in the compound responded gladly (in spite of our parents’ dire warnings about animals carrying rabies), and showered her with love and treats. She was grateful and affectionate, if not terribly clean. But the dirt didn’t show much against her coat. She was a color that would be called tortoiseshell on a cat; being a dog, she was brindled.
Street dogs all over Asia are much the same (I believe someone has written a thesis explaining why): medium height and light build, very short fur in various colors, lopped-over ears, stringy tails, and, usually, a head-down, furtive demeanour. They are also treated much the same all over Asia: badly.
We kids kept the dog for several weeks, hiding her when grownups were around because we were pretty sure they wouldn’t approve. But Orapa knew everything that went on in Red Rose Court, and she definitely didn’t approve of filthy animals sullying her property. She called in the dog catchers.
Had they arrived during school hours, the dog would have simply and quietly disappeared. But the dog catchers showed up with their big nets – just like in Warner Brothers cartoons – at a time we were all around, and we knew immediately what was up.
Instead of a quiet roundup of one insignificant dog, the catchers and Orapa found themselves confronted with a howling, weeping mob of kids of all ages. Though Orapa tried to calm us by claiming that the dog wouldn’t be hurt, we knew she was lying: in Thailand at that time there was no question of holding an animal at a shelter for adoption: she would simply be killed, immediately (and probably not “humanely”).
We led them a merry chase, always getting between the dog catchers and the dog, with Orapa screaming behind, until they finally cornered us. Then there was a standoff, the dog catchers not quite daring to physically wrest the dog from us.
My mother swooped in like an avenging angel and offered to officially adopt her. I’m not sure Orapa appreciated this – if this lowly street dog was elevated to the status of official pet, she would have to continue to tolerate its presence, and the defeat grated on her.
Duchess, as my mother named her, was one smart dog. Though she hadn’t had any contact with my mother before, she recognized her savior, and adopted our family in turn. She behaved well through being vetted and bathed, and stuck close to home ever after.
The following year my dad was posted back to Bangkok (after two years in Vietnam), and Duchess moved with us to a big house the next street over, a property also managed by Orapa. In a house like this, a watchdog was essential – housebreaking was so common, and the thieves so skilled, that we knew foreign families who lost one stereo after another, and never even heard anyone in the house.
Nothing of the sort ever happened to us. Perhaps because she had been so cruelly treated on the streets, Duchess hated Thais (though she accepted our servants as part of the family), and would attack strangers on sight, no questions asked. Workmen, gardeners, and other legitimate visitors had to be escorted through the property, and no one else got in at all. In our three years in that house, we only ever had one thing stolen: a table cloth that was drying on the clothesline near the back fence. My dad was roused by Duchess’ barking just in time to see someone scrambling over the wall – and leaving a bloody trail behind.
My parents separated in 1972 and I left Thailand with my father to return to the US, while my mother stayed behind in Bangkok and remarried. Duchess stayed with her and Gary til they, too, moved; then she stayed with Wandee, who had been our maid. Most expatriates didn’t try to carry pets from country to country – too expensive, risky for the animals, and in some places simply impossible. A constant theme of the roaming expatriate life is the repeated loss of dear, familiar fixtures in your life such as pets.
I remember another dog that got left behind by a Red Rose Court family. It stayed in Red Rose Court, adopted by another family, but every time a car came down the driveway, it would race out to see if its own, original family had finally come back. It was heartbreaking to see this dog running out, time after time, car after car, ears pricked and tail up with happy expectation. Then it would see that the car was the wrong one, and just collapse in on itself, drooping with disappointment.
I wonder if Duchess acted that way when we left.
Note: I confess that I actually wrote this several years ago, for my friend Claudia who was thinking of putting together an anthology, but apparently never found a buyer. I’ve been thinking about stories lately, so decided to dig out this one and share it.
Whose Story is It, Anyway?
When I wrote about leaving Italy (but not my husband), a long-time reader expressed concern about my marriage, saying that it was clear that my primary relationship is with my daughter Rossella, whereas my husband Enrico is “merely a footnote.”
I appreciate this reader’s concern, but was quick to correct (I hope) his misconception. It’s true that I have written more about Ross, and in more detail, than I do about Enrico. But that doesn’t necessarily reflect the importance of each in my life.
It’s a generational thing. Ross, having grown up with the Internet, shares her life online in a way that is completely normal for her generation, but which leaves her father shaking his head in bemusement: “When I was young, I would never have dreamed of making public some of the things she does, even if I’d had the technology.”
So it’s simply out of respect for his privacy that I don’t write much about Enrico.
This brings up a larger question that has been on my mind for some time: we all have stories to tell, and much of what I share online is, one way or another, stories. But the most interesting stories involve other people, who don’t necessarily want those stories told about them. And I can’t be sure about others’ sensitivity level. While I have rarely or never told a story with deliberate intent to cast anyone I know in an unflattering light, on a few occasions people have been unhappy about what I wrote about them. And there are lots of stories I haven’t yet told out of respect for others’ privacy. Still, I wonder: whose story is it, anyway? What legal or moral right do I have to tell my own tales when they happen to involve other people?
Keeping Cool, Italian Style: Energy Efficiency and Home Safety, All in One
Although it’s hot here in the summer, Italy’s not big on air conditioning, preferring to rely on older methods for keeping cool.
Most Italian buildings are naturally insulated, being made of concrete, brick, or stone. The older they are, the thicker the walls, which of course adds to the insulation. Windows are protected by shutters, whose style varies with location and age of the building. These insulate against the weather, but also protect against thieves (housebreaking is far more common here than street mugging).
Our apartment in Milan had tapparelle: slatted, roll-down shutters operated by a pulley system with a cloth strap that you pulled, hand over hand, to raise or lower them. This was barely within the limits of my strength on our large bedroom window, even though the shutters were made of plastic – we were on the 7th floor, so security wasn’t much of an issue.
My in-laws’ apartment in Rome, being on the first floor, had to have strongtapparelle. The originals were elegant wood, but, when they began to break down with age, this proved very expensive to replace, so the new ones were steel painted a woodish sort of color. Those were even heavier than the wood, so we were thankful for the electric motor that raised and lowered the 3-meter-widetapparella in the living room – until the electricity went out…
^ Wooden tapparella on our first apartment in Lecco – operated by a hand crank (not visible in this picture), it took forever to open or close. Then the slats started breaking…
The problem with tapparelle as a safety feature is that, to be safe, you have to close them at night – clever Italian house thieves have been known to use sleeping gas on homeowners to ensure easy pickings inside the house. So the shutters in Rome had to be closed, no matter how hot the night. The most you could do was leave them slightly open so that a centimeter or two of air could pass underneath and through the slim cracks between the slats.
Back in Milan, surrounded by other 7th and 8th-floor apartments, we closed thetapparelle for privacy, except on a few summer nights when we were too hot to care if the neighbors saw us naked in the moonlight (it was too hot to wear clothes or have sheets over us on the bed, either). We found a partial solution in putting a new type of frame on the bedroom tapparella, which could be tilted out on a hinge even when the shutter was fully rolled down, so we could get air in under it, and look down into the street, but no one could look across or down into us.
Here in Lecco, most houses have persiane – hinged shutters with fixed, louvered slats pointing downward, so no one can see in, but you still get some light and air. We don’t feel the need to close these most of the time, even though we don’t have curtains: the position of our house is such that no one can look into our windows, unless they use binoculars. But the persiane are useful to keep the sun out while letting air in. On summer afternoons I close everything up on the sunny side of the house – shutters and windows – and the rooms stay relatively cool til the evening breezes come and it’s time to open it all up again.
Note: Yes, we also use fans.
