Las Hagias de Pan y Los Pescados

Without getting too biblical, most know of the loaves and the fish parable, where Jesus preached to thousands of people, but some forgot to RSVP, so his host ran out of bread and fish. Jesus, the giver that he was, miracled up. He provided enough fish and bread for those who forgot to reply in enough time for ample food preparation, and his disciples ended up collecting baskets of leftovers. (This parable has always perplexed me. Can’t people pick up after themselves?)

We always run into the loaves and the fish when we move. We get all the big stuff loaded into the truck. We feel great about ourselves. I may even crack open a beer in celebration of a successful couch maneuver. But then, on my return to the apartment, the loaves and the fish are dispersed throughout. The tiny things. The cords. The rediscovered socks that don’t match. The little things. When we start to pack them up, they begin to multiply. My beer was in vain.

It is the last day before we leave for Barcelona. And the loaves and the fish are upon us (ever since reading Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” I love the phrase “upon us”). We caught a big fish last night, Wednesday June 29th. Paz, our little toy-fox terrier wouldn’t leave her crate in the afternoon. She’s a little turd, full of energy, and mischievous as the coyote in Hopi Indian tales (pun intended). But she just looked out at us from her crate. She shook uncontrollably. We freaked when we pulled her out and saw that her right eye bulged outward and upward toward the right, and exposed the dreaded third eye (dog owners know what I am talking about here). It looked like the eye of a dead, bloated fish.

We called our vet. We tried some home therapy. Eye still weird. Dog still lethargic. She didn’t eat. She didn’t drink water. Paz is a dog that will eat chipped concrete on our walks, but she didn’t even want peanut butter. The afternoon of worry and our concern about the month ahead pushed us out the door to the after hours vet around six p.m. (so pricey).

But she tricked us (coyote, coyote).

When I was a kid, on days when I wanted to stay home from school, my mom used to call my bluff and say, “If you’re too sick to go to school then we’re going to the doctor.” For some crazy reason, I always rallied.

When we pulled into the vet parking lot, Paz came to life. We put her on her leash and she pulled like normal. She jumped up to say “hey!” So we packed her up and went home. She rallied. Five hours later, we sat in the after hours clinic a second time with a sad, hungry, eye-all-poked-out dog. It was just an abscessed tooth that pushed her eye up, but she needed medical attention. Antibiotics and painkillers for a week.

Too bad we won’t be here to watch her heal. (Thank the Lord for Mark and Vanessa. They are saints.)

You can’t plan for the exact loaves and fish when you go on a month long trip, but you can always plan to have them. Troubles rarely RSVP and problems don’t phone ahead, but not planning for them can ruin a start to a trip. Plan for them and deal with them. So when they ring the doorbell with no food of their own and don’t pick up after themselves, you will have allotted the time to do it yourself.