God is Cool!

Hi Everyone

This is Roscoe. I know I said I’d tell you about God this time, but instead I want to talk about how I know God . . . personally!

I listen a lot, more than most people think. In fact, being a “people” seems to be the real problem. All my life, starting in the kennel I was kept in right after I was born and then at the store where Jane and Ted found me, I was always in the company of other dogs (cats, too, but I don’t want to talk about that!). We got all tangled up with each other to keep warm and faux-fought to get our muscles working well, but we always, always knew about God. None of us could do anything that wasn’t part of God’s program. For instance, I couldn’t hate any animal. I don’t have a hate switch.

All day long it was the same: God loves all of us, he has stuff for us to do that defines each of us. For example, I can’t see a small hole anywhere without trying to dig in it. I want to find the bottom because there may be a critter down there. That’s what I am, a rat killing digger. I’m the best.

Beagles, well, they cannot stop sniffing, sniffing, and sniffing some more. They do it when they are asleep. They do it all the time. Pointers are always stopping suddenly with one paw up, pointing. I tell them it’s rude to point, but they say they cannot help themselves. They got to be them, just like I got to be me!

But more about God. All of us animals (not dumb animals, please) know the Creator. He’s always there, he’s always aware, always on duty. We like that. He made us to be who we are and then he stuck around to watch us, enjoy us even. God is cool.

As far as heaven is concerned, people say we aren’t going there because we are soulless creatures. Well, being soulless can be fun, since you can’t do anything except what you were made to do. And you can’t, positively can’t, get in trouble. By the way, I overhear some humans I know wishing they could find the one thing they were made to do . . . then they would be happy. I already am happy, because I always do what I was made to do.

I think it must be hard to be a human, making all those decisions, all those plans. I don’t know what a headache is, what heartburn is, but they get it all the time. It is tough being a human, I guess.

Anyway, I live real close to God all the time, all day, every day. Even when they give me a haircut, like yesterday, I just take it. They’re getting old and don’t see too well, and sometimes I get poked with the scissors. I cooperate. Ted sometimes says, like when he has to go to the doctor, that you should cooperate. He says, if you move around in the barber’s chair, you’re going to get hurt.”

The donkeys are coming up the street and I am going to have to run outside and bark through the gate, so I better finish up. Remember I said I just do my job because I have to do my job. Well, one day some people were here talking about God. I guess they don’t always remember that he’s always right here, enjoying and loving us. Anyway, some cat named Keach said, “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”

That’s it. If you’re human, that’s your job! Glorify God and enjoy him forever! Then you should be happy. But they say it, and then next week someone says something like it again . . . but they don’t do it.

Seems to me that the secret to love, and all the love I know about comes from God, is to do the job he gave you. Simple, right?

I think Ted and Jane and all their friends (you’re their friend, right?) should just start glorifying God and enjoying him . . . forever! But what do I know? I’m just a dumb animal.

The donkeys are here! Gotta go.

Roscoe

New Developments in Addis Ababa

Hi Folks – This is Roscoe. I haven’t written for a long, long time. It’s not my fault, really! I can’t do anything that requires opposable thumbs and Ted won’t let me use my nose on the keyboard. Something about my getting the keys all sticky. Never mind that he eats snacks while he works and gets cookie crumbs or cheese grease all over them. Like that’s different, right?

     I want you al to know that I have moved twice since my last blog. Each time it has been a better place for me. In fact, where we live now, near Megenagna Circle, the compound has a detached house, called a villa. I can finally run full-out and not have to turn around, which is great for cardio, as all you fellow fitness nuts know very well. And the gap under the gate is just big enough, if I put my head down and my rump up, to see what’s happening out there. We have sheep, goats, cats, dogs, cows and donkeys making regular appearances outside out gate. That’s because we have grass outside our wall and the people who take care of the grazing animals bring them around to eat for free. Plus, Ted doesn’t have to pay Redi or Getachew to cut that grass.

     The donkeys are the worst. They pee and fart out there and cause a ruckus. But the worse is when they s . . . , that is, they eliminate out there. Ted says we need mountain climbing gear to get out to the street. But then, he’s more than slightly prone to exaggerate. That’s the word he uses, anyway.

     Recently my friends Clara and Ephrem came to live in our compound. BTW, a compound is everything you have inside your wall surrounding your house. Everyone has a wall, unless they live in apartments or condominiums. It is necessary because people are poor here and they steal everything that isn’t nailed down or locked up. The razor wire on top of the walls sometimes make a neighborhood look more like the Berlin Wall, but once you understand it, it’s not so bad.

     Almost everybody here is peaceful and law abiding. But everyone understands that because a lot of people don’t have enough of the things we all need, if you leave something where someone can take it, they will take it. Ted says you can’t take it personally. It’s just what life is like when so many people are so poor. So it’s keys and locks, walls and gates and razor wire everywhere. Robert Frost would have a stroke, Ted says. That is, if he wasn’t dead already. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.” I don’t know what that’s all about, but Ted put it in anyway.

     As I was saying, Ephrem and Clara moved in a month ago They live in the service buildings, which are very nice by Ethiopian standards. And they brought a maid whose name is Addis. That’s confusing because our cleaning girl is also named Addis. They decided to call them Addis 1 and Addis 2. I forget which one is which, but then I can’t say “Addis” anyway. No “rrrrr’s” or “wwww’s.”

     The best thing is they brought a small person named Meley (Right -  Meley and me). She is crippled, I think, because she doesn’t walk and doesn’t talk and mostly sits around unless someone carries her, and that happens a lot. Oh yeah, she doesn’t have teeth, either. Anyway, she is my best friend because she is small. I’m a big dog, about seven pounds, but Meley is just the right size person for me.

     Meley has some bad habits, like she poops in her pants and drools an awful lot. And when they pick me up for Meley to give me a pat or a scratch, she pulls my hair and won’t let go . . . until it gets pulled out of my skin. Ouch!

I like to look at her when she is sleeping. I never make noise or bother her because I think she must be very old and can’t help that she does all that other stuff. Mostly, I can tell that she is kind and that she loves me. So I guess I love her back.

     Well, Ted has to go and watch for Jane coming home from school. We go out to the corner of our wall and wait. I never see Jane coming because I am much too busy checking out those mountains of donkey poop. I don’t know what they eat, but it sure smells good to me. Next time, I’ll tell you more about what I know about love.

Roscoe

Does a Government Have a Tail?

Hi everyone! Right now I’m looking out the office window, sitting on Ted’s desk while he types away. What does he find to write about, anyway? Everything Ted and Jane do is so boring. I hear them talk about the stuff that goes on at the office, at school, at the coffee shop, blah, blah, blah.

Speaking for myself, I concentrate on important stuff, such as the man who sometimes sleeps on the side of the road across from our gate. Now that’s something to bark about. Or the big project they just finished here at the house: the landlord put in a new steel fence between our house and the house of the chubby German lady next door. It’s OK, she knows she’s chubby.

Last Wednesday the landlord told us they were taking down the old fence; ugly corrugated iron and eucalyptus wood. Two days, he said, just two days and it would be done. Two days! How about seven days? That’s what it took. And all the while, I couldn’t check on the drains where the mouse lives, I couldn’t look under the gate, I couldn’t check out behind the water tank to make sure the mouse wasn’t there. I was stuck in the house! By myself! Alone!

We need a dog’s union, that’s what we need! Better working conditions. What, you think I don’t work? Well, since the doorbell at the gate broke, who is going to let T & J know there’s someone here? Me, only me. My visitors need to be promptly admitted and I have the responsibility of raising the alarm. Do you have any idea how many naps I’ve had interrupted because I am burdened like this? Plenty, that’s how many.

The new fence is nice, especially the wider space they left at one place near the front gate. I can now comfortably sniff next door, a serious lack in the old design. You have to know what the neighbors are up to, right? Right! But they can never know what we’re doing. That’s private, whatever that means.

The young man who helped build the fence smoked, that’s what Ted said. He had this paper he put in his mouth and then lit it. He did it a lot, so often that Ted had to give him a box of matches. One time, he was using this stinky, sticky paint to make the fence look better . . . and he was smoking at the same time. The stink from the paint was bad for his liver, Ted said, and the paper burning was bad for his lungs. I hope his liver doesn’t drop out his something or other, like Ted said it would if he keeps that up. But if it does, I hope I’m there, ‘cause I think it would be kind of cool.

A guy named Tesfai is staying with us. He goes out every day and fights with some guys called the government. Then he comes back, sometimes all mad, and said the bureaucracy is messing up the country. From what I can see from the balcony, it’s the sheep, donkeys, and goats that are messing up the country. Sometimes some people, too. But if there’s something called a government messing it up, I haven’t seen it. Of course, I don’t really know what a government looks like. Does it have a tail?

I will talk to you again soon. Soon as something new happens. Of course, I don’t always know when something happens, or when it does, I sometimes don’t know what it is.

Roscoe

This Is Roscoe

My name is Roscoe Scheuermann and I’m a four year old Yorkshire terrier. I live with my adopted mom and dad in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ted, that’s my dad, just read that I am the equivalent of 20 human years right now. Wow, I can vote! I mean, considering how many “dogs” run for office, why can’t we vote for them too! I wonder where I have to go to get registered.

     I was born on New Year’s Eve, 2008, and got adopted by Ted and Jane on April 1, 2009. I didn’t remember this when I got a little older, but I began to notice that I didn’t look much like my parents. After a while, they told me the truth, a very smart thing to do. Now I know I live with them not because I have to, but because they really want me with them.

    
     I’m good looking, but then all Yorkies are. I’m average height and weight, coming in at a whopping 3.5 kgs. or almost 8 pounds. I spend almost all my time in our compound surrounded by a big wall and an iron gate. That’s the way everyone lives in Ethiopia – walls and gates. I seldom go out, except when I can fool someone who doesn’t know and get out for a little run.

     I am fast. I don’t really know what that is, but every time I do get out, the person who chases and catches me, only when I want them to, says “Boy, is Roscoe fast.” So I’m fast.

     Since I am an only dog, I play with mostly older humans. That’s cool because so many people come to see me. I feel bad for Ted and Jane because no one ever comes to see them; just me and only me. I think it’s a good thing though. Otherwise they would have no company at all.

     There’s a lot more to tell: like when we were flying to Addis the first time and had to make an emergency landing in Dubrovnic, Croatia; my trip over the road from Mekele to Addis last year; my most favorite friends, like Sammi, Ephrem, Fukadu, and Addis.

      Keep coming back. The two things I love most, after food, of course, are personal attention and making people happy.

Roscoe