a crabby day

For those of you who tuned in to read about factor #4 (warm, sunny days; cool nights), we are going to head off on a tangent.


A related tangent. But a tangent, nonetheless.


Melaque has entered the rainy season. Thunder. Lightening. Rain.


None of that is news. What is news is the march of the creatures from the deep.


Two nights ago, Jiggs and I were headed out through the garage for his midnight walk. When I turned on the lights, the garage floor turned into scurrying mayhem.


My first reaction was that the cockroaches were on steroids. But, I was wrong.


They were crabs. Land crabs.


And the sound they make can only be called scuttling. Carnivorous scavangers with their stiletto defenses -- as if J. Alfred Prufrock had discovered his ragged claws in the second chapter of a Kafka novel.


But The Professor and I ignored this phenomenon -- though it was new to both of us. I have heard the tales of land crabs, but I had never seen one.


The Crab was not to be so easily ignored. Yesterday morning, while opening the house to catch the cooler morning breeze, I found the fellow pictured above. He decided to repose on the screen door.


I took that as an omen to spend part of the day away from the house with Jiggs. So, over the ridge we went to a small beach community: Cuastecomates.


I suspect because it was in the middle of the week on a rainy June day that the place was deserted. Deserted as in ghost town deserted. Other than seeing two dogs, Jiggs and I had the beach to ourselves. We still had to share the town with a mottled carpet of land crabs.

Just when I thought it was a perfect day, Jiggs discovered the one strip of boggy septic water on the beach. I know it was septic because I have a nose. I could also see the source of the pipe -- rest rooms next to the beach.


The solution was easy. We simply took a quick wade in the warm ocean.


But the incident reminded me of another of Jiggs's antics.


The year was 2001. I was doing trial work at the time. Jiggs and I had driven down to Klamath Falls, a town John Calypso and Gypsy Rose Lee (at different times, I might add) know very well.


I had just checked out of my motel room and was about to drive over to the courthouse. Jiggs needed a walk, and the county fairgrounds was just across the road. So, walk we did.


While I was practicing my opening statement, Jiggs wandered. I looked around and discovered that his wandering included getting into a ditch that drained the waste from the fairground livestock barns. He was in it up to his shoulders.


So, there I am in my three-piece suit and a dog that could scare away a skunk.


I am not certain that being in New York City would have been any better. Where do you take dog that is a scent sample for a perfumist's nightmare?


I grabbed the yellow pages. Found a pet groomer. Wrapped Jiggs in a sheet. And headed off to the groomer.


The groomer knew only that I needed to get my dog washed, and agreed to fit him into the regular schedule. When I unwrapped him, the groomer almost backed out of the deal.


But I headed off to my trial. I think it went well. After all, what law war story ever goes badly?


I do know I was happy to have Jiggs back in the car for the seven-hour drive home -- through the worst snow storm I have ever experienced. But that is another story.


Yesterday, Jiggs smelled a bit of the sea (and land crabs). And I can tuck away this story with my growing treasury of dog tales.


The day was not sunny, but it was warm. And the night certainly was not cool.


But that sounds like a lead-in to factor #4.


Tomorrow.


Maybe.