On the first Wednesday of the month, Jasper Dog talks to God. I’ve mentioned this before – the civil defense sirens go off, and he get an almost mystical expression. He stands, points his snout up, and joins in. It’s a rather straightforward liturgy. To a dog’s ear, the sound must be enormous – it comes from all directions, from above and beyond, many notes in one braided threnody, mournful and instructive, an elegy and an invocation. Since dogs know not Time as we do, the appearance of the Voice of Dog is utterly unexpected, but he always knows how to react. Firecrackers he does not understand at all. This sound, however, speaks to his essence.

It spoke to me as a kid, too; scared the hell out of me. There were two sounds of terror: the Emergency Broadcast Signal, which you learned was the sound of the end of the world, and the sirens, which announced tornados. I had a Wizard-of-Oz notion of twisters – evil dirty-cotton fingers that wrote death on the land, throwing up fences and cows and houses. Before you understand death, or sociopathy, or evil in any form, you understand the implacable nature of, well, Nature, and how there’s nothing you can do about it. Dad cannot make it go away. The President cannot command it to cease. It can kill Bozo and Mr. Greenjeans. It comes, and it is done when it’s done. I was born in the year of a Tornado, and when I would look at the newspapers my parents had saved, it was like looking at the Pompeii Daily the day Vesuvius burst.

As I’m sure I’ve said before, it would be a different world if the first Wednesday of the month we all heard a booming voice declaim:

I AM.

Belief in God wouldn’t be just universal, it wouldn’t even be a matter of belief; it would be like accepting gravity. Sectarian strife would be less, I think; an explicit statement of existence would make it difficult for some to insist God also said such and such, since He obviously hadn’t chosen to elaborate on the matter. (Unless of course He had, at some point, and had become less verbose as the centuries passed.) Scientists would strive to figure out why everyone heard the phrase in the language they learned first as a child. There would be no commerce. The first Monday of the month would be party central; Tuesday, a day for quiet hungover piety. Thursday would be a day of ease and cheer. Saturday everyone would be honking at each other in the mall parking lot and flipping the bird.

And what if, one month, the day passed in silence?

I videotaped Jasper’s little oratorio, as usual. And when he was done, I said: Amen. He sighed – the one true human things dogs have learned from us -  and went back to his space in the sun.

Today was the graduation for Spanish class. Two classes, 25 kids, 30 parents in kindergarten-sized chairs, knees up to their ears, grinning as the tots caterwauled La Bamba. The teachers – both of whom were present on Monday, incidentally – are interesting women; one’s from Chile, the other from Peru, and both have advanced degrees. How they got from the tip of the world to the Plains of El Norte, we’ve no idea. Mainly because I am incurious sloth who is always trying to get Gnat into her backpack and out the door, and the line of inquiry – so, what are you doing here? – seems rather personal. It’s the North Dakotan in me, I suppose. You don’t ask. Not because you’re not interested – you are, but it’s the sort of thing that should come out after you’ve gotten to know someone, sixteen years later.

There wasn’t a lot of diversity on my block in Fargo. The only people who qualified as bona-fide foreigners were the Mormons. They went to church on Saturday! They couldn’t watch TV! Even the name of their church was peculiar – Latter-Day Saints. It was a construction I didn’t understand at first, and when I did, I wondered if that made Lutherans believers in Former-Day Saints. I suppose it did, except that we didn’t have Saints, either. We did have that Holy Ghost, which to a small child brings up an image of a classic indistinctly shaped sheet-draped spook with arms outstretched – but to bless, not to frighten. Also a halo. Casper with a halo. Add Mary – demoted in Lutheranism but still a major player – and Jesus, and you had the Triune, the ol’ Three-in-One, a theological concept that sounded like an attribute cooked up by an ad agency. Three! Three! Three incorporeal intercessory agents in one!

Ours was a small church, but the stained glass windows were full of mysteries. A crown pierced by a cross. And I mean a crown: the sort of thing you’d put on a monarch. A shield that said INRI. (I confused this with a pop song: I’m INRI the eighth I am, INRI the eighth I am I am.) An insert of Luther himself, looking as though he was filled entirely with gravy. But no saints. I go to other churches, such as the Crazy Uke’s Orthodox outpost, and it’s all so vivid and exotic – the cross with the extra bar, looking like a mathematical symbol – does not equal death – and the wise sad harrowed faces looking down with Byzantine simplicity. The cast of characters in a Lutheran church is smaller. It’s a one-man show, in the end.

Anyway, the kids were cute.

Afterwards we went to the grocery store; I had promised she could pick the meal, and I knew she’d choose tacos. Once again I felt stupid for spending all that money: three bucks on meat (extra fat) $2.29 on pre-shredded Mexican cheese with infinitesimally small embedded jalapeno molecules, two bucks on shells, $1.29 on sauce, and  $1.50 on a bag of pre-shredded lettuce. (“Because you’re too fargin’ lazy, that’s why.”) I could have gone to Taco Bell, spend the same amount of money, asked them to split the order into two bags, thrown one bag out the window and still had twice the number of required tacos. But nothing says love like a homemade meal. I even re-shredded the pre-shredded lettuce for that personal touch.

Spent the evening on various projects.  Alas, I did not get around to finishing the thing I was going to release, because I am having problems adjust the background color of the template page. Essentially, it’s this: the Screedblog was never really a blog, because I couldn’t post throughout the day without all sorts of html annoyances I brought on myself. But the Apple iWeb software makes it easy to blog – because I don’t have to set up anything. Don’t have to get a site, download a program, fiddle with RSS, anything. I do, however, have to tweak the template. So. Let’s shoot for Friday, by which time all the stuff I’m writing will be obsolete and out of date.

Have a fine day! See you tomorrow.

Oh – one more thing. Dreamed the other morning I discovered a ballroom in Jasperwood. I don’t know how I missed it. It was between floors, I guess. There was already an events coordinator on staff, arranging receptions and weddings for the space; I was pleased, and figured I could get a cut of the action. She had a book of clients. I wanted to look. She put her hand on it: not for you.

My dreams are either action-adventures, 40s travelogues, or episodes in the Red Lodge with backward-talking midgets. I don’t know why I don’t sleep more; it’s better than Netflix.

I walked away from her desk and had a seat by the big window, lit up a thin cigar and had the butler pour me a vokda. (The brand was not specified in the dream, but I would have been content if it was Reyka, the new Icelandic vodka; it has a pleasantly earthy taste unique to the breed.) I put on my sunglasses, since the day was bright. Suddenly I was outside of myself looking back, seeing a balding fellow in a loud floral shirt and sunglasses, thin cigar in one hand, drink in the other, and I thought: how on earth did I come to resemble a miniaturized Hunter S. Thompson without any of his distinguishing attributes?

And then I woke up. I stared at the window – dim light through the blinds, growls of the FedEx dawn patrol overhead -  and willed myself back to the ballroom. I didn’t make it. Most of the details have faced by now, except for the hand on the book.

"But it’s my house."

I know.