For the three months I worked at Market Street, I tried to write about it. I have three unfinished posts waiting in the wings but I could never finish. There was always too much to explain, too much filler I would have had to write to make my point. And I hate filler. So I'm taking a different approach. When I remember something worth telling about, I'll write it down.
I'd like to start with Marlene. Marlene Sanders is an animal communicator. A pet psychic, if you will. I don't know how she does it. I'm not entirely sure she knows how she does it. But for $75 you can call Marlene and ask her to tell you about your pet. All she needs to know is their name, their general location in the world, and if there is anything specific you want her to ask about. She'll pause, and take a deep breath. And then she just talks.
I know. You don't believe me. I don't believe it either, at times. She once said that one of the horses compared the barn where he lives during the winter to a Motel 6. I don't believe that Seven Oaks, in all of his horsey splendor, could understand the concept of a motel, let alone be able to name one and understand that it is second-tier. But maybe it's more complicated than that, and Marlene is just trying to put it into terms we stupid humans would understand. That I can believe.
Erin called once about her dog, Baloo. Baloo is a half-husky and the smartest dog I have ever met, like he's only one life away from being full blown human. Baloo was in pain, and no one could figure out what was wrong. He would wake up suddenly from a nap, yelping in pain, with nothing obviously wrong about him. Erin tried everything, and finally she caved and picked up the phone. This is what she said: "His name is Baloo. He lives in New Jersey, and he's having health issues, and I don't know what's wrong with him." She didn't say anything else, didn't ask any questions, didn't give any other specifics (she's skeptical too, you see).
Marlene paused, and took a deep breath. "Oh he is a handsome dog, isn't he!" she said (It's true. He is.) "Yes he says people tell him all the time how handsome he is." (It's true. They do.) Marlene then told Erin that one morning when Baloo was by his favorite tree (whenever Erin and Baloo walk to the barn in the morning Baloo runs off to the same spot in the woods to do his business) a squirrel suddenly fell from the branches above him. Baloo then either chased the squirrel or ran away in fear. That part, Marlene said, wasn't clear. What was clear was that in his fight or flight he ran smack into a tree, and misaligned one of his ribs. His rib at the L3 vertabrae, to be exact.
Marlene also told Erin that Baloo was worried about the gray cat. He hadn't seen her in a while, and he was concerned. Erin had a gray cat named Puddin in Omaha, that she left behind when she moved to New Jersey, but she never mentioned that to Marlene. Baloo also said he didn't much like the red bed that Erin bought him, but he loved the blue one. In Erin's living room there is a red dog bed next to her blue couch. Three guesses as to which one Baloo prefers to sleep on.
A few weeks later one of the horses' massage therapists came to the barn. She also does dogs, so Erin asked her to look at Baloo, without telling her anything about what Marlene had said.
After a few minutes of working on him, the massage therapist said "Oh! He has a rib misaligned."
"I know this is a weird question," Erin said, "but can you tell which vertabrae?"
"Umm, the L3?"
I know I probably haven't convinced you, and I'm not going to pretend that I haven't called BS on Marlene a number of times. I still don't know if I really believe the part about the squirrel.
One morning Hoffy called Marlene because her horse Ruby Slippers wasn't touching her water. Ruby told Marlene the water was too cold, so we then had to lug hot water to top off all of the water buckets. We cursed Ruby and Marlene for a week after that, and tried to blow it off as craziness.
But Ruby drank almost a full bucket after that.
