Lucky Dog.
Thank you to everyone who reached out offering to adopt the abandoned dogs across the street. Just kidding, not one single person came forward, although many of you shared their sad story. Thank you for that. Shout outs to Joyce, TF, and Allan for trying super hard.
We have learned the hard way not to try to help anymore. Since we couldn’t find them homes in the two weeks we’ve been feeding them, I called Tehama County Animal Services on Wednesday to see what we should do with these precious pups. The gal on the phone told me that since we were feeding them, they were legally ours now. Say what? Like if you went into a store and you touched an item, you had to buy it.
Thursday we called Animal Control and two of Tehama County’s finest were up here at the property across the street in a matter of hours.
Sergeant Mark Levindofske (longtime TCSO personnel) and Deputy Mary Paschke (newbie to TCSO) called our house from the residence, where the dogs were in their pen. Where they’ve been for the past two years except when they’ve escaped, which is often.
A quick history on Deputy Paschke. She is brand new to TCSO – and we actually managed to spirit her away from Lake County. That never happens anymore. With our Sheriff’s Dept. hemorrhaging personnel as a result of our board of supervisors refusing to pay them a living wage, Paschke’s decision to come here is a small miracle and we are truly blessed to have her. She has degrees in Animal Sciences and has a way with the critters, for sure. Welcome to Tehama, Dog Whisperer Mary.
Anyway, the deputies quickly sized up the situation, filled out the appropriate paperwork, loaded up the dogs and headed down the hill. About an hour later they were calling us from the shelter, saying the dogs had been rejected because we are now the owners. Because I phoned the day before asking about protocol. I wonder if they put my name up on a board to be on the lookout for. “She’s trying to dump her dogs on us.”
We have always been supporters of TC Animal Services and for years sponsored a monthly spay or neuter through PAWS back when we owned Wild Oak. All of our dogs have been adopted from shelters or situations where they could no longer be kept by their families. To be treated like we’re trying to unload dogs on the shelter is insulting. They were a last resort – or next to last, as it turns out.
So we stewed about it for maybe a whole day, then realized we were the jerks – not them. The shelter is overfull and having those two dogs there would mean two other dogs might be meeting their demise. We were frustrated and helpless, so we misdirected our anger towards the people who do more than anyone to help the unwanted pets in our county. We put on our big girl and boy panties and took responsibility for the hapless pups, bringing a scrumptious Firehouse pizza to the shelter as a peace offering. Please donate a spay or neuter if you can. They are overfull and it’s because people don’t spay and neuter.
BTW, I can’t say enough about TCSO personnel. This is an especially emotional situation for us, being critter lovers and all. Everyone we interacted with was highly professional, friendly, helpful, and kind. Thank you, TCSO. Please pay them what they’re worth, board of supervisors. January is coming, guys. Just not fast enough.
The good news is that we found a home for Toby, the male border collie cross. I will be delivering him to a nice woman with a 17 acre farm in Canby, Oregon, next week.
Cone of Shame while Lucky recovered from her spaying.
Miss Lucky is still available for foster or adoption, but she is safe and warm here in the space Mr. Standish built for her out behind our barn. We are working non-stop to get her into our pack, but since they have been archenemies for two years, it’s slow going. One-on-ones on neutral territory following the sage advice of expert dog trainer and chairwoman of the Tehama County Board of supervisors Candy Carlson. Carlson is the founder of Home Again K9s for Veterans and gave us precise instructions which are working better than we ever thought they could. Patience.
Cannabis dispensary to occupy part of Zapata building
And speaking of patience, many folks have been putting up Yoda-worthy numbers in that department lately. People who can’t wait for the new board of supes to be sworn in in January, people who can’t wait for this damn election to be over, and cannabis users waiting for the new Red Bluff dispensaries to open.
There is a ton of construction work going on at the Palomino Room – dividing the restaurant/watering hole/go-go club to make room for a dispensary. Palomino Room owner Carlos Zapata bought the building at 723 Main St along with his wife Rebecca and Laythen Martines, owner of the Sundial Collective in Redding and the sister store in Red Bluff which will be housed in the PR’s dining room. Zapata does not own the dispensary and the businesses will be separate.
Palomino Room photo courtesy of the Red Bluff Daily News
Personally, I have great memories of that dining room. I spent every Wednesday morning in it for over a decade as a founding member of the Downtown Red Bluff Business Association. Prior to DRBBA becoming an official BID (Business Improvement District), legendary merchants Gayle Kemp and Corky Kramer would go around to all the downtown businesses collecting $10-20 from everyone to pay for posters and advertising for downtown events.
Once the BID was formed, all businesses in the district began to pay a yearly fee and anyone was welcome to help plan events and work with other agencies to help beautify downtown. State Theatre manager Linda Bullock went on a one-woman crusade to revive the cement planters, which had become giant ashtrays. She got a lot of help from the Garden Club, and you could see her out there every morning before work – planting, pulling weeds and watering. Because she cared. She’s just one of the many members who gave of their time and talents to help create the wonderful downtown we enjoy today. Special shoutout to John Yingling, former Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce, who kept us all focused and laughing.
You may have your own memories of the PR dining room – good or bad. It is my understanding that only part of it will become the cannabis dispensary and Ramon’s Grille will remain open. That’s good. I hate to see any restaurant go under.
The dissection of the PR to make room for a pot shop has delighted some Tehamans and outraged others, like most things Zapata does. He rose to national fame and infamy during the early days of the pandemic when he came out swinging against the “hoax”, defying the mandate to close the PR temporarily and threatening the Shasta County Board of Supervisors with physical violence.
Carlos Zapata and Kyung Lah in CNN’S “Perilous Politics”
Fast forward to this week’s CNN special “Perilous Politics: America’s Dangerous Divide” which features Zapata quite prominently and not in a good way. It is now available On Demand.
While the editors were putting the finishing touches on that, Zapata was busy responding to comments about him made on a Facebook thread. He called several of the people who had been critical of him on the phone – and in one case left a voicemail threatening a Redding man, who pressed charges. Genius move, Cowboy.
The case was forwarded from RPD to the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office requesting a single charge of 422 PC — Terrorist Threats — on the suspect, Carlos Zapata. You can read the whole story as reported by the amazing Doni Chamberlain here.
With Zapata’s recent criminal history, longer history of making threats and new-found TV fame, he could get the maximum sentence of a felony conviction, years in prison and a $10,000 fine. This is the guy who has made it possible for a pot shop to open in an iconic local cowboy bar whose clientele have been beating up “pot-smoking hippies” since the ’60s. That part is hilarious. Many of them have sworn never to set foot in the PR again. Of course, if it were up to me there would be a dispensary on every block. Free market gal over here. But you can bet not one penny of my hard-earned money will ever be spent in that one.
In an ancillary observation, a friend of mine posted one of Zapata’s recent tweets, and it got 8 Likes. He has close to 8,000 followers on Twitter and a year and a half ago was getting hundreds of Likes on every tweet. Now he’s lucky to be in double digits. This one stopped just short of agreeing with the ridiculous conspiracy theory about the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi without coming right out and saying so. FYI Carlos, whenever you say something sane and compassionate and follow it with a “but”, that negates everything that happened prior in the sentence.
Don’t forget to vote Tuesday or before. Take your time researching the candidates and ballot measures. Years ago, when I was living in Chico, a friend of mine – a comedian who had changed his name to DNA – was running for City Council. As I was standing in my voting cubicle, a couple frat boys were discussing their ballots while filling them out. One said to the other, “Who ya got for City Council?” The reply was, “DNA – his name is just letters.”
Oy vey. Don’t be that guy, please.
