Monday, November 21, 2011

Cracks of dawn


It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.   ~Aristotle

This morning I was awakened at five a.m.
By dogs, standing at the edge of my bed like zombies in the dark.
My cat lay silent, awake but perfectly still while they took turns chest-butting the mattress, their mild whimpering drowned out so purely by the sound of pouring rain. I kept my eyes closed and asked God  if he would make them lie down. He laughed along with the cat. 

Why I didn't buy that umbrella that was in my hands at the drug store two days earlier, is beyond me. Mine blew apart a month ago in a similar early morning excursion cum thunderstorm. It went skid-flying off down the street in some dark suburban blaze of Angry Birds on steroids. I was sorry to see it go too. That umbrella came to be mine the night I shot the Grand Opening Gala for the Schermerhorn Symphony Center back in September of 2006. It was a nice black version with their logo and a fake wooden handle, easily big enough to cover a woman and medium-sized dog. I should have known our relationship would end on a street in south Nashville. Enter the hooded raincoat. Boots.

Knowing that the odds of running into a lot of traffic or another dog walker at  that time of the morning in a downpour were pretty remote so I took both dogs. I figured since they woke me they deserved a real walk, no tiptoeing around in the front yard, if we're getting up in the dark to get soaked by rain, why not turn it into an event. Granted, it wasn't a run or even really a hike but it was pouring rain and I did mention that it was 5:00 right? Forty minutes and two plus miles later we were back home before daylight set in. I made coffee and tossed the wet towels down the basement steps. The zombies bounded around through the house, towel dried and naked, like little colts and the cat was not surprisingly, still in the bed.

For those of you without two big dogs in your fence-less house I might add, that at noon... we did it all over again. Rain shower included and yes, I am going to tell you a story about a treadmill the minute I find a video camera.   

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

They should've named him Easy

She lifts his entire hindquarters with her head and trots him through my office on his front paws like a wheelbarrow. He doesn't mind. In fact, he likes it. When they pass back through, the situation is reversed and now he is prancing, the loose skin of her jowl clenched between his teeth. She smiles and waves on the way by. I am a bystander. In this canine charade, I can only watch and learn and be entertained.

Pretty soon, someone is going to come along [you] and adopt this beautiful foster dog right out from under us. I can feel it. Stella and I will probably cry our eyes out that day but for some lucky person or family, it's going to be a life-changing event.

Sorry we've been slow to update. It's been extremely busy around here and any free time has been spent parading around the neighborhood with the large adoptable dog and his oh-so-ladylike girlfriend, Stella. Soon.