ON THE RUN!

Rupert and I went on our first run today. It was in the 70s, and there was a tiny window when it wasn't raining, so we ventured out. It took some mental coaxing; I was tired and listless, the day was gray and damp. It was a time for tea and books, not stretching and sweating. But then I realized there wasn't going to be a "perfect day" to start. Ever. It's always going to be too wet, too hot, too cold, too windy, too boring, and I'm always going to be too tired, too keyed up, too distracted, too busy, too something. There are no perfect days; there's just today.

So today is the day I started.

And today was pretty good. I'm going to have to shave Rupert, though, because even in this weather on a very short run he got pretty hot.

He seemed very happy, nonetheless. He never tried to stop running. In fact, he took the lead and kept me at a good pace. If I keep taking him, I'll have to use the longer leash because the short one distorted my running posture; it would work well if he ran right beside me, but that's probably a little too much to expect. He was good about not crossing in front of me unexpectedly, which was a relief. AEL had just told me a story of near catastrophe about her dog doing that, so I was on guard. (Rupert did have to make an emergency bathroom stop, but I just ran in place next to him while he looked at me funny and did his business.)

Our first challenge, of course, was sneaking out of the house without Mabel throwing a hissy fit. We were fairly successful at that today — largely through milk-bone trickery — but I anticipate problems in the future. Mabel's no dummy.

We took it slow the first day, alternating running and walking, on AEL's excellent advice. I am wickedly out of shape, but I was able to run farther than I expected without needing to stop. I should be able to progress to greater and greater distances.

We had one little scare, and it's a good thing we weren't closer to the guy, or there might have been a little bloodshed. Rupert and I were walking, out of breath, around the baseball stadium by my house. It was very quiet. No traffic. No one around. And then out of the blue, some guy menacingly said, "Hey baby," and I nearly jumped three feet into the air. It sounded like he was right behind me, but when I whipped around to look, no one was there. Rupert, however, had spotted him and was straining in his direction, which was toward the back of the stadium, where sat a half-dressed, half-reclining bum toasting me with a liquor bottle. If we had been about 15 feet closer, he'd be a dog-bit bum, because Rupert doesn't take kindly to ungentlemanly behavior. The lesson from this: Make wide turns around little nooks that might attract derelicts.

Six hours after our little jaunt, my legs still feel like noodles, and there's a slight burn when I leave my desk to walk to the printer. It feels great! As it turns out, today was the perfect day to start.

(By the way, check out AEL's fun blog about training for a 109-mile bicycle ride. I find it a real inspiration to get off my ass and get a goal.)

SHOP TALK

Sally: (standing in cubicle) OK, how many times have you run out of gas in, say, the past year?

Erica: I've never run out of gas.

Me: Me either. (Wishing cl were present for a diverse point of view).

Jason: (indecipherable mumbling)

Sally: Todd has run out of gas three times in the past MONTH!

[Todd is the stepkid who lives on Sally's couch. He is 18, has no job, no ambition, but apparently has lots of places to go in the car — that is, the brand-new car that his dad, Sally's husband, bought for him while Sally continued to commute late at night in a jalopy. He also runs up three-digit phone bills talking to a girl he was "in love with a few years ago." Sally surmises this girl is NOW about to turn 15.]

Erica: Wow.

Me: Wow.

Jason: (puts his iPod headphones back on)

Sally: I hate that kid.

Me: I enjoy when parents are honest about their feelings for their children.

Sally: That kid needs some honesty. His real mother, Linda, told me, "Well, it's his house, too. He can do what he wants." I said 'think again,' and we got into it; now she's in therapy. Then Todd's therapist called her and said, "This kid has never had any rules in his life; he's a timebomb waiting to explode." Now Linda's on medication after hearing that.

Roger: (walks up) Who's a timebomb?

Me: Sally's son.

Erica: Stepson.

Sally: He ran out of gas three times in a MONTH.

Me: He's 18 and doesn't have a job.

Roger: Why doesn't he have a job?

Sally: His dad won't make him get one.

Me: Why doesn't he live with his mom?

Sally: She's too fragile; plus, his dad lets him do whatever he wants.

Roger: He's too big to bend over your knee, huh?

Sally: His dad would kill me if I laid a finger on him.

Me: You could poison his food.

Sally: If I had known all this shit was going to happen, I wouldn't have given him any food. I WOULD HAVE STARVED THE LITTLE MOTHERFUCKER OUT!

[General applause. Work resumes.]

REALLY SMART DOGS

I have a lot of dog news today, so bear with me.

First, the Great White Dope wakes me up at 5:30 a.m. Apparently she deems this an ideal time to explore my inner ear with her bulbous black nose. At the loud, moist intrusion, I groggily open a lid, and there, in the eerie light of dawn, about two millimeters from my face, is a ghostly mass of unruly hair and a pair of coal-black eyes looking right into mine. AH! I shudder with fright, begin to let out a scream, then remember it's just Crazy Molly, whom I've agreed to baby sit. Crazy Molly with her crazy hairdo and crazy ways. When she sees I'm awake, she bolts around the bed at breakneck speed, then hops up on my chest and proceeds to dig wildly at my cleavage, like she's unearthing a chipmunk. When she realizes — like a few men I've dated — that this behavior is getting her nowhere, she plops down and commences a low growl. The more I ignore her, the louder and longer the growling becomes, until it transforms itself into a single, supersonic bark, which seems to surprise even Molly. Emboldened by her own nerve, she follows up with a string of ear-splitting yipes. (I had forgotten that, living with my parents, 5:30 would be practically sleeping in for her). I get up to do her bidding — breakfast, tennis ball — while Mabel, more than a little pissed off, falls back asleep.



Some of us are too far gone to profit from beauty sleep, but Miss Mabel is still in her prime and can't be deprived. She's gotten a pretty big head recently because at her last vet visit the doctor said she had a perfect body and the teeth of a 2-year-old. She weighed in at a sleek 59 pounds, which has caused Rupert and me to take a long, hard look at our figures. Rupert weighed in at 73, and, when no one was looking, I weighed in at a tiny bit more. Rupert says his fluffy fur makes him look pudgier than he really is, and I say my fluffy pants do the same for me. Still, the scales, especially the brutal ones at the doctor's office, don't lie, so I've decided I'm going to start running, and Rupert is going to be my running mate. Our first foray will be to his favorite place: the river.



In other news, my brother's dog, Rocky, has just retired from the police force, and my brother is adopting him. (See the KC Star story, if you're interested). Rocky is now an official member of our family. (Wouldn't it be great to have a drug dog while you're raising two teenagers? I think it'd be really fun to subject the kids and their friends to random drug sniffs. Rocky could be like those retired cops who become security guards — just pacing the floor in case the kids get any crazy ideas).



When I was visiting my friend Amy in Atlanta, one of her friends gave her a ceramic dachshund that you set on your dresser to hold your loose change and wallet and whatnot. It warmed my heart and reminded me of something my mom made for me when I was in kindergarten, something I had forgotten about: something to hold my glasses at night.

Aside from this kid named Vernon, I was the only kindergartner who wore glasses. Remember this?



I didn't like wearing glasses. I didn't like getting called "four-eyes." (If those kids had had an ounce of wit, they would have called me "three-eyes"; alas, they were a dull lot). Anyway, my mom — in true mom fashion — attempted to alleviate some of the pain of being "different" by making me something special in her ceramics class (which she enrolled in to alleviate the loneliness of being a stay-at-home mom): a cute little ceramic dog to hold my ugly old glasses. She had etched "To Kim, From Mom" on the bottom, and she explained to me that the dog was just a plain old dog UNTIL YOU PUT THE GLASSES ON IT; then it became A REALLY SMART DOG.

After that, when the kids at school would make a crack about my glasses, I'd still feel bad, of course, but the bad feeling would be tempered by the self-assuring thought of "I'M A REALLY SMART DOG."

When I got home from Atlanta, I asked my mom what happened to the ceramic dog. She said she still had it. She still used it, in fact, for the reading glasses she wears now. When did I stop using it? When did she reclaim it, as mothers do so many homemade gifts that are "outgrown" or not properly appreciated? I told her I really liked it. I hinted that it was very special to me, without articulating why. Would she even remember? She didn't say anything.

But when she came to pick up Molly this evening, she gave me a gift bag for baby sitting. Inside it — in true mom fashion — was this:

KANGAROOS ARE FREAKY

OHHHHHH YEAHHHHHHHHH!

I'm a sucker for miniature things. (It's one of the many traits I have in common with Peter the Great, except I draw the line at collecting dwarves). So when I saw these tiny taters at the farmers market this week, my heart started racing and I had to own them. Have you ever beheld such petiteness in potatoes?

The guy who was selling them — a sunburned, elderly farmer with cracked hands and decades of dirt embedded in his fingernails — had several little boxes of new potatoes, but this one box, on the corner of his table, contained unusually dainty ones. "Are these good this small?" I asked. "Or should I get the bigger ones?"

"Ohhhhhh yeahhhhhhhhh!" he fairly moaned, instantly endearing himself to me — imagine growing potatoes your whole life and still summoning an almost religious ecstasy when talking about them; that's my kind of man. "Them are REAL delicious. Just roast 'em up with some butter and salt." (Big smile).

So that's what I did.

And, oh man, they were REAL delicious. (Big smile). I had to pause the movie I was watching to properly marvel over my snack. I mean, having my ears and eyes engaged was detracting from the miracle occurring on my palate.

I also bought some scrumptious peas and a hothouse tomato from this guy. He probably uses a ton of pesticides and whatnot to achieve this vegetative beauty, but maybe that's a question for another day.

BLOG BREAK

Thanks for tuning in to my ramblings. I'm taking a little summer hiatus now from the computer. See you in a couple of weeks.