I Am Not Dead

Long time no write.  I have been...extraordinarily busy lately.  And we discovered which of our neighbors we'd been freeloading the internet off of when they moved out two weeks ago, leaving us with no connection to the Outside World (save our cell phones).  All in all, it's been difficult to blog.

But I am back on the horse now.

On Tuesday it was a gorgeous evening.  I think it was 85 degrees.  Anyway, Joey decided after dinner that we could not let this gorgeous evening go to waste.  We had heard about a dog park a few miles from our house, so we packed up Henry, put on our tennis shoes and headed out to the park.

We weren't sure how Henry would do surrounded with other dogs in an open area, being the only-child city-dog priss that he is.  Poor guy, it's not his fault.

The dog park was not officially open (there were chains and padlocks on the gate) but, honestly, when has that ever stopped us?  There were some other people who had "broken in" with their dogs, so we figured we might as well too.  Joey climbed over the fence, I passed a terrified Henry over to Joey, I climbed in (gracefully, of course), and we were in. 

Surrounded by freaking out, drooling dogs.

Henry was not sure what to do.  Joey unhooked the leash and Henry jitterbugged around our feet.  We quietly slipped away from him and watched from a safe distance.  He stood there, whipping his head around from one side to the other, every so often taking a step or two.  Suddenly a large mutt came up and slammed his nose into Henry's bum.

That got him moving.

The mutt chased our purebred around for quite a long time, leaving us to wonder if it was such a good idea to get a wimpy furball in the first place.  The kid can't hold his own at all.  Finally the mutt decided to leave Henry alone (to our great relief, we were getting all anxiety-ridden) and Henry decided he'd go try to make a friend.

Nobody wanted anything to do with him.  The dogs he'd approach would chase him away or try to jump on him.  Joey and I remained in our corner, huddling together and whispering back and forth "should we go rescue him?  Poor baby!"  Probably similar to the first time you drop your toddler off at the 2s and 3s class, right?  "Will anybody play with him?  Is he going to be OK?  Will they pick on him?"

Yeah, all those emotions.  Over a dog.

Just as we were about to give up, Henry made a friend; a white Bichon who had a scraggly tail.  They played for a few minutes (and were chased off by the mutt) before Joey and I got sick of dogs running by us and slobbering on our arms.  We climbed back out of the dog park and went for a quick walk over to the lake.

This walk, unfortunately, involved a shaky concrete and steel bridge that I made Joey run across because it was freaking me out.  (Please recall that I absolutely hate bridges, especially after the 35W thing.  Joey's doomed.)

To add more randomness to this already incoherant post, I must insert that I am currently sitting at Panera thinking "I need to go work out before I lose my opportunity...", and it's quite true.  I've been here since 6:45 (and it's 9:15) having a lovely time with THE HOLMES FAMILY!!!

But more about that later.  I think the fruit I ate is going to my hips as I sit here writing about it.

Hasta manana, mis amigos.  (I know that's spelled wrong, but I can't figure out how to make a tilda on that "n".  I'll fix it tomorrow.  Maybe.)