A dog with a blog
"But Mom, running isn't just about running fast and winning. It's about seeing the world, and feeling your body become a part of the world as the uphills squeeze your muscles, and the downhills pull you like a leash, and you breathe in as much air as you can until you are made of the same stuff as nature is." "I used to feel that way, Oscar. But now when I run I drop out of my body instead of dropping in. I just feel like garbage."
"What's an obstaple?" I asked. "I don't know. Like crawling through mud and jumping over stuff and things. I didn't really read the website that closely. You'll love it. I brought treats." Now I was real excited to do obstaple racing and show off how good I am at getting dirty and looking cool in pictures. But I guess Mom didn't read the website closely at all because she found out that the humans had to do the obstaples too. "Oh, well I can't do that," Mom told the lady with the t-shirts. "I have a medical issue." "Mom, what's a medical issue?" I asked. "It means that I'm wearing socks," she said.
Well... mostly to ourselves. We were running through the skirt of the mountain, where the boulders and bushes fight to see who can win the trail, when I came around the corner and saw a turtle-person right in front of me. "What are you doing here? Let me see your early morning permit!" I barked. She looked suitably scared of me, so when Mom called my name, I figured it was okay to leave the turtle-person, go get Mom and show her.
Once we started walking downhill on the shady side of the mountain, Mom, whose heart pumps ice rather than blood, started to turn blue. Every mile or so, I had to come back to her and block the path so that she could bang her hands on my handsome butt until she could feel them again. It wasn’t that cold, Mom is just made with lizard parts.
"Do you ever wonder why they're always staring at that thing?" I asked Bodie. I knew the answer, but I wanted to see if she knew the answer too, and if she didn't then I would sound smart. "Because it's full of pictures of us, and they're obsessed with us?" Bodie suggested. "Well, yes. But they're not pointing it at us and giving us treats, so it's doing something else too," I said, standing a little taller because Bodie is a smart dog and she hadn't figured it out, so I knew that I was a very smart dog. "Because there is a witch inside," I explained.
Who's to say one human's goals are better than another's. There is room on the course for all kinds of runners*, and if everyone were fast then it would be too crowded for anyone to run their best race. Telling Fabiola that she should quit her 10K just because she walks a lot would be like telling Michael Phelps that he should quit swimming because he's never going to win the Super Bowl. Michael Phelps would of course tell you that the Super Bowl isn't his goal, and then put on his 23 gold necklaces and laugh at Tom Brady's 5 tiny Super Bowl rings.
Then The Man threw something on the ground a few feet in front of us. I looked where it fell, and... "HOLY CRAP!" I said. "There's a spaghetti monster sitting right next to where you were tapping your boot a second ago! Hang on, let me go check it out." The spaghetti monster was about as big around as a rope leash, and had a shakey thing on one end that made noise, and mean eyes on the other end. I knew from experience that this was called a "rattlesnake" from when Mom and I saw a bigger one
I know from experience what happens when you have love in your heart: the more love you give away, the more you get back. Mom explained to me that money is not like love. Apparently, once you give money away you have to work to grow some more for the next thing that you want. The great thing, though, is that limited money can be converted into infinite love when a stranger uses it to reach out and tell a stray that they're valuable, that they deserve the same opportunities as the other kids, and that someone cares.
This morning Mom took me to a trail that I didn't recognize, and imagine my surprise when one of my professors was waiting for us! I was so excited to see her after all these years, and squeaked like a manly cowboy for Mom to let me off the leash so that I could go knock her over. As I got close, a dog stepped in my way and said, "Just who do you think you are, and what do you think you're going to do to my Mom?"
