A dog with a blog
"This dingleberry is going down!" Mom growled, speeding up like we were racing a light at a crosswalk. Then she veered up the little slope of wild dirt that protected us from the Momposter's boogeybreath. I followed close behind her as we cut onto the trail just a leash-length in front of the Momposter.
Back when there were people here, runners used to come from all over The City every morning to the I'mbarkadero to run an adventure race that had no official starting line and no official finish.
Before long we left the river and started climbing the day’s mountain, and the blades of jagged, waxy rocks pushed the trees even further apart. There was a rumbling up ahead that sounded like a motorboat. “Do you hear something?” Mom asked. “I think someone’s mowing the lawn,” I explained, not because it was true but because it’s rude to not know the answer to a question.
After a few minutes, Mom checked the mapp. "You idiot! You're on the wrong trail!" The Witch told her. "The trail was back that way!"
It looked like there had been a battle royale of foul weather right before we got there, with the wind and the white dirt fighting for dominance over the mountains. To Mom’s delight, it seemed like the wind had won.
With our legs and a little help from The Witch, we had everything we needed to get to the dooms. Once mom realized that when the answers are inside of you, you don't have to follow anyone else's rules, the freedom fell into her legs and she started jogging. It didn’t matter if she got sweaty, because she had been wearing the same clothes for four days anyway, and already smelled like the stray humans in The City who camp in the dog bathroom.
Mom and I had unfinished business. Last year Mom and I took our expedition North too early and were turned around by white dirt in too many places. There were a couple of spots that we vowed to return to later in the season when the mountains had sweat off their white dirt cloaks. Our... Continue Reading →
Others looked like they had lost a bet with Home Depot and had to wear all of the mismatched parts that no one wanted. On this side of the channel, away from Legoland, the landscape didn't follow any instruction book. The flowers bloomed in sloppy disorder, there was no sidewalk to walk on, and puddles took over the bare earth. "Mom, I can't tell if this is pretty, or not pretty," I said.
Next we met a very handsome gentleman dressed in a tux just like me. Only Oscar and James Bond can wear a tux on a hot day without panting, and this guy was struggling. But as I came past, he rose up from being a potato to say hello and sniff my butt. "It’s a miracle!” said his lady. “He was too hot to walk down the hill, but now that he’s smelled your irresistible butt, he has legs to stand on again!”
Mom says that I have trouble making friends because I'm an "asshole." That's silly, because I always make lots of friends at the dog park and have a wonderful time barking in their face until they curl up into a submissive ball, or get mad and nip at me (then I bark some more). I... Continue Reading →