Last night I met my good friend Cindy for drinks/dinner at our local pub.  She had called me on my way home from work,

"Hey! Want to go for a dog run?"

"Yeah, sure…." I agreed. I've started running again, recently.  I'm only up to 4 painful miles, roughly every other day.  But it's a start, and since its a start, it's easy to blow off.  There is always an excuse to not run when it still hurts and you feel like you're pulling a piano the entire time.  I like running with another person now and then. It breaks up the monotony of the same song riff going over and over in my head while I worry that what's really going on is that I have a Gland Problem and that my Gland is why I'm getting fat, not because I eat and drink like a frat boy. 

I want to make running a habit again, the way I've made cheese and a 2nd/3rd beer.  Yes to running!

"I'm not SERIOUS! GOD!" she said, "You're supposed to say 'it's too hot'  …because it IS, then I suggest that we get a beer instead! And some pie!"

"Why not just suggest the beer first then?  Why even bring up the run?"  I wondered what kind of pie.  I think I frowned. It was too early for pie. 

"Because then we can feel better about ourselves for considering it."

So we agreed to meet at our neighborhood pub for beer and cheese fries and include talk about how much we used to run/bike and how we intend to start again, but anyway how much better we are than Other Women Our Age. Like Barbara Bush. and Sally Struthers.

"I did Hard Guy last year," I said, shoveling in a greasy handful of cheese and potato, slathered in special fat sauce.  My second Bloody Mary stood accusingly over our afterthought salads.

"I was in killer shape last summer. I biked almost every day."  She ordered another beer.

"Having Cienna here was good. We ran a lot, and I biked a few days every week…..I had a bicep."

"Yeah, we bought that Gym membership and used it around Christmas for a month. …remember our personal trainer?"

"Yeah…that was over a year ago." I wanted to be careful going too far back…lest we get into lying about how much we weighed in high school and what skinny babies were were.  We needed to stick to things not too far out of reach.  The personal trainer was borderline…not because it was so far back, but because it was so ridiculous.  One of the stupidest Get Fit Quick schemes I'd ever been a party to…

"She hated us.  She didn't like that you wore men's boxer shorts to work out in…and that I refused to join the Smoothy of the Month Club."

It's true.  Cindy's lady garden was open for viewing to anyone and everyone for 1 hour each day while our Personal Trainer tried to come up with exercises that would keep her legs together.   And Smoothy of the MONTH CLUB? What the HELL? Why would I join?  That just seems sad. Like something someone who really needed to BELONG would do.  Hang out with other blended yogurt enthusiasts.  GOD, like,

"At last other people who don't want to chew their fruits JUST LIKE ME …."

The personal trainer, Blindy was her name, or something weird like that, had us running in place, running up and down stairs, standing behind the bathroom door holding our breath to the count of 30…whatever she could do to keep us from exposing our parts (Cindy) and out of sight and influence of guest members who might want a blended yogurt drink fellowship (me).

So, here we were, in Gold's Gym, amidst hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of high tech exercise equipment, free weights, machines of every kind….and we were jumping stairs and doing wall pushups. Holding our breath and counting.  3 times a week.  Until I stopped going and the personal trainer stopped taking Cindy's calls. 

"No wonder we stopped working out!" Cindy said. "What a bitch."

"That personal trainer ruined everything for us." I agreed, finishing my drink. 

The waitress came promptly over and asked if I'd like another, at happy hour prices.  If she had asked me to join her Bloody Mary a Month club, I wouldn't have thought twice about it.

But tonight I will run.

I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed. Nothing over the top occurred in Seattle.  There was a brief standoff involving me and Eric and a really bad small time 80's hair band called 'Rail' …but I prevailed.

"It will be GREAT! They'll play all the GREAT HITS FROM OUR ERA!! COME ON!" he was almost begging. Something I normally like in a man. This was too horrible though. 

"There are no Great Hits from our era…unless you count the Sandanistas and my first divorce…The Clapper…pee wee herman…. fruit rollups…which you don't."  He calls them 'fruit leather' and claims they are jammed with red dye number 13 and corn syrup.  GOD. 

Eric and I don't often agree on music.  I can't tell his bands apart and my music makes him pine for the garage.  Sometimes we can find some sort of reluctant common ground through pity or the desire to use something against one another, as in the historical case of the Nine Inch Nails Tour 2007, I went and later that year we got a new dog; and my 8 hour Tom Waits/JJ Cale/ Cat Power/John Prine Super Road Trip Ipod Mix.  I sing tunelessly along until he cries real tears, then we listen to NPR.

We landed in Seattle at 8:30 on friday night and the band was scheduled to start playing in the South Seattle Warehouse district at 10:00. Eric had delusions of us catching a bus downtown and walking through meth allies to get to where I would certainly not get my yummie exotic food or my crazy artsy martini.  I would be served PBR in a warm glass and we would stand stone cold sober on the dance floor of a mostly empty former cannery while neverbeens play Styx cover songs.  Eric was giddy with the idea of a t-shirt in his size and whether the base player would be bald yet.

"That guy was losing his hair in 9th grade…PLEASE? You'll HAVE FUN!"

No. Half the band works at Home Depot to make ends meet. The other half lives with their mothers. That's not the sort of ground from which genius germinates.   I mean, I'm a fan of mothers, and certainly ladders and the paint isle…but there is nothing sadder than seeing men my age sing Come Sail Away! using amplifiers that don't go to 11, in a venue that doesn't either.  The bitterness of the years telling on their wrinkled tattoes (Is it a ship? A woman's torso? The lines have collapsed into pre-skin cancer and age spots…its a tiger?…a snake grasping a dollar sign? It's the medical sign for 'I have Diabetes'…) and rockport footware.  That's not fun, it is quite another f-word. 

We agreed to do things my way since the rest of the weekend was about His Family.  We ate carribean food and drank really improbable mixes until after midnight (Pactific Time!) in a small cozy place one block from the garden cottage where we were staying; Cienna's house. Cienna and Preston ate/drank with us. It was really nice. 

Saturday was the big nephew high school Jazz concert.  My husband's family is big on music. The nephew is a very gifted jazz guitarist and performed very well to more of an audience than I'm sure Rail could drum up ….

Eric's mom is now convinced that Eric's brother is quitting his well paying tech job to become his son's manager.  This will end in ruin.  Homelessness, unattractive facial hair…heroin addiction.  
Perhaps eventually a job at Home Depot.   (I suggested that!) We ate seafood at a nice chain near the water. Eric and I took the bus back to Seattle and walked around until late, drinking at his old downtown bars and some of my newer ones. 

It was a good weekend. I'm glad to be home.  Back to my own devices. 

This weekend I am going to Seattle to hang out with my HUSBAND's family, who view me with the same affection and kinship as most of us do ticks and fleas.  Something sucking the wholesome goodness from their son's white flesh….Or a stain on the crisp family linen.  Eric's family are 600 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and I'm an untimely period.

The only thing we share laughter over is relief. As in when I'm not coming to visit with Eric.  Cause I'm TOO BUSY. 

Eric's mother thinks that I am Satan without the kitchen skills.  A less successful federally employed Beelzebub. Many things have contributed to this; from my love of all that is Unholy to my legendary appetite for more than one cocktail, often straight from the can…

My writing.
Eric's mother happened upon my old original blog. Something I wrote years ago to amuse myself while making gentle mocking fun of others. Namely the housewives who waxed romantic on human husbandry. 
I had a really good time writing the blog, but unwisely used our real names and thus Eric's mother stumbled upon some of my more depraved samples of I Am Eating My Husband's Soul.  I have posted a few of these original posts here:
http://zeke.typepad.com/iaemhs/

To this day, Eric's mom cannot be convinced that her son isn't being molested regularly by my best friend's well-dressed monkey, while I demand more gum garnish for my alcoholic beverage.  Because that really is who I am to her.

The ASCA trial was this weekend.   Fun times; Good people, nice
weather, though a little hot, and an excellent learning experience for
me.  Here are my highlights:

First, Lindy and Rave: Great team. 
I really love seeing Lindy work her sweet little red dog.  There were
dogs/handlers who scored well at this trial, but I didn't see any who
worked nearly as nicely together as these two. Jaenne and Mo did
consistently really well also.

Jen and I worked best on Friday, 
our first run, which is probably about the 5th or 6th time I've ever
worked Jen so she wasn't yet jaded in her expectations of me as a
handler.  Plus I've been feeding her chicken and providing access to
exotic poop for the last two weeks, so she was willing to give me the
benefit of the doubt.   We completed the course in plenty of time, made
the obstacles, and got a good score.  Saturday's trials were similar in
that we made the obstacles, got qualifying scores to move up a level. 
I knew it wasn't pretty, timing a little off, commands often
wrong….but we're learning how to work as a team.  It was all within
our reach.

By Sunday, when Patrick and Dianne were scheduled to
come out and watch,  I think Jen and I both had delusions of grandeur, hers
well deserved and fed by all the fresh meat and praise she was ingesting,  mine fueled by some weird jagged optimism gene that
pierces straight through the heart of reason just enough to often make
me seem completely delusional.  Sometimes I'll wear low rider pants,
for instance, or try to sing.

This time, in my mind I could see
Patrick and Dianne in the stands,  watching Jen and I flawlessly move
the sheep around the rodeo arena, through the obstacles, into the
pen….Patrick would say, "I've never seen anyone employ a slapping of
thigh technique quite so well…Jen's curls look amazing…what is she
rolling in these days? I'm choking up…"

Dianne would follow
with, "You know, I never thought I'd say this, but in certain
situations that flailing really works! And, by God, the wrong command
never sounded so right! I might just try an "Away" next time I mean
'Come By' …I've been such a plebian…"
Both would stand and ovate. Is that a word? It should be. It would have been.

But
no.  Instead, 9:30 minutes of our 10:00 minute run was spent with Jen
swirling the sheep around me like hair around a clogged drain.  I would move
slightly, slap my thigh, say her name, issue a command, she'd take it,
trying to get around me. Sheep trotting the 3 or 4 feet necessary to be
back at my feet.  I knew I was in the way, my brain couldn't engage
enough to fix it and Jen was quietly standing there staring at the
sheep and wishing, no doubt, that I would burst into flames so that she
could have the sheep stomp the fire out on the way to the pen and at
least realize part of her fantasy.

We got through ONE obstacle. Two if you count that my pants fit and I didn't try to yodel.

This weekend Jen is running me in the ASCA trial.  We have 5 sheep runs. 

We did have 3 sheep and 3 duck runs but during our one and only duck practice session last weekend Jen let it be known that as far as ducks go, she is a nonbeliever.  She has heard of them, the quacking and taste vaguely of pillow chicken, but she doesn't see them.  Will not.  Jen is convinced that ducks are a gateway to regular baths, herding with monkey jockeys and other horrors.  It's just not dignified.  Only a Not Patrick would even try such a thing.

So, Jen has me on sheep for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Our plan is to just have fun with people we like, doing something we enjoy on animals that poop something worth rolling in.  I love working for Jen. She is all common sense and easy going.  She's sweet and brings down the anxiety level where-ever she goes. 

If somehow we don't get through the ASCA started course I'm going to have to move to Canada and take up geese fancying and Molson beer.  Jen will change her name to Jan and star in fur flicks. I truly believe that when a career is tarnished by scandal, the only way to shine it up and put it back on the top shelf is by having someone leak a sex vid.  Of course, I also not long ago truly believed Jen and I would take the big trophy in ducks this weekend.  And now I have to cancel my monkey and case of Dr. Bonner's minty soap and start over.

Yeah…It's downhill…I'm tired…I'll post tomorrow.

Patrick's Jen pictured here in a festering hotbed of a nerd's biggest fear

It's tick season.  I pulled one off my leg this morning at work, MUCH to the disgust of my cubicle neighbor, Don, who likes include Dancing with the Stars and Sports programming, fast food and vacationing in Kansas.  The tick was not embedded on me, but rather crawling up my leg as I was standing at the entrance to our adjacent cubicles chatting with a  fellow co-worker.  

"Oh, shit, a tick!" I believe were my words.

I casually grabbed the tick, squished it, and threw it into Don's garbage, which was closer than my own. It joined some wrappers and a 16 ounce coffee cup from Starbucks.  Don had eaten a twix candy bar and some cheese sticks; all before 9 am.  I decided that this was probably none of my business.  Still, he and the co-worker I had been talking with seemed to be waiting for me to say more.

"You ate a Twix for breakfast?" I asked.

"DID YOU JUST THROW A TICK IN MY TRASH?" Don shrieked.  He bent his
upper body in the direction of the garbage can without moving his
lower, stubbier half. The half that needed the workout, frankly.

"Ahhh ticks," I sighed, "For the next month I'll be picking these off man and beast around my house."

He gaped at me.  Either his disapproval was oozing thru his pores, or the TWIX had left it's mark.  His frown was deep indeed.

"I killed it first," I assured him.

"Those things CARRY DISEASE!" he said.  

"That one's disease carrying days have come to a close," I said, "next to your TWIX CANDY BAR AND TWIN CHEESE STICK WRAPPERS…"

Rather than admit to his own unhealthy choices or apologize for being a hypocrite, Don stomped over to the can, picked it up and marched it straight outside, placing it in the corner of the building next to the smoker's picnic table.  I followed him part way, but got distracted by my inbox and someone else's fax coming in.  I knew where he was taking it. He hates smokers.  I think he also hates picnics.  

  This weekend I audited Patrick Shannahan's clinic, which was great, of course. Some things in short that I've taken out of this,

"Your dog is appeasing, not pleasing you…"

It seems like many of us tend to accept any slight improvement in our dog as being good, because it's better, instead of expecting and demanding that our dog do his/her best.

In trying to communicate and work together as a team, like most relationships, many subtle factors contribute to what is actually communicated, plus, we and our dog are each trying to spin the communication to our own advantage.  . The command, our physical position, and the tone in which we issue the command are all part of the message. 

An example Patrick gave was that he once saw a handler friend of his issue a command, a soft ''Way' to flank his dog, as it sounds, just a small flank easy on the away side. His dog ignored it and the handler issued the command again. Ignored. The third time the handler raised his voice and said "AWAY!" harder and faster and the dog took it, because that is the command the dog wanted.

In this case the dog was never issued a correction, just the repetition increasingly louder and faster, and so he just waited for the communication that he wanted to hear. AWAY!

Susan summed it up at one point by saying, "We all underestimate our dog's intelligence, except Patrick…."

These subtle truths fascinate me. It's what I like best about the whole stockdog thing.  I often wish I could just buy a spray though.  Two scents: Come Bye and Away. Plus an outrun fogger.  Maybe the sheep could wear those little car rearview mirror air freshener trees in LIE DOWN.  I think LIE DOWN would smell like lavender…but I'll bet I'm wrong. I'll bet its cow shit or dead elk. 

This place is alive with the fear of Piggy Fever.  (I'm being sensitive to Israel, Mexico and North America…Sorry Mother Goose.)
Still, I have to say, if I end up trapped for any amount of extra time here in this crazy beautiful resort, cloistered with federal nerdarati, because someone comes down with a symptom, my love affair with bacon and tacos will be suspended indefinitely. 

Every time someone sneezes, I spurt antibacterial hand soap in their face.  Not really.  Only in my mind…

One of my friends here, Andrew, is severely hypochondriac. Since yesterday around noon, after I pointed out how many people were coughing, he has been wearing a bandana over the lower half of his face. His usual crowd of cronies rapidly dwindled to just me.  Instead of the usual stopping and talking to him about policy and information tech. issues, people were avoiding eye contact and smirking as they walked by.  

"Good." Andy said. "I don't need their germs."

Normally outspoken with prematurely grey hair that is short and sticks straight up from his head in all directions, and a quick agile way of moving, the face mask called attention to the fact that he never ties his shoes and his hair is actually wild… like it's attacking his head . It doesn't help that the bandana sports the Italian flag.   At first I thought that he'd "borrowed" one of the decorative flags from the hotel mexican restaurant; the similarity is remarkable.

"Do you love nachos?" I asked.  Who doesn't?  Andy also tends to eat like his stomach empties directly into someone else's metabolism.

"It's an Italian flag ….!" he huffed, the bottom portion billowing out. "I went to the cyle-cross internationals in January! The Italians kicked ass"

"How are you going to finish your sandwich and eat brownies this afternoon…..how will you drink BEER?" I asked him.

The Italian part of his face drooped while his eyes registered good ole fashioned American alarm.

Still, the flag fluttered in the breeze of Andy's conversation all day and into the evening. He propped it up to shovel in dinner, and later he rotated the lower angle for beer drinking convenience.  I kept thinking of all the beautiful and important things that Italy has produced and how Andy was staining all that with his love of mixing ketchup with mustard and calling it 'ketch-a-turd" while slathering in on everything…

After dinner, during our post-happy-hour final-night-conference beverages, a shift occurred. I think it stemmed from too much spiked punch on everyone's part. 

Andy developed a relaxed wide legged, arms open couch sprawl that made him seem like he had an odd confidence.  Less furtive more assertive.  Only I understood that it was because he didn't want anyone sitting next to him.

Some of the women changed their view of Andy from some sort of crazy
computer geek germophobe with sinister ties to Italy to….
Mysterious European … 
Edgy, dangerous. 
Sexy Bandito.

Finally, after some prompting, a couple women older than me stuffed dollar bills into the saggy waistband of Andy's Levi 501s as he sauntered back from the restroom, still drying his overwashed hands on 10 feet of papertowl. (Two women….and, in the interest of full discloser, I put .37 cents in myself…it was the least I could do. Really..)

Andy shook his skinny little middle-aged booty, in part because of the (relative) wild applause, and in bigger part because my spare change got hung up somewhere down yonder.

"Do you KNOW how DIRTY money IS?" Italy screamed, horrified and yet flattered…and more than a litle shrewd. Andy is also fairly cheap.

The bandana slipped down onto his neck and stil the change did not shake free.  Somewhere someone sneezed and Andy winced.  His dance grew frantic.  I held on to my bills and my applause and so did everyone else.