Dogs

Christmas with the in-laws

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

It is Christmas Eve in the year 2000, my baby and I are sick. I haven’t been able to leave the house. That prompted me to write in this journal even though it has been almost 5 years since the last time I wrote. It has been a hard Christmas this year. Aside from having a 2 year old and a baby, my grandpa passed away a week and a half ago. I haven’t been able to sing in church this year because I lost my voice and ended up changing a lot of plans for the funeral.

Tonight my in-laws came over for a Christmas Eve supper. We made cornish hens, mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, bread, bars, and cheesecake for the meal. My in-laws arrived over two hours late. They brought their outdoor dog with them because it is very cold outside tonight. While I was eating supper, I found a dead flea like bug in my corn. It made me lose my appetite, but I didn’t say anything. Later I threw out my corn.

After dishes and presents, it was time to put the kids to bed. While I was doing that, their dog peed all over the carpeting in our new house. My in-laws fought about can openers. Then my mother-in-law said she wasn’t going to church for Christmas because she needed to make slippers. Her husband told her that she needed to get her G. damn priorities straight then promptly fell asleep while Paul read the Christmas story out of the book of Matthew.

They finally left around 11:30 PM. We spent a half an hour cleaning up the 2 big piles of dog crap that we found. After this Christmas, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Marathon training, 2 days to go

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I have been running 6 years now and racing for one. I signed up for my first half marathon and first marathon in January. No, it was not a part of a New Year’s resolution. To tell you the truth, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. I think that I should try to be a better person every day of the year, not just a couple of weeks after a night of drunken debauchery. If you kept your New Year’s resolution this year, good for you. I can’t say that I know of anyone who has. 

I would have to say that I earned most of my grit in childhood. Every single time my autistic brother slugged, hit, or scratched me I told myself that the physical pain, bruises, or scars would make me stronger. I followed that mantra back then and I follow it now. The physical pain has made me stronger, gave me the endurance not to quit the race. 

I finished my first half in 2 hours and five minutes. It was a very humid day, so even though I was not able to finish in my goal time of less than 2 hours I was ok with that. I am hoping to finish the marathon between 4 and 4 1/2 hours. Less than 4 hours will be unrealistic. Between 4 1/2 and 5 hours would still be ok. I will be sad if I can’t do it in 5 hours. We’ll see. 

Will I buy marathon photos? No way! Every race photo I’ve seen of myself makes it look like I am dying. Not a pretty picture. If you look great in those pictures, you are not trying hard enough. I often hear nonrunners say that they don’t want to run because we look so miserable. So I try to smile and wave back at the people that are friendly on the road so more people want to join the sport. Neighbors and acquaintances have asked why I am out on the streets so much. Now why does that make running sound so dirty? 

I wish my kids were hard core runners, instead my dog is. He cries like a baby when he can’t run. He is almost 8 and kept limping around after running with my husband. We put our dog on joint pills and it has been really working good. Almost too well, in fact. The first day he dug a hole to China. Then he escaped our yard and dug another hole in attempt to release our neighbors caged rabbits. Good thing they caught him before he succeeded. I think that I could use some of those pills! Wow, we don’t need an aged puppy running around. 

Other than that, I have been fluctuating from excitement to terror. If running a marathon is anything like childbirth, at least it doesn’t last as long. 

Dogs, part 2

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I have learned in the running world that dogs aren’t always your best friend. I have had multiple run ins with animals on the road. Last week I saw a fox for the first time. The week before I ran with a deer and almost saw a poor cat get hit by a truck. Thank God I never saw a bear or I would be griping about them instead. I used to run with my beagle up until last year. He is almost 8 and can no longer keep up with me. He runs with my husband instead. Last week I had to pick up my dog while running because he injured his paw. He howls and cries if we try to sneak out running without him. He loves it too. 

I used to run with my running partner and dog mainly on the back roads. Now I run on the busier roads because the people that live on those roads keep their dogs tied up. The first encounter happened with a Great Dane. The biggest dog I have ever seen. His head reached my chest and he was eyeing up my dog like he was a little house cat. I had a really big problem here because I couldn’t outrun my running partner. Thankfully the dog’s owner noticed he left the yard and got him before anyone was hurt. 

The second dog encounter involved a black lab. This dog seemed friendly enough. He frequently would chase us and bark a bit. No harm in that, right? Well one day he snuck up on us out of a brush filled ditch. We were running at a good pace when he startled us. This ambush caused my dog to run in front of me to avoid the other dog. I tripped over my dog and landed hard in the gravel. I gashed up my knee pretty bad. It was a long 2 miles home bleeding gravel out of my knee and hands from trying to catch myself. I have a scar on my knee as a reminder of my running days with my two “best friends”. 

I will be saying goodbye to my best friend and first running partner tonight as she is moving out of the state. I will miss our many adventures on and off the road. On to happier trails and new adventures. You will be greatly missed. 

Dogs, part 1

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I remember the first day and last day the best, everything else is a blur of white fur. My parents and brothers came to pick me up from my grandma’s one evening after being at a birthday party of a little boy who had severe cerebral palsey. I opted out of going to the party because the previous year this little boy’s older brother decided to take me out on a little adventure which involved me getting lost in the woods. We trudged through the woods for hours, he knew his way back but I didn’t. He made me carry “dinosaur bones”, basically any old bones he could find, back to his house. If I didn’t carry those bones, I didn’t go home type of arrangement. Needless to say, I stayed at grandma’s house the next year. Mark came in the house to get me exclaiming that we now have our first dog. I didn’t believe him at first. It was dark out when I peeked into the car. Sure enough there was a big white dog in there. She was a stray named Whitey. The friendliest dog ever. 

The last day started like any other. It was a Saturday. I volunteered with grandma, Aunt Grace, and a few other older church ladies at the thrift shop. They always had me running the cash register. I don’t know why because I was only 13. Grandma said that if anyone wanted me to take their items out to their car for them that I needed to have her do it. Something about that not being very safe even though I was old enough to run the cash register. 

There was a problem with the dog when I got home. She was having a hard time going on her daily walk with mom. Mom said that Whitey probably drank the milk she set out for the cats. Her fur was matted up on her backside and she couldn’t go to the bathroom easily. Mom gave her a bath and trimmed her fur but she did not get better. Mom and I took her to the vet. The x-Ray showed that her intestine twisted. At this time, we made a horrible mistake by taking our dog back home. 

Afternoon turned towards evening with no improvement. During this time, I received a call from a girl named Ann who was a homeschooled. (This happened during our three years of being home bound after Matt got kicked out of school for his violent autistic behavior). Ann called to tell me about her trip to Australia that they just got back from. Sorry, gotta go, my dog is dying here. Can’t hear about your wonderful vacation. My mom, brothers, and I sat next to Whitey for the next several hours. Dad checked out and was watching TV. I am going to spare you the details here, but trust me when I tell you that my dog died an extremely painful death that lasted over the span of several hours. A couple of hours in my mom asked me if she should call the neighbor over to shoot our dog. I said, “Absolutely not!” This was a man who shot his cute little Beagle puppy for chasing his chickens. This type of logic is exactly why you do not ask a 13 year old to help make major decisions in the family!

After several more hours and after mom called the emergency vet services to see if there was surgery or anything else we could do, my dog died. I still have her collar in my jewelry drawer today. I still feel pained that I made the wrong decision if I really think about it. I still feel angry that I had to make a lot of adult decisions as a child that I wasn’t ready to make. 

The next morning as mom and I left for church, I saw Whitey laying on the front lawn. The wind was gently blowing her fur. I imagined that she was sleeping and that none of this really happened. I did that a lot as a kid, pretending that painful things didn’t happen.