Just felt like sharing a little. So I took a quick snapshot of one moment in my
life - a moment from today, from my perspective - and printed it out in words
here for you. I'd be much obliged if you'd return the favor sometime. :-)

"Another Rainy Sunday (A 'Life Snippet')"

Another rainy Sunday... Sitting at the computer like I almost always
do, churning out posts on Usenet, fractal art or
3D graphics

maybe working a
little here and there on some of my own personal philosophical musings.
The air changes to my right, I feel a breeze so subtle most people would
miss it - but I know what it means. Ginger. She's come out of her crate, she's
wagging her tail and panting - the weather outside is drab and gloomy, but it's
not such a cold day at all. In fact, I have the windows open and the heat
turned off just to let in a little freshness.
Without saying a word because we don't need words, Ginger tells me with
a glance that she wants me to get up and accompany her on a walk outside. No,
she doesn't want me to "take her for a walk" - that would imply that I am
somehow in control of the experience. She wants me to "accompany" her, because
unless it's some place we absolutely cannot go (surprisingly few places, belive
it or not), I let her take me wherever her nose leads us.
I tell her to hold her proverbial pants on as I slowly stand up,
stretch, look at her a bit, and then slip my bare feet into my worn-thin shoes
and slide on that jacket I found behind the 11th Street Coffee House one fine
Friday night a few months ago. Bare feet in aging shoes is an interesting
sensation, but you dare not become too attached to the shoes because if you wear
them that way too often, they quickly make their way onto the "uninvited guest"
list of things you might be able to wear to work the next day. After two days
of walking Ginger like this, these shoes smell to high hell. I'm going to have
to stop at Wal Mart tomorrow morning on the way to work and get another pair.
Sad.
Ginger's tail slams hard against the filing cabinet on one side and a
shelf on the other as I put her leash on. She bounces up and down with her
"stand up" - "bow down" - "stand up" - "bow down" routine. I see in her yellow
eyes the same glimmer of intelligence I once looked up to in my older sister -
when I was two and she was six. Ginger... is a very smart dog.
My hearing, it's not all it's cracked up to be. I can hear some of the
sounds of traffic on the street below, the door closing - but I can _feel_
Ginger's claws skidding on the concrete walkway out from my apartment. She
skids and slides and frets and paces as she impatiently tries to hurry me - the
poor, sloth-like human - along.
We eventually make it down to street level. The air is cool and the sky
is gray and bright as every now and again, I can feel almost microscopic drops
of mist splashing against my skin, see it collecting in Ginger's fur which she
intermittently shakes off with much more fanfare than seems absolutely
necessary. We head towards Knoxville's World's Fair Park, our usual haunt.
Along the way, Ginger stops to spread the obligatory "pee-mail" on sign
posts and bricks and lawns - just to let other dogs know she dropped by while
they were out. She even manages to squeeze out some fertilizer - five times, in
fact - which I, being the responsible dog "owner" that I am, proceed to whip out
one of them brown plastic "doggy bags" they dispense around town for just such
needs. I end up having to use two bags by the time she's all pooped out, but I
have 'em and use 'em. I bag it - all of it - and drop it in the trash bin by
the World's Chocolate Factory as both Ginger and I turn our noses at the
remnants of less responsible dog "owners".
In the grassy area of the park, small lakes have formed from the recent
rain. The redevelopment they've done on this place either sucks, or isn't
finished yet - one or the other. But there are enough dry spots that Ginger and
I spend quite a few minutes chasing each other around the piles of other dog's
poop. It's almost like an obstacle course as we weave and sway and run and
scamper all around those little brown piles of strangely humorous filth. Ginger
and I remind each other of the dope who just yesterday approached us and asked
me why I don't pick up my dog's crap - only to be stunned when I pulled out a
whole roll of those little brown plastic "dog poop" bags and ask him who he's
mistaken me for. Ginger and I didn't use words, we don't need them, but just by
something in our eyes we looked at each other and those piles of _other_ dog's
poop we were weaving around and we reminded each other of that. Dogs laugh as
much with their eyes as humans laugh with their throats.
Ginger's a weirdo in that regard - she used to want to stop and sniff
each and every single pile of "other-poo" we'd happen upon, but she seems to
have finally come around to my way of thinking and now prefers to avoid it. At
least most of the time.
She gets far away and then runs up to me and thrusts into my gut with
her paws - she's feeling "frisky". So Ginger and I wrestle on the ground - she
loves to wrestle humans, and she's actually not half bad at it. I don't always
have to "let" her win, sometimes she actually _earns_ it!
Ten minutes pass of hands in teeth and snout against ear, claw against
elbow - just a whole chaotic mess of dog-and-man limbs fighting against each
other in a pretend fight-to-the-death. Finally I tucker out first. Ginger
pants as she lays there, tongue bouncing up and down off the sidewalk as I
stretch my slowly-aging bones and stand erect once more. Then she bolts up,
spreads her forepaws and perks her ears as she says something along the line of,
"Hey, dude, we haven't been down _that_ path before! Let's go *there*!"
I see where she's looking and how she's looking at it. We don't need
words, we both already know, and we start walking down that path....
--
L8r,
Uncle Buck
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"'True Perfection' would not be sadistic enough
to create anything other than its exact equal."
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Bonus sig:
"Every Buddha just needs some Buddha to love..."