Greetings, Gentle Reader,
Less than a month to go, and this is only the third entry?? Sheeesh. I'd better do a better job as a rower on the 16th than I'm doing as a blogger. I could tell you that the final two weeks of school make a teacher's life pretty full, but then I could also tell you that my Hollywood script has needed revision and the trips to and from LA have tied me up. You pick.
Happily, in my electronic absence, the Creature People's machinery continues to turn, and the plans for June 16th are coming together nicely. The Pavillion at Rash Field is secured, a wide array of pet-oriented interests are going to be there, and a perfect sunny day has been ordered up.
To paraphrase Bonnie Raitt, it will be something to bark about.
Among the "creature people" is one Tom Ingegno, an acupuncture practitioner who will be talking about (and, I suspect, demonstrating) the curative effect of his craft on pets...and yes, me. He has been kind enough to offer his services to better prepare me for my ordeal, and I plan to take him up on the offer. It will be a new experience; my son is a certified massage therapist, and I have seen him work his magic on creatures as well. At this point in my preparation, I'll take every laying on of hands I can get if the experience promises a bit more endurance. Tom, I'll be calling you soon. 75 miles will be a killer, I think; there is simply no other way to do it than to get on the water and row, and there is far too much dust on the boat right now. My high school football coach used to say, "Seniors play with pain," and I guess I will, too, now that I am a bit more senior than I was in 1969.
What has been truly motivational, however, has been the buzz among the pets themselves. We have two Recycled Love creatures in residence, Corey and Luke. Corey, a Bichon, has been with us since 1999. How a Bichon can find it's way to death's door is beyond me, but he was, and Peg, courtesy of Sally Anne Jennings, rescued a little gem. Luke has been with us since Thanksgiving. His story would take a couple bottles of saucy Merlot and a full evening to recount, but let's just say that on the sociability scale, Corey is Dom DeLuise and Luke is...well...Don Rickles with an edge. He has a...how you say....an attitude?....which, as Nerissa says in The Merchant of Venice, "makes for an unquiet house." They were talking quietly in the kitchen the other night after dinner, and while I hate an eavesdropper, I took a few notes with the thought that you'd like to hear how the clients of Row for Rescue are responding to this initiative:
Corey: Yo, Luke.
Luke: What, Corey, what.
Corey: Yo, Luke. Wassup?
Luke: "Wasssup"? "Wassup"?? Stop it, Corey. Just stop. You are a Bichon. That's
B-I-C-H-O-N. You are a little fluffy white dog. You do not say "Wassup" with cred. It
just makes you look bad.
Corey: Yo, Luke.
Luke: Stop.
Corey: Yo, Luke.
Luke:
Corey: Yo, Luke. Heard about Row for Rescue? It's on the DL right now, but it's comin'. It'll be a
freight-train o' fun , fer sure. Big time. The wheels are turnin'.
Ed note: Happily, at this point their sparkling banter finally turns to the topic at hand.
Luke: Row for Rescue? Whadd'ya talking about?
Corey: Roots, man. It's about roots and family and taking care of those who cannot take care of
themselves and finding love through giving back.
Luke: Holy Mailman, Corey, back off on the Iams, will ya? What are you talking about?
Corey: Do you remember where you came from?
Luke: I came in from the living room for dinner.
Corey: You are tediously literal, man. Tediously. I mean, where did you come from? Before
that?
Luke: I was upstairs sleeping. I came down hoping to take a pee before dinner.
Corey: OK, OK, but before that?
Luke: What's with the Twenty Questions? I was in the bedroom, if you must know, alternately
chewing on my binkey-boo and cleansing myself.
Corey: I'm tellin' ya, you gotta go easy on that binkey-boo, Luke. And there's far too much
"cleansing" going on up there. It's wiggin' me out. But what about before that, Luke?
Ed note: Some opine that dogs have no sense of the passage of time...that, to them, an hour is a minute and long-term memory is so comingled with the present that their capacity for nostalgia and cosmic reflection is, in human terms, underdeveloped. It is not my place to confirm or refute this hypothsis. I will only tell you that Corey and Luke have profoundly differet sensibilities about the time, and for the sake of brevity I will fast-forward three hours, through Corey's patient yet relentless interrogation, and pick up the dialogue from there....
Luke: So what you're saying is that on the 16th, kind-hearted people from around the city will
be gathering at Rash Field to celebrate our continued existence and the salvation of so
many like us? And, in doing so, they will in effect be celebrating their own humanity?
Corey: That's wassup.
Luke: Stop it, Corey. Just stop it.
Gentle Reader, this transcript is just the tip of the iceberg. Similar canine conversations are taking place all across Charm City.
Stay tuned for more.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Serious Training Begins
Al can begin his training outside the gym, since he has now retrieved the guideboat from it's winter abode in balmy Virginia.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
