Angels: The Good, The Bad, and The Furry


He's at it again.  Darned dog!  He's laying there at my feet with his best beyond-pathetic expression on his face, his way of lobbying me for a walk.  It gets harder every day.

Back in the good old days - like from April through September - it wasn't nearly so difficult to motivate his human for a mile or two down the road.  It is no longer the good old days; it's c-c-c-old out there, the refreshing breezes of summer have taken on all the things I don't like in moving air - speed, cold, and the ability to cut through to the marrow of my bones.  It takes a lot of motivating to even get me outside these days.

But he is of Eskimo origins, he has Husky heritage, he has a three layer fur coat ... he rejects all my excuses and procrastinations as flimsy.  We both need the exercise, he says, we both need the fresh air.

He won yesterday.  I completely ran out of reasons why I couldn't go, and I was lulled into some kind of false sense of security because the view out my front window was one of sunshine; it was actually even what I would call warm on our south-facing deck.  I put on my shoes (which is like entering into a rock-solid contract with a dog who knows what that means) and went looking for an end-of-October type of coat.  Before I left the house I hunted down a toque, just in case.  This may well be the reason I didn't freeze solid.

There is a predictable pattern to our adventures.  It begins with me setting foot outdoors; Turbo jumps to attention. 

Does his human have her purse?  Is she headed for the car?  NO! 

Oh wait, is she carrying any of those nasty, boring gardening tools?  NO! 

She's coming down the steps!  She's heading down the driveway!  OMG!  OMG!  OMG!  We're going for a walk! 

By the time I have walked the 100 meters to the road he has covered 400 meters, back and forth, around in circles; such is his joy.  It's not his sadness when I don't go that guilts me into these winter walks, it's this crazy happiness that gets to me.  I wonder if he knows this?

Regardless of his joy yesterday, the minute I stepped out into the open I regretted my decision - my sunny, peaceful yard had deceived me; it was c-c-c-old out there!  I couldn't face disappointing the dog, though; like I said some kind of unspoken commitment had been made by putting on my runners.  The next step was to choose my route.

It's always the best idea to start out against the wind, that way the trip home is with the wind at my back, kind of like a reward.  I turned north and leaned into that nasty wind.

A normal walk for us is one mile out, and then back.  On nice days I up the distance.  Yesterday my aspirations immediately began to contract in the cold.  The whiny bad angel sitting on my left shoulder demanded we go home, the good one on my right shoulder coaxed me on ... "At least make the half mile before you turn around." she pleaded.  "Think of poor Turbo!"

I risked freezing my eyeballs to look for the dog - sure enough, there he was way out in a field, no doubt sniffing coyote poop - he's got to stay on top of who encroaches on his territory.  "Why does he even need us?" my lazy angel asked.  "He won't even notice if we go home."  We all knew that was a lie.  I kept going.

They say hypothermia causes a person to make poor choices.  Maybe that's why I got all stubborn at the half mile (the compromise distance the good angel and I had come to) and kept on going.  It was like the Little Engine Who Could - I just kept putting one frozen foot in front of the other so that I could do my Rocky victory dance at the corner of SW21-8-31-W1st.  Both angels rejoiced with me - one because we had made it and one because we could go home now. 

The thing about walking as an exercise is that there is no quitting halfway through.  Once you've walked a mile away from home, you have no choice but to walk back.  Even with the wind at my back yesterday that mile was a long one.  I could have used mitts.  I needed a Kleenex for my runny nose.  I wanted to get home so I could sit in my car and turn the butt warmer on. 

The whole adventure only took 48 minutes.  The dog laid off his guilt tripping for the rest of the day.  I proudly logged another two miles.  My good angel gave me a pat on the back, but in a fit of spite my bad angel encouraged me to go stand on my bathroom scales.  She's a mean one, that one.

Turbo doesn't know it but that contraption in the bathroom is his best ally.  At this time of the year I need all the incentive I can find.