I am the strangest man I have ever met. I adopt animals in my mind, love them and consider them to be my own. Even though I have never met them and never will.
The Running Dog lives right down the street from me. He's my buddy. I can only see him in the wintertime WHEN EVERYTHING IS COLD AND DEAD. During our brief two month summer, lush vegetation surrounds his yard with a wall of beauty.
His property intersects my street along a curve. As you drive past the yard he runs along a track of dirt that curves in the opposite direction than the street is curving. Picture a left parenthesis and a right parenthesis back to back. I'm terrible at describing stuff like that so if you can't picture it you are on your own. How about the edge of two circles that are tangent to one another? OK - I give up.
I am not sure if he wore the track in the dirt with his vigilance or whether his owner created it, but I am glad it's there. So, as you drive by he chases you in his own way. He never leaves the track, never rushes out into the street. He just runs at top speed along this path until you curve away from him and he curves away from you.
I love it. I love his energy and I love his intelligence in not running into the street. I have almost gone off the road many times as I watch him fly.
But I'm worried about him this year. Now that EVERYTHING IS COLD AND DEAD I look for him every time I drive by. I have seen him a number of times at the foot of his steps but he hasn't chased me. This disturbs me. Is he getting old? Bored? Is he preoccupied with agonizing concern that a republican might actually take over the White House? Maybe he has decided that I am not worthy of his performance because he is an overachiever and I am an underachiever. I don't know but I really miss his enthusiasm. I hope he chases me soon and I hope he is OK.
When I need to indulge in a few last moments of peace before going to work I take the back roads. It is a peaceful and a beautiful ride. Harsh contrast to the insanity and high intensity testosterone bluster that is my work environment. There is an old dog along the route that I don't even have a nickname for, which is strange because I have nicknames for everything. I'll call him Buddy because when I do see him I say "How you doing, buddy", as I give him the three fingered wave - pinky, index and thumb. The house has a picture window and Buddy sleeps in this window in the warm sunshine on a blanket. On rare and lucky days I see him outside. I don't know for sure he is old but he projects an air of ancient wisdom.
There was an agonizingly long period of time when I didn't see him at all. As a staunch optimist I was so afraid that he had died. But the blanket remained in the window and I remained hopeful. He has recently re-appeared and I have seen him a number of times, even saw him outside last week. He adds a little love to my commute.
Before you get to Buddy's house there is a house with a platform cat scratching post in front of a picture window. The cat is black and white and sometimes I see him sitting intelligently and looking out the window. Cool dude. I don't have a name for him so I'm going to name him now - Sundance The Younger - in honor of the first cat I ever fell in love with.
The original Sundance was an outdoor cat who used to greet me at 2 or 3 in the morning as I came drunkenly home. This was when I lived with my parents. I used to sit on the concrete ledge at the bottom of the backdoor steps and pat him and talk to him for a while before I ascended up into the war zone. It was a precious tender moment after a night of posturing and pretending and peer pressure conformity.
I'll never get to talk to Sundance The Younger, but I dig him enormously along with the quick shot of sweetness he injects into my commute on the lucky days.
When I am rich and famous I'm going to surround myself with animals. They are real and they bring me peace.
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