Morning Madness

The account of my morning will not nearly be as exciting as the title might imply, but I've never been good at titles.

Warning - tangent alert!

I wonder who comes up with book titles - authors or the publisher? I've recently been trying some new authors - Jennifer Weiner, Candace Caprice, Jen Lancaster. All good writers - easy reads, entertaining. I like Lancaster the best, she's snarky and fine, and in Chicago! They have cute titles to their books - "Bitter is the New Black" as an example.

Warning - another tangent!

Continuing on my new author pursuit, I'm listening to "What the Dog Saw" on CD in my car. Since I'm not in the car much, this has been an agonizingly slow process, but I LOVE the author's voice - Malcolm Gladwell - reading his own work. Gladwell is SMART and has great insights and a compelling voice (writing voice, not speaking)(I'm enjoying his speaking voice as well). One of the essays was about this man, Nassim Taleb, a trader/finance man and his particular theories of investment. The story was great and, while entertained, I learned a lot about options trading. THEN, two days ago, I open the Wall Street Journal and there's a feature story on Taleb! I felt so well informed. "Ah, yes, Taleb...author of The Black Swan...of course, you know what he's referring to, right?" (read in snooty, intellectual voice).

Back to our Heroine...

SO, big storm this morning. Opened the door to let the cat out into the porch and IT WAS COOL! Cool for Miami in August - maybe 78? But the storm had washed the humidity out, ahhhhh. Aiden and I headed out for our walk (mercifully mosquito free - we've worn out that topic). Aiden was crazy frisky, because he's gotten his hair cut and it was cool, so we were moving along.

We turned a particular corner, and I could see a small boy walking a 20-ish pound dog at the end of the street. His mom was calling for him to return to the house, but puppy had other ideas. Puppy saw Aiden. Puppy began to run pell-mell in our direction. Rather than stopping and planting his feet (I'm not sure that would have worked either), the boy ran with the dog. Puppy outpaced the boy and jerked the leash away, causing the boy to take a facer into the asphalt.

Aiden, 60 pounds of pure submissiveness, quails in the face of this friendly onslaught. FIVE children and FOUR adults roil out of the house, with a cute but intimidating two year old girl, yelling "NO NO, NOOOO!" as she ran toward us.

I grabbed the puppy's leash and handed it off to an older child. The mom was chiding the fallen boy, "What? You couldn't hold on to that little dog?" GEES, mom! I quickly explained what happened and helped the boy stand, and made a fuss over his slightly skinned knees and hands. "You did great...you really tried to keep the puppy back!" This had the intended effect of re-directing mom from scold to hold, and Aiden and I went on our merry way.

UNTIL we saw two loose dogs barking and bouncing outside of a yard with dogs. UNTIL said dogs saw Aiden. UNTIL with joyously intimidating barks they sprinted down the road, hackles raised, and crowded around Aiden. Aiden tucked his tail and if dogs had thought bubbles his said, "WHAT THE HECK?" (it would be trendier to say, "WTF?" but I don't use the f-word)(except sometimes in my head when I am driving). Both were young - one a small, leggy half grown puppy, the other a very large mixed breed dog. Clearly they wanted to play, and after getting to know Aiden from behind, the large dog became quite affectionate and kept licking Aiden's mouth. Watch the PDA buddy-roo!

After five confusing minutes (where is Cesar Millan when you need him?), a huge pick-up truck screeched to a halt at the next corner. A woman yelled, "GET OVER HERE!" and my happy dog friends galloped over, ignored the opened rear door, and leaped their very wet bodies over the driver's seat. She waved, "Sorry!" and Aiden was rescued.

He'd had enough - I had to run to keep up, and we fled home, where he was comforted by a big milk bone and a nice cuddle!

Woo! Life's a never-ending thrill ride here in suburbia!