It was ten when we larked, and pretty hot. We met no one on the first leg, but early in the second leg there was a teenager and his.....man, I don't know. Grandma? I didn't get a very good look. They remained within earshot behind us for most of the second leg. The boy sounded like he was talking a mile a minute, but I'm not sure what about. Maybe the weather--Lark and I were broiled by the time we got back.

After lunch Philip had me work on the SAT. I finished that practice test, and he totaled my score, although I don't think he scored the essay, which I finished. Oh, right--gotta post that for Mom. I think, besides that, my score was 1150, though. Not counting the essay. I took half-an-hour to write it, without referring to my last attempt (and going in a somewhat different direction). My arm was cramping before I finished.

About four we left to go to the church barbecue at Bear Creek. We took nearly an hour getting there, having an inadequate idea which of the various roads claiming to be a part of Bear Creek Park actually led to the park facilities. We found it eventually, however, and I played volleyball with some of the other kids/young adults (in the more literal sense) until it was time to eat. Rachel and Liz Debenedittis and several people I didn't know were on my side, with Sarah and Abby, Elise Mann, Matt, and some more people I don't know on the other team. Ben stood at the net and hit from either side--'libero' playing taken to a new extreme. I was getting fairly decent by the time we quit. We ate at six, I think, sitting with Abby, Ben, Matt, and Rachel opposite, and I think Josh Mann on Philip's far side. After dinner I watched everybody play Frisbee until it was time to go at seven. There should have been plenty of time to walk the dog before dark, but it started raining, and then thundering, so we went along the road almost to the trail and then turned back. I'm beginning to hate thunder, especially when I'm outside.

Philip and I then proceeded to spend at least an hour wrestling with the math problems on the SAT practice test that I missed. It was pretty interesting. There was one that he missed, and a few that he said I didn't need to learn just then, sometimes because I was just getting there in algebra and sometimes because he just didn't want to mess with it.

After that we did what he calls calisthenics, the same program as last night. I did better,  but crunches are.....geh. Abs + crunches = jelly, for lack of a better description.

Then we got floats and watched episode 4 of Castle, which was the politicians one. "Hell Hath No Fury" is the episode name--possibly because the murder was arranged/accompliced by the guy's wife, with assistance from his campaign manager, who did the deed for her.

Then I read some Waverley, started Wickford Point, and went to bed.

Golden, dachshund, goldendoodle, golden/german shepherd, short black poodly creature

Sid came over after breakfast to talk to Grandma. She's taking us to the doctor's office this afternoon--somehow I'm going, I'm not sure why. It was nine-forty when Lark and I headed out. It was pretty nice out. It was kinda funny--when I hit the dam, and went onto it to cross, there was a woman with a Golden coming on one side, and a man with a boy and a dachshund going on the other side. We met the three boys just before the big dip in the path, where water runs when there's enough. The man said "hi," the boy--about Isaac's age, I think--told me they had a dog with them too, and he was the short one, and Reggie the dachshund tried to mount Lark. She didn't disembowel him, so I guess she liked him. I said "excuse me," "I see," and "Lark!" in that order. Then we ran for a bit. The other option was to stay with them, and, while interesting, it's a bit more complicated than just leaving them behind. My body took the running rather well, I thought. Anyway, we met the woman with the Golden again in the road, and she told me she'd seen what she thought was a snake, up in the middle of the road, and so had turned back. I thanked her for the warning, and we exchanged a few remarks on snakes in general. She doesn't like 'em. So we kept going, and sure enough, up on the slope before the next patch of shade there was a sort of log shape in the middle of the road. It looked a bit like a dried stalk of mullen, and I thought, "Was that what she was talking about?" Lark promptly trotted up to sniff it, and as promptly bounced back, as the snake hissed and drew its head back. As its tail began to buzz, I called Lark, my voice, after the first shriek, only a little frantic. She looked at me, looked back at the interesting creature making such an odd sound in the middle of the road, looked back at me, and then trotted regretfully over. I leashed her, telling her what a good dog she was, and we made a careful circuit, going off the road a bit, as the dratted snake had a commanding position in the center of the road. I did not unclip the dog until we were inside the house. Lesson no. 1: I do not like poisonous snakes. Lesson no. 2: If Lark is ever bitten, it will be on the nose. Lesson no. 3: Just because you dream your dog is eaten by coyotes does not mean she will be bitten by snakes. Or at least not the very next morning. I noticed even my subconscious couldn't imagine such an eventuality, though.

Sid took Grandma to the doctor's office after lunch. I spent some time on the comp, then crashed. Grandma woke me at about four-fifteen to get ready to go to the ball game. I was ready to go, having walked the dog, eaten, and changed, by five, the estimated time of departure. Ralph came this time--he's allowed to drive, now. I hadn't known, though if I'd thought about it I suppose I would've. Anyway, it was a decent game, I guess. The Dodgers creamed us. It was the same place as last time, so there were a lot of dogs again, starting with two beagle puppies in the parking lot--terribly adorable, they were. Then there were a Goldendoodle, which I visited, and a boxer, which I did not, in the audience. Oh, and those two beautiful Danes went past again. After that was a huge brindle mastiff--it was a perfect setup for Sid's joke, actually, where you go up to the guy in the park with the dog and go "Oooh, handsome," or something like that, and when he's accepting this as a compliment of his dog, you go, "The dog's not bad either." I, of course, am not about to get up the nerve to do this in a million years (Sid says she can't remember if she did this when she was younger or not), much less to run up to a shirtless guy in the park and say it. Fun to think about, though. Hm, what else? Oh, yeah, there was a man walking a pair that may have been an Aussie and a rat terrier. Not sure, though. Aussie mix, maybe--it had a conspicuous tail, for one.....

We larked again after I got home, about eight. We met the couple with the leashed barkers almost first thing, coming up the Nevada road; they reeled their dogs in and kindly waited for us to get to our turn. I got in a breed query, and got an answer on the brown one, at least: golden/German shepherd. Wow. Never would have thought it. Right color, though, I guess. It was actually a really nice walk, after my knee stopped hurting; a certain prancing someone whanged it with a stick before we even made the gate. For symmetry, I guess. The other one's flashier, with the scabbed scrape, but it was hurting at walks for days after I knocked it going after her on a runaway night. Feh. My left stopped hurting after awhile, though, so I could enjoy the walk and wonder whether we'd make it back before full dark. We did, but the sun was no more than a pale orange glow behind the mountains, fading through pink to blue. A buck was standing at the fence between Heller land and the driveway parallel to the road; I think we'd interrupted his feeding, though when I caught his eye he was simply standing, watching us. Lark, of course, noticed nothing, though he stood there until I could no longer see him.

Fifteen pushups, twenty situps. I could probably up the number of pushups now, but I don't have the energy.

Golden retriever and Border collie, ewok-teddybear

Took forever to go to sleep.....and then Grandma got me up before seven-thirty. Come on, Grandma, Lee isn't coming until nine! And it was an interesting dream! Although I wouldn't want to be the hero. Perpetual festering wounds aren't funny. I would have liked to watch his friend finish yelling at him, though......Five more minutes?

Well, at nine-twenty Grandma went and looked at the calendar, which said Lee isn't coming until tomorrow. By that time I had about forty minutes to walk the dog in, so we bolted. I wasn't sure we could make the whole circuit before ten, so we just did the first leg, and I jogged and ran a lot. There was a little traffic tangle a little way along on the way back from the watering hole; Lark was lagging behind a bit, and I stopped to wait for her to catch up. A lady on a bike came on, and she had almost passed me when I heard a woman's voice calling a dog. Oops. So I let her pass, and then I started running for Lark. When I came into sight, she was at a bend in the trail, engaging in wary incivilities with a familiar-looking Border collie. Where were the woman and the golden? Around the bend in the trail, with another girl, rather younger. So I said hi to everyone, in varying tones and enthusiasm levels (with Lark lowest), and the woman said, "I think we've seen you before." "Yeah," I said, "couple days ago." Having petted the golden, I decided I'd better extricate us. So I started out running, calling Lark very firmly and wishing the idiot collie would quit chasing us. It did, very shortly, but I ran for a good while. I'd decided, a few days ago, that my body wasn't being challenged much by walking anymore, and I need to run more. But the incentive to run, when it's really hot and you want to have some energy left to get home with, is pretty low. So today, with the deadline for getting home and the canine imbroglio, was a good day.

So Grandma told me Sid called while I was gone. Did I mention that last night, just as she was coming in from Last Call, Lark got kinda woofy and Intruder! Intruder!-ish? Yeah. And again at twelve-thirty, while I was trying to go to sleep. She woke Grandma, too, just in time to hear the Rockies lose in the thirteenth inning. So that was our angle. Sid called to say that they had a bear visit last night and tear the trash apart. Meep. Actually, she also said that they're going camping this weekend and want me to take care of Maddy, but I still need to talk to her about it. (And say, Yes! I'd love to! Where's the cat food!)

So Grandma told me about the camping while we were in the car, with Jinn, going to the bridge luncheon. It was really nice. They had it at Joan's, because Norma's kitchen is a disaster zone with remodeling, but Norma still kinda presided. Harriet was there, with pictures of the Ethiopian twins her daughter is trying to adopt after, what, six miscarriages? So their one little boy will have little sisters. Also Grandma told her about Mom having all of us after her various miscarriages, which is to say there's still hope, so who knows, there could be more. So with Jinn and Grandma there were five, and they had a little game of bridge while Joan cleaned up. I, fortunately, had Barrayar in my purse, having contemplated the possibility of this eventuality. It was really fun talking to them over lunch, though, which was a variety of chicken salad (with palm and artichoke hearts) followed by lemon cream pie. It was all delicious. Joan sent the salad home with us. Wait, was it Norma's salad? I think so. Anyway, that's dinner. So Jinn brought us home, all speculating on the species of the bright yellow flowers covering the hill behind Joan's house. It's a lovely and eye-catching effect.

Read Barrayar while Grandma napped, and then it was time for Anti-Dog-Hair Measures, i.e. brushing and sweeping things.

Two sets of five pushups while waiting for pasta to boil for dinner. Kind of hard by the second set, but not too bad.

Took Lark for a run after dinner, from about eight to eight-thirty. It was really nice out: cool, with a pleasant nip to the arms and legs without being cool enough to bite. We met a family of four toiling up the Heller road: boy on bike, a couple years younger than me, toiling along at the laboriously slow pace of one who has to wait for everyone else; sister, maybe older; mom; and dad, with dog on leash. It was a very small dog, of uncertain breed, but it looked rather like the dog in the "When teddy bears and ewoks breed" lol. Lark got along with him quite well. We went perhaps two-thirds of the way to the end of the first leg, then turned back. I jogged in prolonged spurts. The family had still gotten a surprisingly little way past the creek crossing when I met them again. This time the boy stopped to respond to Lark's advances, which infallibly gets a rather warmer smile and hello from me than ignoring her, or merely saying hi and passing on, does.

I've been jogging more, since walking doesn't challenge my body enough unless I go farther than I have time for. What I've been wondering is whether it might not be a better idea to walk with weights instead--carry my backpack, put some books (although I'd hate to put books to such a use--maybe I can find something else) or something in it. Jog when I've gotten somewhere with that, maybe. It's something to think about, at least, and if I want to adventure I'd better be able to shape up to carrying things. Even if I don't adventure, it's always nice to know one's in shape if one does, by chance, have something interesting happen.

see more dog and puppy pictures

Golden and a....Yorkie?

Well, Isaac called pretty early to ask if I could come play. I told him I had to go get groceries with Philip, but I'd come over when we got back. Grandma tells me he called again while we were gone, but when I got back he and Sid were on a bike ride. He came over as soon as they got home, and Lark and I headed over.

There wasn't a lot to do. We played checkers; in the end one of my three kings had cornered his last remaining king and he surrendered. I was rather relieved--in the beginning I had had to sacrifice several pieces just to keep the game going. After that we ended up watching cartoons again. Sigh. Then Sid got up from her nap, and Isaac and I went for a hike.

He wanted to take the way we went last time, but this time he was ready to turn back by the time we were at the dike, so we looped back there. We spent several minutes at the culvert there, as Isaac tortured snails and I got a drink. My backpack and Lark's water were laid out on the ground, and I was at the culvert with Isaac, when I heard Lark begins to growl. I looked around, and there was a Golden coming around to bend in the trail. The only reason Lark had to growl was my stuff, laid out with only her protection. She stopped when I came to her, as the Golden's owners followed him with, on a leash, what may have been a Yorkie. Maybe a cross between a Yorkie and a cat. Or a Yorkie with a short haircut, I suppose....

Isaac was consistently obnoxious all the way home, eventually deciding that the best way to get me out of my mature, boring attitude would be to steal my glasses. It worked. KILLCRUSHDESTROY.......ahem. So we went home, and once Mom got in we had dinner. Lark was delighted to see her, dancing in and out of the garage, whirling like an ex-ballerina dervish. The chicken salad was ready and the table was set by then, and we had Boonzaijer's desserts.

I went over to Sid's for the movie at seven-twenty-five. Isaac was just finishing up eating, and we got started pretty quickly. It started out pretty slowly, with Sid pausing to explain backstory as the characters laid it out in dialogue, in the best established manner. But then Jiao Long stole Li Mu Bai's sword, and it got going all right. The fights weren't bad, although I think they could have done a much better job of disguising the ropes for jumps and things. You can't actually see them, credit them with more skill than that, but the quality of the movements betray them. It's a pretty good movie, but I did not like the ending. If there are two couples, than I expect both of them to get a happy ending. Grr. 

Isaac and I enjoyed the movie, but Sid preferred the show afterwards. I grabbed Isaac as he was heading for bed, and it escalated from there. Sid took lots of pictures, consisting largely of me adjusting my hold to immobilize both his arms and his head, so that he can neither lick me nor lick his hands and then touch me. Blech. It was almost ten when he walked me home. The grass was wet with rain, and when Lark came back from walking him home she had to be toweled all over.

An Aussie, a Shiba Inu, and a Great Dane

Today is a good day. Having spent the morning waiting for my elder brother to show up, we gave up and went for a walk at one-fifteen. We started on our usual trail through the Heller estate, pausing at the head of the creek to discover water striders and tadpoles in the pools of the rocks. I'm going to investigate those tadpoles more: they had external gills, and were patterned. Anyway, at the meeting of the trails I took the most direct one into the houses, a house actually being visible from the rock under the tree. Shortly after getting onto the sidewalk in that well-off cul-de-sac, Lark stopped and stared into a yard. I looked, and there was a big merle Aussie dozing in the shade under a bush. We waited a moment, and the dog lifted his head and looked round. Seeing Lark, he decided that we required attention, and came over. He was much bigger than she is, between a Lab and a Golden, and very fluffy too. His fur stuck out like the winter fur of a Katahdin lamb. It was blue merle, a sort of light gray with patches almost black, and he had copper and white points, just like Lark. They greeted one another, Lark wary and the stranger interested, and he paused to sniff at me a moment before returning to investigating this pretty young thing on his sidewalk. In the end he darted away, in an oddly playful movement, before giving up and returning to his contemplation of slow death by fluff in the heat. We moved on. I was relieved to find, almost immediately, a familiar-looking main road. Determined to remember names, I checked the street sign: Rockhurst Boulevard. Right. We headed uphill. A strange music began to tease me: clearly aimed at children, it seemed about to settle into one tune after another, without ever doing so. The source came into sight. It was an ice cream truck. It struck me, unfamiliar, like a horse and carriage downtown: those still exist? I quickly went on to merely regretting that I didn't bring money to walk the dog, and resolving to do so in future. Five bucks, say. We pursued our parallel courses in opposite directions, however, and we proceeded without incident, past various familiar points, until we were a block away from the turn to the downhill road. A couple of people were chatting in a driveway across the street, and there was a little brown dog with black highlights (looked rather like this) barking at us. I didn't pay much attention to this, but I was watching them, and so I saw when a beautiful gray Dane moved cautiously out of hiding behind a shrub. The man told them to stay, and reassured me. "Yes, but can I come over there?" He said this was fine, and I did. The little dog--a Shiba Inu named, appropriately, Wolfie--followed protocols, sniffing tails, et cetera. It was when this was finished, and the beautiful gray-and-white Dane was still standing cautiously at the corner of the garage, that things got interesting. The Shiba started snarling at Lark. Her first coherent thought--and this took a few seconds--was to scramble into my arms. I think this was when the man's grown daughters--two, probably in their thirties--appeared, looking rather like backup in the way they stood by the Dane, but speaking as such not at all. They joined the man in calling Wolfie a dip, and laughingly remarking on Lark's taking refuge in my arms. We talked, more or less, for a bit, while the dogs settled down, and then I put Lark down again, crouching around her to cover her back. The little dog circled us interestedly, and I kept a hand at his shoulder to ward him off. He disliked this, turning his head back to my hand, his lip beginning to curl. I didn't stop to think, grabbing and twisting his collar, lifting his forequarters as he tried to reach my hand. One of his people came and got him, and I stood up and reached for Lark, who had scrambled on my back and was rather tangled with my backpack. I think it was at this point that the Great Dane, Gabby, got up the courage to come examine Lark, as I juggled her, trying to avoid too many claws in my arms, with little success. While the other people discussed Cesar Milan dictates and explained Wolfie's history as a stray and tendency to hunt small animals, Lark tried to climb my shoulder and I talked, as I could, to Gabby. She was really a beautiful dog. I don't know what a show judge would have said--possibly not much--but she was lovely. I tore myself away eventually--still carrying Lark--and headed down the block. It was cooling down, and clouds were coming up. I still didn't want to go down Stanton. Having reached the dorm parking lot via the slope from the road, I decided to cut across country to the road/driveway belonging to the really big house with the expensive dog runs and the German Shepherds. This was not, at that precise moment, an attraction, because I was cutting along the shoulder of the hill in what was, possibly, in one sense or another, their backyard. I ended up chickening out and following the line of barbed-wire fence, literally run into the ground in spots, up the slope. My legs protested. I compromised by going sideways before the grade got bad, dodging through some scrub oak with a minimal attempt at stealth which Lark completely ignored. I ended up joining the road at precisely the point we usually leave it. We went inside through the greenhouse, though I could still see the Vic from the backyard. Phil was on the couch with his laptop.

I was at the computer typing when the phone rang. It was a lady from church, Bev Kettelson, asking if we needed any food. She had been making beef stew for the disabled son of the neighbor lady who'd had a stroke, and Grandma had occurred to her. It was wonderful, the way she talked--not, as in Lee's case, any New York accent or similar, but her conversational style. I collected fragments about her eight grandchildren, the neighbors' nine homeschooled kids, her three semi-vegetarian daughters, and her husband. To give her credit, this was all connected to something she'd asked me, but.....actually, she doesn't need credit. She was great, and when her husband (also very nice, although making an impression more with certain sailing terminology) appeared, it was with three fair-sized containers of beef stew designed for the freezer, semolina bread (from the bakery), whole wheat spice bars, and two kinds of pound cake. Nobody exaggerated when they told me this lady likes cooking.

After dinner Philip went off to find a public television showing the Nuggets game and I settled down with A Civil Campaign. The ending's good as a Heyer, if.....different. Heh. There was a minor disturbance when Lark objected to a couple of loose dogs--a husky and what may have been a young viszla, something in that type--wandering around outside the house. They eventually went away, but by that time she had fully discovered the benefits of the balcony, something I've been intermittently attempting to introduce to her.