Day 78: Batter up!

Sometimes I think Gracie is disappointed by quiet days at home.  She certainly perked up today when we started getting ready to go to the Twins game.  As is her new way, she leaped into the trailer behind the bike.  Then we were off for the 45 minute ride to and then down the Cedar Lake bike trail--the trail now goes all the way to the river, but we got off at Target stadium.  Keeping up with Bruce is a bit of the challenge.  I think he forgets that I'm peddling for two.  He is helpful though.  For example, once we were parked and had locked the bikes to a post and had hurried into the stadium, Bruce said he would hurry ahead and put Gracie's bath mat down, so when we got there, her place would be all set for her.  He then hurried off.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity to give Gracie a potty break, something I was thinking I should have done before we took off on the bikes.  She's so good about waiting and about telling me she needs to go out that I would hate for her to have an accident that she simply couldn't help.  Instead of following Bruce, Gracie and slipped back out of the stadium and headed for our favorite grassy knoll.  I was right too.  As soon as she got on the grass, Gracie relieved herself.  What a good girl!  Back to the park entrance we went.  But when I gave the ticket taker my ticket, she frowned.  Then it dawned on me.  We had already checked in, so our ticket was in effect spent.  "I had to bring her back out to relieve herself," I said, nodding at Gracie.  Luckily, the ticket taker was young and female.  She smiled at Gracie, then said, "Well next time you have to tell someone that you're leaving the park and get your ticket stamped."  At least that's what I think she said.  Anyway, she let us in.  When we found the seats, Bruce had the bath mat all spread out for Gracie.  She drank some water from her portable bowl; then she lay down with her head on my feet and went to sleep.  She was lucky, actually.  The Twins lost to the Sox 7 to zip; it was not a pretty site. 

Day 77: Jogging Dog

The return of heavy humidity, only one cup of coffee yesterday, and the visit to the audiologist  left me feeling a bit anxious about returning to a heavy schedule of classes at the end of this month, which is not at all helpful.  To counteract this, Gracie and I decided to try the long run this morning, which for me is a little less than two miles.  Up until now, Gracie and I have been running about 1/2 that distance together two or three times a week.  Her predominant breed, King Charles Cavelier Spaniel, is not noted for being a good dog to jog with according to a Web site on dog jogging that I located.  Nevertheless, Gracie is very enthusiastic about these runs.  She gets so excited when I try to put on my running shoes that she nips at my hands and makes the process of tying my laces last twice as long.  When we start out, she tries to run.  Gracie is small--17 pounds--but fast.  (She can also jump like Michael Jordan!)  I've been telling myself that running the shorter distance is for her--so her paws don't get sore.  I have not wanted to think the shorter distance is for me because I've gotten old.  Admittedly, I started running to tamp down excess energy.  In my twenties, this sometimes meant running around Lake of the Isles twice in one day or running around both Lake of the Isles and Lake Calhoun in a single outing.  Now I run my own neighborhood mostly to be able to keep running (use it or lose it)  and sometimes, like today, to combat anxiety. 

How did it go?  Great!  Gracie kept up with me without trying to race impatiently ahead.  She never tired to stop.  A couple squirrels tempted her into perking up a bit and looking sideways rather than straight ahead, but she didn't try to race off after them.  Best of all, my anxiety has been reduced enough for me to go on combing through my course delivery system class sites, updating assignments and putting current dates on the opening of quizzes and weekly assignment sheets for both my online classes and my face2face classes.  Is Gracie worn out?  Well, no.  When we came in, she made one of her spectacular leaps over the arm of the couch in pursuit of her nylon bone.  Maybe her youth will help keep me a bit younger for a while longer.

Day 75 and 76: The Last 100 Yards

With summer winding down, I find it is time for my back-to-school tune-up.  Yesterday, that meant a message by a student at the message school behind the St. Louis Park post office.  Today, it was a trip to a new audiologist, now part of the MN Eye Clinic where I have been going for eye exams the last few years.  My former audiologist, the one who got me using digital hearing aids and who helped me get Gracie, moved to a new job.  Her replacement, while certainly a nice person, did not seem to have the same level of experimental zest as her predecessor.  That's why, when my eye doctor told me about the new hearing division, I thought I would check it out.  Gracie came with me, and so did Bruce.  In fact, when I made the appointment, they told me that I should bring a person I was used to listening to along with me for the hearing test.  I was pretty excited about that idea.  As it turned out, however, all Bruce did was listen to the audiologist and ask a few questions.  He also committed to nagging me about wearing my hearing aids all the time after we listened to a lecture about a portion of the brain not engaging in listening atrophying...and possibly encouraging the onset of Alzheimer's.  My former audiologist, whom I liked a lot, really said the same thing about needing to wear hearing aids all the time to train the brain to ignore unessential sounds.  None of this was new.  But it was still depressing...as was my hearing test.  Apparently I hear well enough to be able to understand better with the help of hearing aids BUT my brain is just not functioning well enough to accept the amplification and interpret it.  There might be a new hearing aide designed for just this, and I said I would test it...maybe next week or the week after.  However, I feel a bit like my bean plants, now gnawed on by the darn Japanese beetles.  How much of an effort should I put into saving those beans when the end of summer is rushing toward us like a runaway frieght train?

Gracie was very excited to ride in the car.  She wasn't very happy in the doctor's office though.  I decided she was either concerned that we were there to have something looked at or done to her, or she could hear all the high pitched sounds that were painful to even my low functioning ears and didn't like any more than I did.   Oddly, the audiologist had never heard of a hearing dog and actully said, "Service dogs are mostly for the visually impaired."  That leaves me a tiny bit hopeful that he didn't know what he was talking about...a tiny bit.  I don't know why I always hope that someone will say, "I see the problem.  I'll just do this and then it will be fixed' when I go in to have my hearing checked instead of saying, "Your hearing loss is profound."  I know profound means something special when applied to hearing loss, something more than just "profound."  I still hate hearing it.  I'm sure glad I have Gracie here--happy to be home just as I am--to comfort me.  So, from something bad--hearing loss--comes something good--Gracie.

Day 74: Gracie Peps Up

Today was the perfect summer day.  Sunny, reasonably unhumid, cool.  Gracie woke up with more pep than I think I have ever seen her have.  All morning she was urging me to pep up and get going.  We went through our usual routine and then went for a short run.  I could tell that the run wore her out less than it wore me out, though.  Still, she was willing to doze on the couch while I worked on the material for my fall classes and got started on a book review of Now You See It I'm hoping the Minnesota Teacher's of English will put in their (our?) fall newsletter.  The editor told me to make it between 500 and 1000 words.  At 800 words, I decided to stop and take Gracie to the lake for a swim.  She was excited as we packed up our supplies: sunscreen for me, life jacket and purple tennis ball for her, and a towel for us both.  It seems funny to say that it was too hot to go swimming most of July, but it was.  I knew I could get to the lake and swim, but I didn't think I could manage the hot ride home covered in  lake water.

Gracie has decided she likes riding in the cart behind the bike and now jumps in when we go into the garage.  She still doesn't like the sound of the garage door, but she doesn't react to it with dread anymore.  She definitely does not care for the basement, though, and would rather get to the bike through the garage door instead of down the stairs into the basement.

The ride to the lake was slightly marred by the first Wednesday alarm test.  We were right under the thing when it went off, and it hurt my ears.  I can only imagine how awful the alarm was for Gracie.  We survived, though, and the ride along the edge of the wetland was beautiful, the path paved with the dappled light filtered through the trees.  Gracie likes to ride with her front paws hanging over the edge of the cart and, of course, with her tongue fully extended.  People who pass us smile and mutter something that sounds to me like "cute dog."  I hope they're talking about Gracie!

See Gracie glow!  My angel.

The first beach we reached was closed for "Safety Day."  Kids who looked to be nine or ten years old were spread out in clumps with each clump wearing its own color t-shirts.  Taken as a whole, they looked like sorted M&M candies.  We rode on by.  The next beach was populated with several dogs, mostly unleashed.  We kept going on around the lake to what used to be called Hidden Beach, an unofficial beach that had a reputation for nude bathing.  I suspect this was some one's wishful thinking rather than a reality because in all my years of being on, in, and by Cedar Lake, I never once encountered anyone bathing in the nude.  The police must have decided that something unsavory was going on there, however, because a few years ago the city decided to make Hidden Beach an official beach.  They installed outhouses and defined the swimming area with orange floats.  Occasionally, a lifeguard appears--actually very infrequently with the current budget woes, but enough to warrant a place for a lifeguard to perch and a boat to row out to rescue anyone who happens to drown at exactly the right time.  This beach was also busy.  After all, it was a beautiful day and the unemployment rate is currently in the double digits (despite there being no income tax increase on the wealthiest 1% either locally or nationally to offset the revenue shortage--apparently not raising taxes does not create jobs while raising taxes costs jobs.  This is confusing, but I am not counting on either the president or the press to clear this confusion up.  There is simply too much at stake for honesty)  Still, there were no dogs that I could see.  I locked my bike to a sign that said, "No dogs and No glass containers allowed."  Sometimes no lifeguard means an opportunity to exercise the much touted "personal freedom" Republicans in particular are so interested in protecting for us. Then I got Gracie in her life jacket and took out the tennis ball.  She was not a very enthusiastic ball player today, so I decided to pick her up by the handle on the jacket and take her out just far enough for her to have to dog paddle in.  That's exactly what she did.  We did that a few times.  I was hoping that she would like this and would eventually go out as well as come in.  Finally, I decided that this was simply not going to happen, at least for today.  Of course she was too cute in her orange life jacket with that purple tennis ball in her mouth for anyone to point out to us that dogs were  notallowed.  Had they, I would have countered that she is a service dog and can be where I am, which today was knee deep in Cedar Lake.

When I eventually tossed the ball up on the sand, Gracie's morning enthusiasm returned.  She went after it with gusto.  So I threw it until Gracie finally took it into a tangle of tall weeds.  That's when I recalled all the paths through the woods that branch out from and circle around Hidden Beach.  Leaving the bike locked to the sign, we headed down the path.  Unlike the beach, the path was deserted, shady and cool.  I had the bang leash on Gracie and tossed the ball in front of us.  I could tell she was having a grand time, and I was too.  We circled around, finding connecting paths until we arrived back at the beach.  I dipped her paws in the lake to get off the sand.  Then we headed home.

Day 72: Keeping Cool.

Popsicles for dogs!

Our refrigerator dispensers crushed ice from the door.  It's not really a fancy refrigerator.  It's from Sears.  But it does dispense both ice and water--both filtered--from the door.  Once we got it, we quite buying bottled water.  In addition, getting cold water and ice without having to open the freezer or refrigerator door has to save energy.  The ice dispenser part is very noisy.  Being a hearing dog, Gracie is naturally interested in unusual noise--like the refrigerator dispensing ice.  When I get ice, she comes to watch.  One day, I offered Gracie  a small piece of ice because she looked so interested.  She took it and chewed it up with her back teeth.  I offered her another piece, and the same thing happened.   I wondered if this was good for her, so I wrote a quick e-mail to IHDI.  "She might like ice," they replied.  Well, she doesn't just like it; she loves it.  She would rather eat ice than drink water from her bowl.  I thought this was pretty unusual until I saw a Milkbone shaped ice tray at Chuck & Don's Pet Food Outlet one day.  Apparently, some humans are making chicken flavored, Milkbone shaped mini-Popsicles for their canine friends.  For now, though, Gracie is content with little ice chunks.

Day 71: Schedule

It's August 1, time for another heartworm treatment for Gracie.  I love the new heartworm treatment--a chunky, soft treat that Gracie loves so much that she grabs it and runs to her favorite place between the couch and the hassock to savour it.  This beats the old days when we used to have to get the dog in a neck hold, pry his mouth open, stick the pill at the back of his tongue, clamp his mouth shut, and rub his throat until he swallowed.  Not the best way to establish a loving bond with your canine friend!  Though sometimes hard to see, our society is making changes for the better in some select areas.  The heartworm tablet is one of the changes with which I can find no fault! 

Day 70: Pacing

"boring and non-offensive"

Today, Gracie and I took our first walk before 6 a.m.  While that sounds early, we will be on the road by 6 a.m. once school starts.  We took a short run around 8:30 a.m., and already the air was almost thick enough to cut with a knife and other cliches.  Gracie makes it very easy for me to read and work on the computer--a nice way to both retreat from the heat and finish up summer writing committments and prepare for fall classes.  She seems to be sound asleep, but the minute I stand up, her eyes pop open.  If I leave the room, she follows me.  In and out of the air-conditioned room we went today until about 4:30 p.m. when we went for a long walk down along the creek to the falls on 50th Street and Browndale.  The most interesting thing we saw was a sign saying that the creek (Minnehaha Creek) is closed at 54th Street.  I'm not sure how anyone can manage to close the creek, but I'm pretty sure the creek at 54th Street is in Edina.  If any town can close the creek, Edina would be the one I would bet on being able to actually do it.  I've read that current Edina residents want a bike path in Edina but not enough to allow others from neighboring suburbs to ride on it.  If you don't live in Edina--and sometimes even if you do--Edina residents don't want you there.  Maybe Edina residents have also decided they don't want canoeists or kayakers traveling through their backyards either.  I used to live in Edina, so I know all this has more to do with vague fear of "the other" than it has to do with anything that has ever actually happened...at least that I know of.  I haven't lived in Edina for close to forty years and find the persistence of this vague fear troubling, especially since it now seems to have spread to engulf not only the rest of the state but the rest of the country as well.  What's next?  Concrete partitions? When we got home from our walk, I dug out my orange t-shirt from the Walker Art Center that has" boring and non-offensive" written on the front.  Gracie and I like walking up the hill into Edina and wearing this t-shirt when we do might just be enough to calm their fears...at least a bit.  There is a little park up their way with access to the creek. Their boulevards are very generous too, with grass thick and green and inviting to little dog feet.   I think I'll make my orange t-shirt my dog walking uniform from now on.  Besides, it matches Gracie's vest.  Look out, Edina, here we come, rolling in like Carl Sandburg's fog.