Baaaaad Dog

Yesterday I took a break from hanging pictures to take Flower and Kobi to the Dog Park. Oklahoma City has this great dog park with a pond and everything where you can let your dogs run off a leash. Here's a link: http://pawok.com/
(I'd have taken pictures, but I left my camera with Gray this weekend to get pictures of Grayson and his buddy John on Halloween.)

Well, I get them there and at first everything went great. They take off running together at top speed, having a great old time. I lead them down to the pond and Flower gets right in, playing happily with the other dogs. Then Kobi starts bristling and snarling at all the dogs there.

Now Kobi weighs about 10 pounds. 15 tops. We are in the "Large Dogs," 30 lbs and over area. These are dogs five times her size. And she is snarling and barking and charging at them. Well, needless to say, before long she has attracted quite a crowd, and I have to break up a fight and pick her up to keep her from getting herself eaten.

Flower, meanwhile, is happily oblivious, wagging and running, splashing in the pond, playing peacefully.

Finally, when all the other dogs are distracted elsewhere, I'm able to put Kobi down to go play with Flower in the water. Within 4 minutes, she has picked another fight and I have to scoop her up – water, mud and all – and hold her out of harm's way. I cannot put Kobi down. The minute her feet hit the ground, she starts a fight. So I end up holding her – this 10 pound wet, muddy bundle of quivering bloodlust – for 20 minutes while Flower plays.

The shirt I was wearing is a complete gonner.

Flower and I will go back next weekend, but Kobi has to stay home.

This has been a slightly odd, though relaxing, weekend. I'm unaccustomed to so much time to myself. Yesterday morning I went shopping at Target. I spent probably 2 hours there. I kept thinking I needed to get home, and then I realized I didn't. There was nobody waiting for me, nobody who would be annoyed if I was gone for hours. I could stay as long as I wanted. So I tried on clothes and looked at toys for Grayson and shopped the baby aisle for Krysten's shower. I looked at all the TVs, just cause I could. I compared cordless phones. I imagined different curtain configurations on my scanty apartment windows.

What I bought was a couple of T-shirts and a jacket on sale, some picture nails, a $17 cordless phone, some fireplace tools and a DVD player. Can you believe you can get a DVD player now for $35? And it's so little and light weight! Amazing.

The DVD player on the TV in the living room is wonky. It has been for years, but I forgot that. We kept it around because it played Grayson's VHS tapes, unlike the VHS player in his smaller TV, which eats VHS tapes. But it no longer plays DVDs. So for $35 I was able to watch two Indiana Jones movies this weekend. The latest one is not all that great, I have to say. But the one with Sean Connery is pretty good. And they all have Harrison Ford in them, which is all I really have to say.

This morning it was up again at 7:30 (6:30 if you account for Daylight Savings Time) with Kobi's tongue up my nose. There's no rest for the woman living in an apartment with two dogs. So Up we Go, and out for Walkies.

The getting up part is a pain, but the walkies are nice. I like the quiet of the morning, breathing the cool morning air and exploring around the complex with the girls. The pulling thing is much better. The only time I have trouble now is if Flower spots one of the neighborhood cats, or if Kobi gets herself wound around a tree, for which she seems to have a special gift.

I realized this weekend that I really like it here. The complex is very quiet, much quieter than our old neighborhood, so close to Classen and 23rd street. I almost never hear sirens or helicopters here. I can hear the rumble of the road traffic, but it is muted, and at night or in the early morning it is very quiet. You can even see some stars. There is not a lot of unnecessary light. Every apartment has its porch light, which comes on automatically at a certain hour. But there aren't a lot of flood lights. It's nice. Our balcony looks out over the dog yard and the pool, so I don't feel crowded. There are some trees here, and in the next pod over there is a nice area with big sycamore trees and lots of monkey grass, which the girls like to snuffle about in. Sycamores are my favorites, of course. I love the smell of them, particularly after a rain or early in the morning when they are still damp with dew.

Yesterday I went out on the balcony in the evening and drank a glass of wine and watched the sky turn purple. The evening was beautiful, not too cool. My balcony faces south, and I could feel heat warming my back from the brick wall that had been collecting the sunshine all day. I realized I was happy sitting there. That I like my little apartment and this complex and the new routines, pain as they are. It's a good place for me and my dogs and my boy, for now at least. I'm content.