Fat Guy on a Bike (WITH DOG) Goes to Lilydale Park

A perfect day for trail biking, fossil digging and (if you happen to be a dog) wetlands splashing. We came home three hours later, both liberally caked in 450,000,000 year old clay. It was difficult to judge which of us was panting harder from the heat and exertion.

One thing to mention: this new bike sure has some excellent shock absorption. The trails up there are littered with broken bricks and quite frequently washed out, and I didn't crash once. It was the first time I'd gone out rockhounding since the accident, and the first time I'd gone trailbiking since childhood. I had almost forgotten how much I missed both. Going back soon, possibly with friends or as part of an organized group. If not, alone on bike (WITH DOOOOG), exploring like a mofo under a cloud of discombobulated no-see-ums.

Remind me to bring more water next time. I thought I was going to die out there before I found the waterfall and let myself get rained on for a few minutes. Sweet bliss.

Pet Lovers, Don't Read This (II)

On the way to the store to pick up ice cream for my roomie Rah, I saw something sprawled in the middle of the dark road and swerved just in time to avoid hitting somebody's little beagle, lying in a heap. It had already been hit at least once.

I couldn't tell if it was still alive, and I couldn't stand the idea of just leaving it. I'm a meddler, and I love dogs. Besides, I had a suspicion that I knew this one from the dog park. So I took three right turns to double back and check on him. I pulled up alongside the dog, put on the hazards, and got out of the car. Up close it was clear the little guy had been killed instantly. There were bits of pink stuff all over the road where the body had been dragged, and a smear of blood ending in a spreading black pool around his head.

His eyes still had some shine to them, but they were mostly closed. I thought the least I could do while I was here would be to get his tag info and go home to call it in, but it was too dark to read the tags without putting myself in danger. Other drivers on the road saw the emergency lights flashing and slowed down to move out of the lane and avoid hitting the dog again. As they passed, I stood away from the flow of traffic and wondered how many people assumed I was the one who'd hit the beagle. Not that it'd make me a bad person--this was a dark stretch of road and shit happens when your dog is free to roam--but I still felt self-conscious about it.

I was waiting for a lull in traffic so I could go take a flash photo of the tags and was half-convincedto just move the dog out of the way myself, when a police car pulled up right behind me and saved me from having to do anything at all.

The officer got out. He asked if I had seen the accident, and I said I hadn't. He checked the tags, then put on some gloves and picked up the dog by the collar and tail to carry it off the road. When he raised it up, the dog's body sagged down like a half-empty sack. I could see its broken skull and muzzle sort of squish out of shape and then hang down as it came up off the pavement.

A huge stream of blood came spilling out of one floppy ear, and a couple of teeth fell out of its open mouth and rolled into the blood pool. It was fucking gruesome, and it all took place in the vivid glow of the cop's headlights. "At least it looks like it was quick," the cop said as he carried the little body over to the roadside. Little rivers of blood were streaming down from the beagle's body the whole time. It was a lot more blood than I'd have expected.

The cop said it looked like the dog had just been hit a few minutes before. I shook my head and said I was never letting my dog off his leash. Not with this busy road only half a block away from our quiet side-street. I thanked the officer for coming out, and left him to his work.

He was still parked there when I came back from the store fifteen minutes later. The whole thing was like a hyper-realistic horror movie. The gore didn't turn my stomach or make me cry or anything like that, but it bummed me out.

When I got home, I hugged the Captain and informed him that he was a good boy.

A Living Cat Macro

I woke up with a pain in my neck so bad I've had to tilt my head the other way just to avoid whimpering. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and decided that, with this pose, I look like I should be saying "Que? Que?" or possibly "Excuse me, WTF r u doin?" Yes, I have become a living cat macro.

Also, the wrist on that side is sore and pressing on it causes the entire hand to fill with a sensation of extreme heat. I do not recall getting my ass kicked while in the Matrix yesterday, and so am at a loss to explain these strange injuries.

Meanwhile, I've cleaned the fridge, moved my herbs outdoors and re-planted them in larger pots, sauteed some onions, chopped six cloves of garlic, and popped the whole mess into a crock pot with six chicken breasts for the soup tonight.

I still need to pick up some fresh celery, Minnesota wild rice, and marjoram later on. Adding the rice makes the soup taste a bit like the way a spoon smells after you lick it, but in a good way. Also, it makes the soup thicker and more filling.

There might be rockhounding in the day's events, or there might not. Now that I know how to get to the fossil area from the interstate, I can go anytime I want, provided I have someone with me. When we went there yesterday, there was a hobo living in the parking lot. The place is quite secluded, but my list of reasons to get a dog has gone up by one: Instant buddy system!

During the same trip that led us to the hobo's back yard, Seebs and I discovered a very nice trail running along the bank of the Mississippi river. A bird shit on my nice clean stripper shirt, but other than that the place was paradise, complete with a jogging/biking trail. Check it out:










I had no idea there were places like this in the Twin Cities. And it's not even that hard to get to, if you know where to look.

I expect to be out of the house a lot more this summer and fall.