If I go missing one day, someone talk to the dog

not_forgiven copyThe whole weekend was a blast except for the part where the dog tried to kill me.

The fact that she may have it in for me didn’t occur to me until much later. At the time, her little dodge seemed an ill-timed but otherwise routine attempt at a squirrel. This time, however, we were about a mile into a run. I was going at a pretty good clip and didn’t even see her dart in front of me.

I heard her yelp, though, and realized I had stepped on her or kicked her or something, and then I was going down in one of those slow motion movie falls, thinking I should be able to catch myself, here. But I didn’t, and landed hard, skidding on the road a little bit, my phone and water bottle strewn and scratched.

I did a little medical self-assessment, sitting there in the dirt. Nothing was seriously wrong. Nobody had even seen the fall. I had a pretty good case of road rash on one arm, and on one shoulder, the palm of my opposite hand and on my chin.

It’s super not fun to scrub oily road debris out of facial road rash.

I hadn’t needed much of a run that afternoon anyway. Mike and I had been spending hours on our feet at the Treefort Music Fest – the latest cool reason to live where we do – and needed to reserve energy for about a day and a half more of live music. Two days into a four-day event and I was already feeling pretty creaky.

Hollowood - because a little more cello is all we need
Hollow Wood – because a little more cello is all we need

This energy thing is a big deal now. The kids are old enough to stay home alone, and we have resources to do really fun stuff, but not nearly the stamina for it we should.

The first night of the event we were faced with the choice of staying up to see one of my favorite performers, Sallie Ford, or getting home at reasonable enough hour to live through the following morning’s kid commute.

I reached out to my Facebook friends: Could anyone hoof it over to our house to take the kids to school at 6:15, 7 am and 8:30 respectively? Oh, and make sure everyone was dressed appropriately and didn’t have fuzz on their teeth? I was kidding, of course.

Mostly.

There were a few helpful suggestions: call in sick for the whole crew. Stay up all night. And the most darling person in the world actually volunteered on the condition she could drive my kids around in her pajamas. This was followed by a whole conversation about wearing pajamas, who wears them and when.

The whole conversation kind of went south after that.

The reality is that we wouldn’t have made it up that late anyway.

We even tried for a little bit. But at about midnight we looked at each other and knew neither was up for it, and that we were both turning into a couple of senior citizens.

So, no Sallie Ford.  And then the next day my dog tries to catch a squirrel and tips me over and I post about road rash and how my dog is an a-hole.

Then my aunt chimes in on the same post with this perfectly rational story about her cat.

Check your email. My cat is trying to kill me, and they may be plotting something, together. We’ve had a kitchen knife go missing, so check everything. These animals love to hide things in the couch cushions. The last time I checked the cushions while looking for clues, I found some Skittles, a Subway gift card, and a pair of Jamie’s underpants. I don’t know what that means, but I washed the underpants, ate the Skittles, and pocketed the Subway card. That will teach Abby!

My aunt is mostly not crazy, so I’m pretty sure she’s joking. Nevertheless, things are starting to click into place. There are the sidelong glances I catch from the dog, a little like she’s wondering what I’ll taste like.

And THEN I was outside raking up yard debris that has somehow collected over the winter (even though I swear I raked all this crap up last fall – every last leaf – which proves Mother Nature is kind of an a-hole just like my dog), and I find a big hole Penny’s been digging to get under the fence.

She’s plotting her escape for right after my murder. See?

This worried me all of about twenty seven seconds until we headed back out to catch some more music downtown, and our friends invited us to swing by their place for snacks. We kind of had plans to have dinner with our kids instead, but we can’t turn down our friends, right? Anyway, the kids liked the take-out we bought them and the opportunity to saturate their grey matter with even more screen time instead of visiting with the ‘rents, so it was all good.

Sally Ford and the Guacamole
Sallie Ford and the Sound of Guacamole

And it was especially good to stop by our friends’ place, because they happened to be some of the über-coolest friends we have, and were hosting one of the TreeFort bands in their house.

Which is how, even though I didn’t get to see Sallie Ford play on a Thursday night at 1 am, I did get to hang with her, and eat guacamole she’d made and show her the road rash on my face and try not to gush like a freak about what a HUGE FAN I am.

I saved the gushing for when I was in the car later with Mike. He’s so lucky.

***

Call off the paparazzi, just vote. Thanks.

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    1. Thanks. Although, I feel like I should do the sign for the evil eye or something. Throw some salt over my shoulder…