Morning

So many things happened to me this morning, (some good, some not so good) that I felt compelled to write it all down.  Every morning is crazy - but this one really stood out.

It all started with my watch alarm beeping at 5:15 a.m., which it does every morning since I never turned off the alarm I had set for myself over a month ago in New Orleans when I had to catch an early morning flight.  Every morning my watch beeps and every morning I sleepily press the button to turn it off and go back to sleep.  By the time I wake up I've forgotten about it and so the cycle repeats itself.  You'd think that as I'm writing about this I'd take a moment to turn the alarm off, but of course by the time I finish writing this I will have forgotten and tomorrow morning at 5:15 a.m. it will beep again.  And so on, and so on . . . . .

Then around 6:50 a.m., Ella crawled into bed with me to "cuddle" - well, the cuddling lasted all of 2 minutes before she started saying "Mama, when are you waking up?"  I looked at the clock, saw that it was only 6:52 a.m. and muttered to myself  "What's the point of setting the alarm for 7 a.m. when I'm just going to be woken up earlier?"  Mutter, mutter, close eyes and pretend to still be asleep.  Didn't really work of course and by then my fat fluffy gray cat had climbed up and settled herself right on top of me as she does every morning, her weight pressing down on my stomach and rendering all efforts to get a few more minutes of sleep utterly useless. 

So I got up and decided that today I was going to take Penny on one of our morning "trots" that we've been doing about 2-3 times per week.  I was praising Penny for making it through the last two runs without dropping a load on someone's lawn, thus making the runs/trots much more enjoyable since I didn't have to run while swinging a bag full of dog feces.  I got dressed, washed my face, drank some water and got a very excited dog ready to do a lap around the neighborhood.



Steaming pile of doo-doo


About four minutes into the run I spotted a dog coming down the street on the opposite sidewalk with its owner.  I quickly began
encouraging Penny to keep on going, saying "Keep going, Penny, keep going, good girl!" to keep her from barking and lunging and throwing me off balance like she typically does when she sees one of her canine brothers.  We made it past the other dog and I praised Penny for being so good and for exhibiting such wonderful self restraint.  She responded by stopping and laying the biggest pile of doo-doo yet.  Great. 

I grabbed the plastic bag that I had responsibly tied to Penny's leash for just such an emergency.  I was already cursing due to the abrupt stoppage of the glorious momentum that I'd been experiencing.  Picking up the pile of crap took several attempts due to the sheer volume and messiness of it.  After the fourth attempt to scoop it all up I looked down and realized that the bag had a big hole in it.

Poop on my hand!  Poop on my hand!  (Cue horror movie scream)  AAAAAAAAACK!!!!!  I kneeled down and frantically tried wiping the brown streaks off my hand in the wet grass.  Then I stood up, decided the show must go on, and continued our trot.  At the next visibly unoccupied home (no cars in driveway) I did something I have not stooped to doing yet, but have been tempted to do --  I quickly opened the trash can waiting by the sidewalk, dumped the poo-smeared bag, and slinked away.  I had no choice - the bag was torn and leaking and there was no way I was turning around and heading home after running a mere four minutes.  I told myself that the trash collectors would be along shortly and the homeowners would never know the difference.

Penny and I continued on our way as I tried not to think about the particles of canine waste that were likely still adhered to my skin.  We got our momentum back and trotted along happily.  Then about halfway up the second big hill on our route Penny decided that she hadn't traumatized me enough and dropped another steaming load. 

This time I was sans plastic bag.  Horrors!  I quickly glanced around.  Had anyone seen what just happened?  I remembered yelling out my window one time when a teenage boy let his dog defecate on our lawn and then started walking away without picking it up.  Was someone peering through their window, ready to give me the third degree? 

There was nothing I could do.  I yanked Penny's leash and hurriedly jogged up the rest of the hill, thinking to myself that I'd come back later on my way to work and pick it up.  Of course, now that I'm sitting here writing about this I'm realizing that I forgot to do that - much the same way I've forgotten to turn off that 5:15 a.m. alarm on my watch.  Too many things on my mind, I suppose.  I am now in the dog poop hall of shame - I'm one of those bad people who lets my dog go on someone's lawn and then doesn't clean up after it. 

Amazingly this did not set the tone for my day.  Even though the news channels were reporting horrendous traffic on 395 due to a suspicious package at the Pentagon, I still managed to sail up 395 to my first appointment without delay.  All my patients performed admirably, I had a nice lunch at Panera during some down time, and I even got through some of my paperwork.  I arrived at home refreshed and ready to greet the weekend. 

Moral of the story:  Don't let a little unexpected poop get you down, especially when the day is young.