i don't even believe in god but OH MY GOD this puppy has a lot of energy. i so completely can't keep up. i've been looking after him and his six year old friend for almost a week, and i'm completely exhausted at the end of every day. it's all i can do to answer pertinent email and check phone messages in between all the attention he requires. we walk/run/skip/jump for at least three hours every single day and still, every morning he wakes up ready for another day of it.
maybe it's a guy thing. guys, i've decided, have no choice but to establish themselves within some kind of hierarchy. it's just the way the world's constructed and there's no getting away from it. the female of the species, on the other hand, can choose to compete --- or not. if she wants it, there's an established order. or, if she prefers to remain outside of it, unknown and alone, that's her option. it's good to have that choice.
today we journeyed to goldstream park, to meet with friends from near duncan. we figured it's about a half way mark, which it is. i first brought the doggies to dallas road, to allow them to empty themselves and have a bit of a walk/run/romp prior picking up our other friends and travelling northward. it was a beautiful morning in one of the best doggie walking parks in the entire world, no doubt.
when we got to goldstream park we realized that the elder squirrel-obsessed of us could not be trusted near the highway. the mountains looked daunting for the aged among us and so, after consulting a map, we chose to instead explore the goldstream campgrounds. amazing that it still exists, surrounded as it is by the insistent sprawl of langford. a sign, upon entry to the campgrounds, advised us that "picnicking is not allowed," which caused great guffaws of laughter. imagine, outlawing picnicking. only in langford. i decided if there's anything i want to go to jail for, it's picnicking in a campground.
we couldn't find a parking lot which normally would please me, preferring cycling and walking as i do, but today with three dogs and a friend in our car and another car of friends following, was just frustrating and strange. since it's september and there are so few campers, and fewer picnickers, we chose to claim camping spots and ventured into the woods from there.
i can't believe i've lived in victoria all these 20 years, longer than i've lived anywhere else in my whole entire life, and haven't explored goldstream park and/or campgrounds. we found the trail to the falls, negotiated with some very uptight touristas who were afraid of dogs off leash (who in their right mind would leash a dog in the wilderness, really) and enjoyed the near pristine beauty of the this tiny bit of wild space that the monsters who would pave all that is sacred have as yet spared.
after a couple of hours negotiating trails and wilderness pathways and a dog who insists on hunting squirrels until finally she can be convinced to reclaim her right mind, we returned to the city. my stress level had already increased noticibly and i attempted to negotiate traffic and return my friend and her dog to their home, get the puppy and his friend back to theirs, grab a bite to eat knowing it may be my last for a while, and find my way downtown for my afternoon dental appointment. i had hoped this outing would tire out the dogs and relax me, in preparation for what i expected to be some painful dental reconstruction (resulting from way too much mercury previously distorting my natural mouthliness), but i found myself at my dentist's office feeling stressed and entirely unrelaxed. this was not, i realized, a good way to proceed.
i had a few minutes while my dentist attended to her other appointment, and found savasana in her little yoga/meditation room. i focused my breath on relaxing my jaw, my face, my brain. a few minutes later dr. geddo advised me she's ready for me, to take my time and move to the available room. once there she listened with empathy to my day's story, seemed to truly appreciate that doggie minding, like child care, is not, as it might appear, so much about being paid to do something you love (which it is), but is also filled with the stress of responsibility. there's nothing worse than confronting doggie parents with news of their disfigured child canine upon their return. deanna brought me a warm, lavender scented towel for my face, and a hot stone for my chakras, and left me for another ten or fifteen minutes. i had almost drifted entirely off when she returned and prepared my mouth for its transformation.
luckily, this time, she was working on her own previous work rather than on old mercury filled and perhaps unnecessarily caverns, and the procedure was rather painless. it was about removing a filling she'd installed, replacing the awful mercury filling that had previously inhabited the space, and preparing an inlay. very expensive. lots of dog walking to pay for this, for sure. but there's not much in the world that's worse than not being able to eat, so i invest. hopefully, after deanna has cleaned up the mess from all the previous mercury inspired dentists and reconstructed the beautiful natural teeth i was born with, i'll be able to chew until my dying days.
somehow, tonight, eating my green pea soup and soothing my not so frozen jaw with organic red wine and watching sherlock holmes, i concluded that men have no choice but to fit themselves into some hierarchy or another. women can choose to make their own way. i'm thankful for a south american woman who has created an environment where visiting a dentist is the least stressful part of my day.
hopefully tomorrow and the next day and the next these lovely doggies will heed my "no emergencies" mantra, and we'll survive until their parents return and i'm off to the next doggie gig.
