man in white

So I almost didn't write this post. Really my last post was based on the idle thoughts of a dog walk and doing it again would be redundant. But in the case of a story that wants to be told, the story will not stop until it must be told.

First of all, Jenny is off visiting family in Minnesota and I am left at home to supervise the puppies. I spent the morning at Snowbird enjoying a bluebird day on groomed runs, came home and took some nappy time. I figured I should take the dogs on a walk around the neighborhood, so I opened the door to check out the weather. It was one of those moments where you realize you have been napping inside on a beautiful 60 degree day in the middle of February. Looking for a reason for a journey I decided that a man with black shoes should own a black belt, to live otherwise would just be silly (Jenny has made me watch one too many episodes of What Not to Where). I made it a couple of houses down the street in a short sleeve shirt before realizing that the shady areas were a bit chilly.

I have a rule that I like to break, never buy anything nice and white. This isn't to doubt my purity or me ability to eat without spilling. It ultimate comes down to me liking to play at any given time. Awhile ago I bought a white zip-up cotton jacket that I could where over a polo shitrt at work. My work has a casual dress code but I don't think looking like a dirty mountain bum would go over well, so I try to put some thought into my apparel. When buying this, I thought very clearly that this was for work and not play. This story is so predictable that I almost can't bare to tell it.

So I walked the dogs to Nordstrom Rack and bought a black belt. Then saw a park across the street and figured with the warm weather it might be worth a trip. I walked on the sidewalk, used crosswalks and even walked the paved loop around the park. How could anything go wrong?

Near the end, I figured the puppers were a bit thirsty and there was a babbling brook off the side of the trail. So I started to walk them over when I saw that it was extremely muddy from the freshly melted ice and snow. I tried to change directions when my right foot slid in the mud. My left was still on stable ground, so I pushed off of it to get my balance and to land on the dry ground just ahead. Once my left foot landed in the mud just in front of me which was not dry ground, I put on full-flail mode.

Now lets take a break for me to pat my own back. I am an excellent faller. Some people are athletic and well balanced and rarely fall. That is not me. I am constantly finding my self hiking, climbing, running, and jumping with no clue how I am going to stay on my feet. In general once I flail enough, I find myself standing where I started no worse for ware.

So I flail. I think I throw in about 3 additional steps (on top of my first 2) while my center of gravity is falling towards the ground. Yet this magical mud before me seems impervious to my flailing. I decide (loosely used word since this all happened in less than 1 second) to just catch myself with my hands and land on my knees to protect my white apparel. Super-mud takes out my hand, drops me to my elbow and lands me on my back. I quickly bounce up to minimize the oozing.

So I walk the rest of the way to the water. Get the dogs their drink and wash off my hands.

Now I head home. I have a nice 30 or so minutes to think abut my stupid fall and wether it was even worth the time to tell the story. I figure it isn't really that funny unless you understand how clearly I had thought when buying this jacket that I would never put it in a situation to get dirty.

I get to my front door, ready to wash myself off, when I realize I don't have my keys...

Laying in the mud between step 3 and step 5 on the bank of a babbling brook were my precious house/car keys, just waiting for this story to be interesting enough to tell.

No Animals were harmed in the writing of this blog

So I don't really blog all that much. Normally one or two sentence on Facebook accomplishes my goal. This little 5 minute event takes at least 3 sentence to tell.

I was stopped at an intersection of a fairly big street and a fairly average street (900 S, 700 E for SLC folks). I saw a lady walking two yorkies on a retractable leash or I guess in this situation two retractable leashes. Now these leashes are normally 10 or 12 feet long. I just checked online and they do have 26' long leashes, so I am guessing this is what she had.

As she approached the intersection, I was astounded by how far ahead these leashes could stretch and was waiting to see her pull them back or to see if they were trained to sit at intersections. The best I can tell she called for them as they got close and they jumped around like little excited cat-dogs. They never went into the intersection but they didn't seem too under control. The lady then turned to walk down the street I was driving on and the direction I was driving. Luckily this is a street with a sidewalk which is about 10' away from any cars. (Yes some of you can see where this math might start heading).

As I approached the dog walker, her dogs were on the grass between the sidewalk and the road. Fortunately being a dog lover, I was watching the dogs and not the road. Now the cool thing about retractable leashes is that they come with a lock button on them, so you can stop your dog from walking into the street and the cool thing about yorkies are that they are so light you can pull on their leash and whip them around like a...something you whip around. I then saw one of the yorkies jump off the curb into the street, so I honked my horn and took my foot off the gas. I really figured having a dog in the street and car honking its horn would cause the lady to put the brakes on her dog or to pull her dog back to her. A half second later, I realized she was not reacting at all.

Now heading at 30 mph to a dog that has walked an additional 6 ft to the center of my lane and cars coming at me in the other direction. I decide it is about time to slam on my brakes as hard as possible. Honestly by the time I felt the car start to slow down the dog was too close to the front of my car for me to see and by the time I stopped the dog's previous location was about even with the center of my car or even with my back tires. I really couldn't tell if I hit him or not since it would be an 8 lb dog impacting a 2000 lb squeeling car.

As soon as I stopped I looked up to my right and saw the lady casually standing there. I looked down and there were two doggies jumping around playing. I waited another second to see if the lady would show any emotion or something...nope.

So I drove home and wrote this.