Dog Days

The hour set for dog training couldn't be better for our purposes: There are what seem like hundreds of people up and down the running path, and plenty of pooches.  TootSweet did quite well, in fact, not once actually trying to pull off in another direction, although it cost him quite an effort.  There are some really good tricks this guy is teaching me, too, on how to calm the dog down; now if only he will get in his order of collars, I'll be able to take Toots with me in the morning without dislocating my right elbow.

We passed a woman jogging who shouted a salutation to the trainer and said she couldn't wait until her dog looked as obedient as the Tooter.  With a rather cynical laugh, the trainer told me it would be a warm day in Hades when that finally happened; the woman has an Italian greyhound fueled by atomic energy, and it ricochets off the walls of her home.  He said the dog can be trained but it will take a long and determined effort plus a massive amount of regular exercise (no wonder the woman is running, she's got to get in shape for the dog). 

On this morning's very short walk/run for me, sans the dog, it again looked like rush hour in Seattle.  Either I'm going to have to get out there earlier, God knows how, or later when in the summertime I'll pass out from the heat and wind up hospitalized.  Waking up very early is not an issue, but people with fibromyalgia get up in the morning as if rising from a particularly severe train wreck in which they have fully participated by being hit by runaway derailed cars.  I don't even know what shape I'm in until after my cup of coffee, when my senses manage to fire up a bit and let me know which parts ache, which parts are okay, and which parts are probably missing.  I figure that in order to hit the park around five-thirty at the latest, I will have to have my caffeine infusion around 4:45. 

Somehow I've got to manage it or the summer is going to be a total loss.  The Tooters also needs to avoid the worst of the heat, and the more people on the running path, the greater the amount of information you overhear that you really don't want to hear at all.  This morning, for example, a couple of old codgers about my age trotted past me as one mentioned that he has varicose veins of the nose.  I wasn't feeling particularly good this morning anyway because yesterday I had a migraine and had to dose myself with a strong medication, but the overheard remark ended my desire to keep on.  I felt slightly sick, because in my altered mental state (thanks to the medication), I imagined some kind of nasal hemorrhoids.

I went home then, but perhaps that was a mistake.  I should have continued on, hoping that some other grotesque physical ailment would be revealed in random conversation, something that, by God, would put me off my feed.  Because ever since I've been on WW, no matter how delicious the recipes (and they are), each day I get hungrier and hungrier.  That would be fine if I were losing weight, by dang, but as it is, I am nearing the point of cramming every single one of the points allowed each day into one meal.  But stay tuned.