It was cold and windy, and the dogs were as polar opposite as usual.

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The coast and the mountains looked amazing as the weather started rolling in.

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For anyone who has ever met The Beenebag, this image will have immense meaning to you.

Her worst time is on the morning walk. She’s usually sufficiently groggy that she has a hard time pulling together all the factors that go into squatting to pee. This is more complicated than it may seem, so let me outline the major factors that need to be controlled in order to execute. These are in no particular order, and are of approximately equal importance, meaning that failing to control any of these factors is likely to result in abortion of the attempt. Also note that some are compound factors, contributing to the complexity of this seemingly simple (and biologically fundamental) activity:

1. Realize she has to pee, that she is outside, and that outside is the venue for this activity.
2. Find a suitable spot. This involves smelling the ground, but she and I are both at a loss for what constitutes an appropriate location. Corners are better than open areas, but that’s about all we know.  It’s more of a “feel” thing, apparently.
3. Not get distracted by unforeseeable and potentially fatal events such as birds chirping or wind rustling leaves.
4. Bending her legs into the “pee squat” position without loosing focus and thinking she is just trying to sit. It’s tempting because sitting is easier than squatting.
5. Have full confidence that she has to pee and not poop. She also needs to be fully committed to one or the other if she needs to do both.

This morning was about average, I counted six tries before a successful execution.

What this means is I have lots of time for thinking, but sadly the morning walk is usually before my morning espresso, so I’m not that much better off than Beene. Which explains why I haven’t solved the Construction of a Consistent Quantum Theory of Gravity problem. Instead, I count how many times she tries to pee.

Naturally, we bragged about Mack’s newfound skill to our friends. Their dog, Bromley, is a prodigy: she can eat watermelon and ring a bell when she needs to be let outside. With their interest piqued, they investigated to see if Bromley’s repertoire could be expanded to include eating corn off the cob. Not surprisingly, it could.

Mack and Bromley rule at eating corn, Beene is confused. Enjoy.

Note: The quality of this version is lower than the Quicktime version available here. For best results, watch the Quicktime verison.

Two good things came out of it, though.

First, we are heading down to Ballard with some friends from up the street to hang out at Portalis, imbibe, and watch the bike race. The rain today is a good thing because the rookie Cat 4-5 race is going to be spectacular. I’m putting $5.00 on some douchebag deciding he’s going to win the race by launching his attack mid-corner while he’s still in the middle of the pack. That will be totally cool to watch.

Second, we got to try out the rain coats we just bought the dogs.

Or is it just Beene playing at Marymoor Park?

The mention of Cujo brings up a funny memory for me. My older brother used to own a Peugeot bicycle. It was a nightmare. He bought it off one of my dad’s students and it was about nine sizes too big. But, there was an upside to those of us who didn’t need to ride it. Not only was it ugly, but had the added benefit that my brother couldn’t keep it upright. In fact, he crashed it so many times, he started referring to it as “Cujo” rather than “Peugoet”. You know, as in, “Cujo got me…” after he wiped out. And it’s not like this just happened on corners or other “tricky” areas…I remember once coming across him on a dead straight section of road, lying in the ditch. “Cujo got me…”

The other dog is Kirki (who we call Beene) and leaves you with exactly the opposite impression: she is big, frail, lazy, disengaged, and slow. But man, she can make me laugh like nothing else. Just seeing her run up a flight of stairs is amusing – complete with the look of accomplishment that she has in her eyes when she reaches the top. (It has to be a short flight of stairs, though, or she’ll lose interest before getting to the top. In that case, she has a look self-pity in her eyes.) She also has no clue what the point of playing “fetch” is. As far as she can tell, the object of the game is try to grab Mack by the top of the neck. Mack, of course, is much faster than she, so he always gets to the ball before she does, and she’s consequently always just gone after Mack instead of the ball. (This past week, though, Mack got carried away and ran in the wrong direction. Beene saw the ball fall and stopped dead in her tracks and looked over at Mack. She looked at the ball. Back at Mack. Back at the ball. You could almost hear the switch in her big empty head flip just before she lunged after the ball, picked it up, and pretended like she’d just ended world hunger.)

She also has this sense of entitlement about her that you can’t really understand until you meet her. For example, she believes she should be able to sit wherever the interesting stuff it happening. Now, there’s usually someone else already sitting there because, well, that’s where all the interesting stuff is happening. So, she’ll often just back up and sit on the lap of whoever is sitting there. This happens without fail when we’re at the vet (which has been happening much to frequently lately, by the way). The other day while I was reading on the porch, she walked up to me, turned around, and just casually plopped herself down on my lap and acted like it was just the most normal thing that could ever happen. Michelle, of course, felt compelled to photograph it. Beene found the scenario entirely commonplace and saw no need whatsoever for photography. Note the indignance on her face in the last photo.

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