Blue Comes For a Vist

Blue and Berkeley

Yesterday our former foster puppy now named Blue came over for a visit. She is looking very good, much less malnourished. She was so skinny when K rescued her about two weeks ago. She is clearly still making up for lost time as she hunted down and ate every scrap of food she could while she was over.

Berk Teaches Blue About the Joy of Dirty Dishes

All three dogs had a great, but very loud, time. We introduced Blue to the pool which both intrigued and frightened her at the same time. Berkeley finaly stoped seeing Blue as competition and began to have fun with her.

Tired

The end result of all this was some extremely tired dogs. This worked out well for us. Because of my twisted ankle Berkeley and Zack are not going to get to run for a while. Blue's visit provided a great outlet for a that weim energy. Though we don't have room or the time for a third dog, it is fun borrow someone else puppy for a few hours.

Damn It

Tonight I suffered an injury for the first time in over five years of running. I took a bad step coming off a curb, and rolled my ankle completely under me, making matters worse the 240 lbs worth of dogs that I was running with kept going causing me take a dive face first into the asphalt.

I am currently icinig my ankle hoping that it won't swell to much. Damn it.

Quiet Weekend Ahead

It looks like this weekend will be quite one, as of yet we have no plans for it. I even plan to throttle back the running slightly. The past three weekends I have been bumped my mileage up significantly, so I am going to take it relatively easy this weekend with a nice slow 13 miler to the abandoned suspension bridge.

I have already added something to my aquarium this week so I did not even the pleasure of looking forward to adding something to my aquarium. Another factor auguring towards a quite weekend is the fact that K has already informed me that she will be spending most of it working on homework. Sigh, I guess I will get something the things that I have been putting off for a while done, like cleaning out my pit of a garage.

Next weekend should be a lot more exciting we will be doing something to mark my birthday, though I don’t what yet. We will also be watching our friends weimaraner, so with three full grown weims in the house it should be chaos, which is actually kind of fun.

Peacock!

This morning I had a surreal conversation with K. I was awakened by Zack barking and I noticed that it was light out. Fearing that I had missed the alarm I asked K what time it was, the clock is on her night stand and without my glasses I could not read the clock. Her response, “Peacock.”

Figuring she was still asleep I asked with a little louder voice “No, what time is it?”

With exasperation in her voice from the fact that I was still bothering her she again replied “Peacock!”

Now shaking her a little bit I again asked “What time is it?

“Blue and white”

“K, wake up. What time is it?”

“Blue AND white!!!” with that she rolled away clearly annoyed that I was still pestering her.

“Seriously what time is it?”

“Red and white”

With that I gave up, saw that the alarm was two minutes from ringing, and started to get ready for my morning run with the dogs. Later this morning I asked K about this surreal exchange, she had no recollection of it, though she did remember a dream about fish.

Run For the Border

The First Border I Had to Cross Was the One into California

I started this mornings 19 mile run from down town, within in a couple of hundred of yards I had gone over to Colorado River and into California. I am pretty sure that this is only place where one can cross into to California from another state by heading north. Though the temperature when I started out was a reasonable 84, the humidity was for Arizona, wicked, 74%. I was drenched in sweat within the first half mile.

The No Longer So-Mighty Colorado River

For most of my run I ran on the Colorado River Levee. While the river certainly has some beauty to, it is also kind of sad to look at. By the time the river reaches the stretch that I was running along the only water that has been left in it is the water that US is bound by treaty to send to Mexico, and it's not much. The river that was once a might carver of canyons is reduced to just a trickle. I could walk across the portion pictured above without getting my armpits wet.

Border Approach

Finally I reached the Mexican Border, my destination. Because I had already gone though a quart of the Gatorade that I was carrying with me, I decided to across into Mexico and get something to drink. The town on the other side, Algadones, is a strange one. It exists primarily to cater to elderly American and Canadian tourists, as such every business is one of three things, a pharmacy, dentist, or an optician. This town of 10,000 has literally dozens of each. So I stopped in one of the pharmacy's just across the border and bought a large bottle of water.

Crossing into Mexico

Crossing back into the United States I had a bizarre exchange with the custom agent. He first asked me the question that they always start with. "Purpose of your visit to Mexico?"

I responded truthfully and told him, "To get a drink of water."

He gave me a strange look and asked "What are you bringing back from Mexico?"

"This bottle of water."

He looked a little incredulous and asked "You came all the way to Mexico to get a bottle of water?"

"Yup, I was out running and was thirsty."

"Running? but, where did you run from?"

"Downtown"

"You ran all the way from downtown to here?"

At this point explained that I was training for a marathon this fall. Either this explication satisfied him, or he could no longer stand my sweat drenched stench because he let me pass into the US.

Finally Back Into Arizona

Unfortunately the 8.5 mile return trip was miserable. The forecast had been for a cloudy morning, the forecast was wrong. The sun burned through what clouds there where and began to brutally beat down, something made worse by the fact that the humidity had not abated. Then my Gatorade ran dry and I became parched, to the point where I stopped sweating, this despite that fact that had pre-hydrated with 2 quarts of Gatorade before I left home, carried with me and drank another 2 quarts, plus the liter of water that I got in Mexico. Fortunately I found a place to refill my water pack, unfortunately it was with warm water. It was with great relief when I finally crossed the bridge back into Arizona and my waiting car.

Cardinal Tetras

So now that what ever disease that was rampaging though my aquarium has ended it is time to rebuild my decimated population, about half my fish died. Tonight at PetsMart I found some fish that I have wanted for a long time, Cardinal Tetras. The picture above does not really do them justice, but they are vibrantly colored and they really add something to my aquarium.

Also at PetsMart tonight we got the first fish for K's 50 gallon classroom aquarium. Her entire classroom is starting to look really good. She is so excited for the school year, which is so nice to see. Its so nice that she will be teaching at our neighborhood school this year, rather than having drive 30 miles to get work like she did last year.

I am getting excited about this weekends training run. I am going to run to Mexico. I have plotted a nice route that will take me the required 19 miles from downtown to the border crossing and back. I can't wait

Puppy Update

The puppy left for its new home yesterday afternoon. Part of me is still kind of sad about this, but I am also very happy because it all seems to be going very well. She now has a new name, “Blue,” a good name for a blue weimaraner. Apparently her new family is so excited about her that they spent over $500 at PetsMart on stuff for her. On my run this morning I ran into Blue being walked by a 10 year old boy, both boy and puppy seemed by a having wonderful time.