foaming at the mouth

It's amazing how many emotions the same day can hold. This morning started with the joy of drinking good coffee (from here) while starting a new book and eating my favorite meal of the day. Fast forward an hour later, and I experienced murderous rage, contempt, and helplessness as some a-hole yelled at me after our dogs got into a scuffle. Good times. Yes, my dog was a jerk and did his unfortunate snarl, tumble, snarl louder routine during which the other dog yelped. It wasn't enjoyable to witness, but it was over in about 10 seconds, and I yelled my face off while zapping his e-collar to stop the encounter. Red came over to me while the guy marched forward with what I assume he intended to be an intimidating chest thrust and said, "that's the second time your dog has done that to my dog. you need to get control of your dog." To which I apologized and asked if his dog was okay in an attempt to diffuse the anger and address the important issue of whether there were any actual consequences from the interaction. He yelled some more stuff about control to which I gave the same response: sorry, is your dog OKAY? Rather than check his dog, the man proceeded to walk away while announcing that he was going to gut my dog if he tried to start anything again. I said, "That's not necessary" because I couldn't help myself, and it was nicer than telling him to go fuck himself. He whirled around and chest-thrusted towards me saying I don't know what because I stopped listening. I said, "look I know you're afraid,* but I just want to make sure your dog is okay." He finally stooped to inspect his dog which was thankfully unharmed. Then he stood up and said "I'm serious, I will gut your dog if that happens again" as he walked away for good.

WHO SAYS THAT?

I said a nice quiet "fuck you" as he walked away. I wish I had said something with a little more zing, but it probably would not have improved the situation. Best not to poke the lion.

Fast forward 8 hours and I'm walking home from the train with birds chirping, crabapple blossoms over my head, and weather warm enough for shorts (that I did not have on because I came from work).

And now for something a little shorter:

the last book I read**
made me want to run away
to where, I don't know

*I'm so glad the guy didn't react to that word because people don't generally liked to be told they're afraid even though that's most likely the emotion driving this guy's rage. Jackass probably didn't hear me right.

**The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - go read it now please. be prepared to cry and reflect.

picture: woman running with her dog along the Southbank Promenade by the Yarra River, Melbourne AUS, March 2016, film, Leica M6 (unintentionally blurry, but I kind of like it) 

editing

Well the final tornado has begun. We spent this afternoon packing our bags, editing, then repacking, and repeat. At one point, we layed down on the living floor to see if 1 sleeping bag would unzip enough to cover both of us (answer: yes), and that silly dog wormed his way in between us the second we had the bag over our bodies. End result: two adults crammed together with a giant dog butt sticking out of the top of the bag. We're still not down to the ideal combination of necessary gear that keeps us within the carry-on weight limit (15 pounds) and the annoyingly small dimensions (22"x14"x9"). Yes, we are attempting to go to the other side of the world for 3 weeks with one 32L backpack apiece and our "personal item" - aka a tote bag of food to avoid eating airline and airport "food" and my camera bag. I think we can do it! But we might not look or smell very pretty in the process. Hobocamp here we come. In the meantime, here's today's other exercise:

we might fail as snails
but we're getting pretty close
who needs extra socks?

picture: giant snail on the porch of our Airbnb house in Ilha Grande, Brazil, September 2012, digital 

frenzy

Well, I finally have all of our sleeping arrangements settled for the trip. There are 15 nights to cover because we are spending 4 days with friends in Melbourne, and we will be on a plane across two calendar nights, which boggles the mind. There are many ways to go about vacation planning, and I chose a medium level of insanity when it came to accommodations, with a few days of flexibility thrown in. To be honest, the "flexible" days are the ones that make me insane. I have nightmares about driving around the bush of New Zealand trying to find a freedom camping site that isn't full on the two nights that I haven't booked something in a holiday park (similar to the American KOA campgrounds with regard to "amenities," and ubiquity, and price, from what I can tell). There are two more days of work that bookend a weekend of packing, cleaning for our houseguest, and visiting with a close friend whose child delivery we are going to miss. Too much! and we have yet to begin. So why don't I get to the end and share today's haiku about that silly mutt:

wap-wap-wap! go his
ears every morning as he
stretches out of bed

picture: that silly dog while camera testing at low light with the camera sitting on the floor to avoid handshake, film, Leica M6 

verdict is in

I finally managed to scan and upload some pictures from the first two rolls of film from the Leica. I'm really happy with the sharpness and the color relative to my Canon Tlb. Definitely need to work on framing (it's hard to see the frame lines in the viewfinder especially with glasses). Turns out I loaded the film properly! and I have confirmation of the difference film quality can make. 1 roll is an el cheapo Fuji (from where, I have no idea. maybe a gift?) and the other roll is Kodak Ektar 100, one of my favorite films because of the color saturation. Anyway, I don't have time to geek out more (lucky for you) because I am heading to NC tomorrow for my grandfather's funeral. No condolences required; he was not a nice person. But funerals are not really for the dead; they are for the living, and I'm going to support my father and my grandmother (although there are complications in that relationship too, but potentially salvageable). For now, I leave you with a few more nonsense pictures and 17 nonsense syllables. For even more test shots of something besides the dog, go here.

every night around
the same time, a baby cries;
me too, kid, me too.

(charrow painting at her standing desk)

(Red hoping for a special treat from the pet store)

(Red running like a maniac from the common "backyard" behind our building)

top picture: Red soaking up our afternoon sunlight, which he follows around the room like a cat 

all pictures: film, Leica M6

where's that off button

Brain turning off in 3...2...never. But it was worth a shot. I am so happy this week is over. There's no way to say whether next week will be any better or worse, but for now it's nothing and it's Friday night and I'm about to string together 4 sentences because that's how much energy I don't have to punctuate properly. To add insult to injury, we got a dusting of snow this morning during prime commuting time. I almost skipped swimming because I couldn't bear the thought of a) walking through slush to get there and b) getting into a cold pool after having walked through slush. But I am compulsive and stubborn (as evidenced by this funny little streak I have going here), and it seemed like a bad idea to skip an opportunity for the only other form of exercise I can do right now. So I went. And damned if it wasn't beautiful on campus with the clock tower and the massive trees whose names I don't know all covered in snow (sorry no pictures). I tried to be grumpy about the snow, but it was just too pretty, so I gave in. And now for today's other exercise (about that silly dog again because he takes up a lot of space):

he sprawls in my lap  
after dinner, dream twitching
and farting away

picture: selfie with aforementioned dog in aforementioned position, today, iPhone 5

snow blind

The snow has stopped, and all is right in Red's world again... until tomorrow when it's officially bootie season (salt burns his feet to the point of limping). We took him for a two hour walk in the park this morning, because that's how long it took to walk our short route through two feet of snow. What a slog, but it was sunny and relatively warm. The dog has been a snoring lump since we got back, and I've been in a trip planning fugue. To the point of almost forgetting to write my silly haiku for the day. So here's today's exercise in commitment along with a few more pictures from the park.

we squeaked and crunched through
fields of white dotted with dogs
beware the sledders!

(because they were definitely not concerned about running us over)

move it or lose it

Yesterday was a strange day. Our dog walker asked if she could steal Red for an overnight adventure with her dogs on Saturday, so we were sans canine until 8pm last night. Over 24 hours without the seat stealer. I'm aware of how much structure the dog adds to our days, but it's even more obvious when he's gone. I didn't leave the house before lunch, which made me feel cagey and lazy. This of course makes no sense because we ran 10.7 miles the day before and spent nearly the entire day on our feet. But my brain has a pretty strong reset button for physical activity. More than an hour on my butt, and I suddenly feel like I've done nothing for days. Anyway, there was no real excuse to leave the house again after I had run my piddly afternoon errand, so I didn't go out again until about 5:45 when we went to a friend's house for dinner. The cats were living the dream, soaking up the sun spots they don't have access to when the dog is around, but I felt inexplicably cranky. Well, not inexplicably. I knew what was happening and also knew that I had a serious case of the Sundays. Clearly I should have taken myself for a walk! And now a bit of short form for the day. It has nothing to do with the dog because I came up blank on that front and it's almost past my bedtime. Instead, I bring you my experience of getting stuck behind a man who clearly did not know that my hanger could maim him with its pinky finger because he made me miss my train by about two seconds:

lumbering slowly*
down the stairs, the only soul
fucking move over

*a few minutes later: I've realized that this is redundant because lumbering is by definition slow, but I'm trying really (really) hard not to get uptight about this whole haiku thing. Could they be better? Always. Am I going to go back and "fix" them? No. Do I feel compelled to point out the pitfalls so you don't think I've missed them? Apparently.

picture: Red basking in the glory of the Hudson River (or panting because we just walked up a doozy of a hill in 85 degree heat), summer 2015, near Howell Ridge, upstate NY, cross-processed slide film, Canon Tlb