A minor comedy of errors this morning. I get up and go out into the backyard to make sure the fog bank isn’t smoke from a fire and notice that a small potted kangaroo paw plant I’d been successfully attempting to nurse back to health this last couple months had suffered a second and this time fully fatal assault by Ranger.
The first came after my initial attentions helped the plant pring back to life sitting near ground level where it had been entirely ignored by the dog until for some unknown reason she decided to dig it out a couple weeks ago. I was pissed then but the sturdy little fella’s roots were still relatively intact and so we repotted it and moved it up onto a table next to the bbq grill where I thought it would be safe.
Stoopid me.
There it was this foggy a.m. fully mangled amid the spread of its soil — the plastic pot nowhere to be found (as if hiding that piece of evidence would be sufficient) — and I went into a mid-level WTF. The only problem is that when I pivoted barefoot on the patio to face Ranger who had that “Busted!” look of guilt all over her muzzle I ended up stubbing the big toe and the ball of my right foot righteously on a raggedy cinderblock.
That elevated my anger somewhat but I managed to stop short of assaulting the dog in part because I was bleeding something fierce and had to turn my attentions to staunching the flow and cleaning the wound.
When Susan got up she sensed a change in the force and asked what was wrong and I told her “I don’t like the dog anymore,” which is not true in a big-picture sense of course but at that immediate time and place…? Yeah, I didn’t like the fucking dog one bit.
The final domino to fall is that while the injury to my tootsie isn’t as bad as it seemed it might now prevent me from participating in Franklin Avenue’s much-anticipated 2nd Annual Great L.A. Walk tomorrow morning, that will span the entire length of Pico Boulevard from the Coca-Cola plant at Central all the way to the beach (some 15 miles). If so, I still plan to show up and see them off and/or hobble along for the first mile or so with them.
And in the meantime the scrapes are bandaged and I’m going to work off the fury I’m retaining towards Ranger (and yes: my silly over reaction) on the bike ride into work.
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