Stinky Feet

We are tired. All of us. Yesterday Scout and I ran five miles, the longest run we’ve undertaken together. We reached a familiar milestone on the Battenkill I once met with Clarence-the-Canine, and then turned and headed back to the car. We did not run as fast as Clarence and I ran, but we stopped to chase chipmunks, important work. Scout does not yet possess the endurance of a veteran German Shepherd runner. And his human has a chronic foot injury and extra baggage. Still, we finished our run, and it felt effortless—we scarcely broke a sweat on a temperate New England morning in October. That is good news.

The rest of our weekend has been hijacked by preparations—for winter and for our upcoming move, which is right around the corner. Snow tires have been hauled out of storage, air conditioners have been pulled out of windows and cleaned up and boxed ’til they’re needed sometime in June, curtains have come out of plastic bins to be washed and pressed and readied for new windows, and everywhere furniture has been shifted around, cobwebs cleaned away, bug carcasses vacuumed, and inventories made: keep, sell, pitch, pack. The soundtrack for all this is the unrelenting rhythm of life—grocery shopping, laundry folding, vegetable chopping, and dog washing. A dog whose filthy feet and stinky coat finally came clean today after weeks of dodging the bullet.

With succulent, steaming chicken in hand, I was finally forgiven.