A Little Bit on Sticks

December 30, 2009.  Wednesday.

Situation.  Work tonight.  So after puttering around in the morning, I lie down to rest and read around 2 pm.  It’s close to 3 when I decide I should start moving.  I hear Alma coming for her lesson with Moi and Mway downstairs barking for her treat.  I finally get up out of bed, and as I walk past Moi’s bedroom, I see Mway on the floor, eyeing me.

State of the Path.  I have to leave for work about 4, so I have an hour to take Mway for a walk, shower, and do a couple tasks – I feel rushed.  It’s cold like yesterday, the ground frozen.  I just do the circuit, down to the creek and back.  In the store of sticks kept on the bench on the back porch, I couldn’t find the one I’ve been using the last couple days – Mway may have left it lying somewhere in the backyard on a walk with Moi.  The sticks that are there on the bench are all rather small, but I recall seeing one in the kitchen that might be a good size, so I go back in to get that one.  On all my walks I have taught Mway that I like her to drop the stick at the back door so that I can put it on the bench (and have it handy for the next walk).  Moi, on the other hand, lets Mway bring the stick in the house, which Mway then drops anywhere indiscriminately.

State of the Creek.  Walk quickly down to the creek.  More ice than yesterday, but it is not frozen in all places.  I test the ice in three places with my walking stick.  After six or more taps, I crack and dinge it, but can’t poke through it.  The ice is transparent: you can see brown water flowing beneath it.  The creek is almost completely silent.

The Fetch.  The stick I’ve brought along, although bigger than the ones on the porch, is still smaller than I like, only about 15 inches long, and rather well worn from Mway chomping on it on previous walks.  I like a stick at least a yard long, the better to wing it.  Although I’m in a hurry today, Mway isn’t, and I end up throwing the stick more than twenty times.  Today I pitch it in three places in the dead goldenrod, toward the cement rubble pile, toward the exit of the clearing, and toward the garden.  Mway is full of her typical energy, spinning around as I hold the stick in the air to throw it, then dashing off in a bee line to where I’ve thrown it, snapping it up then dashing back to drop it at my feet.  Eventually the stick she retrieves is smaller than what I’ve thrown:  already well worn it breaks apart even more either from the impact of landing on the ground or from Mway chomping on it.  It’s finally too small for me to enjoy throwing it.  I toss it toward the garden and watch it land in the branches at the base of a wild olive shrub.  Mway dashes off after it but paces back and forth around the shrub, unable to find the stick.  Exasperated I walk the twenty feet to the shrub and point the stick out to Mway.  She lunges at it and dislodges it, then presents it to me between her teeth, but I don’t feel like throwing such a small stick and, throwing my hands up and saying “Nah, that’s it,” start marching away back toward the house, Mway having no choice but to follow me.