Starting the week off right

So today's off to a great start. Went out early today for a run on the C&O Canal towpath. My prosthetist is going to be bugged since the gravel tears up my running foot so bad, but I stopped caring. It's too nice a day not to run in the woods and I need to do more running off of the smooth, flat asphalt just as a matter of training. The whole world's not paved, you know. Besides, he gets paid good money to fix it and the more I damage this equipment, the more I spur development of better stuff. Every time I break one of these things, I get a new one that's just a bit (or a whole lot) better. So why wouldn't I break them as fast as I can? If I never broke one, I'd still be using the first one I got two years ago, and that one sucked!

But it's my prosthetist's own fault. He's the one that had all the magazines in his office that showed people with prosthetic legs running, jumping, swimming, hiking and competing in all sorts of extreme sports. When I saw that, I decided that if they could do that stuff, so could I. My prosthetist told me that those weren't "typical" amputees, that "normal" amputees didn't do that sort of stuff, and that he didn't know any like that.
"Well you do now," I told him. And right then, I decided that it would be my goal in life to do more and be more than the average two-footed person. I wasn't much for athletics before, but I am now, and it feels great.

Only downside is that several pair of pants and a couple of new belts that I bought not even a year ago are all too big now. I've dropped 2-3 inches off my belt size since I decided to revamp my diet and exercise program about six months ago, and my blood pressure and cholesterol are down too.

Now I have to work on my fat dog. Lagniappe's looking a little pudgy since I started running and stopped walking him every day. So his food got cut back, and today I took him running with me. Since he was new to it. we just did a short, easy four miles. well I ran 4 miles. He took off after so many squirrels that I think he probably ran five.

First I tried running him on his leash, but he won't stay next to or behind me. No, even though he's new at this, he insists on getting out there in front and leading, even though he has no idea where we're going or why. Maybe I should call him "Obama". Oh, and he's also black, but we're not allowed to mention that.

He started getting on my nerves, because he'd run ahead of me but then slow down to the point where I had to keep telling him to move. Finally I just unclipped him and let him run at his own pace, which worked fine until he started seeing squirrels. Fortunately, there's no place he can go from the towpath. The river's on one side and the dry canal with it's steep opposite bank is on the other. So he chased tree-rats as I concentrated on just finishing the run.

After the run and a light lunch, I stopped off at the range to do a bit more work with my trusty 1911A1. It's hard to believe that I've had this pistol over 20 years now. None other than Patrick Sweeney himself talked me into buying this one in lieu of some stupid idea that I had to build one from parts after I read a magazine article about how easy it was. Pat was just a local gunsmith working in a small shop back then and I had the good fortune to go to him to buy the parts for my pistol build. He could have sold me what I thought I wanted and made some money, but instead, he showed me several other botched "home-builts" that he had in the shop, and after he gave me the facts of life about such projects, he steered me into this very pistol and I walked out the door with it. It's served me well since, especially after Mas Ayoob taught me how to shoot it right, and this one will someday go to the grave with me, just in case I need a good handgun on the other side.

Now I'm home, and Lagniappe is asleep in the sun out on the deck. He's all happy now, which is quite a contrast from last night. You see, last night he did something bad, as all dogs will do every now and then, and I blew my stack and yelled at him something awful. He slunk off to lay low for a while, and then, as always happens, the reconciliation began. He kept coming up to me, bearing his toys--one after the other--and placing them on my lap or at my feet. Now this is a dog who doesn't share his toys or allow others to touch them, and he never willingly hands one over to anyone--even me--unless he's trying to atone for something. Then they become apology gifts. Within half an hour, despite my telling him that there were no hard feelings, all of his toys were piled up in my office and he was sitting beside the stack, nudging me with his nose and trying to get me to pet him.





How can you stay mad at a dog like that?



Well now I have work to do here. I can't just nap in the sun like Lagniappe. I'm finishing up on a project where I'm removing numerous small and medium-sized weed/trees before they become huge wee/trees. Not sure what they are, but they have impressive root systems that spread out underground and make pulling them nearly impossible. and if you just cut them off, they grow right back. So I have to go at eash one with a mattock and get under the root ball to pull them completely. And of course it's too much to ask for them not to grow around rocks.

With any luck, I can at least manage to chop the rest of them out without losing balance on the hillside and swinging the mattock into my leg again like I did yesterday. I'm just glad that I only hit the carbon-fiber one. Still, I gouged it pretty good and I can hardly wait until my prosthetist sees that nice gash...

Ah well. I'd better get at it. If I don't make the most of the last couple hours of daylight, I won't be able to truly enjoy the nice steak that I plan to grill tonight.

Later!