Dog walking

Walking my dog is not only an experience; it is a lesson that will never be forgotten. Some is her fault, and most is mine. So my mom got mad at me because I was sitting in my room watching TV and not doing anything so she said either I had to clean my room or take the dog for a walk. I don't really care if my room looks like a tornado ripped through it or not, so out me and my dog went. Somewhere along the line, we lost my dog's normal leash. When I say 'we' I mean 'me' because no one else takes her for walks. But anyways, we're left with the 20 foot obnoxiously purple leash or the highlighter yellow leash the Humane Society gave us when we bought her. I chose the yellow.

So we go walking around the normal neighborhood and if anyone has ever walked a dog in the winter can sympathize with me, that it is easier to walk a dog in the summer, not only because it is too hot for the dog to pull on the leash but when they take four pisses in one person's lawn, the owner is oblivious. When the yellow stain on the otherwise white snow accompanied by dog tracks, hiding it is slightly more difficult. While Lana didn't pee four times in one person's lawn she did pee in four separate people's lawns. How dogs have so much stored inside of them, I will never know. But some guy did see her pee in his neighbor's lawn when my attention wavered due to one of those vulgar blow-up Santa decorations that people put in their lawns that they call 'cute.' So Lana and I were forced to dash away, dash away, dash away all. She also pulled and pulled and pulled until my wrist was red from her and she couldn't breathe normally, just gasping wheezing breaths of someone having an asthma attack.

unfortunately, that is not the worst. Considering how Christmas is two days away (and it's 43 degrees outside and it's supposed to rain on Christmas...what's this world coming to?) and most people have Christmas decorations up in every variation. Including those wooden white reindeer with those red bows. Five separate times, the hair on the back of my dog's neck rose (and so did the hair right before her tail, but not in between, my dog's so weird) and she dragged me to the side of the street so she could growl and bark at those strange creatures that don't move but might be threatening.

But, sadly enough, the worst is yet to come. And it is not Lana's doing. Considering it is Christmas and an excess of Christmas cookies and eggnog is constantly in my system, that might be the only explanation of what I did. So we were about half way done with the walk, and my arm is aching from constantly yanking Lana back from chasing wooden reindeer, licking the melting snow, eating the melting snow and the like. I wondered what Lana would be like as a guide dog. Maybe if I pretended I couldn't see, she would stop pulling and just walk normally. We were walking down a side road, not like there were going to be any cars or people or anything watching me, so what the hell right? Wrong. Way wrong. I shut my eyes, one hand still attached to my dog, and the other hand stretched out way in front of me, like...well, like a 17-year-old pretending she can't see. What I soon learned was that no one over the age of, um, 11 should do that because not only did a car come right at me and I nearly didn't see it, but a few little kids were out playing in their yard and they started stretching their hands in front of them and took robot steps with their eyes closed and then pointed and laughed. I, once again, ran away.

It was almost as embarrassing as the time a few days ago when my sister and I went shopping for my brothers at Kohl's and I somehow got lost in women's robes (how do I get myself in these situations) and thought my sister was right behind me so I started yelling, "Carinne. Carinne! Where are you?!" Until the 80 year-old saleswomen asked me if I was lost, sweetie. Then she walked away again and I thought I saw her and was halfway through saying, "No, dad didn't call us but I don't---you're not Carinne," when I realized it was not my maroon haired sister, but a middle-aged woman with a toddler who was laughing at me. Bad things just happen to me, what can I say?

But it's Christmas, and the Steelers are playing tomorrow so Merry Christmas to all!