We had brunch at the house with Nat and Dara and their friends Ning & Brian. N & D bought a house in the neighborhood and are planning on moving out of our basement apartment within the month and we are hoping that Ning & Brian will be our new tenants. Nat made us this delicious pastry for our birthdays.
Almond cream filling!
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Lately, Maxi has been giving me some forlorn looks. Anytime we make an extra to-do packing up the car (Jeremy’s bike ride yesterday, a picnic with a cooler, going on a road trip), Maxi runs to the car/van in the garage and leaps into the car and asks – can I come? can I come? And the answer is always, always no. Then I realized that she must be so bored, always in the house, hardly ever leaving the neighborhood. She’s the 4th child, really no time for dog parks, no time for doggie play dates, she just sits on our bed, stinky-fying our pillows. So today, I decided to take her orienteering – it was the first meet of the season. I wasn’t sure how she would manage, there are lots of dogs at check in and check out and Maxi is not really good with meeting other dogs. And would she be able to manage the terrain without getting tangled in the leash and would she run as fast as I wanted to run? (I have not been taking her running around the neighborhood on my runs, I ask her, but she doesn’t ever seem excited to go – I consider her to be out of shape for a dog, she just runs to her food bowl.)
Max did great: over logs, through undergrowth of the forest, up and down hills, over streams. (I did less well performance-wise, not Maxi’s fault, she didn’t slow me down, only my own navigation did that.) I did this thing called a Score-O which is timed and I needed to get back to the start within a 75 minute window or penalties apply and I realized a little too late that the time was closing in on me and I had to book it back on an open trail and I asked Max to keep up with me for a good while and she did, surprising me. She did growl at dogs which is unfortunate, but, I think, manageable. She might be my new orienteering partner.
