Sense of Adventure

That’s what paraded across the path in front of Emma and me as we walked north along Bear’s Ditch, which runs past the east side of the RGNC preserve. Emma was cool and didn’t try to fetch any of them.

They were all drab - not a shiny green head in sight. Either they’ve yet to molt and get their autumn plumage or it was a Lesbian Mallard Collective. Anything’s possible.

A little farther on a roadrunner ran up the path a ways ahead of us before vanishing in the weeds alongside the road. Which have gotten lush just the last few days.

This was a good thing to do - walk by the ditch. It was a very pleasant late-summer afternoon:  fair, I think the word is, with stormy-looking clouds off to east and north and clear overhead. Not too hot, although a bit humid yet. The occasional breeze was highly welcome.

I know I need to get religious about walking every single day. It was hard to do so during Bubonicon. I’ll learn eventually how to get it all done.

Oh - not long after we set out up the path a pleasant but somewhat oblivious middle-aged woman approached from the other direction, talking on her cell phone and trailing an unleashed micro-dog. Little terrier-looking thing, white and brown, wiry hair. Probably weighed less than Emma’s head - which, granted, is a big head.

Fortunately Emma found a nice place to go into the water and soak as they passed, although she stared alertly at the woman the whole time. As the woman came up with us she turned around and went back to pick up her dog and carry it past - which mainly just protracted the encounter. Although I give her credit for making an effort to keep the little critter out of harm’s possible way.

So after they passed Emma emerged - and turned around to peer suspiciously after them. She even made as if to follow. I brought that up right short.

“Emma, that tiny little dog does not threaten us. Come on.”

And her return look plainly said, “Dad! It might have poison fangs!”

The elements made sport of me today. In midafternoon I decided to try for an early walk. In process of putting Emma out to tend to business before we set out I stepped onto the back porch. And a mighty crack of thunder pealed out.

So I decided the time wasn’t propitious. I waited an hour or two. Then let Emma, who by this time was eager to go for her walk, out the back door.

Only to discover it was raining. She didn’t even want to leave the porch.

Somehow Emma has discovered in rainwater caustic properties, not found in water which is properly lying down, such as we find in ditches and rivers, which threaten to dissolve her broad Lab butt. Despite the fact that she rejoices in soaking in running water up to her wildebeest neck.

I may give the impression, in my account of her foibles and phobias, that Emma is a timid person. She’s not. She just had a rough puppyhood that left scars. And in fact I still seem to recall she didn’t especially fear loud noises when she came to us. I suspect a neighbor, accidentally or on purpose, shot a bottle rocket or something similar at her, possibly scorched her and definitely traumatized her.

Anyway, I was fixing to be grateful that the thunder had warned us away from walking earlier, except that it turned out to be a solo shot, whereas once we got fairly embarked on the ditch it started to flash and crack and rumble like the Bowling Alley of the Gods.

As every schoolchild knows, the Hairy Thunder-Deities Jove and Jehovah enjoy a friendly rivalry. But if you know the respective mythologies you also know that both hate to lose, and neither is above working out his anger issues on hapless random mortals. So I was a bit trepidatious.

Still, I persevered. As I may have mentioned Emma’s a lot less fearful of rain and thunder when we’re out walking. Unless either or both start to get really overt, in which case she seems to decide Daddy’s protective magic isn’t measuring up. Which is true enough, as far as it goes.

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To fit in around here, you really have to be a character. For one thing, you need to help keep the other denizens of the madhouse entertained.

Emma continues to show she belongs in the Milán Pack. Just now, with the street full of youths, not all the most reliable-looking, and with bass thumping from the speakers of a truck across the street, what roused Emma to bark fiercely?

What but her nemesis, a young mother with a pram?

To be fair to Emma, the mother was walking a somewhat stout little dog. That’s got to up the threat factor.

•••

To further support Emma’s pack-appropriate eccentricity, on our walk today we got rained on. At home Emma doesn’t like to be out in any kind of weather. By which I of course mean weather, as in, the weather doing something, not just sort of being there. Today, though, she happily ignored the fact that it was raining. As long as the rain stayed light.

To my surprise she didn’t even react to fairly loud thunder. Usually if any kind of boom is even audible when she’s outside, she’s shrieking and thumping at the back door to come in. Out on the ditch this afternoon, she didn’t even blink. Apparently she figures Daddy will protect her.

(This might be ill-advised. Daddy is tall, hence liable to attract lightning.)

I enjoyed the rain myself. Mostly. It’s a rare treat to see New Mexico on a cloudy, rainy day. And light rain falling on me actually feels pleasant. Certainly knocks down the heat.

But then as we approached the point where I intended to turn around the rain began coming down for true. Then Emma was, like, “Daddy, can we seek shelter now? Don’t you know enough to come in out of the rain?” Fortunately there were trees with thick enough foliage to offer some respite.

Even then I was more concerned by the lightning. If I’d expected that, or if I’d heard thunder before we set out, I would have kept us home. Naturally it waited until we were on our way up the ditch.

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Emma and I were walking back down the ditch on the return leg of our walk this afternoon when on the far bank I saw an older Latino guy in a white straw cowboy hat, jeans and a Western shirt coming the other way. That type isn’t superabundant here in the central RGV, but up in northern New Mexico everybody’s grand-dad looks like that. Behind him tottered a four-year-old boy in red shirt and blue shorts - and also a black cape, a Batman mask, and, somewhat inexplicably, carrying a plastic sword.

I did a double-take. It ws so incongruous at first I thought the kid was wearing a black devil mask. Then the older guy said, “I found this caped crusader wandering behind me along the ditch.”

That was so splendid I had to laugh with delight. I’m afraid the lad misinterpreted that as showing disrespect, for he held high his sword and declared, with fierce conviction, “I’m Batman!”

Yes. Yes, you are. Emma stared at him as if he were Ziggy Stardust complete with the Spiders from Mars. I had to hustle her along lest the caped crusader wreak dreadful retribution on us.

A little farther on I tawt I taw a Harrier flying over the ditch. Not this:

But this:

Not pictured: Gamera

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A bit of an experiment today - take that as yesterday, Friday, May 2^nd, the day before this nominally posts.

As I mentioned in our last thrilling episode (and, yes, I’m easily thrilled) I’ve got both Dragon NaturallySpeaking and my DVR up and running. So today when I took Emma Dog for a walk down by the Nature Center, I decided to try my hand at an audio diary. I keep a journal of our walks anyway, and it’s struck me several times just how convenient it’d be to be able to record interesting events, sights, impressions, and suchlike, just by speaking. I do carry my beloved Pilot T/X religiously, but writing into it’s … not so efficient. Especially since Graffiti 2, their writing interface software, basically sucks. Although in truth I’ve never been terribly accurate at writing on my PDA.

But talking, obviously, is pretty easy.

Also, of course, it’s my intent to dictate my fiction on the go, implementing what I’ve long thought of as my “Man in Motion” concept. So I reckoned this’d be a prime opportunity to test several things at once.

What follows, therefore, is my transcript of the day’s session. It runs 1006 words. It’s proofread, but not edited - I’m proud I only said “um” once. It’s as close to word-by-word as I could make it.

Feel free to skip this one. If not - here goes:

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