Piggy, Blow the Conch!

16.3 miles in 1:55 (7:03 pace). I'm guessing the distance; it may have been more because the timed sections of the run were 6:40-6:55 pace. But I will err on the side of caution, because I don't want to embellish a run; the blogosphere's got enough of those cretins. I'll go cautious; I'll try to keep it slow-sounding so that I can act as a counterbalance to all those bombastic tough guyz out there. -------------------------------------- When I picked up my daughter from her camp yesterday, I got an earful from her. She told me at decibel level 1000 and 100 miles-an-hour, out of breath, that we were going to rescue a guinea pig. Apparently, due to the conclusion of the summer, the 'nature lab' at her camp desperately needs to shovel off their zoo creatures to unsuspecting parents by planting seeds of guilt-trip propaganda into the innocent and fresh minds of their 8 year-old campers. (This thing apparently either lives or dies and I hold all the cards, or so I was told at 5 pm last night.) No pressure, right? A guinea pig is not from New Guinea and is not a pig. It was once a domesticated rodent hailing from the Andean region about 3000 years ago and was raised with the paradoxical purpose of either being someone's pet or being eaten (or both depending on the type of winter and how many knots the Incan paterfamilias had on his khipu I suppose). After Pizarro conquistador'ed, raped, and plundered his way across the region, these things ended up in ships' stores as wonderful sources of sea meat; and so they went from the ships' holds to the shores of Europe where they became the exotic pets of the 16th Century version of North Face's Bay Area customer base. I don't want one. They are too big and they make a series of 'popcorn' noises that will disrupt the sanctity of my McTownhouse. When my daughter is gone, I will have to clean its cage--regularly, mind you--play with it and keep it separated from a slobbering 80-pound dog that has been bred--for thousands of years across damn, fine pedigreed bloodlines--to hunt, track down and retrieve small game this very size. In other words, my dog is really good at this. Besides, look what happened to Bobo. Most of these rodents under my care live a sharp bell curve for a life. The curve rises in the first month and the rodent reaches the apogee of its life at about month two. At this time, I think the rodent figures out that it's been pawned off to a disinterested owner sorely lacking in basic nurturing skills. Then, by month three, it's one hell of a rapid decline down the other side of the steep curve: it's a Pachev-esque marathon run at opening miles of 5:10 pace. And so by the fourth month--the nadir of this thing's unjust, pathetic life--the rodent is introduced to that disinterested McPetstore employee with the leathern amulet of crystals hanging around his neck. Yeah the guy who poses as a 'rodent doctor' as well as a toilet cleaner and purveyor of really hardcore porn. By the last week of the fourth month, the thing dies in a low-lit cleaning supplies slash broom closet in said McPetstore and is thrown out back in the alley for the rabid dogs to eat. So I said no. Three hours, ten guilt trips dropping Saint Francis' name and deeds, one episode of excessive pouting, and fiddiethousand idle threats later, Josie put me into a logical/ethical corner so I told her I'd think about it. I went for a run; I got a great workout doing my little wannabe Viren thang 'floating' here and wolfman-in-a-windmill-ing there. The endorphins surged and the reigns of life were, once again, back in my hands. Booya! The cage seemed easy to clean, playing with this bag for a muppet--enjoyable! Everything comes together after a good workout: even the most ridiculous of propositions. But, sadly, once the endorphins get pissed away, all our seemingly sound solutions to these chewed-on problems turn out to be complete garbage--sad sophistic abominations. But I still had those endorphins surging by the time I got home. I got back 30 minutes before McPetstore's closing and so I picked up Josie at her friend's house. I said, "Yes!" The amulet man met us in the guinea pig section. He rubbed his hands and helped me lift the new cage over to the checkout counter, his leather bag of crystals swaying back and forth symbolized the ticking of this poor thing's lifespan. Hakuna Matata, the circle of life, and all that..... --------------------------------------- Today, while at a red light, I noticed that some smug, leftist hypocrite had a bumpersticker on her car with a picture of the GOP elephant and a gas hose; the gas hose was going into its ass. The sticker had the following title: "Fill'er Up!" This sticker, on a car of all things, is completely laughable. It reminds me of the whacked-out, Berkeley wastoid-holdouts who used to drive 30 miles to my father's former place of employment in Benicia, an oil refinery, get out of their cars, and hold up signs saying, "No Blood For Oil!" They would get on the 10 o'clock news, filmed in their moment of glory day-zeal, get back into their cars (Volvos, of course, so it's all gooood) fuel up at the Exxon gas station down the road (same company as the refinery) and go back to their 5000-square feet homes with views located at 1956 Che Guevara Memorial Drive and 1916 Lenin Circle in the proletariat sections of the Berkeley hills. Wouldn't the sticker make more sense on a bike? Perhaps then, I'd laugh. In the meantime, I'll keep on truckin'.