nags of a similar ilk

Kris, Andy, Blue, Shadow, Annie, Bella and I went to a local school today for some exercise. Kris mostly walked around, arms stuck at his side, unable to lift them because of last Friday's workout. Andy and I ran around, played on the playground/jungle gym/obstacle course, trying to climb various poles, conquer different bars, shimmy up different structures. Kris, he watched.

As we were walking back to the cars, a process which always takes about ten times as long as you think it should, what with all the smells to smell and trees to claw, discs to chase and dogs to run over. Somehow, I was in front of Andy, and Kris, and Annie, and Shadow, and Blue. Bella was in front of me, keeping her distance from Blue, who, early in the walk, had run her over chasing a disc.

She's the smart one.

So, I turned back to say something to Kris, as Andy released a disc for Blue to catch. The throw was a beautiful low throw, a perfect throw for an easy catch, actually. As I noticed the throw, my thoughts were something like, "That's a nice throw." "Hey, I could catch that throw." "Oh, a dog."

Then bam! No, more like BAM!, only bigger.

Blue ran right through my knees on his way to the disc. Sure, he was still accelerating. Sure, he wasn't at top speed. Sure, my pivot point is about hip level.

We discovered this when I did, indeed, pivot at hip level to horizontal, then, as in a Road Runner cartoon, dropped straight down.

I landed on my shoulder, hip and knees, searing pain shooting up my shoulder, which has been semi-injured since late October of last year, and only started healing earlier this month when I started taking mega (MEGA) doses of ibubrofen at my doctor's orders.

I landed with a THUMP. I started crying.

Now, crying in pain is an okay response. It happens. When pain is sudden and severe, hey, crying is a natural response.

Except that from a distance, crying sounds a lot like laughing. Which is what Andy and Kris were doing.

Eventually, they wandered over to me and asked if I was okay. I said my shoulder hurt a lot. When Kris asked how much, I realized that I couldn't answer, because it didn't hurt much on Kris' pain scale (where he'll be moaning in pain at the top of his lungs, but when asked where it is on a scale from 1-10, he'll say 4), so I stopped moaning and got up.

Kris looked at me when I stood up and said, "You know, it's been a long time since you've had some bizarre accident," referring to the time a random dog ran out into an ultimate field and just clobbered me, or the time I caught a boomerang in the shoulder, or the time I caught a disc in the face and my braces broke through my lips (it was brillant cut!), or the time I broke my shoulder from some ultimate player crashing into me, or the time I had a concussion wrestling with Kris, or the time, yeah, well, it's been a while since I had one of those.

Although I'm annoyed my shoulder hurts again, I think the worst part was the fact I cried in front of Andy. I'm so mad at myself. Pain on a physical scale? 2. Pain on an embarrassment scale? 10. Argh.

Okay, so, there were other parts of today's hike that weren't about Blue (no, really!).

Andy shows me that we're here! Yay, the beach!

We found a really big tire on the beach:

Bella was very puppy-dog on the beach, with her ears flapping in the wind:

A very happy Bella:

Annie found a dead seal on the beach, and showed it to me just before she rolled all over it.

Poof! New beagle!

All in all, a good day:

Andy IM'd this morning and asked if we were interested in taking the dogs to the park. Go outside and play? Uh, yes? Kris had plans at noon, so wanted only to go to the local park. We went off to the park, three people, four dogs in tow.

I expected each dog to do his usual thing: Bella would sniff everything along the perimeter; Annie would run run run, then sniff along the perimeter, waiting for a lapse in our awareness to make her escape; Blue would chase the disc as long as Andy threw it; and Shadow would alternate between playing defense on Blue and hovering near one of the people for a quick snuggle.

To my surprise, Bella came out to play with us, chasing one of us when someone was running around, and dodging us when one of us was chasing her. She artfully zipped among the three of us, swerving in and out, juking one way and dashing the other when we made to cut her off. Bella pretended to be a 2 year old dog, and endeared her little heart to us.

Shadow also surprised me by chasing me down, nipping at my legs and herding me back to the pack when I tried to run down Annie, who had "wandered" away. When I turned on him and started chasing him, Andy and Kris joined in, turning the herder into the herdee.

When we were done, Andy asked if I was interested in heading to Ft. Funston, confuse the dogs by giving them not one, but TWO outings. I was up for it, so off we went. Although the trip was billed as a "fool the dogs and go on a hike," in reality it was, "display how inaccurate Kitt's timing is with her new camera."

Andy asked if I could take a picture of Blue mid-air. Sure! So, throughout the hike, I took pictures of Blue. Note, I didn't say I "took pictures of Blue mid-air." No, that would have required good timing on my part. instead, I managed an off-frame picture of Blue:

A distant shot of Blue:

A close shot of Blue:

Blue chasing birds in the surf:

Blue eating sand:

Way after a catch:

Just a little after the catch:

Waaaaaay before the catch to compensate:

And so far before the catch, Blue was still spinning:

But, you know, you take enough pictures, ONE of them is bound to be good, right?

Of course, there's the shot of Andy, to prove he was there, too:

Of my dogs, well, I have a lot of pictures of their butts:

Any idea how hard it is to make a Blue Heeler sit still long enough to shove a camera up his nose? How about a Border Collie?

How about after you've already annoyed them with a flash that accidently went off?

Yeah, that hard.