Just the way it goes on some days.

Well. This was a day.

Before work, I quick snapped a photo of my $5 I was going to send Susan Garrett because her genius works over the internet and I am compelled to send her money for failing the challenges by not doing them. Susan Garrett has magical powers we are only beginning to understand.

But Holy Cinco de Enero, Susan Garrett! Gustavo has been demoted to Groundhog day of recall repetition and the rebuilding of our relationship and I had approximately 5 minutes on the agility field this week. There's no weave pole challenges. Contact challenges. Holy smokes. Drag the jumps around? This week, they were lucky to go out on a leash run down to check the surf before work. It was big, by the way, scarey and a little too powerful to be our sea's magestic beauty. Call them death waves.

So THEN, on the way to work I stopped at the car fixing place because the something something was cracked and loose on the engine and something about the bolt, so I took the dogs for a walk on the levee while they dug around fixing the whatchamacallit. The levee is the homeless corridor, on the edge of town, by the train tracks that wind up to the forest. The corridor runs along the river to the emergency shelter and near the greenbelt where the forest folk camp out under trees. It was about 8am and guys were dragging their cardboard out of the willows on the riverbank and dragging hefty bags with their aluminum around.

We walked with them, me and the dogs, sort of against traffic coming from the shelter. Quiet enough, even with the hum of the freeway nearby, that you could hear that there was a good amount of water down in the river. Our river, sometimes sad and pathetic by the time it meanders through downtown to splurt out through the sand by the Boardwalk. Lots of spots to sleep, if that's the only place left by the time the sun goes down. Everyone walks sort of slow, not sure where they're all going, with backpacks and pushcarts down the path on the levee.

Susan Garrett's $5 bill that I had stuffed in my pocket ended up on one guy's wet sleeping bag, still curled up on the bricks overlooking the strip mall car park. I figured he'd need quarters for the dryer at the laundromat. Susan Garrett, I will find you some more $5's. Or send you a special present. I think I owe you like $5,500 by now in overdue challenge fees. This is just the way we do it here, sometimes in the land of Team Small Dog. You gave us the rules and set up the plan, and then here we are, meandering along with guys dragging sacks of cans, under a gray, stormy sky, listening to the dirty river burble through the brush.

So THEN, to work. Everyone talking of the giant storm heading our way, the unprecedented event of dynamic lift of the jet stream, aiming ample wetness disturbances as powerful as they get for our planet, headed smack at our coast. Battening down the horse hatches and getting ready for the water to start pouring in from all angles for a week.

So THEN, when I got home, my email announces USDAA Nationals in Kentucky. Otterpop, you wanna go to Kentucky on an aeroplane?

And AKC sent me a nice email about how they're no longer dog racist and has enhanced itself by allowing dogs like mine to join, if we so choose. Otterpop, you wanna be an AKC dog?

That was about it. Someone wanted to facebook friend me, some spammers wanted me to sign up for all kinds of things. And I ate some dinner, and then called it a night, ready to get up early to start it all again today.

*BTW, we still love you, our old pal dog agility, and hope to UKI Matchit on Sunday if the Storm of the Century could please just hold off until Sunday, late afternoon, perhaps early evening, 5pm would be SUPER, to slam into us.