A good day? You decide!

Some days, it feels like you know right away when it's tilted one way or the other. It's 3 in the afternoon, your car has broken down, your dog has GDV, your girlfriend has left you to join a nunnery. Today, as far as I can tell, might be a good day. Here's what I've done:

1.) As previously arranged, I picked up the Ghost's dog Taxman after work this morning. Taxman is an old dog, a husky. The Ghost is going on a "work related excursion". I am not the biggest fan of Taxman, but I do like having two dogs in the house again. Taxman and Warden had some territorial thing going on, but I think they've come to an understanding.

2.) I don't think work needs to be considered in the equation here. It was neither a good day nor a bad day at work. I got my stuff done on time.

3.) I got home from work and made some soup. I had some oldish sweet potatoes that I needed to use up, so I made some Split Pea Sweet Potato Mustard soup. (I sauteed my celery and onions in my leftover Mexican butter from last week.) It is delicious. A good day for soup. A good soup for a (blank) day.

4.) There is a shared patio that I share with the two other apartments in my building. It is surrounded by a vinyl fence. It is not too big, enough for a table and a few chairs. It was cold and a little snowy today. I didn't have the energy to take two dogs on a serious walk, so I thought, "we can go out to the shared patio for a spell!" There's a lot of snow our there, so the dogs can enjoy playing out there, more then they would on concrete. Warden rolls and rolls around in the snow. I figured I would bundle up, grab a bowl of soup, and read a book out there while the dogs played. "The soup will seem even more delicious out in the cold!" I thought. It did. It was cold though.

5.) Taxman is a very smart dog. He figured out how to open the gate, and he took off. I was engrossed in a story about firemen. Warden took off after Taxman. I was wearing sweatpants, unlaced boots (no socks), and my coat and hat. Picture it: an old and panicked Curt Jimenez running down the street after two large dogs. I am not much of a runner, even less so in unlaced boots. And my sweatpants' drawstring no longer exists, so there was that. Can you imagine if I lost the Ghost's dog? I would have bigger problems then just unemployment.

6.) And they ran. I finally caught them about a half mile away, (that's what it felt like). Okay, I didn't "catch" them. I saw them, and called "Warden" and Warden stopped and ran toward me. I put my hand up to stop a car speeding down the street that separated us. Warden leapt at me and licked my face. Taxman, amazingly followed right behind.

7.) So, there we were. I didn't have leashes, so I walked them home holding them by their collars. So, there's another picture: Curt Jimenez, winded, wheezing, sweatpants falling down, unlaced boots, dragging two large dogs for a half mile by the collar. But I had my dogs!

And here we sit. I lost them (has this happened before?), and they came back. An adventure. You know what though? With a life like mine, I think it's nice to get some exhilaration as long as in the end ends up being okay. Spontaneity, you know? I'll remember today for a long time, I think. Maybe the flavor of the soup will hang in my memory longer than it would otherwise. Maybe I'll never forget that story about firemen (did I finish it?) I think this was a good day!