"Who's next?"

Yesterday morning, Olive met Kira, a beautiful 10-month old polar white Boxer at the local dog park. On this wonderfully cool morning marked by scattered blue-grey clouds, Olive and Kira, the only two dogs in the park, race nuttily around the grounds oblivious to everything but themselves. When not screaming past their owners like comets streaking across a night sky, the dogs stop every once in awhile to literally box one other. After a couple of sweaty, saliva-flinging rounds, grunting, they wrestle each other to the ground, using their mouths to pin each other by the neck. While it was friendly at all times, clearly they played with the unvarnished vigor of filthy rugby players. All of a sudden, Olive or Kira would stand up like they had been tweaked by a wandering ghost, and they would dig their nails into the dirt and take off as if they were racing with the moon. No matter how far or long they ran, or how many petrified lawn cigars they passed, they would always find their way back to their human companions; drawn to us as if we were giant red and silver-tipped U-shaped magnets. Always moving toward us, they’d tumble over each other like two crazy bowling balls that crossed lanes. It was funny until a combined 150 pounds of lean, muscular grey and white canine power slammed into me, knocking me to the ground like a catatonic bowling pin. I may have gone ass over head. All I saw was the horizon simultaneously moving in different directions. ‘GOOD CHRIST YOU CRAZY DOGS, THAT HURT!” I announce with mock annoyance as I pick myself up from the ground gingerly like an old fart, waiting to determine if I have any broken bones. At least I didn’t lose my glasses. “Are you okay?” says Kira’s owner. I assure him I am; more surprised than anything about being taken out by “Team Kolive.” Of course they didn’t mean it. In their blissful moments of play, living fully in each moment as it occurs, they simply become unaware of their surroundings; as focused as Tibetan monks only on each other. I look up and Olive is standing there with her tongue dangling from her mouth like a tube of bologna. “THIRSTY?” I ask Olive. Panting heavily, she looks at me longingly, as though I have magically materialized into a garden hose. I open the bottled water I’ve brought with me and slowly let some drop into Olive’s mouth which is now wrapped around the upper half of the bottle. Growing impatient as she starts to chew on the plastic bottle, I say, “LET’S GO OLIVE, I THINK I MAY HAVE SPRAINED MY ASS.”