I am just back from a turn around the lake on the longest day of the year, and have decided to record two short items I would have made hay from if I still blogged.
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I came back from a walk around the lake the other day and saw my neighbor Lonnie coming back from his run with his boy, Daniel. I was crossing 65th on the west side of Ravenna, and he was crossing on the east. As I waited for the light to change so I could head east, following him back to our block, I thought, "Hey, I could run and catch up to him and say hi." That thought was immediately followed by another: "Lonnie is a marathon runner at the peak of his condition, with a race less than two weeks away. There's no way you're ever going to catch up to him if he has even a half-block head start, even if he is pushing a stroller." So I watched him disappear down the street.
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I read an item on one of my news aggregator blogs, or rather I saw it, but couldn't even read it all the way through, so i am missing some details. It seems a homeless man was found ill in his car; along with him was a dog. The dog was well-groomed and well-cared for, even though the man was in dire straits. The man was taken to hospital and the dog to a shelter; a paramedic on the case who happened to volunteer at the shelter took it upon herself to reunite the man and his companion in the hospital. There was a picture of the man hugging the dog, who was looking at him with total unconditional love. Knowing he was near death, the man held the dog one last time and told him "Behave. You behave, now."
I am crying now as I type this; I can't even think about this story without choking up, and I don't even really know why. The heart is a strange and wonderful thing: mine, yours, and his.
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But I don't blog anymore. Happy summer.