On Saturday Zeke and I ran errands. First stop Bagel Basement: scone for me, chile bagel for Zeke. The Bagel Basement is one of the stores where Zeke gets to walk up and sit outside the door. Sometimes it pays off with a free bagel. Not this time.

A few more stops and then a visit to Borders, another Zeke store. This time the walk is across a big, busy parking lot so there's more interaction along the way. Like, "Hey, slow down!" and "Ok, go ahead, I bet you DON'T know which car it is Mr. Sensitive Nose."

I'm thinking that what Zeke really loves about these adventures is the process. It's change and change often means biscuits. While sitting outside the store he pretty much keeps to himself, ignoring everyone going by. Sure, if some kids come up and pet him he may use that as an excuse to move closer to the door, but otherwise they are white noise.

The last stop is the library and at this point Zeke is trying to walk way ahead in order to get there sooner. See, there haven't been any biscuits yet and the chile bagel is a long, lost memory. He's up the sidewalk, to the library front steps and laying down waiting by the time I get there.

I browse the new books and look over their small DVD collection. Then, while I'm searching for William Gibson's new book, I overhear somebody talking to the librarian. Just a snippet, something about "go downstairs" and then the librarian says sure and heads outside with the person. That's when the rest of the snippets fall into place. The person is afraid of dogs and there's this big black dog expectantly waiting near the landing. Zeke could care less about the person or the librarian and stares past while the librarian stands guard.

Whoops. It's easy to forget that some folks are deathly afraid of dogs, even friendly goobers like Zeke.

We have been getting a taste of spring which means muddy goober dog. Yesterday I noticed a Jackson Pollack masterpiece rendered in mud on the hardwood floor and suggested Zeke jump in the tub. Zing! Down the hall he goes, opposite direction of the bathtub. What really surprised me was when he came back to the bathroom a few seconds later and reluctantly crawled in the tub. Wow, very impressive! The rest of the bath was typical: dog develops deep fear of water, dog is unable to bend knees, dog shivers uncontrollably under onslaught of evil soap bubbles. Shortly followed by a jubilant recovery in the embrace of dry towels and a few high speed victory laps around the house.

All of which is probably why I had a dog dream last night. In the dream Zeke and I are walking somewhere and instead of turning a corner Zeke walks right across a busy road. I yell at him, trying to make him sit so he doesn't attempt to run back, but he does this squirrel maneuver a few times around a tree and then zips back across the road. At this point I'm really yelling at him, trying to get some response, so he turns into a gerbil and starts biting my finger. Bad gerbil! Er, bad dog! He won't let go. Blood is welling up. Little gerbil claws clamping hard and a pair of square gerbil teeth sunk deep. I'm guessing that he figures he is already in trouble so why give up the finger and lose any leverage?

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