The Great Snake Adventure

Normally every morning I bike for half an hour, but lately I haven't been getting sore from it, so this morning I laid in bed pondering what other activity I could do instead that would have a greater chance of getting me sore. The original other option was to sit in bed and work on my screenplay - how could I tie Wichern into Haven's death, and motivate Mark to kill him? And why would the government burn Haven's apartment down? How did they find them in Sherwood forest? - but I decided I have to be active. Running? No. Let's be honest, running isn't my thing. I could bike for ten hours before I could run for ten minutes straight. I'll rollerblade. And I will take the dogs.
I asked my mom if it would be a good idea to take the dogs rollerblading, and we all agreed that it would be best not to, because of dog behavior reasons, and to only take one dog at a time to do anything. So I would be jogging with Stacey, the chunk.
I got dressed and went downstairs to get Stacey's leash, the dogs at my heels. As I entered the kitchen, a long rubber snake was lying on the floor. "Oh, look, a snake," I said as I kicked it. Nudged it strongly with my foot. It didn't flop over stupidly like a rubber snake should've done, and the dogs started sniffing it long and slow. I ran upstairs.
"Mom," I interrupted her phone call. "Do we own a ridiculously real-looking rubber snake?" My mom and my little sisters froze. "Allie."
Allie! That over-decorated dustbunny! The arrogant fluff! The wayward feline! The answer to all the unexplained deviant ceremonies that take place at 782 Spanish Oak Way.
We concluded the snake was too cold to move. Kristan put on ski gloves and Sarah got a box. We put the box on the floor and Kristan easily shuffled the snake inside. Sarah wanted to put it under a light to warm it up. Then we'd let it loose outside. But outside, in our yard, or even our neighborhood, and Allie would have at it again. No, I decided. I will take it jogging with Stacey and me and let it out on the Parkway.
Stacey was more than happy to be put on a leash and led out of the house. But once I tried to pass our cars in the driveway, she clenched her whole body to the ground and started whimpering. I couldn't pull her. Holding the snake-box high above her, I half picked Stacey up and took her down the driveway. It occured to me that I hadn't taken a dog on a walk since Lucy. Stacey was puny compared to the lumbering overweight lab. Her one foot of height bounced along at my ankles, whining the whole way out of the neighborhood.
I didn't dare look at the snake in the box. I didn't want the sunlight to get in and warm it up to start it slithering around like a madman while we still had five minutes of walking before we'd reach the river. Dogs were attempting to break down their fences at the sound of Stacey's whimper as we passed. Lucy always whimpered as we passed as well. Stacey was whimpering from disappointment, but Lucy whimpered from fear of the other dogs.
We crossed the soccer field at the end of the street where there was a mom with two little kids on the playground. Sigh.
As we entered the Parkway, I panicked for a moment. When they relocated domestic animals into the wild, they often couldn't survive. What if this snake was accustomed to living in people's gardens and here I was about to release it into the wild grasslands. I walked a little farther on the path until we reached an open space, baked by the sun, littered with clumps of weedy grass. There was a bench, onto which Stacey leaped as though it were a lap. I pushed the loop of her leash over one of the slats so she couldn't get away while I released the snake.
I took a few steps into the field, thinking of the mice and other snakes that this one could eat, almost hoping one would cross my path, as if to say "this is a good place for your snake." They didn't.
I tipped the box's opening toward the grass and heard the snake slide down the cardboard. He came out in one long string, and I could feel his sigh at the sight of grass and the touch of sun, instead of the dark, cool wood floor of our kitchen. He moved quickly away.
I returned to Stacey and had to shove her off the bench as she clamped herself to it. "Sorry Stacey, you need to get some exercise." I left the box under the bench, not wanting to drag it along as we jogged. It was a nice mail-worthy box, and I figured it would still be there when we returned. This wasn't Germany, after all.
We started jogging, Stacey trotting along like a shaggy, miniature show horse. I'll be honest, I didn't jog for long, but I kept it at a brisk walk. More of a college pace than a missionary's, so it wasn't much more exercise than it would've been walking to and from campus a couple of times a day. But Stacey was panting pretty hard.
She reached towards passers-by, but never the way Lucy did. She'd walk toward them, but then I'd say "come on, Stacey," and she'd come without complaint. How I missed my bumbling black ball. Rest in peace, January 20, 2005.
The smell of the Jordan river is much more thick than the Rhein. It weighed more in my brain, full of dragonflies and algae. It was only about a sixth of the width as well. I could hear the conversation of the golfers on the other side, unlike the Rhein, where I could see the other bank, but only bikers in their flashy biker spandex and not others passing on the other side. Vikings could not invade on the Jordan River. It's not even really a river, but it does well for Utah.
After a while Stacey was smiling. Other joggers and dog-walkers passed, giving me a knowing smile. As if we shared a secret, the divine secret of the jogger/dog-walker clan. I'm not a regular, I thought. Maybe it was because I was wearing my Trogdor shirt.
When we reached the first park, Stacey tried to jump into the drinking fountain, which was dry. There was a family feeding the geese. These geese were twice the size of German geese. They weren't even Canadian, they were just regular grey geese, but probably the height of two-year-old Phineas, and I wouldn't have let Nicholas or Phineas near them. I attributed it to the American food they received. They stood statue-still on one side of the picnic table looking up at the family expectantly. There were two that weren't grey geese; they had longer necks and a funny horn fixture on the top of their beaks. Twelve years ago, I probably would've known the genus and species of those geese, but not now. Perhaps I wouldn't've, as I was always more interested in mammals anyway.
I obliged Stacey by sitting on the bench of a picnic table with her for a few minutes. I watched the kids on the playground, speculating what kind of adventure Nicholas would be having on it. I didn't linger long, and the bench was littered in long white dog hair in no time. Stacey was happy to leave this time.
On the way back I thought about my snake. I wondered if it had found a hole. I wondered how far it had gotten. Had it made friends with the other snakes? We passed an old man walking his miniature schnauzer/dachshund mix. Stacey suddenly squirmed out of her collar. Lucy used to do that. As we crossed a bridge over the Jordan Stream, two bikers passed us. "King Charles," one observed. "Good dog." "Yep."
When we reached the field where I released the snake, I scanned its surface for him. Of course I couldn't see him. The box was gone, too. Maybe this was Germany.
There were more families at the playground as we crossed over the soccer field again. I had this OCD moment where I felt a sting of panic for not walking on the path. But Stacey was loping along over the grass like a dwarfed Rufus Scrimgeour, tongue rolling out.
When we got home, I sat in an armchair with my Ikea glass of water. Allie was sprawled on the armchair next door, her eyes clamped in a grin, paws hanging lazily in mid-air. "Did you bring a snake inside this morning?" A squirm, infusing the upholstery with her fuzz while keeping the grin, was the answer.