Spanish Summer

The Hammer reminded me this morning of why it is crucial that I begin on the booze the minute I get home from work and then retire early. She woke me up at 4:00 AM. She is the second of my dogs to like to wake up before the birds start their back garden squawking. For a while I got away with ignoring her pleas to go outside. That was when she figured barfing all over the house might be a better strategy for moving me out of my beer induced coma in the morning, if 4:00 AM is the morning, which I kind of doubt. The Hammer has my motherfucking number. Stepping in dog barf is not how I like to start my day.

So I get up, rub the furry Hammer's head and let her outside to chase the 4:00 AM demons or just sit there and wait for me to let her back inside. While she is outside I water my horse. A good long beer piss before the sun comes up is ok. I handle my horse with my left hand the way us left handed hockey players usually do. I use a wooden stick, none of that composite shit. When I let the Hammer back in she goes straight back to her bed before it has even had a chance to cool off. She sticks her big black nose up her big black ass and falls back to sleep before I have brushed my teeth. That's life in the Hockey house just as the late night Dope City bars are closing their doors.

After I made bread, got dinner going in the slow cooker and slammed a pot of black coffee, a half price steak and Afghan hash browns into my rebellious gut the Hammer and I headed out into the warmth that is Canada in November. After I loaded up with gas and $42.56 woth of groceries from Shopper Heaven we headed out to the trail.

At the trail head we were met by about 10,000 starlings. It is a good thing starlings are dumb as a government commission or they would have got together and decided to fuck the worms or whatever they were scaring up in the short grass and attacked the two of us. 10,000 starlings could have pecked us to bits faster than a good team can clean a house full of dope.

As I walked the trail the Hammer bounded through farmer's fields with real old school, blue amphetamine, mushroom, cheap beer, talking/puking/pogoing at the same time punk rocker abandon. She took a turn in a field a little too fast and covered her left side with wet black earth. My dog is not real fast but she looks good rippling her Newfoundland muscle beneath her thickening winter coat.

A duck coloured much like a Jersey cow flew by. I have never seen a duck like that one before. Later we saw a cat with the same markings at the side of the road. I think the farmers of Steepleton have got some sort of strange breeding programme on the go.

Before I returned home I picked up my racing papers. I like to make a large bet on a horse for Grey Cup Day. I like the Lions and Alouettes to score more than the 54 over/under line and the Als to cover the 7 point spread against Dope City's darling football team but for the Lions to gut it out in the end. But I do not bet football, unless the bet is all fun. At Hollywood Park trainer Marcelo Polanco is trying the old good percentage jock to bad percentage jock move as Spanish Summer cuts back from a mile to seven furlongs in the third race of her brief career. The filly should make me a profit if she lands any of the top three positions so I will bet her across the board. She showed some brief speed in her latest and is working like an import motorbike in the mornings.

Too bad it is Nelly Furtado playing the Grey Cup's half-time even though she is a Dope Island woman of some distinction. The Subhumans would have been my choice. Or Anne Murray fronting Spread Eagle.