All-Star Afternoon

Like most days I took my dog for a walk after work. Working is not all it is cracked up to be, a walk is good for a working man before he opens the fridge, does some counting and sees if he has enough beer in the fridge to get him through the All-Star game.

This afternoon the Hammer jumped onto the dirty blanket on the back seat of the Cadillac and did her best to keep an eye on everyone else rushing home in their Jap cars to watch the game through the dog snot smudged window. I figure dogs feel much as rich motherfuckers do when they are being chaufeured about the town. Except a dog deserves to be chaufeured about.

The Hammer liked that it was not raining just as much as me. When I let her off the leash she stepped on it, gob cascading from her mouth over her black flanks. She found some invisible shit to roll in before she spotted a bald eagle eating a chicken in the middle of a muddy old corn field. Heading full speed towards the uncompromising bird she ran into a barbed wire fence that had escaped her attention. She yipped and flipped around like a bird with one leg caught in a trap until she freed herself and ran back in my direction. When she got to me she turned and barked at the nasty fence. Her belly was scratched up some. It was not her first encounter with a wire fence. She will figure it out eventually.

I like watching the hockey all-star game. It is one of the few games televised around here that neither the Canucks nor the Leafs are playing in. The Canucks are winning and their fans are confused about how they should act. Canuck fans know how to complain about the shortcomings of a hockey team better than anybody. Their complaints are memorized like high school football cheers. Used to be people around here would get drunk, maybe punch somebody they did not like the looks of in the head and cheer wildly when their team strung some wins together but now they are so doped up all they can do is stare at their televisions in disbelief and roll another one for the next period.