jogger-not

...or juggernaut, whichever you prefer. three things:
1- The Leg is starting to get better. Meaning longer crutch-walks outside, meaning i do fewer dishes, meaning the whole house breathes a little easier. Thank you again to everyone who has offered kind words, stopped by, called etc. during this time. I felt so good today i went jogging for the first time since, oh, November...
2- I will be reading a collaborative poem by a bunch of ragtag layabouts, aka poets, at the 1926 N Halsted gallery this Sunday, between 3 and 5 pm. (Others will be reading too--you won't just have to endure me sucking my drool back in for 2 hours. Promise.)
3. Stella the cat had her first encounter with the dogs next door. It didn't, er, go too well. They are a couple of nimwit schnauzers, one with three legs, who poop in one corner of their yard and then when someone walks by, they run the length of their chain-link fence, barking excitedly and escalating the hype until the person passes, whereupon they begin a painfully long decrescendo into relative quiet. Unless someone else walks by. They aren't hostile, exactly; i think "overresponsive to visual stimuli" best captures it. They have doggy ADD. I brought Stellito out on her leash and she made for the fence. Not my fault, dude. I was talking with our neighbor when the dogs spied Stella. Presented with this juicy target, they commenced freaking out, so Stella, horrified by their poor manners, did what she does to defeat dogs like Orbit, the downstairs neighbor dog: she hissed. Orbit, when hissed at, runs away with his tail between his legs. End of story. But these dogs did NOT get the hint. They escalated, leaping at the fence and barking their heads off. Stella froze, then took off topspeed for the shelter of our porch, forgetting that she was still on leash and harness. Poor kid. SHe nearly took her own head off. I picked her up, her ears flat against her head, and endured her claws digging into the flesh of my shoulder as i brought her back into the house. Guess she'll have to miss the next neighborhood barbecue.