Dog Days...

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                It was a gorgeous day today in Seattle…I mean, gorgeous! Sunny, 80 degrees, and not a cloud in the sky.  I decided to make a jaunt to the park to read a bit and to soak up some vitamin D.  The park was swarming with dog owners—mostly singles who shamelessly use their dogs to pick up other singles, but then again whatever works.  Anyway, I started thinking about how fun it would be to own a dog, so that I too could socialize at the park and meet some new, dog-loving pals.  Of course, I’d need a martini in hand to make it truly worthwhile.  I was musing about this same idea several years ago (the dog-owning, not the martini), when a friend enquired why I didn’t just go ahead and get a dog.  After making sure said friend realized I was a flight attendant and traveled away from home for a living, sometimes for several days, I guffawed like a crazed lunatic.  Regaining my composure, I expressed that owning a dog when one leaves on a regular basis is probably considered animal abuse and might get me reported to the SPCA.  I mean, it’s not like I could leave food for the dog and expect him/her to understand that it should be consumed in doses to last the multiple days that I would be gone rather than gobbling it up all at once.  This would be an American dog after all, and we all know how good Americans are at moderation in eating, but that’s another story.  I was simply shocked that my friend could believe that the idea of a single flight attendant getting a dog would be a good idea.   I have enough trouble keeping a houseplant alive while I am gone—though I do have a variety of molds and fungi growing on forgotten foods in my refrigerator; that, I am very good at.  So, I will leave the dog owning to capable and non-traveling people.  Until Fido can come with me (and carry my luggage and clean up after himself), I can only sit in the park and admire other people’s dogs—and wonder what it would be like to join in among the social throng of dog owner’s.