King of Torpor

I've retired my faithful, almost-10-year-old, yellow lab, Scooby from all runs effective immediately. In human years he is 62 to 70 years old depending on your math, your philosophy on remainders, divisors and quotients and what doggy website you happen to stumble across.

Scooby can't hack even a thirty-minute trot at a noodling pace. His embarrassed countenance is painful to watch. "I used to be able to do this Kevin. Sorry to have let you down. Remember our epic three-hour mountain bike rides on Stid Hill? Those were the days."

So Scooby is getting his American Association of Retired Fidos card (AARF!) and will be relegated to woodsy ambling.

As I'm reading Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling I filter life through it as I normally do when reading. Green Eggs and Ham by Seuss was an interesting seven-week phase for me. Do folks see the world through the written word as they leaf through a particularly challenging and provocative issue of People magazine? In any event the quote to sum up this oncoming doggy demise is: He had fought with that subtle power that invents everything, with that watchful opponent that never takes a nap, with that old man who outlives everything--time itself.

Ol' Soren was a hoot huh?

Scooby's drop in performance seeped into my Id, Ego and Superego. I am currently the only person in recorded history to suffer from plantar fasciitis (I've checked with the paleolithic cave drawings in Lascaux France and, near as I can tell, a few folks had some iliotibial band problems and one fella had "bow and arrow elbow" but the rest, completely free of PF). Also if I've missed someone who has had it, my pain is exponentially more excruciating. Scientific fact.

So I wonder how many more seasons of racing do I have. Is this the injury that makes me a little less active? Will I throw my back out the following year after forcing me off my mountain bike? Will I snap a femur while filming a Mountain Dew commercial? Will I continue to ask myself questions in an annoying manner that is ineffective from a literary standpoint?

I'm 41 and only have a few seasons left at this kid's game. Soon an injury will coronate me the King of Torpor. My throne a leather-clad recliner where I'd rule majestically with a remote control as my scepter. My high-definition TV an infinite court jester. Instead of a regal fur coat of 600 marten pelts and 1,000 ermine skins I would be sheathed in a Snuggie! With sleeves I tells ya! A side table would be stocked with the latest snick-snacks. If by some misfortune (heart attack; stroke; choking on pork rinds) I should perish in my throne there would be no need for a chalk outline of my body as the perimeter of my bloated corpse would be outlined in Cheese Doodle crumbs.

You can see from these past ramblings that Kitima was gone for ten days in the Galapagos. That kind of travel is not for me and good ol' Mr. Sunshine had this to say about nature/adventure travel: People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.

So Soren wasn't a naturalist. Why didn't I go? I'm with Soren on this one: I am not concerned with this.