Running with Oda

I feel like I can’t get thin because my thighs are holding me back. Literally. How am I supposed to run as fast as all those skinny people when I’ve got these big thighs slapping each other around like sisters?

Oda Mae is half miniature beagle, half mutt and part wimp. Basically she looks like a beagle that God stretched long ways and blew up to be 15 pounds overweight. When we adopted her, the receptionist said she would max out at 20 lbs. She’s 35.

We even feed her weight management dog food, and she keeps getting bigger. One time Oda was eating her fat girl dog food, and I was eating carrots and we decided to go to McDonald’s. Oda’s decision mostly.

Let’s just say she’s my genetic miracle, but athlete she is not. When we go for a run together, my cottage cheese factory is in full motion, and her fat rolls ripple in the wind.

And together we rule this neighborhood.

I wouldn’t say that we run together as a team, per se. I run at a 20 minute mile pace, and Oda runs happily at a sprint in front of me. Then Oda finds the scent from a squirrel that ate a nut two days ago and stops to smell it. I keep running only to get yanked backwards by the physical force of planted Oda. Then I tug on the leash and yell “Oda! Move!” Oda runs happily at a sprint in front of me, and the cycle starts all over again… Thus said, we don’t get very far.

The worst was when a woman ran faster than us up a hill, and she was pushing one of those high-tech running strollers - with 2 kids in it. That’s when Oda looked at me and nearly said, “We totally suck.”

But Oda and I have our own running club, and not anyone can join. You have to be especially cool to join it, and people like workout instructors can NOT join. Anyone with a natural affinity to sweating is OUT.

Our club is mostly for people who put on their workout clothes and say they will do sit ups while watching Oprah. But because Oprah is such a compelling show, you mostly just lay on the floor in your spandex.

Don’t tell the City of Mission, but I really don’t like to carry poop bags around with me either. How is a person supposed to run with a filled poop bag? Once Oda starts to do her business in a front yard, I take off her leash. Then before the house inhabitants come running after me, I yell, “Did someone loose a dog?”

PMS

The other day I was trying to explain to my boyfriend the magnitude of feelings that comes with PMS.

On any normal day when you are going about doing your thing and accidentally knock your elbow against a door, you probably wouldn’t really stop to notice as you are hurrying along on life’s magical journey.

Now if I am PMSing and I knock my elbow accidentally against a door, the pain reverberates throughout my entire being, and I think to myself, “OH DEAR GOD! SOMEONE MUST PAY FOR THIS.”

That someone is usually my life partner or boyfriend, Steve, who innocently looks at me with puppy dog eyes that say “Oh geez, that must hurt.”

And I look into those puppy dog eyes and think to myself “I will spare you no mercy….”

I don’t understand how 1 week out of the month I can permanently be in a bad mood.

One time my boyfriend told me to “Have a good day!” I said “Ok, whatever.” In his most chipper Boy Scout voice he said, “Aren’t you going to enjoy your day?”

My demon voice replied, “I’m not going to have a good day. Because I know that each day is just going to feel like every other day for the rest of my life!”

But with every bout of PMS, there comes a new month. The birds sing a little louder, and the sun shines a little brighter. With every new cycle there are new beginnings. I go to my local pharmacist and pick up a fresh new pack of birth control pills. And I hold up my pack of pills to the sky, and I say to my pharmacist, “Joal, this is gonna be my cycle!!!”

Only when I get home and take off my purse, I realize that I am in fact still in a bad mood. Maybe it’s not the PMS. Maybe I’m just in a bad mood all the time.