10.8 Love - Strolls

Bestest Friend and I are in the middle of a blog project. Each day of the month we will post a picture on a pre-determined theme and write a little something about it. The theme for the eighth day of each month is "Love."
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I had already driven over an hour when my student texted to cancel. I pulled into a McDonald's parking lot, cursed, texted Dr. BB about the change in plans, ordered a Diet Coke from the drive thru, and headed back home.

The pickup truck about a half mile ahead of me suddenly swerved into the opposite lane of traffic and my first uncharitable thought was that it was really uncool to be drunk at 8:30 on a Sunday morning. When I got up to the spot of the swerving, I saw a giant German shepherd with a black face and two brown front paws playing in the road. He was wagging his tail, his tongue was hanging out, and there were tags dangling from his collar.

I pulled over, activated my four-ways, and slowly stepped out the car. He looked friendly, but he was big.  I made sure no one was coming, and slowly approached him with my hand out. "Hey, buddy."  He wagged his tail as he bounded over to me and sniffed my hand. As soon as I tried to reach for his collar to read his tag, he raced away from to one of the nearest houses, ran up the porch, and laid down.

I drove away.

No one likes to hear about the weather, but it's getting better here. The highs are above freezing, some of the snow is starting to melt, and I was able to trade to my giant puffy purple coat for a pea coat and go for a stroll around the neighborhood with my husband on both of the last two days. It is like we have become different people with our hour and a half strolls - people who can see that the end of the cold is near and smile when we open the blinds every morning.

It turns out that we humans are just as excited about this warm weather as giant German shepherds.
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To see what Bestest Friend wrote about the theme of the day, check out her blog, Too Legit to Quit.