The Bird and The Bear

PtarmiganThere are dog people, and there are poodle people. I am a poodle person. But for the past year, I’ve been a poodle person without a poodle. That was a problem. Said problem manifested in scenes similar to this one:

At 3:00 one afternoon in Boulder I spotted a woman with two standard poodles—one black, one gray-- starting off on the hike I was just finishing. I walked up to her. She was on the phone. It seemed she was all right with me petting her poodles, and I thought I checked to make sure before I dropped to my knees and starting loving them both, tucking one into each arm. This went on for several minutes until I heard a distant voice that I soon realized was the woman, talking to me, instead of her phone. “You must like dogs,” she said.

“I love poodles,” I said.

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Osito And A Frog Named Turtle, An Additive Adventure Entry

In Conjunction With OutsideTV.com and Osprey Packs

Baby Turtle, Phase 2. Photo By Peter DoucetteI grasped the hours-old turtle with her white underbelly between my thumb and forefinger. She put up with it. She tried out the cool air and wind-milled her flippers in opposite and unsynchronized directions. She bobbled her head in an effort to see through still unopened eye slits covered in sand. I was in charge of her until I slid her back into the two-foot-deep hole with her dozens of brothers and sisters. She was covered in sand, and left to grow up—hopefully strong enough to leave the hole and join the ocean.

Right about now, I could talk about ocean health and green turtles and all the amazing things they do. But this is not a story about a turtle; this is a story about a poodle. A poodle that I tried to convince to be like a turtle, via a frog....

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Mountainfilm and Get in Shape Girl: Rehab in Pink

In my mind, it was in the middle of the Miss USA pageant when I first saw the ad. A cadre of young girls in leotards burst through a door and waved ribbons and moved their arms around with weighted wristbands. It was horrifying, even without the music.

“Get in shape girl, you know the feeling.”

“Get in shape girl, it’s so appealing.”

I was seven. It was right around the age when I cornered Reed in the coatroom and pinched him for saying mankind instead of humankind. I have no idea where this behavior came from. Nor do I understand why it was ok in my mind to watch the Miss Universe pageant and keep my own score (I was convinced the judges had it out for us Midwesterners), but the actions of Hasbro Toy Company were offensive. Fitness in a package? In the same aisle as Barbie? (In the same aisle as the Barbie I wanted?)

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