The Sad Parade

Slappy the Chihuahua woke me up two nights ago, crying at the door. And, as in some existential Beckett directed Buster Keaton nightmare film, as soon as I opened it she ran in with the cats and they all scattered. This was at five in the morning. I would herd one cat out, then the dog, and then they would be run back in as I managed to get the third beast out the door.

I finally got them all out and yelled at them.

Miraculously, Jess didn't wake up.

The next morning I told her what happened and Jess, who, like myself, can make herself laugh at her own jokes, started imaging outloud how the three went back downstairs in single file. "The sad parade!" she said before bursting into teary laughter.

*

I found out today that an old training partner of mine had a heart attack while working out. Fortunately, he recovered, but it reminded me of David, and of mortality, and of how precarious the whole enterprise can be at times: training, living, the lot.

Right now I've been dealing with a knee injury for almost a year that doesn't seem to heal. At the very least, it's made me give up hope of competing. At most, at times, I wonder how much more time I have in me. Such thoughts only come in my darker moments. But it's something I have to face.

*

Big Bill admited to getting choked up, thinking of me leaving the warehouse. We make life bearable for each other. In what might otherwise be a bleak world, we joke around and provide perspective and motivation to see the day out.

He told me that he was thinking of this as he drove home and, unexpectedly, Sinatra came on the radio to sing "My Way."

"And Dougie," the 280 lb. bruiser admitted, "I started crying like a baby."