So if you’ve followed this blog at all you know I work as a writer but also as a private detective, basically tracking down cheating spouses and that sort of thing. That has severely limited my ability to keep up the blog. So on a few days a week my dog Lucy covers for me. Here are her thoughts on exercise:
I hate exercise. It’s completely stupid. I’d no sooner stand around in a gym lifting weights than you’d eat your own poop. Eating your own poop makes complete sense because it’s filled with vital nutrients but standing around in a gym lifting weights makes no sense at all. I never, ever exercise. Call me lazy if you want, but I don’t exercise and don’t see the point of it. I don’t set fitness goals, I don’t plan out my week, I don’t work with a trainer (not the kind of trainer you’re thinking of. I work with a trainer sometimes and fitness trainers could learn something from my trainer, actually. If fitness trainers threw a mini-snickers at their clients every time they did a push up people would want to do more push ups but that’s off the subject.) The thing is, I like my body. I don’t think about it’s limitations at all, or the fact that I’m a bit more pudgy than I was only a year ago. I don’t sit around wishing I was a more fit dog and I never will. So my only advice about exercising is never, ever think about it or want to do it or plan it or hire a trainer (unless they have a fannie pack of mini-snickers bars.)
So that’s all the advice I have for you about exercise.
That said, here’s what I love. I love to run after a ball. I love to fetch and I could fetch all day. It’s my absolute favorite. My favorite favorite fetching is when Don throws the ball into water. If we are at the river, Don throws it way down the beach and I run down the beach and tackle the ball in the shallow water like it was a baby antelope. I make a huge splash about it and if the ball is in deeper water I swim as hard as Michael Phelps and when I get the ball I take it down like an alligator drowns a swimming cat. Then I run it back to Don and drop it at his feet and he throws it again. We do this for hours. If we are at the reservoir it’s a whole different system. Don throws it into the water and I dive off the edge like a cliff diver in Rio and land flat on my belly with such a loud splash that everybody in the park turns and points at me in time to see me catch my stride, making a two-inch wake in front of my snout, reeling the ball in by feet per second. I sometimes get distracted by ducks so I lose the ball. Ducks are complete jerks because they make you swim around in circles. I’d seriously like to get my teeth into a duck. I can see their little buts under their feathers just a half inch above the water and I want to bite their duck butts. But then I go get the ball and bring it back. I do this until I am completely tired and I can’t walk anymore. Then I lay down in the shade. When I want to chase the ball again, I pick it up and lay it down next to Don and get into a hunting position, very frozen, you can’t move an inch, you just have to stare at the ball like you’re a statue and then Don picks it up and you get to start the whole thing over again.
But I never, ever exercise. Exercise makes no sense at all.
This is so funny. Love the line about the duck buts. Iyears ago i rote what turned out to be My first blog posts. I wrote for my Bassett Hound Craig on Dogster which was like Facebook for Dogs. I did’t know that Dogster was a blog until later. I did a Google search for my own business name and what came up number one was Craig’s blog post about joining our family. My website for my building company was number 40 on the fourth page wher no one ever goes.
I asked everyone why that happened until someone told me Dogster was a blog and they get great search engine traction plus you can catalog all your previous stories or projects so everything is there to find. I was hooked. I started my own blog on WordPress.
Five years later, I help other people get their business or passions online to share with the world. The name of my company is New Tricks and my motto is, It’s never too late. My logo is a dog. I owe it all to Craig Longfellow.
Thanks for the gift of your words.
Hey Lucy,
Oh I can so relate! I may be a human (well, I look like one. My kids also say I bear a striking resemblance to a Muppet, and my husband calls me “Balou” cuz a good toe-tapping tune is the ONLY guaranteed way to get me out of bed on a Saturday, but… what was I saying?…) Right! I may be human, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what motivates people to exercise – oh the boredom, the repetitiveness, the complete atrophy-ing of the imagination! So I don’t exercise either! And I don’t worry about it. But, as I sit in traffic EVERY SINGLE MORNING and EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, I sing. Yup, don’t care anymore what the others think. (Actually, don’t tell, but I ham it up if I notice they are noticing me – more fun for both of us that way, see?). And i try to sing along with Ella Fitzgerald. And that takes effort. Lots of effort, concentration, air, more air, PUSH THAT DIAPHRAM DOWN HONEY!!!, did I mention air? And she can have that sweet little vibrato happening on any note she happens to alight upon (she doesn’t “land on” notes, she “alights”, it’s different.) And “alighting upon” notes happens to take even more effort, more control, more AIR!!!, but, you know, it’s so much fun I forget that I’m working up a sweat on my way TO work (crap, have I got deoderant in my purse? Perfume? Mints I could put in my pockets so when they heat up I smell good?) And the more I sing along with Ella, the better I get, and the more fun I have, so the more I sing, so the better I get, and the more fun I have, so the more… you get it right? I think it might feel alot like chasing the ball, duck butts and all. So here’s my suggestion, just in case Don ever breaks a leg, or gets a cold or something and can’t take you to the Lake or that other place: get him to buy you some Ella Fitzgerald CDs and you can sing while Don is recuperating. It’s sure to cheer him up, and oh the fun you’ll have! LOLOLOLOL Oh, what am I doing here? First time I’ve ever done this, and I should be typing up my Order of Service for church for tomorrow – I’m leading worship! Leading worship isn’t like exercise, or chasing a ball, or trying to sing along with Ella. It’s a privilege, and an honour, and when the sound system doesn’t fritz out, it’s lots of fun too. Only I wish I could lead worship wearing Muppet slippers. It would feel more like I was really being myself up there. Only most of the congregants wouldn’t get it, and it would likely distract them, so I wear regular shoes, but God knows that in my heart, I’m worshipping Him with Muppet slippers on. Well, gotta go, Lucy. Keep chasing that ball! And tell Don that movie of his and Steve’s had better show up at theaters IN QUEBEC or my sister (who is a HUGE fan of Don’s) and I will have to come down there (the U.S. I mean) and have a little talk! Help us out here! There are fewer Christians in Quebec than in Russia, but there is a HUGE spiritual hunger. Huge! H U G E! Bonsoir! (“Good evening”, in French.)
Yep, I second everything she said (except the part about Baloo. My brother-in-law is toast next time I see him) but ESPECIALLY the part about your master’s movie coming to theaters in Quebec (oh please oh please oh please… or should I just stand still and stare at him and not move an inch until he gives in?? Seems to work well for you…) Yes, quite excited about the movie indeed, because not only am I a huge fan of your master Don’s (ever since Blue Like Jazz have I believed that he writes like I think… who let him into my head anyway?),but I also grew up on Steve Taylor. Our family is of the rather wacky sort (if you haven’t figured that out already), so Steve’s style was right up our alley, along with the likes of Randy Stonehill and Larry Norman and so on. And I could think of no better pair for the making of an excellent and thought-provoking movie than your master Donarooni’s and the Steve Taylormeister. (But I already wrote that on the movie’s website a couple of years ago.) Either way, my sis and I will be watching (and probably singing while we wait…) but certainly not excercising. ha Peace and dogbones a-plenty to you, dear Luce.