On Friday, Ann and I took Rubin and his best buddy, Monty on a hike to Rattlesnake Ledge. It's a short hike, only 5 miles roundtrip, but it was just the right length for Rubin who is fast approaching 7 months old. It's a great hike. It winds through beautiful forests and then ends up here, on a ledge (as advertised) overlooking the Cedar River Watershed, the source of our drinking water. (Off in the distance, just beyond my head, is Chester Morse lake. Actually, if you took off my head, you'd see the lake!)
Rubin loved the hike, as did Monty, though when we got to the top, the shear drop off freaked Rubin out a bit. As you can see in the picture, he's literally clutching me while he rests in my lap. During lunch, he clutched the side of the rocks refusing to get up unless one of us stood by his side and kept him from "falling" off the edge. The more time we spent at the top, the more relaxed and confident he became, but for that half hour, he was tense with the notion that the sky was so close to the earth.
Traditionally, Ann and I go on a quick adventure before the craziness of work begins. While I've been at it for two weeks now, Ann went back to work last Tuesday though neither of us have any students in our classrooms. Instead, it's been meetings and plannings, organizing and reorganizing. Next week the kids come and the real work begins.
For both of us it's been hard to get motivated. Ann has been working with a financial planner, investing and reinvesting her recent inheritance after her father's unexpected death so she can "retire" in three years. Retire is perhaps the wrong word. It's more like transitioning out of teaching and into something else. For Ann, the something else is still an unknown, though I envision her working outdoors with plants somehow.
For me, the personal plan to move into dog training is slowly taking shape. I've convinced our current dog trainers to take me on as a "apprentice" though the apprentiship won't begin until next year. For now, I'll train the dogs of friends through Dave and Becky (the dog trainers) and learn more by watching, helping, and repeated classes with a variety of dogs. Then, if all goes as planned, I'll take a year's leave of absence and focus every day on learning as much as I can about training dogs.
In a way, it's still teaching only my students have changed as will the parents and my relationship with them.
It's hard to carry a vision for change and not actually make the change. Ann is much more pragmatic in her mid-life crisis. She's not willing to make a change until all of her affairs are in perfect order. I, on the other hand, am ready to jump, which makes it difficult to put my head to the grindstone of another year of teaching.
But it's what I must do.
The hike on Friday was a reminder that reaching one's goals isn't easy. I sweated up to the ledge and on the way down, my knees burned with old age and years of competitive sports. It also reminded me of my lifelong goal -- to stay in the moment. Rubin is a good teacher in this regard. He relishes each moment and hops from one silly adventure to the next. What's best about this hike is that when we're done, there's Rattlesnake Lake -- an inviting mountain lake sitting at the base of the ledge. Rubin was tired when we got done with the hike, but when we showed him the lake, he revived and ran circles around Monty who lunged out into the shallow water every time we threw the ball.
It was only in the car as we were heading home that Rubin flopped out like a wet rag. That's when I realized that living in the moment for me has been more of the Rubin-at-the-top-of-the-mountain variety -- I'm tense and nervous, uncertain of the solidity of my surroundings. The goal for this year then, will be to live in the moment a little more relaxed, a little more carefree -- like Rubin bounding through the lake even after his 5 mile hike.
I learned from Rubin that there is always time for sleep. I learned from Rubin that if there's a lake at the end of an exhausting adventure, jump in and nap later. I learned from Rubin that each moment offers something extraordinary and if you relax (and trust) you won't miss a thing. Instead, the world will offer up amazing views, extraordinary challenges, and refreshing lakes when you least expect them.
Rubin is a Labradoodle, which means that he is part Lab (about a 1/3) and part Poodle (about 2/3). Both breeds like the water and it seems as if the combination of lab and poodle have had an exponential effect on his love of water.
This weekend we went to a friend's 40th birthday party in Port Townsend. They live on the beach or near it and so we wandered down and let the dogs play. They have one dog now, but when I first met them, they shared their home with three dogs -- two cockers and a big, burly dog with the kindness eyes known to dogkind.
Ari, one of Buster's moms, took the photos and when she sent them to us she wrote: Notice how many of the pictures have Rubin half in the frame or just leaving it.
This is my favorite picture from the series. Buster has finally claimed Rubin's rubber ball and if you look closely, you can see Buster is snarling at Rubin. Meanwhile, Rubin is not paying attention to the warning signals and shortly after this picture was snapped, was chased down the beach by a growling, grunting Buster who felt extremely threatened by Rubin's dance of excitment illustrated so perfectly in this picture.
It was a wild weekend. By the time we got into the car and headed home, Rubin fell asleep like a wet rag in the back of the car -- flat on his back, his legs stretched out. 
This is a picture of Chester on his 11th birthday halfway through an eleven-mile hike. He, too died at 14 and his death, while painful because of his seizures and brain tumor, was another reminder of the gift that animals are in our lives.
