Day 340

Black dog on the bridge.

She ran 5.07 km today, 7.27 minutes per km, through the icy air, which stung her bare arms once she had sloughed off all the layers of warm clothing, till they were rosy-red with cold, swinging along, balancing the opposite leg each step of the way.  First hill difficult, second time not so bad, third time a piece of cake.  Good.

As she ran, she counted breaths, sang "Oh Worship the Whale" and thought about all her people, her husband flying through the colder air above the clouds, right across the country to the other side, her daughter on the other side of the world, who was her baby for many years until the boys came along and usurped that position, her other daughter "across the pond", her one son on a field trip in Boston, her other son slogging through the school day, only 4 more months of school left for them. 

And then her thoughts are interrupted by the Neighbour's-Extremely-Stupid-Dog (NESD), who still (after 6 months) thinks that she is the enemy, no matter how many times she has said, "Hello Sam, how're ya doin?" in her best American accent.  So for the last 3 km she is harrassed, every time she comes out of the meadow on to the forest road, by this idiot barker, who runs madly away as she runs towards him, and then sneaks up on her from behind once she has gone by, so that she is afraid he will nip her ankles, and turns around, which scares him, and so, pleased that he is frightened of her, she yells to push the point across, which is not very productive in terms of ever forming a good relationship with the fool, but which makes her feel better as he scoots off, woofing his head off once more!  AAAArgh!  He is allowed to roam at will and so she finds that he has defecated all over her garden, which is most annoying.  Today she observes him attempt to urinate on her jacket which is hanging in a tree, but luckily it is too high and he misses.  She would like to throw rocks at this dog, which is a very bad thought for an animal-lover to have.

An etching inspired by a photograph of Max Born, who along with his student Heisenberg, was responsible for the discovery of quantum mechanics.  He won the Nobel prize in 1954 for his statistical formulation of subatomic particles.  I always loved the image of father and son which I found in Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, many years ago.