Turkey Slipstream

Me and Anna and Siobhan had a Thanksgiving brunch on the third floor.  Crepes, blintzes, scrambled eggs and bacon were served; a striking departure from anything I even remotely associate with Thanksgiving. Anna had requested the crepes and Siobhan the blintzes.  Anna had big traditional dinner plans coming up later in the day with her mother, but we managed to find our way into the turkey slipstream for a couple of congenial hours together.  

After our meal the four of us, counting Schwartz, went for a walk down Penfield St., under the train tracks, across the baseball diamond and up the fancy residential blocks to the Arboretum.  I had recently teased Siobhan's about her contention that Schwartz might be the fastest dog on the planet.  My mental image of Schwartz has him either flat on his side sound asleep, or sitting in front of me, staring for twenty minutes at a time with a quivering intensity which threatens to bore a hole in my skull.  He does this for no apparent reason (not counting begging for table scraps).  Most of his running is done on the business end of a leash which, as long as his leash is, still limits him to short, brutally terminated bursts of speed.  Today however, in the Arboretum, Siobhan let him off the leash.  OMG! 

Schwartz is a black dog, as the multi linguists among you might have guessed.  He's a long-eared, blessedly unsculpted miniature poodle and his mission in life is to bring joy and greetings to all species, including moving cars.  This is the main reason why he doesn't get off the leash much.  The other is that he's so full of ungoverned joy and speed that one is tempted to cover one's eye's as he tears, hell bent for leather, in a fish hook path towards an unsuspecting person or critter.  Mayhem would seem a certainty were it not for the genius with which he eases on the haunches at the last possible second, coming to an almost complete stop at the exact moment of sticking his nose into somebody's butt with riotous good humor. 

The trees in the Arboretum were bare, but on this Thanksgiving early afternoon the weather was not yet freezing.  The long grass on Peter's Hill, where locals bring their dogs to sniff and frolic, was still soft and leaf shards were loose.  The almost inaudible metal click of the unfastening leash might as well have been a starters pistol.  Schwartz bolted, unrestrained, ears flying back, tracing a lightening arc way, way down the back side of the hill leaving sheep dogs, cockapoos and wheaton terriers in his wake.  The Boston skyline beyond him, he banked and turned, racing all the way back up the hill, returning, tongue lolling, like a sentient boomerang.  

At that moment I had to admit that if he's not the fastest dog on the planet, he's definitely some kind of speedy Bodhisattva.  Everybody who saw him smiled a little and their Thanksgivings were nudged a few heart beats towards perfection.   Peter's Hill erupted in sociability between each being there assembled.  Each one talking, sniffing, exchanging dog stories, and working up an appetite en route to tables heaped with turkey and dog bowls piled with scraps.