North Korea is going crazy. My thirty-four year old brother is joining the National Guard. My mom is worried about her approaching knee surgery. My friend Joan’s leg is infected from a severe burn. Her favorite pug needs daily baths because of incontinence. I’m on medication again for yet another sinus and ear infection. The world is serious place. And, perhaps that is why I don’t question fun where I find it.
The general consensus, I know, is that we, as a society, have gone stark raving mad about our dogs. Animals that once ate table scraps and lived largely outdoors now receive gourmet dinners and share our beds – more likely we share theirs. Experts hypothesize that we are lonely, unfulfilled, increasingly removed from each other, so we find solace in our pets. We take their silent regard as unconditional love. Maybe they are right.
But, this is what I know…
On some days it is hard to smile…
Until we see our pets do something funny…
Wag their tail
Chase a ball
Fetch a stick
Sometimes we revel in their dogginess, leave our lofty concerns behind, get down on
their level and play.
Some days it takes a little more.
So I don’t often question why I join crowds of other folks with furry four-legged friends at Pug Parades, Costume Contests and Fashion Shows. I smile as we trot through halls and down hillsides to see wide grins looking back. I cannot stop global warming, heal my Mom’s knees, prevent battles from being waged, but I can swell with pride as children reach to grab my costume-clad pug and hug her, I can stop to let people snap pictures of her purple princess gown, I can share photos of my own, capturing lizards and hedgehogs also in costume in hopes that in seeing them you will break out of the haze that’s all around us and frolic.
In one way or another we all have gone mad. We choose how to embrace it.
I howl at the moon and bark!
