Fall classic

I’m a man of many flaws. Too many to count.

There are some things that I just can’t manage to control. Like the laugh that brews deep within me when I witness the misfortune or incredible stupidity of my human brethren.

I can’t help it. It’s hereditary. I get it from my mother.

Show me someone taking an inadvertent shot to the groin or slipping on ice and I laugh uproariously. There’s no stopping it. At least not once I realize the person will survive the pratfall intact.

That explains why America’s Funniest Home Videos ranks among the very few media offerings that can make me laugh aloud. Even when I’m viewing it alone.

Besides being embarrassing, it’s kind of sick, I know. But it all works out because, I’m learning, I can also laugh at myself when I’m my own worst enemy, when I’m the victim of my own stupidity or circumstance.

Like Monday night.

So my mother, Greatest Girlfriend Ever, my dogs and I celebrated a belated Christmas at the house of GGE on Monday night. After dinner, I noted that my dogs appeared in dire need of a trip outside.

Trip outside. I had no idea how literally they wanted to take those two words.

I dutifully put on my hiking boots, grabbed the dogs’ leashes and led them out into the darkness. I marched them – OK, they pulled me – to their usual spot alongside the garage.

As Buster and Champ went about their business, I took in the beauty of a rather balmy December night in Minnesota. The temps had been in the mid-30s so often lately that much of the snow that previously covered the land had melted. I stood in only about three inches of snow and admired the foggy conditions that cloaked the yard.

How could I not drift away mentally under the circumstances? The conditions intrigued me. Leading the dogs out on their leashes – something I don’t have to do at home, thanks to a fenced-in yard -- has become routine as GGE’s yard isn’t fenced. There was nothing to encourage me to keep up my guard.

So I didn’t.

I was standing on a slight slope facing the garage as Champ moved behind me and to my right in an attempt to find a suitable place to make his, um, deposit. Buster, meanwhile, was behind me and to my left, sniffing around. Neither of them pulled his leash taut.

Until the next-door neighbor let his dog out onto his front step.

That moment -- that very instant -- was surreal. I heard the neighbor open his door and I casually turned behind me to see the cause of the noise. Both of my dogs plucked their noses out of the wet snow and quickly craned them in the direction of the noise. They did this far less casually.

Time stood still. Maybe a couple of seconds actually passed, but it felt like I was about to embark on a cartoon-like adventure. Like that moment when Wile E. Coyote flies off a cliff in pursuit of Roadrunner and remains suspended in air momentarily until he realizes gravity is about to kick in.

Gravity kicked in, too. Gravity kick-started by 150 pounds of furry fury suddenly straining to leap to, um, greet the neighbor’s dog. The leashes were slack no more.

Unfortunately, I didn’t release my grip on the leashes. I didn’t have time to. My arms were immediately thrown behind me, almost rag-doll style, as my dogs pulled mightily. I hung on.

My feet didn’t. They slipped out from underneath me.

I did a faceplant into the snow. Apparently 150 pounds of inattentive man is no match for 150 pounds of extremely determined dogs.

I’m not sure which hit first – my face or my chest. It didn’t matter. Both hit equally hard. The snow, what was left of it, provided some cushion – not as much as it might have a couple of days earlier, however – but it was more abrasive than I could’ve ever imaged.

My dogs weren’t content to merely leave me there, lying face-down on the snow-covered slope. Nope, not my overachieving beasts. They insisted on dragging me down the slope – still face-down and feet-first – into the neighbor’s yard. No less than 10 feet.

It didn’t take the neighbor long to take note of my dogs. He hurriedly grabbed his dog and dragged him inside. I’m not sure if he saw what happened to me. I hope not.

Even if he didn’t, my body’s misadventure left perfectly preserved tracks in the snow – much like a chalk-outline of a homicide victim, only in snow – to mark my leash-guided voyage.

I got up quickly and ran the dogs back into the house. Champ never had the opportunity to complete his original mission. I didn’t particularly care. I was shaken. It felt like I had been punched in the chest. I felt an abrasion under my right eye. My left wrist was stiff and the knuckles on my left hand were bleeding.

Buster stood behind me, hunched forward in concern as I assessed the damage. Champ stared at me, wagging his tail in a Wasn't-that-fun? sort of way.

My mother and GGE didn’t initially notice anything amiss upon my return to the house. It didn’t take long, though, before they noticed the snow in my hair and on my sweatshirt.

I told my story. GGE appeared concerned. My mother laughed. I expected as much from her. I wasn’t physically harmed in any serious way and it’s her nature to laugh when her mind paints a picture as amusing as my story.

It’s my nature, too. I laughed more heartily. I wished I could’ve witnessed the episode. Even more, I wished had video of the incident. I could replay it endlessly whenever I might take myself too seriously.

Run to savor

I didn't want to run today. No way. Not in the conditions that greeted me when I took the dogs out.

Greatest Girlfriend Ever, my dogs and I had traveled to Iowa to spend Christmas with her family. I had brought my running clothes along in case I felt like running. My plan called for me to run only three more times this year and, if the weather was pleasant, I hoped to do one of those runs in Iowa.

Well, the weather wasn't so pleasant Monday morning. The winds at the home of GGE's parents was suffocating. I quickly dismissed any consideration of running in those conditions. It wasn't worth it. I didn't need to run. I'm not in training.

Problem is GGE is one of those gotta-run-everyday freaks. No matter the conditions. So when she asked if I was going to run with her -- did I mention she is also one of those runners who only runs alone? -- I was faced with a decision to make.

Go out in miserably windy conditions to run with GGE or stay at home with her parents and get some dirt to be used later on her life's most embarrassing moments?

The former won out. How could I let her go out and run alone when I could run with her? Especially on this all-too-rare occasion when she's welcoming me a running partner? Apparently she finally realizes I don't run too fast for her in the winter.

So we ran. We didn't run near her family's farmland, where the wind was it's worst. Instead, we drove into the nearest small town and ran the much-less-windy residential areas.

It turned out to be a pleasant run, too, mostly because of the company. In nearly two years, I can count on two hands the number of times GGE and I have run together. She enjoys solitary running. She doesn't like to talk when she runs. She fears she might slow me down if we ran together. She likes sometimes to stop and walk for a while, something she knows I refuse to do. She can provide a litany of reasons, it seems, why she won't run with me. Fortunately, I'm not offended by any of them. And I understand all of them.

So the rare opportunity to join her, to move in mostly silent synchronicity with her, made the run special. But my body felt fairly strong, too. I went from thinking I wouldn't run at all to cranking out almost nine solid miles. That's a feat for me at this time of year when any run over four miles qualifies as an event to me.

It was a good run -- one I almost chose to forego. I glad I didn't. This one will be safely tucked away in my memory bank for some time.

Footprints

As the end of another year nears, I generally take a few moments to reflect on any number of random things. Today, as I began my initial review of my 2005 training log, it occurred to me that I only added one state -- Iowa -- to the list of states in which I've run.

I ran in a couple of other states this year, but Iowa represented the only state where I hadn't previously left my running footprints. After last year, this qualifies as a slow year.

I ran in no fewer than nine states -- six of them new to me -- in 2004. Last year, thanks(???) to work travel, I added Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. I also added Nebraska when I traveled there to attend a wedding.

With Iowa's addition to my list, I've now run in 17 (shaded in purple) of our 50 states. Not bad, considering I have yet to go out of my way to run in any particular state. My math says I have 33 to go.

Now I think back to the states I visited before I was a runner and a view them as missed opportunities. Someday I'll have to retrace my steps to states like Colorado, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming. This time, as a runner.

Half-full or half-empty?

Today marks the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, that tipping point in our solar year.

What it means for us is two things -- two very different things to me.

The day marks the shortest day of the year. From this point until June 21 the days will grow longer. This is good news. Heck, it's great news.

Sunsets that arrive at 4:30 p.m. are downright depressing, methinks. The thought that, theoretically if not meteorologically, we'll see more sunlight is reason to believe that maybe I can make it through the dreary monotony of winter. The optimist in me rejoices.

Unfortunately, the pessimist in me routinely beats the crap out of the optimist in me. The pessimist wins again today, trumpeting the second meaning of the winter solstice.

Today also represents the first official day of winter. Now that's just plain disheartening. The past month of winter conditions doesn't even count? Not the eight-inch snowfalls or the sub-zero temperatures? Hmmm. It certainly has felt like winter around here for some time. I feel cheated somehow, as if we should get some winter credit for what we've already endured this month. Perhaps we could have the last month of winter, scheduled to end on March 21, wiped out in exchange for what we've experienced since November? I could deal with that. The prospect of a winter ending in February appeals to me.

The thought of three more months of ice, snow and cold temperatures -- likely to be harsher than what November and December brought -- still ahead of us? Not so much.

What this boils down to is perception. I'm not much of a half-full glass kind of guy. But I'm not merely a half-empty guy, either. I'm definitely more of a Who-robbed-me-of-half-the-contents-of-my-glass? guy.

So how do you view this day?

Record-chaser?

So I'm flipping through the channels late tonight when I wind up at ESPN -- go figure, huh? -- and I hear that Kobe Bryant might be in the process of accomplishing something spectacular. Something, perhaps, along the lines of a record-setting night.

I believe I heard Wilt Chamberlain's name invoked. So imagine my surprise when I learned Bryant had 62 points after three quarters. Funny, Wilt's 100-point performance on March 2, 1962 in Hershey, PA, wasn't the first mark that came to mind.(See the Big Dipper's other record)

Shame on me for not forgetting about Kobe's adventures in Golden, CO. And not immediately recalling Chamberlain's on-court prowess.

Heavy heart

Even the best heart-rate monitor couldn't have measured what was going on inside my heart as I ran this afternoon.

It was heavy.

In the minutes before I set out for another winter maintenance run, I received a phone call from my best friend. I had been expecting a call from him. His mother was gravely ill and Greatest Girlfriend and I had volunteered to watch his three children tonight so that his wife could join him at his mother's place.

"My mom passed away," he said.

The words cut through me.

His mother's death hadn't been unexpected. She recently discovered she had cancer. Pancreatic cancer at that. It's among the most viciously aggressive forms of cancer. I knew that much when he informed me of her plight last month. The prognosis wasn't good. She probably wouldn't make it far into 2006.

The cancer wouldn't wait that longer. It took her swiftly and prematurely -- she was only 68 -- from her two adult sons.

I was at a loss for words to somehow comfort my friend today. It seems I've usually been the grieving person whom others have unsuccessfully tried to comfort.

What can you really say at such a time? Words failed me. There was nothing I could possibly verbalize to convey my sympathy.

Usually running focuses my mind. I'm at my most creative, my most cogitative, my most introspective when I run. Running did nothing to help me formulate sufficient words of sympathy.

It helped me cope, though. It always does.

I swallowed hard and fought back tears as I began my run. It surprised me to be so profoundly affected by the passing of my best friend's mother.

What was it that seared my heart? Was it sympathy, empathy for my friend? Was it reminder of the fragility of human life? Was it the thought that someday I might face the loss of my own mother?

I couldn't pinpoint the cause. It was likely a combination of all these things and possibly additional others. Whatever it was, it resulted in a most unusual run for me. My muscles and joints somehow carried me while the rest of me was on auto-pilot.

I was overcome by a flood of memories.

My friend's mother -- a single parent like my own mother -- welcomed me into their home so often while I was growing up. As a teenager, I spent more time at their house than I did anyplace outside of my own home.

There were my friend's raucous sleepover parties. The late nights of playing Strat-o-matic baseball in their living room and at their kitchen table. The house-rattling, full-contact Nerf basketball games in my friend's upstairs bedroom. Those precious summer days during our late teens/early 20s when my friend and I engaged in epic fast-pitch whiffleball battles in their driveway, with the garage door taking a merciless beating as our backstop. She cheerfully accepted it all.

His mother helped provide me with memories that will never escape me. The birthday parties she threw for my friend in summers prior to seventh- and eighth-grade years, when she hauled a group of young boys to the St. Croix River, where they would play football on sandbars, have mud fights in the water and eat as much food as they could shove into their faces. She attended so many of our baseball games, cheering wildly with my mother and other parents as we transformed ourselves over the course of three seasons from a winless squad to an undefeated team. She allowed me to join her son and her on a camping trip when I was 15. To this day it's the only time I've been camping. She let me come along when they went mushroom picking, something I also had never done and likely never will again.

She also was there to pick up her son, me and another friend from the airport in 1993 as we returned home from a California vacation that I childishly allowed to strain my friendships for almost four years.

My feet kept moving today, somehow carrying through my run. Meanwhile, my mind kept racing. Today's run wasn't about the run. It was about catharsis. It was about grieving. For once, it didn't matter what how my body felt or my watch told me.

Time was unimportant to today. Except, of course, the time my friend's mother shared with me throughout the years.

Thanks for the memories, Carol. Rest in peace.

Not your usual unit of snow measurement

Just when I thought I asked so little of my dogs, out of nowhere, something comes along to remind me that I do, indeed, ask great things of them.

OK, this epiphany didn't exactly come out of nowhere. It came out the sky. And it came unremittingly overnight. And then it came some more.

Snow.

More than a half-foot of the white stuff blanketed my backyard today. I'm guessing it was more like eight inches. I can't say for sure.

My dogs can.

If they could speak -- and by speak I mean something slightly more coherent than the gutteral noises emitted by guy who works at the local gas station -- they undoubtedly would inform me of exactly how much snow we received. But they probably wouldn't tell me in terms of a unit of measurement.

Unless, of course, that, um, unit, is, uh, their, um, units.

Yep, we have enough fresh snow to make even the most routine practices uncomfortable for my dogs. One of them, anyway.

The shorter one.

Poor pooch didn't want to leave the porch this morning to do his business. Initially, I couldn't figure out what was keeping him planted within the bare confines of the three-season porch. It wasn't the cold. It was warmer today than it has been in some time. And it couldn't have been the snow. He loves snow. At the very least, he tolerates it very well.

Eventually, he ventured out into the snow. Slowly. Carefully. With all the deliberate movement of a cat burglar.

It was then that I figured it out. The snow measured plumbing-deep to him. He couldn't move through it without experiencing a nippy sensation in a place no male ever wants to be chilled. It was like he was dragging a periscope through the snow.

My other dog, well, he was more fortunate. He stands a few inches taller. Just enough for his plumbing to narrowly clear the height of the snowfall. He went about his business as usual.

I was glad to see him do that. Not half as much as his brother was, however. He allowed the big dog to clear a path for him before he proceeded any farther into the yard.

Made me think that maybe I do expect my dogs to do some rather uncomfortable things.

I promise never to complain about a cold toilet seat ever again.

In case I forget why I live here...

I interrupt your regularly scheduled blog browsing to deliver the following announcement:

So once upon a time I became involved in a discussion about my native state with an all-too-ignorant co-worker. Why I bother to even waste my breath talking with such people continues to perplex me.

This guy – young, cocky, disheveled, uneducated and living under the terribly misguided premise that he knew everything – traveled to Minnesota to work for a few days. He proceeded to spend those days bad-mouthing my beloved state and driving me crazy.

The weather is terribly here. The land is flat here. The taxes are high here. The women are fat and ugly here.

I repeatedly heard him proclaim such things in front of me. I was offended.

Normally, I would vehemently disagree with everything he said. A full-scale dissertation of all Minnesota has to offer typically would follow, complete with pie charts, footnotes and reams of statistical evidence about its prestigious standing among our 50 states. Instead, I offered only a few tidbits of information for this idiot. I knew any more than that would be superfluous. He resided in, of all places, Alabama.

I had the pleasure of visiting Alabama and much of the South in the weeks prior to this yahoo’s visit to Minnesota. (See how well I can make nice when talking of someone else’s residence?) I purposefully ignored all preconceived stereotypes I had of Southerners before visiting there. My travels, however, quickly confirmed all of those stereotypes.

Still, I didn’t speak negatively of the South while I was there or when I was in the presence of anyone fond of the area. I wish this guy took a similar stance while in Minnesota.

I also wish I had been armed with the sort of ammunition I’ve accidentally stumbled upon recently. There could’ve been a battle of wits. Except the guy was defenseless in any such battle. He seemed incapable of processing anything more complex than a brightly colored pop-up book. And I didn’t have facts I could readily cite.

I do now.

Check out some of this information about Minnesota, in general, and the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, specifically. It’s where I call home. The following data reminds me of the reasons why it remains my home.

Minnesota ranks as America’s “healthiest state,” according to the United Health Foundation, for the 10th time in the past 15 years (http://www.unitedhealthfoundation.org/shr2005/states/AllStates.html).
It’s the fourth-healthiest, according to another ranking (http://www.morganquitno.com/hcrank05.htm).

Minnesota ranks as the second “most-livable” state (http://www.morganquitno.com/sr05mlrnk.htm).

Minnesota ranks as the sixth-smartest state based on education rankings (http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank.htm).

Minnesota ranks seventh in personal per capita income (http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank29.html).

Minnesota is the 15th-safest state (http://www.morganquitno.com/dangsaf05.htm).

Additionally, Minnesota has been the birthplace of many things we now find indespensible, including Scotch tape, the thermostat, the stapler, and the first super computer, the first Better Business Bureau, to name a few (http://www.50states.com/facts/minn.htm).

Praise for the Twin Cities includes the following:

“Most Fun City In America” by Money magazine

“Best City for Children” by USA Today

“Cities That Rock,” No. 3 by Esquire magazine

“Third-best City for Families” by Child magazine

“Cleanest City” by AOL Travel and Travel + Leisure

“#1 City for Entrepreneurs” by Entrepreneur magazine

And, of course, I would be remiss as a marathon runner if I didn't add that the Twin Cities Marathon is "America's Most Beautiful Urban Marathon."

Alabama, incidentally, consistently ranks near the bottom of every livability index encompassing major socioeconomic factors.

Now, having finally gotten that off my chest after a couple of years, I'll patiently wait for a kickback from the Minnesota Office of Tourism.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

"...but they don't fall down."

I survived my first near-fall of the season tonight. Barely.

I was just past of the halfway point of my four-mile maintenance run -- my first after-dark run of the season, incidentally -- when it happened. My left foot veered off the hard-packed snow on the trail and landed on the pavement. Except it wasn't just pavement under my footfall. It was some greasy snow/slush/ice combination that my headlamp didn't detect as a ran around a curve.

Suddenly, an otherwise routine run turned into an adventure, albeit momentarily.

My left foot skidded across the ground, the rest of the attached leg hovering above its path. Reflexively, my hip locked, my back arched and I threw my right arm out amid the cold, thick, December air. Somehow, I managed to catch myself, not unlike a nimble halfback running wide left before quickly correcting his course to surge forward toward the end zone pylon.

I survived the slip in deft fashion, thanks to my equilibrium and quick-responding muscles. Penguins have nothing on me. I was built to survive these conditions. I have a touch of Weeble Wobble to me. My flat feet, ample hips and lack of vertical stature keep me keenly prepared for ill footing. Even when I don't see it coming.

So what if I wasn't so graceful in staying upright? No one was present to judge my solitary movements and deduct cool points from me. It was too dark to see anyway. Only an inquisitive owl tall in the trees saw what had happened. Or nearly happened. And the owl wasn't nearly as concerned with what happened or how it happened as it was with who was involved.

The episode startled me. I had been running for 18 minutes with nary a thought about precarious footing. Now, in the wake of my near-fall, I became obsessed with whatever might or might not be under my feet.

My body tightened throughout the rest of my run. My legs and hips remained poised to defend against any similar encounters with a slick surface. It hampered my time, not to mention the mental and physical enjoyment I typically garner from my runs. But I survived unscathed.

Score one for the runner with a good sense of balance.

All too predictable

Just a quick NBA note.

I tuned in to the final moments of the Timberwolves game tonight -- the only moments worth watching in any NBA game these days are the waning minutes -- in time to catch an impressive comeback, even by NBA standards.

The team was in Portland finishing a four-game West Coast swing when its lackluster play against the Trailblazers jeopardized its three-game winning streak. The Wolves staggered through the first three quarters. They trailed by 14 points early in the fourth quarter.

Predictably, they made a late-game comeback. It's the NBA, after all. The league is like a Downtown Minneapolis singles bar at closing time -- everyone makes a late run.

The only question was whether the Wolves would be able to erase their 14-point deficit. Surprisingly, they did. Led by Wally Szczerbiak and Marko Jaric, they went on a 19-2 run en route to an 84-74 victory.

Jaric was especially fun to watch. He had a steal, a couple of key rebounds and, of course, several points late. Figures. Just as it is in those Downtown singles bars, it's always the unshaven European who inexplicably scores most at the end of the night.

The good life

I'm not going to complain about my life. There's no reason to. Not now. Not ever, I hope.

I have it good. There's no reason for me to envy anyone or anything.

But my life isn't even the best one in my house, it seems. My dogs don't just live in my house. They live in my house. You would have to read my mortgage to know that they don't own it.

Unfortunately, they can't read.

So they take advantage of some rather comfy quarters. They live like kings. They pay nothing for it.

They live like royalty in exchange for nothing more than undying loyalty.

They have a roof over their heads, sheltering them from the harsh elements. They have comfortable places in which to rest their heads -- and you wouldn't believe how much they abuse this privilege. They're fed regularly. They get all the water they can drink. They get regular exercise. They have more toys -- or pieces of now-unrecognizable toys -- than I can count. They travel with me to the bank, to my mother's house, to Great Girlfriend Ever's house. Heck, they even get entertainment via Animal Planet.

They live quite the life.

It wasn't always this way for them.

Both are rescued dogs.

I discovered Champ in November 2000, less than two months following the premature passing of one of my other dogs due to complications from epilepsy. I had been searching for a dog similar to the one I had just lost. I was looking for a black lab/border collie mix. Something athletic. Friendly. Smart as a whip.

I had searched the local shelters for weeks, making periodic visits to interact with the four-legged being that might someday cohabitate with me. I had narrowed my list to two dogs when, on the Sunday I was set to make my decision, I came across another dog on the Internet who possessed the characteristics I sought. I decided to make one last dog-shopping visit. Literally, a last-minute visit.

I encountered a shy, insecure, thin dog named Robbie.

This dog's history was depressing. He had been in the no-kill shelter for more than six months -- estimated to been more than half of his life at that point -- after being discovered homeless. He lived in a small kennel for months, enjoying only periodic ventures outside and very limited human and canine interaction. He was treated well at the shelter, for sure, but clearly his time there had proven dispiriting. And there was no indication anyone would come along to liberate him anytime soon.

Despite this dog's seemingly reserved manner, I knew immediately we were a match.

I brought him home and introduced him to my way of life. Soon, he was renamed -- a dog of his speed, endurance and agility deserved a more apt name than Robbie -- Champ. He became, just as I suspected he would, more than a dog. He became a friend, a faithful companion, a running partner. We logged more than 600 miles together in 2001.

He has grown since then. Physically, he has filled out without yielding any of his athleticism. Socially, he's generally an excitable, outgoing gentleman. Intellectually, he's too smart for me.

Champ almost didn't become a member of my household. Besides the other similar dogs I considered adopting, there was another that I had the opportunity to take in around the same time.

My co-worker's wife worked as a community service officer for a local police department. One morning an officer discovered a discarded puppy at the door of a neighborhood store. The puppy, only a couple of weeks old, was destined for the Humane Society and whatever his future might hold there. But my co-worker and his family stepped up and opened their home to the puppy.

Problem was, their house was already filled with two small children, multiple cats and a mature dog that was none-too-welcoming of the newfound puppy. My co-worker suggested I take the puppy.

I love dogs, but it seemed like the puppy, which they named Buster, might be a good fit for my co-worker's family, if somehow their other dog ever gave the newcomer a chance. Besides, I was looking for a running dog, something along the lines of border collie/lab mix. And I knew all too well how much difficulty puppies could be.

About nine months later, well after Champ had become a fixture in my house, a situation dictated that my co-worker's family downsize their pet population. Buster had to go.

The sucker in me took over. With Buster again facing shelter life, I stepped forward this time and took him in. Only he wasn't supposed to be for me. Originally, the plan was for my mother to have Buster. After all, she shares my fondness for dogs and old age recently had claimed the life of her dog.

Buster wasn't a fit for my mother. Heck, he wasn't for me, either. He was rambunctious, inquisitive and destructive. Oh, was he destructive. To the tune of multiple pieces of furniture, books, shoes, you name it. I had expected as much from such a young dog.

I think we shared a mutual disdain for each other during those first several months together. I tired quickly of his destructive ways. He tired of ignoring my reprimands. Champ didn't exactly warm up to him either.

Slowly -- way, way too slowly -- Buster learned what was expected of a dog in my house. He learned how to socialize, how to remain alone for a moment with chewing something apart, how to run like a big dog.

Learning didn't come easily for him. Still doesn't. It's not that he's not intelligent. He's just obstinate.

He's fiercely loyal -- he doesn't allow me to leave his sight -- and overly friendly. He's also a runner, even if his respiratory system isn't ideally suited to such activity. He joined Champ to log more than 450 running miles with me in 2002.

The two have become inseparable over the years. Champ still displays aloof tendencies occasionally, but Buster, as he does with virtually everything else, ignores them and tags along wherever Champ goes. They're the best of friends. They're brothers.

They're like brothers to me, too. It's the only way I can think of them and still be comfortable with how little rent they pay while taking advantage of my generosity.

They live great lives. And I'm all too happy to provide them with their numerous luxuries. Even if sometimes it seems they lead better -- certainly more relaxing -- lifestyles than I do.

Admiration or concern?

Check out the weather we're enduring here in Minnesota. Just take a gander at the "Hometown Weather" section in my sidebar. It's just a little cold.

As I type, it says that the forecast high for today is a not-so-balmy 9 degrees. The low is 0. It says the current temp is 7 degrees Fahrenheit, or -14 Celsius for you metric fiends. Other outlets indicate 7 degrees is optimistic; it's actually a few degrees colder than that in our neck of the woods.

That qualifies as cold to me. Even in December.

Yet Greatest Girlfriend Ever runs in these conditions. Everyday. Every day.

I don't know whether to admire her for that -- I haven't run in conditions that cold since last January and I'm not sure I'll bring myself to run in single-digit temps again -- or have concern for her sanity.

This is a woman routinely who wears five layers around the house if the thermostat dips below 70 degrees. Her range of tolerable temperatures goes from 65 degrees to 85 degrees. Heck, she shivers at the mere mention of Dairy Queen.

Yet she bundles up every morning and plods her way through the snow and bone-chilling conditions to log her daily seven-mile run. I don't know how she does it. I'm much better adjusted to cold weather than she'll ever be, but I'm a winter-running wuss. She makes me feel even wimpier.

Still, I applaud her. I applaud her consistency. Her determination. Her love of running. Her desire to maintain her fitness.

I applaud her compulsive nature when it comes to running. At least I think I do. It seems healthy enough. And it's inspiring to me. Plus, it's probably the one area in which her compulsion dwarfs my various compulsions.

COOKIE!

No one has ever inquired about this, but just in case you ever get the urge to one of those silly get-to-know-you-better questions like, If you were a Sesame Street character, which would you be? I'll save you the trouble.

Cookie Monster.

Yep, that would be me. It's a shock, I know.

Most people would have me pegged as an Oscar The Grouch kind of guy. Must be my warm and effervescent personality.

It wouldn't be any other character. I'm pretty good with numbers and I mentally survive marathons mostly because I work mileage fractions in my head for three and a half hours at a time, but I wouldn't be The Count.

I'm not tall enough to be Big Bird. I have no desire for the sort of all-too-cozy relationship Bert and Ernie have, so I wouldn't be them either. Grover? Too annoying. Elmo? Don't think so.

Sorry, nice try. I'm definitely a Cookie Monster guy. Despite my otherwise-healthy lifestyle, I'm helpless when it comes to cookies. Not all cookies, though. Just the good ones. The ones with chocolate chips or peanut butter or nuts or frosting or colorful sprinkles.

OK, I like 'em all.

But I'm especially a sucker for sugar-laden Christmas cookies. You know, the ones that would send a diabetic to the emergency room with even the slightest whiff. Mmmm. Like little slices of heaven to my tastebuds. What can I say? I have a sweet tooth.

So imagine the nirvana when Greatest Girlfriend Ever suggested we bake some on a cold Friday night. How could I refuse, even if it meant I had to play domestic for a couple of hours? The reward was too great to resist.

We made more than four dozen individual masterpieces. I can't take a whole lot of credit for them. I helped with the cutting -- even eschewing the handy metal cutters to carve a few freehand -- and the decorating, but little more. GGE put together the dough and frosting from scratch. I'm almost ashamed I didn't have a greater role. But, GGE, I promise you this: I will be more helpful when it comes to eating the cookies.

They won't comprise the portion of my diet I wish they would, however. GGE is on top of this. She knows my weakness. She has fabricated reasons why we can't eat them yet. She says she's going to save them for the coming weeks when she has family and friends at her house. She's freezing them until then, picking and choosing the rare moments when her deserving boyfriend has earn a small ration.

Gotta love that. She's saving me from myself.

Of course, I don't love it quite as much as I would the opportunity to devour the cookies by the fistful until I become ill.

Harbinger?

I don't believe in things like crystal balls, horoscopes, palm reading or tarot cards.

I do believe in fortune cookies. I believe I like them very much. The often nonsensical tidbits of portending information offered inside them? Not so much.

Still, I read every one I encounter. Unlike some people, however, I don't read them just to add the words "...in bed" to the end of every fortune. I'm just a voracious reader of things that don't require a commitment of more than five minutes to read.

So I'm blowing through a stack of fortune cookies recently and discarding the enclosed fortunes one after another. I'm not impressed with what these cookies say is impending for me. I'm similarly unimpressed by the "Learn Chinese" tutorial on the backside of the fortunes. I mean, when am I ever going to need to know how to say "sisterhood" in another language? At least the supposedly omniscient writers of the fortunes are making good use of both sides of their half-inch-by-two-inch slivers of crisp, white, cookie crumb-crusted paper.

Then I open my last fortune. Forebodingly, it reads: "Your luck is going to change."
Hmmm. I know there's nothing factual about this statement, other than that change is constant in all things in life. But it sounds ominous enough to me.

Just what does that mean? Is my luck going to become better? Should I race out and buy lottery tickets, enlisting my allegedly "lucky" numbers alsonlisted on the back of the fortune? Or is my luck, whatever I might have, going suddenly going south, and not just for the winter?

It gave me too much to ponder. What if I think I'm a rather lucky guy, all things considered, and I don't want my luck to change? What about that? Should I brace myself for an onslaught of incredible misfortune?

It was simply too much for me to digest mentally. A single simple declarative sentence that's delivered to me as a cuisine accessory shouldn't haven been so thought-provokingly sidetracking. But it was just that for several minutes, even though I don't believe in such things.

And I have yet to begin to consider the possibilities of "Your luck is going to change...in bed."