Naja's Paradise

Naja gets fed at 8am, then she rests...for no more than thirty minutes. At 8:15 I either go on a bike ride, without her...or I split rounds of Lodgepole Pine (the first warming) and stack it. Anytime I am in the yard working, Naja brings me toys to throw...a Chuck-It, a frisbee or an old nasty tennis ball... between swings of the maul she butts in, with drool spilling from her jowls, while holding one of aforementioned items and expects me to give it a hearty toss. I toss, she gives out a single bark while heading off in hot pursuit. We continue this ritual for nearly an hour before going back inside for the second cup of hot coffee and a shower.  I emerge, am slow to get dressed while taking multi-vitamins and fish oil. Naja waits at the door for our next move.             The ride to work is astride a bicycle pulling a dog trailer...Naja runs alongside for the first mile, which includes a potty stop on the same empty lot before catching up with me. Depending on the traffic situation, I let her trot alongside, nearly halfway to work. When I say, "Load up!" she immediately lunges into the trailer and turns around so that her nose is pointing backward...she really doesn't care where we are going, she revels in the memories of where we have been.       For the next seven hours she patrols the downtown one quarter acre that surrounds the bicycle shop, where she has worked as greeter, crotch sniffer and 'tween the toes cleaner ( if you are wearing sandals). She partakes in a Spa Rotation Treatment by laying on hot blacktop for twenty minutes, cold concrete for five, followed by a one hour nap on a pile of cushy pillows. If someone comes into the store with sandals or flip-flops, schedules can change. At four PM she moves to the shady asphalt at the front of the store...when I've got everything put away and I lock things up, this is where I exit the building, bike and trailer are parked here and she's thinking about that 5:30 feeding that happens after we walk through the door at home.       One important exception to this routine is the bike trip to the lake....at five thirty we may be headed East, dog in trailer and sweaty old man turning the cranks with great determination, to deliver us to our magical, volcanic sand-covered beach known to us as Naja's Paradise. The water is warm, the sun hits here for another hour or so and we have a stash of tennis balls. Both of us, in our birthday suits, running, swimming and shaking off excess water until we remember....it's time to eat! We hide the balls and run/ride back to the highway before loading up and rolling back to our mountain village that sits under the Big Snowy Mountain. Ahhh...we've earned our kibbles and quesadillas and an evening of cheering on the Giants.