running with poodle on cruzan thyme

it was the time of morning when stephen king huddled under his covers and wrote his scariest material. first light eerily was peering around the low lying clouds. a noise from behind. rushing footsteps gaining on me. suddenly at my heels and then speeding past. a voice from a man in a red cape fading from behind "wait for meeeeee."

but poodle was long gone.

it rained last night. it may have been one of those classics with thunder straight from thor's hammer and 4th of july lightning displays. we get those here. but i slept the sleep of the well exercised unemployed. a sound and peaceful journey, without concern about that brief that needed to be written. so i did not see or hear the rain.

fortunately, my 32 years as an attorney allowed me to apply the basics of circumstantial evidence: the ground was wet, there were additional gungaloos squishing under my feet when i got out of bed, and the man next door was putting nails in the ark while a strange group of animals looked on impatiently.

so it must have rained. rain means two things on st croix. it fills your cistern (this is a facility into which rain water goes, not the relative that you are not allowed to date until she is 14 in olathe). and it produces puddles. puddles and poodles go together in my memory like george bush and larry, moe, and curly. if they had puppies they would be puddledoodles. but i approached my run with glee knowing that i had entertainment for the morning. i was not to be disappointed. at the start of our run, there is a house with a yard the size of yellowstone. it has several dips which produce small lakes (no catamarans allowed) which attract sea birds. and puddles and sea birds attract the poodle. she races after the birds like an f-16. she runs through the puddles sending spray everywhere, like a version of flash dance meets lassie come home. the birds taunt her, waiting until she is thoroughly annoyed until they waddle skyward at a pace that tantalyses her. i am convinced this is a symbiotic relationship. poodle loves the reckless abandon of the chase. the birds find it a convenient excuse to practice their take offs and landings. i am quite convinced that a typical bird conversation is "it's 6:30. that damned poodle is late. if she's not here in five minutes i'm blowing off the exercise and eating the last eclair."

the dog is ebony black. the birds are white as snow used to be. the field is a dazzling green that was created just to set off the contrast of colors. and the speed is such that i need a video camera to do it justice. you cannot be depressed when you have a poodle performing for your entertainment. she runs next to me when she is tired, joined at the hip. but she always saves a spurt or two for those last few birds. she'll never catch one, and barks loudly if she thinks they're dawdling to make sure they react. but it is a joyful relationship.

adding to today's entertainment was a whippet that has been too shy to play. he lives along our running-walking route, and is controlled on a very large lot by an electronic collar. for the first time today, he succummed to poodles charms. he chased poodle and played vigorously. poodle then turned on him and chased him from one end of the property to the other, back and forth. i thought the dog was in fear and would expire on the spot. but as soon as poodle stopped chasing, back came the dog and chased poodle. ooh la la strikes again. and all this was after a 4 mile run, 2 mile walk, and the pursuit of numerous sea birds.

but today i am supposed to be writing about cruzan thyme. my neighbor grows vegetables and herbs. these end up being tossed into the pot to assist in dishes such as spaghetti or waffles? fresh lemongrass just gets called lemongrass. but my favorite is always called cruzan thyme. "i'm putting cruzan thyme in the soup." i always laugh when i hear this. because cruzan time is what st croix is all about. everything runs (or fails to) on cruzan time. you either smile, or you leave. it's that simple. if waiting in line for stamps for a week bothers you, go back to new york city. people move here to get away from the rat race, and then they want to import rats.

in new york we had this. in colorado we did it this way. no one here cares. life moves at a rhythm all its own. i love to write about it. i think it is appropriate to satirize those aspects of culture and government that are so much fun. but i love and accept it and don't have illusions about changing it. you don't need a watch down here. people arrive when they arrive, and if the food is cold, so be it. parades start when the mood hits them. an appointment is more of a suggestion for a time.

a friend on guam said it was a place "where manana did not carry the same compelling sense of urgency that it does in mexico." st croix is not up to the high standards of guam. and who cares. i have the soul of an islander. and of a mountain person. the devil has not offered me anything in exchange for what he obviously considers a defective product. but my heart is with poodle and those sea birds.

running on the beach on a non-snowy evening

my favorite place to run is alongside the ocean. there. i've said it. i haven't deserted my beloved mountains for some tempting water and sand mistress. i will continue to hike in the cool mountain air anyday compared to the most beautiful island hikes in high humidity and occassional mud. but running should be next to water, and no water is more tempting than when accompanied by beach and waves (it is pretty hard to run alongside a kayak down the colorado, after all).

some of my most memorable, longest, and enjoyable runs have been on a beach. back in the late '70's my brother moved to florida. he lived on the water, 3 blocks from the beach and ocean. these are the legendary beaches near daytona, where sharks pose a serious threat which is secondary to the prowling pontiac which shares the beach with runners and sunbathers. fortunately, the beaches around new smyrna are the same width (around low tide) as the state of texas. kick off your shoes, point yourself north, and you can run until you reach canada. or so it seems. when samantha was born my parents and i stayed at a cottage on the beach about 5 miles from my brother's. it was around my birthday. i remember setting out and losing track of everything except the sand and the surf (there were no distracting brunettes at 6:30 a.m.). soon i was at my brother's house. no surprise, he was sleeping. i turned around without stopping and headed back to the cottage. 10 miles without ever feeling like i was running.

i bought my dad a tennis racket that day. just because. it felt good to finally give something back. such an idyllic time. within months he had been killed by two errant semi-trucks. but i remember every detail from his lying in the hammock at al's, enjoying that racquet, and eating as many calories as a daily run up to 10 miles would allow. i cannot think of new smyrna without thinking of running. that terrible run in pounding rain after the service at al's funeral. lightning and thunder everywhere, and the rain matching my mood and tears. wonderful, joyful runs with my incredible niece and nephew. leisurely days seeing how far sami could run on the beach. and her patient, anxious to please personality walking for half an hour in one direction and then returning while i ran for the same time. remarkably, we ended up together and had time to laugh.

perfect sand and a perfect beach. i have found times in the caribbean where the loveliness is impossible to accept. up and back on a half moon beach in cane garden bay without shoes for an hour and a half. the same at little dix in virgin gorda where i was dropped while a friend went diving and entertained the guests with my back and forth run on the half mile beach where the room rate was ten times more than where i was staying.

my favorite is when my toes are in the water and the sand is firm enough for me to splash but not sink. visions of chariots of fire but i have a better tan. whether in guam, new caledonia, or martha's vineyard i have had flights of fancy as the waves with "tremulous cadence slow" match my 9 minute pace.

but the caribbean is special. and new smyrna still has my heart and memories.

which brings me to my current life on st croix. i can run by the ocean on a daily basis again. my knee is not healed (of course it has not been seen by a doctor, either), but i am lured to the waves like a lemming and stubborn as a republican on stem cell research. there does not have to be any logic to it. the waves are there, and so am i. i wear my shoes because this is not new smyrna or cane garden bay. but the smile is there, and my running companion doesn't mind that she is twice as fast as long as she can use her paws to chase the sea birds that like to torment her. i would trade it all for that cottage with the family intact, or for a nice walk-run with sami. but my running lets me remember. and eat that extra piece of banana cream pie.