Dojo - my baba!

The beep of the alarm going off at 5:30am on Saturday coincided perfectly with my waking up from a peaceful sleep. I felt the warm furry form of Dojo at my feet and I felt a surge of happiness suffuse thru' my being. A grey dawn was just breaking and it happened to be Dojo' birthday!! The first thing I did was give him a kiss on his long snout and a whisper of "happy birthday!".

As I wore my Reebok (Blue Suede?) shoes, I thought, "time to rock and roll, Dan:-)". I had planned a run that was definitely not for the faint-hearted but certainly a celebration for Dojo. As I set a scorching tempo for the first 6K, my being pulsed to the rhythm of Elvis' 12-bar blues song, Blue Suede Shoes;

One for the money,
two for Dojo,
three to get ready and go man go
..............you can do anything but don't step on my blue suede shoes

Well you can knock me down
Step on my face
slander me down
all over the place......uh uh honey lay off my blue suede shoes

Just as I finished the circuit on target pace and was breathing hard with arms akimbo, Mahesh came along and executed his Guru-Shikshak gesture of obeisance. I was thrilled cause the rest of my run was a 2hrs 45mins easy run and what better stimulus than my dear friend Mahesh. We had veritable grins of deep satisfaction when we both saw Pankaj running towards us and heard him hail, "32K?". Yes sir, its going to be a 20 miler for Dojo.

We felt the pace and distance telling on us: Me, because I had gone three days without lunch in Ludhiana and "glycogen-depletion" is a sure hazard, and Mahesh, cause he had done a 20 miler last Sunday in Kharghar (of all the places:-))) For the first time I saw Mahesh reduced to a shuffle but the run was completed - no doubt about that, especially as we had a promise to keep to Pankaj that we'd see him on the following circuit:-)

A well earned breakfast of eggs and toast, a multitude of chores involving buying Bryan Jeans, to ordering Dojo' cake to arranging "veg snacks" for some of the invitees to Dojo' celebration, and a nice appertif to prepare myself for a much needed snooze.

Evening was a hilarious event with Som' family and their Cocker-Spaniel, Toby, and other people going into fits of laughter over singing "Happy Birthday dear Dojo.........":-))) Then there was the cake cutting, distribution to all - even to the watchmen (who found it ridiculous that we spend money on a Black Forest cake for a dog' birthday) -, and a veritable goan cuisine. Dojo realized that something special was happening on his behalf cause there were some "Poodle Puppies" that were brought to join the celebration. I donated money for care of strays and gifted the maid too. When the maid asked me as to what I had given Dojo, I replied that God will take care of him cause we are taking care of dogs that are not fortunate enough to have families. She was dumb-struck by this reply and retreated into a contemplative mood.