Lost and Found

We are currently remodeling the house, or better said, we're building up a guest room at the back of the garden. Reason why we have workers at home and we've had them for a couple of weeks now. A couple of days ago, when we got back home, one of the workers told us that Lola, our dog, was kinda acting weird and that she had been playing with a toad. OK that's never good but we're used to deal with that kinda situation, Lola has a thing for toads. And the bigger and the grosser, the better. 

I got back inside, get her milk so wash away the venom of her mouth but strangely, she wasn't drinking it this time. She wasn't even salivating like she normally does after playing with a toad.

And that's when it stroke us. She hadn't just played with the toad, she had actually ATE the damn thing. And she was dying of poisoning right in front of our eyes.

I called the vet, he told me to rush to his place and off we were. Dear Beloved drove so fast i closed my eyes the entire time. And Lola was getting less and less responsive.

We made it to the vet "in extremis", he gave her a shot, brought her temperature down (she had 40.3°C instead of 38°C) and waited until she started to react to the antidote to let us take her back home.

And the following morning, apart from her somehow stiff walk, it was like nothing happened. Dogs do live in the moment. 

But 2 days after she almost died in our arms, another incident happened. I got home first and Bullet came to say hi but Lola didn't  And considering she very nearly poisoned herself a couple of days prior, i went in the garden to check on her. Maybe venom is like an earthquake, there's the second wave of it after a while. Except that Lola was nowhere to be found. 

We currently have an enormous amount of crap laying around in the garden because of the construction going on. And i check behind every single piece of wood, metal, plastic, bags that are there and still no Lola.

I called Dear Beloved and told him: Lola is missing, she's not here.

And he said: what do you mean?

How can we be so thick when you hear a news like this. Dude, i mean exactly what i just said, she is not here. She's gone, she's not in the garden. Bullet is but Lola isnt. What part dont you understand?

Well i looked in the neighborhood, calling her, asking all the people i bumped into if they had seen her and nobody had and i was pissed and really thought someone had taken her. I was crazy mad at the workers for not being careful and letting her escape. And Dear Beloved came home and we start scowling each other like it's our fault, like we want to find a guilty person for it . And he stormed out to look for her again. Unsuccessfully.

When we went to bed that night, a part inside of me died a little. Lola has been part of the family for almost 2 years now and not feeding her and putting her to bed was just excruciating. 

I didn't sleep well. Spent the entire night twisting and turning in my bed and woke up like i had only slept an hour. I took Bullet on our morning walk, it was just him and me. He looked at me like he was gonna say: where's Lola? Isn't she coming too? It was weird and painful.

At breakfast, i was determined to make flyers and post them everywhere in the neighborhood. And that's when i heard a bark. That's when i heard HER bark. I don't think there is a single mother on this planet that doesn't recognize her children's voice. Well i don't have children but i have 5 pets. And i can recognize every single one of their voice. 

I dashed out and headed towards where i had heard her bark. And there she was. Sitting like a queen on one of my neighbor's lounge chairs, waving her tail like she was saying: mom, i went camping and it was aaaaaawesome! Can i do it again?

My neighbor told me she didn't know which house was mine and that she was terrified of my dog who had sneaked in her garden yesterday evening as she was parking her car. I'm so glad she chose that garden. 

And i'm so glad i have her back.

I Finished It

I finished that Half Marathon i bragged about earlier. I didn't finish last and i did it in less than 3 hours. So my 2 goals were actually met. I am so proud of myself i cant even start to explain.

We got up at 5:30am to be ready on the departure line at 6:30am as initially planned. There was this excitement going on around us and i could feel the adrenaline raising and honestly, i wanted to be time to get going.

They gave us little bags of colored powder to throw in the air when the "go" was said - don't ask, i didn't get the point either. They wanted to make this a unique only in Vallarta kinda thing but seriously, when you have 176 people throwing powder in the air, you start your run in the middle of this gigantic colorful cloud, you cant see shit and you're covered in 10 different colors. No, even now, still don't see the point of it.

So there we were. All covered in purple and orange (and yellow and pink), beginning to run our 21 km. Miguel and Michael, the other 2 guys from the office dashed out. Dear Beloved was behind me and my first concern was to adjust my steps to my breathing and keep the rhythm. 

So many people passed me but i didn't really care to be honest. I wasn't racing against anybody but myself. It was MY race and it was for ME.

I knew there was going to be a table with water and gatorade every 2km. So when i saw the first one, i was like, well that was fast. Then i passed the return for the 5k. There were 3 races in fact. A half marathon, a 10k (who left 10 minutes behind us) and a 5k (who left 10 minutes after the 10k). At this point, i was doing well, and i was doing well up until i saw someone coming on the return line. With an official number. And i hadn't even reached the 5k mark. For a second i thought, damn, am i that slow? Is it really worth keeping running that? I mean seriously, you're on your way back already??

And then another one. And another. And i was like this is not right. I've been running for less than 30 minutes, there is no way someone is already almost back. And just a few seconds after that, here it was: the return mark for the 10k. And i thought, bunch of pussy faces, they only on for the 10k. No wonder they're already on the way back.

And the base get running running and running running .... You HAVE to have motivating music to run. And the Black Eyed Peas are cool for that! Them among many others on my playlist. 

Things started to get tricky after passing km 9. The road wasn't flat anymore so it's a killer for the knees and the legs cuz it was inclined but sideways. It's not going uphill or downhill, it's going sideways like a Nascar's track. When i finally got to the point i was convinced was the 10.5km mark, and i saw the runners in front of me keeping on going straight, i was like this is a joke, this has got to be a joke, how far do we still have to go??? After running 10k, 500 meters seem like a light-year away.  But i did pass it, i did step on those carpets that capture the time with the chip you have attached on your shoe, i did hear the cheer of the staff standing there and i thought, from this point on, i'm already a winner. 

I knew i could run 10k so passing that mark was the mental minimum i should reach. Anything passed that point was already a huge accomplishment for me. 

And i kept running.

But after another 1.5km of running, we got back to that Nascar's track and that totally fucked me up. I couldn't feel my right leg, i had this big cramp in my foot and i thought, it's not worth hurting myself. So i started to walk. Dear Beloved kept on going.

I must say, the walking i did between km13 and km15 was hard on my mental. I got passed by a dozen runners and i was honestly convinced i was the last of the race. I stopped at the water stand at km14 for about 10 minutes. I was so thirsty, i was exhausted, i was in pain, i wanted to quit so bad. In fact, i wanted it to stop. I wanted the pain to stop.

But then i realized that even though it was hard, it wasn't costing me much to keep walking. And i couldn't get this out of my head, that pain is temporary, quitting is forever. That there is always the easy way out of giving up. And i just couldn't stop.

It's on km17 that i realized i wasn't last, that this older man dressed as a clown was behind me and that if he could do it, damn it so could i. I waited for him to catch up with me and when he told me "si puedes", he gave me that extra push that i so badly needed. And i started to run again, for another 2 kilometers or so. I saw my boss and colleagues on the side of the streets further down the road with big signs and banners, shouting and cheering and it was overwhelmingly awesome.

I walked some more but when i reached km20 and that i could actually see the finish line at the end of the road, i got that energy kick and began to run again. And that's when it became real. I was this close to finish that shit. I was this close to actually finish a half marathon. It didn't matter how much time had passed since i had started, it didn't matter if i was going to be last, all that mattered at that particular time was the fact that i was going to finish this. And i wanted to cry so bad, tears actually started to run down my face. 

It's when i had the finish line standing some 50 meters away that emotion got the best of me. I had this gigantic ball of tears stuck in my throat i could barely breathe. It's when you realize that you're not just going to finish this, you're actually about to cross the finish line. And all the other runners are there waiting for you, and everybody is cheering and clapping and shouting, and there is so much noise and so much emotion but the only thing you really see, is that carpet you need to step on to officially end your suffering.

It's 21 km of pain. It's 21 km of you and the road and the pain. I did it in 2 hours 52 minutes and 28 seconds. It's an emotion that no word is big enough to describe. But one thing is certain: