I ran twice around the lake and walked the third mile. Instead of Vibram Five-Fingers, which are no good for me in the cold and snow, I wore regular running shoes but landed on my forefoot, not my heel. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow. Last time my muscles didn’t bite back until a full day had elapsed and they wore their biggest teeth two days later.
On the north side of the lake during the third lap, I saw a familiar dog down the hill on the zoo’s service road: German Shepherd-shaped, mostly black with some white, and very distinctive white ear markings, as if the upside-down Vs of its ears had been precisely trimmed in white. “Sir!” I yelled to get its person’s attention and gallumphed down the slope through a foot of snow. He was ready for this random accoster to be insane, which is fine with me. “You might not remember this, but last May I saw your dog looking up a tree and hoped it was looking at my lost cockatiel.”
“I do remember that,” he said, because of course I’d been demented then too.
“I wanted you to know that my bird was found.”
“Really! That’s great!”
This was invitation enough to tell him the story (the brief version, and I do have one) and he grinned throughout.
“That’s remarkable!” he said as I wound down. “How lucky!”
I was pleased he remembered and that I could pass along a happy ending to a desperate tale. And he might still have thought I was insane — a parrot owner usually is — but when I finished my last lap of the lake and saw him at a distance, we waved to each other. I still wouldn’t recognize him without his dog, which I hazard is fine with him.