Sunday in the Park With Finn

You know how when someone is, like, dying everything seems so much more poignant and meaningful? And also sad.

My sister and I took Finn to the vet on Friday because his cancerous tumor had gotten really huge in a very short amount of time. It's growing out of his shoulder like a second head. The vet was cool and honest and told us that there wasn't really anything we could do for him. Not only was the tumor growing extremely quickly, but he had another one on the other side. He's already had surgery twice and it had come back each time and it just doesn't seem fair to make him go through another surgery when the tumor would most likely grow back before his stiches even came out. So, we decided to just let him live out whatever time he had left and not hassle him with anymore vet visits.

The weekend was beautiful and I spent Sunday climbing up at Rumney where I managed to fall off Lonesome Dove (5.10a) AGAIN. Motherfucker. On Sunday, my sister, the King and I all piled into the car and took Finn for a run in Howe State Park. We all had a great time tripping over logs and slipping on fallen leaves. For some reason neither Finn nor myself can resist walking on a fallen log over the water. They are inevitably slippery and one or both of us always manages to get wet.



After drying off, we headed to Dairy Queen for some ice cream and then stopped at the Llama farm. King made the mistake of taking Finn out of the car and all the Llamas raced over to the fence and faced off. Our dog is a lot like a drunk Irish guy (terrier) who doesn't realize that the fight he's about to pick is a really, really bad idea. My sister and I watched in embarassed fascination as Finn barked his stupid head off and the Llamas stood glaring defiantly. Finally, we dragged him back to the car and got out of there.

You know, llamas aren't ones for messing around. I tried to explain to the dog that a lot of sheep ranchers keep llamas because they run off coyotes and that if they could kick a coyote's ass they could most certainly show Finn a thing or two about a thing or two. He was too busy straining at the end of his leash to pay much attention.