It’s fast becoming a ritual for my dog: Show up in a new city. See someone who’s been dying to meet you. Poop on their floor.
Sunday, on our way home from Charlottesville, we decided to scrap our visit to Monticello in favor of dropping in on Robby’s friend Nick at Johns Hopkins. Ricky, in his eagerness to scamper out of Baltimore’s freezing cold and in to see his old buddy Nick, pooped before, during, and after he went through the front door of the sophomore dorm, pretty much bringing all traffic in and out to a standstill as Carol, Nick, and I scrambled to clean up
after him. There was a plus side to all this: Everyone thought he was very cute. It was shades of Austin, where he did the same thing in the vestibule of Maggie Mae’s, and Denver, in Lucy’s condo, and Delaware, in Kelly’s parents’ living room.
Maybe this was Ricky’s way of telling us he wasn’t pleased that we
turned around and headed home after getting as far as C-ville. While he apparently saw our trip as a tease, tricking him into thinking we’d embarked on LA/XC-3 (please see False Alarm), I saw it more as an opportunity to stay sharp. We’re about as far removed from our road-tripping routine as we can be, calendar-wise — five months past LA/XC-2 and six months short of LA/XC-3 — and I don’t want Ricky to get stale.
So why Charlottesville? Well, we’d promised the VT ski house to the boys for Prez Wknd (good wknd to miss: Who wants to ski with a zillion annoying little kids who don’t belong to you?), so we had to go somewhere. (Ever since Ricky and I started our x-c road trips I seem to have developed the inability to stay put for a weekend.) I happened to notice that The Band Perry and Rascal Flatts were playing in C-ville . . . and my friend Jeff is a U. Va. alum (Jeff & Joan joined us) . . . and I love hanging out on college campuses. So, boom, there it was. And since St. Luz, who usually watches Ricky when we’re off gallivanting, was in Costa Rica for a wedding, Ricky got to come along.
He was definitely peeved that Carol took shotgun — so much so that it took him about 30 seconds to curl up and start snoring rather than his usual 15. But he let it go, like a good boy, and had a great time sniffing and romping and tugging his way through the U. Va. campus (excuse me, Jeff — grounds) — especially The Lawn, which remains, for me, the most impressive visual of any college campus I’ve seen. He also had a great time with his sitter, Samantha (who we found via Sittercity.com, a service worth noting), while we went to the concert at the John Paul Jones Arena, home of the Virginia Cavaliers. The Band Perry put on a rollicking show; I love Kimberly Perry. But Rascal Flatts was awful. The band was self-absorbed and indulgent; their performance was ill-conceived and disjointed. Certainly not worth driving 800 miles for.
Had our farewell breakfast with J&J at our hotel before hitting the road home on Sunday. For every minute we spent catching up on their two daughters and our three sons, we must have spent five on tales of Toby, their Bichon, back home in Alexandria, and Ricky, resting upstairs in room 214 in preparation for his 8-hour nap on the ride back to CT. Doggies.
Ricky, seriously. Sorry you were confused by all this. Just 196 days till the real LA/XC-3.
LOOK FOR A NEW BEAGLE MAN POST EVERY THURSDAY. OR PRETTY CLOSE TO THURSDAY. COULD BE WEDNESDAY. OR FRIDAY. LET’S NOT GET TOO OBSESSIVE HERE . . . 
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