{"id":124,"date":"2008-08-24T20:35:26","date_gmt":"2008-08-24T20:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/a-dogs-life\/art-of-racing-in-the-rain\/"},"modified":"2008-08-24T20:35:26","modified_gmt":"2008-08-24T20:35:26","slug":"art-of-racing-in-the-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/a-dogs-life\/art-of-racing-in-the-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"Art of racing in the rain…"},"content":{"rendered":"

My mom just lost it. She’s usually totally cool about everything she reads. She hates syrupy tear-jerkers. But she made the mistake of picking up this book about a dog: The Art of Racing in the Rain<\/a> by Garth Stein. It’s about a man named Denny who lives here in Seattle with his dog Enzo.<\/p>\n

That dog Enzo got a whole book. He also got an owner with a life. Denny raced cars, married, fathered a child, fought a bitter custody battle, fought off a false accusation…I’m exhausted just reading about it. And there’s my mom, who won’t even drive in the rain, let alone race. Enzo is almost as smart as I am. But I think my sense of humor is more finely tuned.<\/p>\n

Enzo wants to return to earth as a man. I have no desire to return to earth as a woman. Good grief. As a dog, I get to live honorably without getting married or having puppies. I get to play in the park while Cathy works. I admit: I’m luckier than most dogs. Still, I’ll take my own species, thank you very much.
\n
\n\"racing<\/a><\/p>\n

I already know how to communicate with Cathy. She knows, “Out! Now!” and, “Hey, I’m getting restless. Time for a walk.” And even, “Sock? What sock? I thought that was dinner.” What more do I need?<\/p>\n

There is a scene in this book where Denny says the final good-by to Enzo. And that’s where my mom melted. She said good-by to her old tabby cat, Tiger, just a few weeks ago. And she said the same thing. “It’s okay, Tiger. You can go now.”<\/p>\n

We’re not giving anything away. The book begins sad. Enzo is literally on his last legs. He’s ready.<\/p>\n

We dogs don’t care. We live for the moment. Like right now, I’m angling for a trip to the park. Or at least a long walk. My mom’s been muttering about Pike Place Market. She’s on some new health food kick since she started thinking about her own mortality.<\/p>\n

Too bad dogs can’t be book reviewers. We’d have more books like the one Dean Koontz wrote about his dog Trixie, Life is Good.<\/a> A happy dog, focused on her food dish, just the way a dog should be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mom just lost it. She’s usually totally cool about everything she reads. She hates syrupy tear-jerkers. But she made the mistake of picking up this book about a dog: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. It’s about a man named Denny who lives here in Seattle with his dog Enzo. … Continue reading Art of racing in the rain…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midlifedog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}