Banksy’s been declared clear by the fancy orthopedist from San Jose. She has his blessings to go out and jump again, and do so injury free. He laid his hands on her and said those words and we left the office feeling 11lbs lighter.

Dog agility, you’re the sunshine in my bag, sticking out of my shoe and dribbling yellow tracks behind me, sunny little cookie crumbles pointing the way for the men in black suits to find me at a more convenient time.

I don’t have much to complain about, dog agility. My startline, yeah, I guess that could use a little work. There are far grander train wrecks crashing around out there, hovering around on the periphery of dog training. The economy’s a gig where parched and tired masses are programmed to crouch down to hold up the bright and shiny optimism of a very few. We have disposable immigrants to do the dirty work. Everything is disposable! So many, many paper cups, with so many misspelled names scrawled across the tops! Inventors are currently programming drones to express deliver my next batch of dog food by flinging it out of the sky onto my roof. There’s even an app to pick you out an online puppy, a little bell will ding when it’s ready to go, just like an angel losing it’s wings.

It’s just so convenient to ignore things. Are you watching your startline very carefully while you lead out? Do you see your dog get a little hunchy, like she’s ducking under the shadow of a pointy witch finger? Did you ignore it? Then it turned into a foot shifting just one millimeter forward? And you ignored that? Then you didn’t notice the foot move a little more and the hunch go a little hunchier then the butt scooched up just a bit. But you kept walking. You were all, what’s a millimeter? What’s one more disposable plastic thingamajig going into the trash can? I’m no litterbug. I throw it in the trash! And then all of a sudden, the earth is too hot for human habitation and you’re all, Why’d she break that startline?

Fact: Your release word can be anything you want but probably not curse words.
Alternative Fact: My dog’s stay is perfect at home.

So actually, dog agility, you couldn’t be better. Technology has made you fat and happy, and your podium pictures sparkle across social media every single weekend, beaming radiance and shiny hair, carefully protected by sun hats with extra added SPF across the globe. Nobody running dog agility grumps and pouts and sits in the isolationist corner. In fact in dog agility, everybody is friends with everybody! On social media, I just click you. Super easy. Now I know what your backyard looks like and what you had for dinner at that cute restaurant after the big dog show when you were drinking with all your friends. Ha, ha, yeah, that was an awkward one! I probably hid you so I don’t have to see your emojis anymore.

I’m moving like a pioneer right now, exploring options, but with the caveat of occasionally dropping my head into the sand. You know what they say. Facts don’t vanish into thin air just because they get noses turned up at them, willing them away. Yet it happens all the time. I’m losing my edge, Mr. President. I’m early basking on the beach of late capitalism. I thought what I was doing was spreading love, compassion and kindness, watching my dog with a smile on my face. I spread this by clicking the little heart icon, located conveniently below every single podium photo. It’s just there, drag the mouse finger three millimeters at the most and you’ll find it in a jiffy. Just click, and your heart goes on.

Oh, I just let her go on that one. I saw her scooch, but it was only a little ways, but I REALLY wanted to run it.

Oh, so now your dog kind of creeps into their sit on the startline? And their butt comes up a little higher more often? And it happened at the trial last weekend? But you were really hoping to get that QQ so you just ignored it, just that once? Or twice? Because really, she knows she’s supposed to stay there. She’s just a little too excited, being at the trial and all. And you mostly enforce it at practice, unless you’re in a bit of a hurry, or sometimes you can’t exactly see it, she’s so fast and you’re so slow so you’re already off and running. But, she knows, she’s smart. We’ve trained it a lot.

You should be more scared.

Magician David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear in 1985. She didn’t really disappear, it was a magic trick. He wasn’t even wearing a cape. Let’s call it an illusion.

An iceberg the size of a festive tropical island just broke off of Antartica. Looks like when a dog takes a bite of dog bed, gives it a shake, and a chunk comes off, all the fluff scattering across the floor. It’s cool, was made in China, just sweep it up and go get another. No capes, no magic, did that really just happen?

You had me at sit. There was a different vibe before. It’s hard to explain how it felt. It felt like yes we can and I don’t feel spread too thin. Didn’t feel like I’m pulling my hair out and waiting for the other shoe to drop down. It didn’t used to feel so, hard. Is the vibe ever going to come back? I present, these, dig, as a gift of good vibes, an outpouring of love, like lei covered watermen paddling out during high tide to honor their dead, holding hands as they gently bob on their boards, hearts swelling in love of the dear departed. A passage of an icon now gone, a passing of a vibe that may now be obsolete. We hit it smack in the middle of a golden era.