First real post in a long time, I would be greatly remiss if I didn't share what happened a few days ago.

As most of you may know, I am a dogwalker by trade. This day I was walking my latest charge, a miniature schnauser by the name of Sunny. She is very small and has a good temperament, which sort of lulled me into a false sense of security. Big mistake not to think I should have been watching her like a hawk.

Unbeknownst to me, her owners had her collar adjusted just a tad bit loose. I had her on one of those leashes that feeds out from a hand held unit, the kind that lets them get pretty far away. Well, of course, she slipped right out of her collar and was a block away before I could do anything about it, and the chase was on.

I saw a group of teenage boys ahead of me, all dressed in gym clothes, looking like they were out for a jog. Perfect people to ask for help, right? Wrong. They kind of danced around like chickens, and in the end did nothing--they could have been making fun of me, I wasn't sure. Most teenagers, not all teenagers, but most teenagers are about as helpful as a screen door on a submarine.

Well, Sunny was zigging and zagging and getting further away. I lost sight of her, then spied her again, at an alarming distance. We were now by the high school, and I sort of hoped she would run in there, because it might have been easier to catch her in the enclosed yard. But no! She decided it would be fun to run all the way down Park Blvd., zigging and zagging as she went.

She was now at least four blocks away, a tiny grey dot going back and forth. That was it, she was going to get hit by a car and I was going to have a heart attack. I was so not prepared to run this fast--I mean, this little doggie was fast.

I reached the intersection by the front of the school and started to panic. The dog was nowhere to be found. The direction she had been running in, where I last saw her at this intersection, led up to El Camino just a couple blocks away. This is a major street where there are tons of cars going fast, very few of them likely to stop for a little grey schnauzer. All I could think was that she was going to be smushed.

Thankfully, the direction she was going in was also East. As I ran, I started doing a Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram, turning each direction as I went. After I traced the pentagram in the direction of the Archangel Michael, I stabbed it with my fingers and shouted, "Adonai!" Cars were going by, I didn't care if anyone saw me.

After I finished, I returned to screaming the dog's name. A man down the street waved, "She's here!" he yelled. Praise be to the Divine Current, some nice people had gotten Sunny's attention and kept her from going any further. A woman was holding her in the corner of a driveway. I thanked the people and sat down with the dog in the shade of a minivan in the corner of the driveway.

I put Sunny's collar back on and adjusted it a little. I had a little talk with her while I caught my breath, and petted her.

When I got back up to take her home, behind where I had been sitting, I found a lucky penny. A reminder that god is always with me.