Friday, November 28, 2008

There's always the weather.

I suppose when I can't think of anything else to write I can fall back on the weather. I needed a jacket when I walked the dog this morning - but I could feel that it was warmer, the air was heavier, and it smelled like rain. It has looked all day like it might rain, but it's held off so far. This afternoon when I made my sojourn to the post office, I didn't need a jacket.

I suppose weather bores people to tears sometimes. But without weather, I would not got into one of my pondering spells about something absolutely meaningless, as I am want to do. All too frequently, apparently.

A few days ago it rained. After it stopped raining, and the ground was still wet, I noticed about a millon dog paw prints on the front porch. And that got me thinking about the relationship between dog paws and people feet. Specifically, since dogs have 4 feet, it stands to reason that they would take twice as many steps as humans. Or does it, does careful observation support that hypothesis? Because, it looked to me like there were hundreds of dog paw prints on that porch, all caused by one dog - Pickles T. Dog. So I observed a little closer, and noticed that frequently, the dog only seems to be standing still, she's actually moving her feet around. Sometimes she moves her front paws and not her back, sometimes her back and not her front. But I think she takes way more than twice as many steps as a normal human does. So, the fact that she has 4 paws compared to a human's two feet, does not mean she only takes twice as many steps as a human. I think it's probably 50 to 60 times as many.

So this little tidbit added to the knowledge of humanity would not have been possible without the weather. It had rained and I had noticed paw prints.

I realize this is not much new knowledge, and perhaps not important, but if you had the proper scientific instruments you could measure it, and add it to the weight of knowledge in the Great Library of Alexandria, which unfortunately doesn't exist any more.

And if you've read this far, I have to wonder about ya.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I read the whole thing. Anyone who has ever cleaned up after a dog or kid or husband for that matter knows this simple fact - all of them make twice as much mess as they should.

Now about your dog moving when it's standing still? Would you please make a video of that sometime? I'd like to see that when it's happening.

A Valdese Blogger said...

Anon: pick any ol' dog and watch.

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