It was a pretty warm day today compared to how awfully cold it's been lately. Dan and I went out to find a cache. It turned out to be frozen under some water and leaves that had accumilated in the hiding spot (it was put back wrong by the last finders) and turned out I couldn't log it after all.

However, when we first got to the spot it appeared that there was no easy way to the cache but down the side of a hill. Back in 2003 on Dec 9th I ended up in the hospital and then suffering from horrible panic attacks due to having set my difibrillator attempting to climb back up a hill very much like the one I saw today. It scared me and I suggested that I just stay in the car. Dan immediatly put the car in gear and wanted to leave and snapped at me about not wanting to do the cache by himself. I felt just awful.

I got out of the car and pretty much figured that even if I set the dang thing off I was going to do that cache no matter what. Come hell or high water, I had a point to make. How stupid is that. I really wish that I didn't have this stupid defibrillator. No one understands how much it hurts when it goes off. I can't explain to anyone how scary it is. I feel like the biggest loser when I can't do the things I used to be able to do. Much like the gingerbread man above, I am damaged goods. :(

On a lighter note, after finding a better route the cache and not finding it (the cache owner called me later to tell me he had to dig it out of hiding) upon getting back to the car, a black dog came racing over to me. Have you ever met one of those really smart dogs that you can tell is trying to talk to you. She would look at me a little frantic and then sniff the ground. She was asking for help...she was lost. I opened the car door and she gort in. We drove around the park a few times and tried to see if she recognized anyone out for a walk. We also drove around the neighboring homes to see if she responded. Once during the ride around the park, I opened the door and she hopped out. There was a woman there with two black dogs and she stood next to me while I asked the woman if the dog might be hers. Of course she wasn't. The dog didn't run to the other dogs and when I asked her to, she got right back into the car.

I noticed a rabies tag on her collar and called the vet. I got an answering machine that told me if there was an emergency I could call this other number. I did and a man answered. I apologized for having to bother him on Christmas Day and explained to him that I had found this beautiful black dog and she was so well behaved and intelligent. He drove into his office and looked the number up and called me back. He said the owners didn't live anywhere near Deming Park where I had found her. We took her to the vets office where he is keeping her until the owners return his call. If they don't call him back in a couple of days, I am going back to get her and she will become mine. :) She was so sweet. So although I didn't find the cache today, I might have found a new friend. :)