Today, I rollerbladed for the first time, held hands with my new boss and fought off a pair of coyotes who aimed to have George for dinner.

My boss is a cheerful woman about my age who works and plays hard. She is happily married to her college sweetheart, who works downtown. Not only does she need help with her burgeoning home-based marketing business, I believe she is lonely. So, too - the new kid in town - am I. This promises to make for an interesting relationship.

For blog purposes, since I haven't asked permission to use her name, I will call her Jenny.

We had a concentrated, but good day of work and at the end - since I'd complained that I knew no one and had no plans - she suggested we go rollerblading. I told her this would be amusing for her, excruciatingly painful and humiliating for me. Particularly since I was wearing a mini skirt. But she insisted I try. She found a pair of blades for me and we loaded into her Jeep and drove to the trail head.

I sat on the grass, facing away from the street, to strap the shoes on. There was no way to do it without the skirt hiking up to obscene levels. By facing away, I felt I was saving the traveling public, perhaps preventing a horrid crash.

I surprised myself when I actually stood up, and did not immediately go crashing to the ground. I surprised myself further when I rolled down the trail. The speed began to build - from 1/32 miles per hour to 1/16. Terrified, I flung myself off the trail and onto the grass. I stumbled, but stayed upright.

All of this was normal, Jenny said. I was doing wonderfully.

We continued on at a snail's pace, she coaching me with remarkable patience, blading confidently backward so she could observe my progress. After hurling myself into the grass several more times, I made it down the hill that no biker would even have noticed was there. Then, we came to an equally tiny uphill. My boss rolled up it slowly, gracefully. I simply stopped. Like the wheels of a car stuck in snow, my feet shuffled back and forth. But I went nowhere.

She turned around. "What is that you're doing?"

"This is for your amusement," I said. "I could go if I wanted to."

Jenny held out her hand. "I'm not gay, take it," she said. And she pulled me up the little upgrade onto more level ground. She instructed me to push out, one by one, with my feet. This produced forward motion, which was actually pretty cool. We rolled hand in hand for no more than a minute, underneath massive trees, past a flood-swollen stream, me in my mini-skirt, she in practical, smart khaki pants. I wished for a camera.

The whole experience went far better than I'd expected.

"What else haven't you done?" she asked when we returned safely to the car. "You ever golfed?"

"Mini," I said. "That's it."

"That's no good," she said. "Next Friday, if you don't have anywhere you have to go, I'm taking you out on the golf course."

Next Friday, I predict, someone will get clocked in the head with a golf club. I only hope I do it to myself.

By the time I got home, the sun was progressing speedily west. I decided it was time to put George to the test. I packed him under my arm, tucked Ally's leash into my free hand and led us all to the wide, open, rolling field behind our complex.

There, I set him down, leash-less and harness-free. My fear had never been so much that he'd run away, as that he would freak out in our strange, new setting, perhaps bolt out of sight and get lost. Even more so, that in an area so much more dog- and people-concentrated, someone - human or dog - would stake their claim on him.

I held my breath as he looked around his new environs, cautiously looking back over one shoulder toward the Jack Russll terrier and his master disappearing behind us in the distance, then over to the weeds blowing in the wind on all other sides. He dropped to the dusty path and rolled in the dirt. His eyes had a wild glint in them.

Satisfied, he did what he's always done - trotted along after me and Ally like a little dog. George hadn't been free in 10 days. The joy was obvious in his every move. He sometimes raced ahead of us in excitement, then dropped again to give himself a dirt bath, careened off into the field, then veered back onto the trail with us. I got caught up in his feline joy and sprinted along with him for a few yards. He seemed to know it was a playful race and added a burst of speed to jet past me.

And then, I saw them - two gray shadows zipping silently toward us in the dusk. It was a pair of coyotes.

I grabbed George so fast I scared him.

Ally ran toward the coyotes, and they circled around her. They appeared to be playing, darting in and out on all sides of her. She growled, yipped and whirled in an attempt to keep them both in her sights.

I did not fear for her life - she outweighed the two of them together - but I did fear for her heels.

Coyotes, I've been told, seek to render large prey helpless by tearing the Achilles heel. This seemed clearly their approach to Ally. I watched as one pranced in front of her, keeping her eyes forward, while the other dove in behind her tail and nipped its teeth at her back legs, narrowly missing its mark. I could almost admire their technique if it hadn't been my dog they were plotting against.

We had seen coyotes many times before when we hiked in a forested park near our Colorado Springs home. But there, they had only occasionally shadowed us from the bushes and never had emerged into the open, much less given chase. This was open prairie, without a tree in sight, and apparently, the rules were different here.

My dog is about 75 pounds of black, silky hair and muscle. She is loyal. Other dogs excepting, she is gentle. She is beautiful. But I've never been sure that she's overly smart.

Perhaps her reaction was the same as any other dog's would have been. She charged the coyotes over and over. When she ignored them, they hung back, seemingly bored. But Ally couldn't resist and back she'd return to them for another feral dance.

I could do nothing to stop their freakish game with Ally, for George had seen them, too. His little body tensed. His claws emerged from their pads. He moaned and twisted, trying to escape my clutches so he could flee the coyotes.

This wasn't an option. Smart as he was, I knew he wouldn't get far. In my mind, I had a sudden vision of George running across the field and a coyote floating ghostlike up behind him, then plucking him up from the ground into its mouth.

I held onto him fiercely, even as his claws dug into me with equal fierceness. He didn't scratch. He sought purchase, his claws making tiny punctures in my arms. He tried to climb up the side of my neck, my shoulder, my arms, anywhere.

I yelled at the coyotes, adding to the confusion. I lunged forward toward them. This made them retreat, but only for a few seconds, and whenever I stepped closer to them, George writhed maniacally. I couldn't bend to pick up rocks to throw at the coyotes; my arms were too full of orange tabby.

The pair of them continued circling us for at least five minutes - an eternity when you're clutching an animal rigid with terror and watching helplessly as your other pet grows weary and confused by the games only wild animals know.

We crossed up high on the ridge, next to the golf course where three men on riding mowers worked. This did the trick. The coyotes faded back.

George wiggled again to get down, but still I refused.

Ten minutes later, when we were safely back on the complex grounds, I placed him gently on the sod. He shook himself off, looked over both his shoulders, then resumed his business-like trot a few yards behind us.

We are home safe now. I can hear someone's stereo thumping from another apartment somewhere on this floor. I note that the parking lot is less than half full. It's a hot July Friday night - people are out celebrating.

And while I'm as anxious as ever to make friends and be out on the town with them, I've had my own Friday night walk on the wild side. For now, that will have to be enough.