Bad Dog

I love my dog child, but he gives me agita sometimes.

On Saturday, he bit the mailman. I can hardly blame him. M was mowing and the noisy stinky machine is one of his most hated objects. He was barking and charging it for what seemed like an eternity. Throw in a couple of neighbor boys chasing each other around the yard and deck with foam bulleted rifles and you have a dog on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The mail carrier was just the last straw. He didn't break the skin, but we're awaiting his second warning letter, and hoping that mail delivery and pick up will continue.

Last night, I arrived home late, in the dark and chill and rain to discover that he'd gotten out somehow. This was not the first time. I pulled on my Point Arena Lighthouse raincoat and opened an umbrella and wandered the neighborhood calling to him. As I trod the asphalt, I wondered if he actually was just back in the garage, lying low til I got home. I wondered if a neighbor had found him and taken him in, never to return him. Would he be happy with his new family? Or would they hurt him? I wondered if he had been picked up and spirited to the local animal shelter. Thanks to M, I wondered if he had squirted through the fence, agitated by the arrival of the mail carrier, and had been captured and hauled away to the pound. I imagined myself stapling posters to telephone poles and stuffing them into front door handles and knocking on neighbors' doors. I felt a great deal of guilt as I imagined how pleasant it would be to plan getaways and vacations that did not involve pet friendly hotels or dog sitting or making arrangements to hand him off to Mom in Boonville, much as another excuse to see Mom would be welcome. I imagined the days ahead, unable to concentrate, wondering what had happened to him.

All this in the space of a few blocks. I headed back to the house thinking I'd check on my theory of him hanging around and laughing at me calling him. Well, not laughing, but feeling reassured and wanted. As I reached the driveway, the soaked little mutt ran up from who know where, curving his wet little body into parentheses of happiness to see me, oblivious to my worry and guilt. I brought him in and dried him off and was glad that he smelled better than he has in weeks, washed by the rain. I wondered where he'd been all this time. And of course he refuses to tell me.

Wordle of Flying Triangle

Wordle is a fun tool I've seen a few people use and thought I'd try it myself. It creates a little collage of words based on their frequency of usage. Funny to know how much I use "little." I'm sure this post will boost "little" even more! This also inspires me to try to reduce my usage of "get"--I think it's kind of a lazy word...

Blankie

Now I can finally move on to other projects!

Trigger: Pulled

After months of comparisons and mulling, we did it. Well, M did: Yesterday, on the way back from picking up the TV console I had ordered last month from the Macys in Novato, we detoured to Best Buy and picked up a shiny new 40" TV. We watched "Million Dollar Baby" on it last night--such a change after six months of consuming shows on the laptop! They didn't have the right Blu-ray player--M wants the same brand as the TV, a Samsung, so we don't have to use two remotes and apparently Samsung is phasing their current models before introducing a new one, so we'll have to make do with our regular DVD player for a bit. I think we can manage. The console took months to find, but it's worth it--it's the right color wood, the right dimensions (barely--the door has only about a quarter inch of clearance), and it looks like the last books and DVDs will just fit. Whew. We've made some good finishing-touches strides in the past couple of weeks around the house, and that makes me feel better.

I'm happy to report that the knitting class had its intended effect and I've picked up Myla's blanket project again. Progress is being made! If all goes well, it should be done before she's actually too old for blankies. Another stimulus was finding an adorable baby dress pattern that I'd like to try, and there's no way I could start that without finishing the blanket first. Smaller, more manageable projects are a great thing about knitting projects for kids…

I notice a funny dynamic in my gym class now and again. Most of my classmates are women, but we have a few men joining us every once in a while. There's one young man who comes who also plays in a band and is very good about letting people in the class know when and where he's playing. There's one gal in the class who I can tell tries to get his attention. It's made a little more painful because she's a bit strident about it. (Maybe she can't help it, she's just loud-ish, pushy-ish in general--she's the lawyer who was disdainful when I asked if she had graduated from M's alma mater.) He's polite--he wants her to come to his shows--but focuses instead on the teacher, Skipper's human doppelganger. Just as he gives the lawyer the brush off and turns his googly gaze to Skipper, attempting to coax a commitment out of her that she'll come to the show, she gently gives him the same treatment, smiling and answering vaguely, but not reciprocating his interest. I wonder if the parties involved are aware of this same chain of desire.

Well, the neighborly music has cranked up, so Superbowl preparations are officially underway. M and I are going to a friend's apartment--he's having a small party, the same place and people where we watched the championship game. Which means I won't really know many people there, but once more into the social breach. The weather is gorgeous today and perfectly clear for the first time in months. Time to walk the dog before the party and enjoy the sunshine while I can.