Today is the second anniversary of Robbie‘s death. Next month will be 13 years since Jasmine died. Heartdogs. They never leave you. Those two will never leave me physically because I have their ashes and hope to have them mixed with mine someday. More important are the ways heartdogs embed themselves in the soul. My relationship with Ava is more complicated. Sometimes she’s all heartdog; other times she’s more a pain-in-the-ass dog. But someday she’ll join Jasmine and Robbie on the Shelf of Most Special Four-Leggeds.
7 CommentsMonth: July 2018
This morning a codger whose house I frequently pass stopped what he was doing, thrust his chin out, and gave me the Seriously Big Stinkeye. Not for the first time, either. I knew my crime: I was driving five miles an hour under the speed limit. Yes, under. A couple months back he flagged me down and lectured me for going the speed limit (25 mph). He wants the limit reduced to 15 mph. Anybody exceeding that earns his wrath for endangering pets and wildlife (never mind that most of us are pet owners ourselves and the neighborhood tends to…
17 CommentsI wasn’t going to blog today because a) I don’t do “on demand” blogitude on special occasions and b) because the holiday formerly known as Independence Day has gotten so depressing. But I ran into this and remembered that some American traditions are still very much worth celebrating: H/T Never Yet Melted Bear’s got a good reminder, too.
6 CommentsA reviewer implies “Please don’t read this terrific book” Yesterday I stumbled upon an enthusiastic review of a new apocalyptic fantasy novel. The book sounded different and interesting. I nearly stumbled back out again when the first words out of the reviewer’s keyboard were a snotty complaint about how too much SF and fantasy has historically been written by and for white men. The reviewer didn’t literally tell males and Caucasians not to read the new book, but might as well have. The tale sounded terrific, though (once she finally started talking about, you know, the actual plot and characters…
14 CommentsThe Wandering Monk finished up his part of the porch project on Friday. We now have steps. Since then I’ve been working in desultory fashion (and a steady rain) cleaning up the site and making a start on giving visitors a way to get to that nice new porch. The concrete chunks on the sides are only to hold down the black plastic, but the ones in the center might become permanent if they embed nicely in the gravel I don’t yet have. Mostly, I laid this out because I didn’t feel up to hauling all that heavy stuff away.…
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