Letter From Home

Hello, beloved. I hope all is well where you are now.

It is hot outside, here. Hotter than it should be, hotter than I like it, which may be why I waited longer than usual to take the trash out. Bein’ off at the moment, the trash usually goes out at two, but today I waited an extra half hour, and thus, when I rose to collect it, Sunny was more’n a little excited.

Y’see, the normal routine is that every day at two, I take the garbage out.

On the way back in, I water the flowers in the front yard. Sunny goes berserk, barking like mad. We then go in the back yard to water the plants on the deck. Sunny gets worked up like CRAZY.

And THEN we WATER THE DOG, an event which is surely Christmas, Birthday, and Payday, all wrapped into one glorious doggy picture, as Sunny gleefully chases the stream of water from the hose around, barking and biting and whuffling, chuffling and choking and still biting the stream like her worst enemy, and getting soaked in the process.

It’s hot out there. Probably feels good.

But today, we had a bit of an alteration in the routine. It all went okay, right up until we stepped out onto the back deck to go turn the faucet on, right?

Well, as I mentioned, Sunny was SERIOUSLY worked up. She’d apparently been anticipating this, and was as cranked up as a five year old at two in the morning on Christmas Morn, you know?

You might also remember that I keep a big pot with the cherry tomato growing in it in the exit to the deck on the left, the way I have to go to get to the faucet, right?

So I’m about next to that big pot with the tomato growing in it when suddenly, POW, out of nowhere, I have a Moment of Discontinuity.

One minute, I’m walking across the deck. Next minute, I’m flat on my back on the deck. And for some reason, I have no pants on.

Since I’m off today, my uniform consists of a T shirt and ... you remember those ratty old shorts, the ones two sizes too big that have the Atari logo all over them? That.

I sat up on the deck. I’d bumped my head on the wood, but not hard, and was preoccupied with avoiding splinters and figuring out what had happened to my shorts. Wha’HOPPEN?

In the yard, Sunny was running blindly around with my shorts on her head. She ran in circles twice, and then plowed into the back of the garage. She’d tried to squeeze between me and the tomato pot, gotten her head hung up in the floppy leg of my shorts, and had kept going, being a largish dog, and had accidentally yanked my pants off, knocked me on my can, and was now confusedly running around the back yard, with my shorts on her head, completely blind.

Well, I can tell you, it was a bit of a moment. I stood up and stood there, my dangles flapping in the breeze, while Sunny staggered around the back yard, unable to get my shorts off her head. I stepped forward, intending to go GET her, but then stopped. After all, our backfence neighbors have a fairly clear view of our backyard. I had no great urge to be videoed and become a YouTube star, chasing the dog around the back yard all Donald Duck style.

Sunny tripped and fell down. She barked twice, and got up again. Bark!

I whistled.

The effect was immediate; Sunny suddenly knew where ONE thing in the universe was, oriented on it, and ran at it full tilt. Only some alacrity on my part kept her from plowing into me. I grabbed her collar, and extricated her from my trousers, and upon dressing myself, the usual water hose games and plant watering commenced.

So how was YOUR day?

6/24/18

Still miss Sunny Dog.