Dogs, family, and work

 

Obi at my feet

Neighbor Amy brought her new pup to visit tonight. He’s an 11-month-old British Golden Retriever, which means he’s white, not golden. He is one of the rare ones, however, that has one big black spot on his side. I’d love to know the story behind that. He’s sort of not named yet—in fact, Amy alternated between calling him No-Name and Obi, because she says his name is to be Obi as in Obi Kenobi. I think she should start calling him by that name to get him used to it, but it’s not my business. At any rate, Obi seemed to like me, and several times ended up under my chair At one point, he gave one of my feet a thorough licking cleaning. He also didn’t seem to like the steps up to the deck, so he’d stumble through the pentas—which did neither him nor the pentas any good. Once he got stuck halfway onto the deck and looked for a minute like he was just going to relax in that position and forget about going anywhere. I love Sophie, but I do miss big dogs.

My family is home tonight. They’ve been in Granbury for two nights. Rented a lake house with a pool, scooped up two of Jacob’s buddies, and went off to celebrate his fifteenth birthday. The boys swam, fished, and prowled nearby parts of the lake in a paddleboat.

Boys paddleboating on Lake Granbury
The way a fifteen-year-old should celebrate his birthday

The paddleboat brings back memories, because my boys spent hours fishing from one in a friend’s lake in East Texas. Jordan sent one idyllic picture of the deck at daybreak when she sat, quiet and alone, having a cup of coffee. It made me wish I was with them.

Jordan's quiet, early morning moment on the deck

When they’re gone, I always feel like I’m not quite relaxing, not putting my full weight down, and I’m glad when they come home. Tonight, I thought we’d all have supper together—the plan was to order our favorite sub sandwiches from Great Outdoors. A bit of disappointment when Jacob brought my sandwich out to me, and I realized I was not going to have company for supper. Shoot! I had more company when they were out of town.

Otherwise, an unremarkable day. I finally got the neighborhood newsletter off to the designer and printer. Somehow this time that stretched into a three- or four-day project, when it usually takes a day or a bit more. But I did also rough out an essay I want to submit for a volume of Mystery Readers Journal that will be devoted to Texas Mysteries. So I feel I have accomplished some things today. No cooking, which was a relief for a change.

After a one-day respite, we are back to hot and humid weather—so still that when I felt the least stirring in the air and said, “Oh, there’s a bit of a breeze,” the kids laughed at me.

Stay cool, everyone. If you’re in Texas, staying cooler is a bit easier if you turn off as many lights as possible. We’re still, supposedly, protecting our fragile electric grid.