Sophie and the chicken bone: a tale of gluttony

Last night I gnawed on a chicken leg for supper. Left the bone, the rest of my pasta, and some napkins on the plate next to me as I finished a piece of computer work. When I went to scrape the remains into the garbage, there was no bone. The only possible culprit? Sophie, who is a practiced and successful food snatcher. Honest, it was right by me, and I never saw her execute that little half jump by which she grabs food, but it was all I could think of.

Of course, I was semi-frantic! Mt dog had a chicken bone! I once watched a puppy stagger down a hall, fall over and die because it had chewed on a basket and gotten a sliver in its lungs. You can imagine the visions that were going through my head. Sophie seemed fine and gave me a bland look when I asked if she had stolen the chicken bone. I warned Jordan so that her dogs wouldn’t find it in the yard, and much later I saw her outside with a flashlight looking for that blasted bone.

Sophie apparently has not learned a lesson, because she’s had no ill effects. On the other hand, I am the one who suffered. We’re all familiar with three o’clock in the morning worries. This morning mine were all about Sophie. I thought sure if she was in distress I’d hear her throwing up or laboring to breathe, but the cottage was still and quiet. I got up and thumped around with my walker—couldn’t find Sophie. Pretty hard to lose a dog in 600 square feet but there is one chair she gets behind. I opened the refrigerator and called,”Cheese.” It brought her running, and she seemed fine. This morning she sought me out because it was thundering—I’m never sure if she’s scared or protecting me.

Vet says this morning to watch her for vomiting, but I believe we dodged a bullet. And I learned a lesson about keeping scraps well away from the edge of the desk or table of whatever.

On another food note, I had a delightful lunch with an old friend I reconnected with on Facebook in recent years—one of the great benefits of Facebook. Ellen came to tell me the stories of her visits with elderly Scottish women when she was there in the 1970s and walked from village to village. I was enthralled, and, of course, both she and I are hoping this is material for the book I’ve always wanted to write about Scotland. She gave me a great feel for it, though there’s lots of research ahead of me. An exciting prospect.

I thought a good old Scottish girl would appreciate salmon for lunch, so I did a dish of spinach fettucine, asparagus, smoked salmon, dill, and lemon. The recipe called for whole cream but I decided to make it my own recipe and left the cream out, added much more lemon. It was great, if I do say so.

Ellen and I will talk about Scotland again, with me taking copious notes. We met over Carin terriers—a nice tie to Scotland—and had Western Writers of America in common after that. So nice to reconnect after all these years.