Santiago is thirteen

Not sure if Subie was offering the birthday boy watermelon or not

but quite sure he didn't like his hat

We never did sing happy birthday, but it was a doggie kind of a party, complete with chili dogs. Santiago is a golden lab, a retired seeing-eye dog, a big old lovable goof, and a notorious counter thief. He sure was eyeing those hot dogs.

Subie and Phil Green invited enough friends to celebrate that one said, “I didn’t know Santiago has this many friends.” We visited, drank wine or beer, ate hot dogs and brownies, and generally had a good time.

The high point of the party came when Subie opened the presents brought to Santiago—squeaky toys and doggie treats of all kinds. Because of his record of banana thievery, he received several bananas and what looked like a sweet potato. Who knows? Maybe he likes those too. Unfortunately, Porter, his replacement as Phil’s guide dog, beat him to the first banana bite. Both dogs got so excited and so anxious for Subie to open each package that they reminded me of pre-schoolers who’d had too much sugar. Hope they settled down and sleep well.

With Jacob at the party

My day started early, with breakfast with the Book Ladies. That ever-changing group of women has met once a month for breakfast since, we figure, the early eighties. At various times, we’ve had women who represented all phases of life with books—bookstore owners and employee, authors, librarians, teachers. Today we have many who simply like to read and come for the conversation, which is always good though not always about books. I often end up in the middle of the table, unable to really hear the conversation at either end. We have anywhere from four to fourteen women. Today there were twelve.

This morning one of them brought me the invitation to a signing party for a book of mine, now probably at least twenty-five years old. A nice memento to have of A Ballad for Sallie, the only book I’ve done about Fort Worth history. The party was at Evergreen Books, a used-book store owned by my dear friend, the late Bobbie Simms.

Highlight was the tale told by my friend Joann, a retired TCU librarian, about the day a strange man, running from the police, broke into her house. He proved to be nonviolent, almost inept as a criminal—something like 27 arrests in the last 15 years. Joann, however, is non-stoppable and she yelled at him, followed him out into the yard as he tried to steal her car (didn’t even pull that off successfully). She was quite calm about it at the time, but she says know she has moments of unease, even sadness.

I may have told you something of Joann’s story when it happened, about two-and-a-half weeks ago. But you may rest assured it will show up in a novel in the future. The wheels of my brain are already turning.

Another hot day, and one of the wall-mounted a/c units in the cottage apparently has a stopped-up drain. Jordan sat under it last night and got wet, so we put a pan down and listened to it drip even after we turned it off. Repairman coming tomorrow. The unit in the bedroom still works, so I sleep happy and otherwise the heat doesn’t bother me. But it does some who come to visit.

Stay cool, everyone. I hope this weather doesn’t mean a hot summer, but crazy as the climate world has been, who knows. Pray for those in Hawaii. And I guess for all of us.