Spa day

Skinny, clean Sophie.

No, not for me! I’m not a spa day kind of a person, though my daughters are. Today was a spa day for Sophie, and I am so relieved. I predicted she would lose five pounds when trimmed and groomed, and while we haven’t weighed her, she looks so much thinner. My Colin had said that she was getting broad across the beam, and I did worry about her gaining weight. I also worried about her being dirty—she was out in all kinds of weather, seeming to love the cold, running and chasing squirrels through dirt and flower beds and whatever. And I admit there was a certain eau d’doggie about her.

I had let her go too long by the time I called for a grooming appointment and then, when it was finally scheduled, an ice storm cancelled it. So today, at long last Nathan, the wonderful young man who grooms her, came to the house. When he brought her back, looking like a new dog, he admitted there was a lot of dirt in her coat and said he thought she felt a lot better with all that extra fur and dirt gone. So tonight I am loving having a clean, fairly thin—okay reasonably proportioned—dog.

Highlight of my day was not so much fun but then again not serious, just a slight inconvenience. Jordan had to drive me to the cardiologist’s office at 8:45 this morning—far too early for me—to be fitted with a Holter monitor for 24 hours. No big deal. The doctor thinks a slight adjustment of medication is needed but wanted to check first, and I’m grateful for the precaution. Though tonight I am “wired,” literally. I have stuck the monitor itself in my jeans pocket—guess who will be sleeping in her clothes!

Other than that, a typical workday. I am moving ahead rapidly on the Irene mystery, even if tonight it was after eight o’clock before I turned to it. The day seemed to go by with emails and news briefs—I cannot tear myself away from the horror in Ukraine nor from the worldwide condemnation of Russia. Dinner was all fixed—Jordan made our favorite casserole Saturday for a neighbor who had surgery, so we feasted tonight on the extra she made for us.

One of those nights when I literally don’t have much to say. Maybe that’s a blessing. But I did want to share the picture of clean Sophie and to wish everyone well. We are living in unforgettable times. I read a commentator who said today our world will never go back to being what it was before the Ukraine invasion. So think about what we’ve lived through in the last two or three years: a pandemic which killed hundreds of thousands of our neighbors, an unprecedented snow and ice winter (and almost a second one this year), an attempted coup against our government, a contested election which has never happened in our history, and now a violent, greedy land-grab invasion. Granted, it’s in a distant land, but the world is small these days. Isolationism is impossible (sorry, Mr. trump) and what happens anywhere in the world impacts all of us. My take? This invasion of Ukraine will separate the true patriots for the selfish, sunny-day people who yell a lot about freedom and democracy but understand neither and do nothing to protect them.

God Bless America!