Sophie’s Revenge

 

Sophie's idea of a good time.

This morning, Sophie was fed and outside at, heaven help me, five-thirty. And again, at seven-fifteen. So when she asked again at seven-forty-five, I decided “No.” She could not possibly need to use the restroom again so soon. I suspected the Cavaliers from the house were outside, and she wanted to go harass them. I told her “No,” turned over in bed, my back to her

I could hear her nails clicking on the floor as she did a dance of impatience by my bed. Finally, I flung back the covers in a dramatic gesture that sent her retreating into the kitchen. I called her to me, talked sweetly but firmly, loved on her, but held firm. I figured even if I had to end up getting out of bed one more time, she was not going to bully me.

She danced and she barked, talking back to everything I said. But gradually, she seemed to get the point. I went back to dozing—mornings for me are a great time, in that sort of half-sleep state, to plot the day’s work. This morning I was figuring out what came next in Irene’s Texas adventure. I heard a strange noise but was only dimly aware of it.

Half an hour later, I got up, let Sophie out into the yard, and only then noticed that she had raided the bathroom wastebasket. Kleenexes were strewn all over the living room and hall outside the bathroom. She came back in as I was using my grabber to clean up, and I fixed her with a long look and asked, “Did you do this?”

She turned her head away from me, as though if she didn’t look, I wasn’t really there. I repeated the question, and she tried to edge away, with the funniest look of guilt on her face. I used the “Shame” word a couple of times and told her conversationally how disappointed I was in her. She never looked at me.

Of course, as the day wore on, we both forgot about it and were back on our usual footing, but I carried that guilty turn of the head with me all day, and it made me smile.

Jordan is home tonight, after a long weekend in Austin celebrating Brandon’s fiftieth birthday. She had requested our family favorite for supper, a beef-and-noodle casserole we call Dori’s casserole after the woman who gave me the recipe. So I spent the morning doing a meat layer and a noodle layer. It probably took me two hours but was well worth it tonight when the verdict as that it was a superb rendition of the recipe. Yes, I had a small second helping. And as Jordan said, it will be even better tomorrow when it has had time to “settle.”

Still, I managed to read the morning’s emails and news before I cooked, and after a lunch of leftover chicken piccata and green bean salad—so good—I managed a thousand new words on Irene. Traced down an order from Origins cosmetics which had never appeared, and they are now resending. Finished the essays assigned to me in the lifewriting contest I’m judging. So all in all it was a good day.

So now to figure out what to cook the rest of the week and read a bit. Nice lazy evening.