Keep People

I missed a week of blogging, I know, but fun with Gayla also meant exhaustion once I returned home. Plus, I’d missed hubs and our puppers, so dinner together, our walk, and sleeping were more important than blogging last week.

What made last week so fun wasn’t just that I got to catch up with Gayla, but I also got to ride along on an Animal Control patrol (think: license to call out to and cuddle random puppers), construct a 3-D puzzle (I love putting together flat packs), and help install a home theater system so we could enjoy an at-home movie night for Gayla’s birthday. And then there were all the floofs. I love Gayla’s bunch, but since we appear to be floof magnets, after she was done with work for the week and we were headed up to Lubbock for the final ingredients for birthday fun, we saw a pup run across a four-lane highway after we were several miles out of town.

And this is one of the reasons Gayla’s a keeper for me: She has a Dodge Charger (muscle car for the uninitiated), so when I yelled about the dog, she said “I see it!” and pulled a move straight out of the Dukes of Hazzard. (I didn’t realize, until I looked it up, that they drove a Dodge Charger, too… though there is a more than 40-year model year gap between theirs and Gayla’s – LOL.) We were traveling in the right lane, she didn’t wait for an authorized U-Turn spot, but quickly just drove down into the gulch separating the north- and south-bound lanes, waited for a small gap in traffic, merged, and pulled off onto the right-hand shoulder without any concern for the possibility of harm to her vehicle. When I rolled down my window and called out to the sweet puppy, his whole body wriggled with his tail wag and his face opened up into a beautiful smile. I carefully opened the door, crouched down, and the little boy snuggled right into my arms. It wasn’t so great when he submission-peed on us and my seat, but Gayla had rags in her trunk so we could mop that up fairly easily too. We were able to get him to the shelter, and he’s now in the adoption program. Guessing his age by the needle-teeth in his mouth, and high percentage of just gums… the little boy was only 10 weeks old. He was super-lucky he didn’t get splatted by being dropped in such an unsafe place, and he gave me the sweetest kisses and cuddles while we brought him to safety. He’s the one at the top of this collage:

I’m really glad he’ll get the chance to grow into the big boy of his puppy promise. The two other puppies in the collage are also in the rescue program. The one on the left is Sonora, who’s now been spayed and is available for adoption, while the one on the right is being fostered so she can heal up from gastritis… and grow up enough to be the nix nutz her squirming in my lap and onto my shoulders as we took her to her vet appointment indicates she will become.

In other words, I got my fill of canine cuddles on my whirlwind trip. And read a few more books while I was in transit between Virginia, Texas, and Virginia.

And came home to a whirlwind week at the day job. So my one link for the week: The historical underpinning of shaving. Which leads to my sidebar question of the week: Why can’t we be more like ancient Egypt in our egalitarianism?

Maybe we should take a tip from UX practitioners and “map” our experiences. Or take a tip during our hiring interviews to screen for empathy.

November is quickly coming to a close, and I’ll be hosting an old friend this week, so I’m coming to terms with the thought that I needed significantly more time off from writing and editing than I’d ever imagined. Getting back to the image included above, which I found this week courtesy Marc and Angel, I’m grateful I have family and friends who encourage and support me even when I’m kicking myself for not finding a way to be more productive. I hope for the rest of you as we enter the season of thankfulness, that you do too. It seems an unfortunate truism that we’re all harder on ourselves than we need to be, so those who remind us that we’re good enough despite our weaknesses are gems of the first order.

On the other hand, my phone says I averaged 5,557 steps per day last week. I’m happy to report Tashie seems to be back to her healthy self with her pulling and endurance, and it shows in our step counts. And hubs and I are still keeping up with our shows. (OMG: Star Trek Discovery left us with a completely unexpected cliff-hanger for its mid-season finale!)

Until next time, here are where my ROW80 buddies are sharing their progress, and I’ll return once more next week to share my own.