Poor Dog

It’s been the kind of weekend where, when the dog is standing there on the sidewalk seemingly undecided about whether to come in or go pee or maybe just lay down and die, you ask yourself–“Is it possible the dog is hung over?”

Poor Mrs. Wigglebottom, she could not look any more pitiful.  Her eyes are kind of droopy and her tail hangs down in the most pathetic way and she is not that excited about raising her head too high.  And standing in the sunlight seems to leave her dazed.  Even now, she doesn’t want to come up on the couch.  Which is weird behavior indeed for her.

You can see why I wondered.

But then the hacking cough started.

Dear readers, I think the dog has a spring cold.

I want to tell you about her exciting day, yesterday, but I wasn’t here for the end of it, so I don’t know if it ended in tragedy or not.  But when I left, she had spent the whole afternoon…

Oh my god.  I can’t believe I’m about to write this.  I’m afraid to write it for fear that something happened after I left.

So, what I’m about to tell you, let’s take with a huge grain of salt.  Maybe things went horribly wrong after I left and since the Butcher is still gone from his out all night plans I haven’t been able to hear.  Maybe she’s moping around because she’s a mass murderer.

Caveat, caveat, caveat.

But by the time I left to go to Kat’s thing, Mrs. Wigglebottom had spent the whole afternoon HANGING OUT WITH OTHER DOGS!!!!!!! in the back yard.

And it was fine.  After a while, even, she got bored and spent about a half an hour trying to con someone, anyone, into taking her on a car ride.  Then she seemed to want to go in, but she didn’t want to be alone in the house.  But it was fine.

I don’t know if this is because these are the same dogs that always come over and we’ve always just made Mrs. Wigglebottom stay in the house, so she already knew their smell or what, but it was nice, and I hope it stayed that way after I left.

And I don’t know where the camera went or I’d post you a picture, because we went out yesterday to discover that the front yard irises have bloomed.  And they are amazing.  The bottom parts are dark purple and the top parts are lighter, with this yellow splash in the middle and the nandina, which I think I remember I told you decided not to die, is this fiery red behind them and it’s like…

I mean, let’s be honest.  I’m not that great a photographer and our camera is not that great.  But if it catches even one quarter of how beautiful that corner of the front yard is, I cannot wait to show you.

The thing that just kills me about it is that every time I go out in my yard and see something new, I feel like these people who lived here before me left me another present.  I mean, not me in particular.  That would be nice, in its own way.  But it makes me feel so warmly towards them that they left this beauty for anyone who came after them.  They or their nephew I guess, who didn’t just dig everything up in order to “clean” the house up for sale.  Anyway, that family.

That that family would have that small and hardy hope that, if they left this stuff, someone might appreciate it just makes me feel so good towards them.

And that it’s me who gets to benefit from it?

I feel very, very fortunate.

I think that’s the thing about a beautiful flower, when you see it where it grows.  You can’t help but feel lucky that fate has brought you to the right place at just the right time to see it.