kvetching up

" (Tick Tock Tick) Doo Doo Doo-Doo "  Friday night. It's lovely and quiet. Willow and I spent a lot of quality time in the yard. She was sniffing at things and occasionally playing with me which entails running at full speed across the yard and back again. She also likes to run between my legs. She either finds it hilarious or  Backyard on 4.3.2026 she knows (and also finds hilarious) the terror I hold that she might see a squirrel as she is running between my legs.  So, I am alternating between terror and belly laughs, when I look up into a Douglas fir on my property. And there it is, big as life.  I pull out my camera and start snapping. No telling how long he'd been there. We were outside for 45 minutes. S/he just sat there looking majestic. Fearing Willow might spook the animal, I coaxed her inside. I snapped the image above from my living room window.  It's been a stupidly long week. A good week, but extraordinarily lonnnnnnnnnng. That said.  .  ...

I'm tired  of drinking weak coffee. I am tired of posting weak stories. I am tired of the insanity of my job. I am, to put it more simply, tired. It's 6:30 in the morning, I woke up on the couch. Whenever I wake up, be it from a middle-aged accidental nap at 3:00 in the afternoon or to nature's call at 4 a.m., Willow is instantly next to me, begging to be let outside or for a treat. This morning I stirred at 5:02 a.m. Willow was soon punching me--always with her left paw( the size of a children's catcher's mitt)--is she a southpaw? Can dogs be "handed?" Work, which I never write about, is fucking relentlessly stupid. It constantly keeps me on edge. So many reasons. The current fiasco has the leaderless department--reassigning the work of my colleagues and I. I now have more territory than anyone else, and more difficult territory than my colleagues. They gave my smooth running turf--that took me years to get in order--to someone who isn't pulling their...

"Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!    Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,--act in the living Present!    Heart within, and God o'erhead!" from A Psalm of Life by Henry Wordsworth Longfellow Sunday is lovely.  Its close to 10 p.m.  Jenny is soaking her aching hip and back in the tub. I just returned from Safeway with Abby, who rested her forehead on my shoulder while we were there.  A banner moment, perhaps not, but such a rare occurrence it has to be acknowledged.  Jenny woke this morning with horrible pain.  Horrible. The pain woke her.  She medicated and then came to see me.   I worked in the back yard all day. Mowed, scooped, edged, pruned, turned over flower beds, added fertilizer.  Planted wildflowers, sunflowers, corn, pumpkin and a sole perennial. It was glorious.  I'm especially happy that the wind chimes hanging from the willow are now making music again.  The yard is a place that Jenny can spend with...