Here's what I love

Did you know that it rained on Wednesday? It rained so much all over the northeast, in particular New York and New Jersey, that numerous flights were delayed and many cancelled altogether. In the tiny Burlington airport, only three outgoing flights were still schedule on the departure board when I arrived. The others had the all-caps, red lettered word CANCELLED in the departure status column.

The departure status for my flight read Find a comfortable place to sit because you are going to be here a while.

When many hours later, that flight arrived in Cleveland, the gate agent told me, If you hurry, you can make the flight to Houston. So I ran. I ran through Terminal D, ran down the moving escalator, ran down a long corridor, ran up the moving escalator and ran to my gate in Terminal C. I ran, I tell you, I RAN.

After all that running, I learned when I arrived to the gate, panting and disheveled, I could have crawled and made it to the gate on time because that flight was going nowhere fast. The crew was stuck at La Guardia and the aircraft they were scheduled to fly to Cleveland was sitting on the tarmac at Washington Dulles. Our plane, however, was sitting right there at the gate.

Three hours later, after mulling about the dark and empty airport looking at all the storefront gates closed to any shopping or dining I might want to do, the last flight to leave Cleveland airport, my flight, finally boarded. I happily settled into my seat and promptly fell asleep.

What I loved about the whole experience was my patient fellow travelers and the gate agents who fielded questions and re-routed the desperate and booked back-up flights for many of us in case our flights didn't get out of Burlington, and then again in Cleveland. There was not a single self-important blowhard in the entire bunch. With a mother traveling with SIX children, and another mother traveling with young twin girls, and yet another mother traveling with an infant and toddler, and several business travelers, I was delighted that patience and compassion prevailed yesterday. It's a special combination of a calm and helpful gate agent, and a flexible, understanding traveler.

Everyone working together to make the best in a challenging time, that's what I love.

More about my trip later. After I reduce the volume of dirty laundry and increases my hours of sleep.

As I explain my desire to eat their noses

If you think I'm happy here, you're on the right track

Two of my favorite places in Vermont.

Happiness in living color

The icing on the cake

TODAY'S BIRTHDAY (JULY 25). You develop a strong relationship with yourself this year and will sometimes prefer to walk a solo path to increase your connection to spirit. The deep well of power within you helps you make remarkable changes. August brings love. September brings a pay increase. Seeing new places in November leads to more business. Aries and Libra adore you. Your lucky numbers are: 4, 10, 22, 49 and 15.

This morning I woke up a different age than I was when I went to bed last night. And there you have it, one good night's sleep and suddenly I am a year older.

So, yeah, happy birthday. To me.

In which a Republican smashes my knowledge

My friend Augusta and I have known each other since she was ten and I was 13. Her parents, like mine were, are true conservatives. Traditional, living, breathing Proud Republicans. Except that her father is so conservative that he could make my parents look like Left Wing Liberals, even though my parents had the Republican Banner draped majestically over our piano in the entry way of our house for many, many years.

So you'd think I could say I knew her father fairly well. At least I thought I did until last night at dinner when I was telling Augusta about the man seated next to me on the plane yesterday. That man was reading a company directive on using Twitter to market your skills, More than being a professional, it is important that you use Twitter to promote that you are an expert. The man was in his late 60s and from the look on his face, I was pretty sure he wasn't envisioning his followers.

Augusta understood what I was saying: Oh, it's terrible for older people. Poor Dad let some kid at Radio Shack talk him into buying an IPod Nano so that he could listen to Rush, and Dad cannot at all figure out how to work that thing.

I was shocked. Your father likes Rush?

Of course he likes Rush.

I never knew that. How could I not have known that?

She looked at me. I looked at her.

And then I went there: What's his favorite song?

She looked at me. I looked at her. A lighting bolt of simultaneous recognition shot through our eyes.

LIMBAUGH, she laughed, Rush Limbaugh.

The champagne that I was sipping shot through my nose at that.

Good morning, from Vermont.

Is it too late to rename her Marley?

Right about now, as the plane gained speed on the runway, I would be holding on to the cross that hangs from a silver chain around my neck. My eyes would be closed and I would feel a certain amount of stress fall from my shoulders as the tires lifted from the ground. Right about now, I should be on my way to a week in Vermont.

What's that saying about life getting in the way of plans? I'm officially changing that to LABS getting in the way of plans. One Lab in particular.

Here's another question for you: What do rum cake, boiled shrimp and potatoes, a box of Godiva chocolates, a wheel of Parmesan cheese, a five-pound tenderloin, a plate of brownies, a pound cake, a King Ranch casserole and a Christmas ham have in common with turkey sausage and Rigatoni?

I'll tell you what they have in common. They are all things that over the years Cheyenne has managed to drag off of counters and consume. The latest was last night.

On top of the stove, pushed back against the back splash, presumably out of reach, sat a foil-covered 9 x 13 Pyrex dish of innocent and yummy Rigatoni with turkey sausage, tomato sauce and a lot of cheese melted throughout. Somehow Cheyenne managed to get hold of it and move it to the edge of the stove top and then pull it crashing down to the tile of the kitchen floor. I swear that dog has thumbs. And of course after all that work, there was the reward splattered and shattered all over the floor. Glass be damned, she ate that cheesy turkey pasta right up.

In my cool and collected way of keeping calm and realistic when it comes to all things Cheyenne, I freaked. I didn't simply freak, I FREAKED!! I freaked the kind of freak that is all caps and two exclamation points. Then I called the emergency vet and asked if, given the situation, I should bring her in. Their response was in the affirmative and they suggested that I do so immediately.

On the way to the vet, Cheyenne gagged a bit and coughed up a splatter of drool and blood. Not much blood, mind you, just a little dot, but enough to launch me straight from FREAK into PANIC, which at that moment translated from driving the speed limit to the hell with the speed limit.



We spent the next three hours at the emergency vet, with activities including her vomiting a pound of spaghetti which contained glass, induced vomiting (what the vet referred to as decontaminating her stomach) which contained glass, x-rays confirming punctate mineral debris within the pylorus (aka, glass in stomach) and eating cotton. Eating cotton? Yes, they fed her cotton to snag the glass bits through and out. You get the idea. I learned last night that a dog that will eat Pyrex won't bat an eye when it comes to eating cotton, just soak cotton balls in chicken broth and present to the dog, it's that easy.

Cheyenne took all of this in stride, though I did some pacing and hand wringing.



This morning, instead of flying off to Vermont, I am in the middle of a prescribed 24-hour watch, which includes getting familiar with her poop. Vermont will (fingers crossed) happen for me tomorrow. The bottomless pit glass-eating patient with thumbs is curled up in a brown ball asleep on the chair at the moment, completely unaware of my shredded nerves and rearranged plans.

Recent

It's a Monday night that feels like a Saturday because Wednesday felt like Friday and Thursday felt like a Sunday and have you ever lost all awareness of the calendar because there is precious little in your life that demands a date to be known? This part of my life, this here and now, is like being on vacation, except for the part where I'm not getting paid for my time off.

Oh, and the part where my vacation actually begins on Wednesday, but more on that later.

In the past week I've helped someone buy a new car, lent a hand, folded clothes, burned my finger, wished on a star, kissed, taken two road trips, cleaned up a lot of dog poop, cuddled a five week old puppy, lost a shoe, had fresh strawberries for breakfast, played Scrabble with my nephew, thumped a friend on the forehead for making a cleavage comment, sent a serious email, arrived at a decision, pulled weeds, cooked dinner, savored laughter, walked barefoot in the grass, been stood up, admired a sunset, listened to the wind, smiled at young love, cried over a memory, watched a young red Cardinal sing, prayed for a change, gone swimming, played air drums to a great song, clinked glasses in a toast, lit candles, woke in the middle of the night and stayed awake to witness the night sounds, and slept in late a few mornings.

What I find to be true when it comes to the decision to be in the present is that the flavors of life taste so new, so fresh.

Sunday, moving slow

Yesterday, Cheyenne and I went to visit her strappingly handsome boyfriend, Isaac. He had another girl, Bella, over already but Cheyenne didn't seem to mind that. The more, the merrier seems to be the motto with these dogs.



Although Cheyenne's personal addition to the more, the merrier seems to be, so long as the ball is mine.



Unfortunately for Cheyenne, and more unfortunate for Isaac, that's also Bella's personal addition.



As usual, because Isaac is such a gentleman and an excellent host, he accepted with good measure that his two guests were not going to allow him to get the ball often. When he was able to get the ball, well, Cheyenne would address that situation real quick with a body slam, ear nipping, or near drowning.

Cheyenne is not a very considerate guest.

But she was a happy one, that's for sure.

In less than ten minutes

Recently I was in Austin to help my niece buy a new car. I drove up Wednesday and came back yesterday. Because I have a screw loose in my brain, I had some weird notion that it would be cooler in Austin than it is in Houston. But guess what, not only is it NOT cooler, it's hotter. I almost melted about a hundred times or whenever I walked from air-conditioned house to air-conditioned car.

On Thursday, it was 108 degrees HOT. Merciful heavens, that is hot.

The Austin trip was a good one on many, many levels. There were only two snags, and both of those were on the drive home. Impossibly, even with my occasional screw-loose thinking, in the heat of the late afternoon when we stopped off at a convenience store and parked the car, there next to us was a beautiful brown dog. A beautiful brown dog panting in the heat of the car he was locked in, with one window open about three inches. The hair on the back of my neck stood up in a chill. My friend went into the store and looked at the long line of people waiting at the cash register. She faced the line and asked who had the dog locked in the car. The man that answered it was his dog did so with a leer that said to mind her own business. He bought his items and left.

Later, we stopped at a McDonalds in La Grange to use the facilities. Inside a truck parked in the full sun were three chihuahuas. The truck was off, the windows rolled slightly down. The little dogs went crazy barking when we walked past. My friend stayed outside while I went in the restaurant, and I stayed outside when she went in. Looking at the poor dogs, I felt outrage. A woman came out the of the door and stood looking at me. Are these your dogs? I demanded. She answered that they were. It's very hot in your car, they cannot survive that kind of heat for long. She tilted her head and informed me that there was water with ice left for them. I tilted my head and informed her that it was not enough.

I realize now that in both cases, I should have written down the license plates and reported these people who were abusing their animals. I realize now that ours were the only voices those dogs had, the only voices to speak up for them. Saying something to the owner was not enough. Did those people intend to put their dogs at risk? I doubt it. But they were ignorant to how differently dogs handle heat than humans do.

I've done a bit of research on what happens to dogs when they are left in hot cars. It's not pretty. A car parked in the sun on a day where the temperature is 85 outside, can have its interior temperature rise to 160 in ten minutes. I wasn't sure what our options were but I know now that I should have gone to the manager of that store and of McDonalds. Or, I could have called the police. I thought I did what I could do. I won't be so misinformed on the subject again.

This morning, I apologized to Cheyenne for my ignorance. And then I let her play ball in the house.