TheBanyanTree: Birthday

[Tom Smith]

It's been an exciting day.  I got up around 2am, rarin  to go. 
Since I've been retired every day is officially a holiday. 
Today began with a Morning Page in a brand new spiral binder. 
Anybody out there do Morning Pages?  I was happily amused that
that first page accidentally turned out to be on my birthday. 
Lately life for me has been like a total immersion art project.

When I came home from Home Depot (they open at 6am) with a bag
full of parts for an irrigation project, Barbara was sitting
out front on the glider. She said "You're not going to be
happy."  

Turned out the dog we adopted about a year ago had gotten out
again.  He has been a serious challenge.  Very resourceful.  If
he can't dig under a fence, he'll climb one.  Twice his height. 
When he gets out, he goes and waits by a gate to be let back
in, wagging his tail in celebration of scoring one on me, and
taking over that day and sometimes a few others trying to
figure out how to keep him in. Just when I figure I've figured
it out, he finds a different way out.

The next surprise of the day, tossing my "plans" out the window
was the discovery of a stray pekanese in our neighbor's yard,
that was driving our dogs nuts.  Our neighbor is temporarily in
a hospital, and we have been taking care of things for him. 
The stray looked old, tired, and a little scared.  Didn't move
or bark.  Had a white leather collar.  Looked similar to a dog
I'd seen at the end of the block.  Went and asked an old Asian
working outside there if their dog was missing.  I don't think
she understood English very well.  She fetched a young boy and
I asked him.  He looked around for their dog and then at the
old woman who I'll just call his grandmother.  I touched my
neck and said "white collar."  That seemed to be a huge
confirming breakthrough and soon we were all on our way to
check out the dog.  I pointed to it in a far corner of the
yard, and the boy went over for a closer look and called to it
by name.  The grandmother picked it up by the front legs, it's
rear hanging down, and sort of waddled off with it.  I thought
there very few worse ways to carry a dog, but said nothing. 
The boy took the  dog, set it on the ground, and led it home,
wagging it's tail.  

A much prettier sight sight than candle smoke.