Cowboy Magic

I splurged on an Oster A5 and told myself that I was going to learn how to clip her. I'm getting better, but in her current state... well... let's just say the AKC wouldn't approve.

This weekend, after I brush and scisor her coat, is bath time. I want her to look like a showdog before we watch Westminster.

Warming

It was 35 degrees, the roads were coated with a thick layer of ice, schools and the base and major roads were closed, buses weren't running, and failing power substations left portions of the city without streetlights. But I didn't know about any of it when I walked down the stairs this morning. Mark and the dog were waiting for me so we could drive me to the bus stop and they could continue on to dog daycare. Her wagging tail was thumping on the wall and he stood uncharacteristically with his arms crossed,

Do you know what we both forgot?

I thought about it but couldn't come up with anything. I said as much. He answered,

Our anniversary.

And so it was--the day after our wedding anniversary and he was the first to notice that we'd missed it.

Funny Face

I Love Old Trucks

When I write on a piece of paper, usually deep inside a fat spiral bound notebook, the pen and my brain work together; they take over and the part of me responsible for ordinary thoughts sits back to observe. I rarely know what's going to come from the exercise, which most of the time is the point, and when I get to the end of the paragraph or the page I've usually worked something out. The something is almost always inconsequential, trivial, and useless. But that doesn't matter, because the point isn't to produce the profound but to clear my brain so there's room for day-to-day thoughts and decisions to move around without obstacles. But I'm not able to write like that at a keyboard. I need a topic, and sometimes before I start I even try to figure out the point, which makes for the worst writing ever because when I know the beginning and the end the stuff in the middle comes out as trite and sophomoric. (I might be thinking too much of myself--I might only be capable of trite and sophomoric and the stuff that I don't like is even dreckier than I think.)

-------------------------------------------------------

For the past few weeks the weather here has been stupid cold, but the temperature is rising, and today it's a balmy zero degrees. I think tomorrow it's supposed to get up to 10. Last night I headed out to Target and after about a mile got a flat, and was forced to change it on the side of the highway, in the dark, at -10 degrees. I didn't have my cell phone but I'm not sure who I would have called. A call for help would have been a call asking someone to do something that I can do for myself--and I'd like to think that I'm not that woman. Since the age of sixteen when I got my first flat tire I've been a big fan of the manual because it never steers me wrong, and last night with it as my guide I had the spare off the back, the lug-nuts loosened, and the jack under the car when I took a break to warm up inside. To pass the time I read the manual out loud.  There was a tap on my window. I looked up. A man was standing next to the car and his closeness startled me. He wanted to help. He was driving an old pick-up and was young, without hat or gloves, and was wearing an embroidered Budweiser jacket--similar to a high school letter jacket it had leather sleeves, a wool body, and snaps up the front. It didn't look warm. He removed the tire while I jacked up the car. It doesn't sound like much, but we were both in jeans kneeling in a foot of snow and he was using metal tools with bare hands. It was an act of kindness and I was glad for his company.