New Toys

Inspirational song: Dog and Butterfly (Heart)

I've been a wee bit jealous when watching other people playing with fancy alcohol-based markers. My foster daughter has a big expensive set of these pens, and one of my favorite comic artists (the Oatmeal) has been posting pictures of the things he's doing with them too. I was inches away from using a 50% off coupon at Michaels to buy a set that retails for a couple hundred bucks when Alfred got sick last week, and I suddenly felt bad about spending such a ridiculous amount of money on pens that I might not actually use enough to justify the cost. I still wanted to try them, though. So I cheaped out and bought the store brand (Artists Loft), for significantly less of an investment. I made one simple practice piece when I first got them, and then I got busy doing other things during the week.

Today I wanted to pull them out again, and try something a little more elaborate. I decided to attempt a purple butterfly (because that's the symbol of lupus and for the first time in over 20 years, I have the beginnings of the classic malar rash on my face). My pen set didn't have the exact same purples and cobalts as the photo I copied, but I pressed forward and did the best I could, blending and layering until I was relatively satisfied with the result.

I have to say the pens will take getting used to, but they are fun. I don't yet know whether I'm going to make enough things to justify getting the fancy ones. I'll stick with my cheapo set until I outgrow them. For now, I'm okay with making my own simple designs to color, and not worrying about whether my art is professional looking.

What to Watch For

Inspirational song: Fever (Peggy Lee)

Yesterday I held back a few pictures, knowing in my heart that today would be politely called "boring." I was right. I did as little as I could get away with, and with not much on my calendar for the day, that was extremely little. Yesterday's trip to the mountain was relatively short, compared to recent workdays, but it was just enough to drain my batteries for today. I'm not complaining, mind you. Not looking for sympathy, either. Just explaining why there's no cool new story for today.

Whenever we drive to and from the mountain, I'm always fascinated by the scenery, but I feel limited with what I can capture on a cell phone camera. A fancy DSLR camera would be nice, but it's well down on the priority list of where I want to spend my money. Once in a while I ask for the truck to stop, so I can try with the cell camera, but I'm generally not as successful as I want to be. On the walks I try to find vistas that approximate what I passed to photograph, and I did that again yesterday. There were a lot of places on the 4WD roads where tips of pine and spruce trees had died, where the sun illuminated dots of bright rusty orange in the middle of deep green, and it kept catching my eye. Once we parked, I found a similar but larger cluster, and clicked on it, without really looking at the screen to see what I had captured. Later, on the way off the mountain, the afternoon light was so pretty, but I only stopped a couple of times to memorialize the things I saw. One of these days, the trip to the claim will be less about construction and more about photographic art. I'll just keep these as preliminary sketches of things I'll be watching for on that day in the future when I have better equipment.

It's a Dog's Life

Inspirational song: Everything Comes Down to Poo (Scrubs)

Lots of people might be tempted to look at Murray and think, "Aw, poor dog. He should be pitied, to be a paraplegic, dependent on a wheelchair, unable to climb stairs." Never for a minute should anyone feel sorry for his situation. He has no concept of his disability, and other than not getting to live in the part of my house where the vintage carpets are, he does not let life limit him. Quite the opposite. He lives like SuperDog, especially when he goes on his regular adventures like today.

We humans struggle a little climbing the long steep hill to the mining claim, carrying lumber and construction materials for the tiny cabin. Even Elsa carries her own water and snacks up in a backpack. Murray has only himself and his wheels. Sometimes he needs a little push on the steep sections, or if he gets snagged on a branch or a rock he needs someone to straighten him on the track. Otherwise, he is free to roam the mountain, without a fence or a leash in sight. He knows exactly where to go to hang out with his people friends, and he is content to lie around, digging in the soft soil to find cool spots, and snapping at the sky raisins while we build the cabin.

It's when we get ready to go home that we see just how liberating the mountain hikes are for him. Me personally, I go very slowly down the hill on the way back, trying not to slip and slide on the loose duff, feeling every inflexible tendon from my knees down. Murray, he takes the opposite tack. He points his nose downhill, and he FLIES. Nothing holds him back. He feels no fear. He is as exuberant as an able-bodied puppy. And for his entire life, he has thought of himself as exactly that. He believes he is whole and happy, and he acts accordingly. There's a lesson in there for me, when I feel sorry for myself or mad at my deteriorating body. Murray takes everything life throws at him, owns it, and keeps on rolling.

Before we could leave the house, Murray's wheels had to be washed. He got so excited when he saw the truck, and our neighbor, that he bounced around, following our neighbor's footsteps, leaving a trail of poo in globs that he then rolled in....

...and our neighbor then stepped in before climbing across my seat into the back of the truck. Lucky for me I noticed the poo before I sat in the truck.

Murray feels no shame in his incontinence. It's all part of the package, he insists.

Trudging up the steep section, with Elsa patiently waiting for us to catch up. She stayed pretty close this time around.

Elsa snacking on sky raisins. There were lots when we got there today. Fewer by the time we left. I killed as many as I could, and kicked their insect bodies out of the door.

Wheel time is okay for climbing the hill and dinnertime, but it makes it harder to get into the cabin, while we wait for the ramp to be built.

It's way more fun to be in the cabin with everyone else.

Elsa waiting for more Cheetos and beef jerky.

We have made huge progress in the last couple of trips. There is now sheathing all around the base, halfway up the walls on two sides.

I still have to finish digging the french drain. I'm not going to do more work on it until we repair the handle on the pickax, though.

Now that the door side is sheathed, I am having more trouble getting up into the cabin. Murray and I both need the ramp to be built.

There will eventually be a deck on this side, accessed by the ramp, so Murray and I can chill here in the future.

Heading home at sunset. Slight uphill first, then neck or nothing until he reaches the car.

Cruising

Inspirational song: Rhinestone Cowboy (Glen Campbell)

The problem with spending all of one's time bingeing on national news is it squeezes out the time and mental focus to pay attention to local goings-on. I try to be connected to my little town, but I don't do a good job of it. I got a call around sundown instructing me to make my way over to Main Street, because tonight is one of the few nights of the year when they actually allow "cruising." There are signs up and down the street informing us that cruising is specifically not allowed. I'm not sure this is exactly what we used to do in small town Oklahoma, when we were "dragging" Main. It's close, though. Everyone who had a classic car or a hot rod brought it out, and those people who were trying to go someplace and use Main as an artery were caught in the choking traffic. People were lined up along the street, even as far north as where we live and farther, in lawn chairs along the sidewalks and hanging out of the hatchbacks of their cars in parking lots. Well, in parking lots where they were allowed to congregate. We (my foster daughter and I) made the mistake of pulling into the O'Reilly auto parts store, and parking in one of the open spaces just to the right of the doors. We turned around to look at the cars going past, and the store employee immediately ran out and bitched us out for parking there, because it was reserved for customers. We had not even cleared the back end of the car. How did he know we weren't coming in for parts, but looking at the hullabaloo on the street before we came in? How many customers did he expect late on a Saturday, when this was going on, when he had easily ten open spaces in front of the store? Regardless, my foster daughter moved the car, to the far end of the lot, closer to the sex shop, where a few other people were parked. (Not in the sex shop lot, though--someone parked a car across the entrance sideways, so no one could drive in there. Surprisingly inhospitable there too.) We walked ten feet toward the sidewalk, but not all the way to it, while I commented loudly enough for people sitting there to hear (I know because of how they looked at me), that the store employee lowered the likelihood that I would EVER shop there by 100%.

Once we had gotten into place, far fewer of the cool cars went by than we had seen when we first turned down Main and gotten into the flow of the cruise for a few blocks. I wasn't interested in spending the whole evening there, and I'm not feeling quite so social as to meet people in the blocks-long party. So we just watched for a few minutes for any cool cars to go by. (I think I took five pictures, and it was almost all of the neat ones that passed in that time.) Then we gave up and went home, chatting about my book issues I wrote about yesterday. I closed out the day making more notes about the things I thought up in the last 24 hours since last I had written at length. These hot rods were fun and all, and a pleasant momentary distraction, but I had work to do.

Mighty

Inspirational song: What Is and What Should Never Be (Led Zeppelin)

We just got back from a late dinner. Mr S-P was driving most of the day, so I was the one to ferry us to a chain steak restaurant and back. He was definitely too tired to drive, but it probably wasn't a good idea for me to be steering a motor vehicle in my distracted state. Almost immediately upon getting behind the wheel, my mind wandered, and I started thinking about the story I'm working on, basically the entire way there. We were seated and the first thing I did was to grab a notepad and pen from my purse (#1 benefit from hanging out with title agents and bankers -- tons of notepads and pens as freebies, and I always have some nearby). I ate my entire meal with both a fork and pen in my left hand. I was still composing in my head the whole way back, too. It was worth it for the breakthrough, though. I have finally identified the conflict of my second act.

I'm trying a different tactic on this story, wanting to have a giant outline before I write any of the actual prose. Normally I attempt to write longhand, chronologically, from page one. It never works in long form for me. Once I get a dozen pages out, I spend all of my time re-reading, editing, honing. I think the farthest I ever got doing it that way was about 70 pages into a story. That was at least 20 years ago, maybe 25. This time I'm forcing myself to wait. I'm making dozens of sticky notes. I bought a new dry-erase board. I'm going to plot out every scene, and I'm going to move them around until I feel confident it's right. I want this to work. I'm tired of losing steam three or four chapters into a story. I've been doing it all of my life, and I want so desperately to kill this demon, the most evil and pernicious one I've ever faced. I want to finish something more than a short story.

I am a bit conflicted about the villain I created over dinner tonight. I can clearly see he was based on one of my high school teachers, one who hated me every bit as much as I hated him. The real guy is long dead. What makes this fictional character bad is what I heard as a rumor about the teacher who made me so unhappy as a teenager. I won't use his real name, but I'm so tempted to use some real events, maybe just as background noise. Will people I went to school with read this story and recognize who the villain is modeled on? Will those who knew how bad the real guy was actually mind? Moreover, will I actually mind?

Open Space

Inspirational song: Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)

The great flood of 2013 will live in northern Colorado lore for generations, even for people like me who didn't reside here at the time. I heard stories of the deadly Big Thompson flood from 1976 even though I didn't move here the first time until almost a decade later. In the same way, the effects and stories of the 2013 flood still reverberate and educate new and old residents alike. I'm in an odd position, having lived elsewhere at the time. But I owned property where my children resided, and a couple of days after the main event, I flew out here to take care of whatever I could, as a mother and as a landlord. I didn't come to this side of the county that week, but I heard about how the town was essentially cut in half by the river. This week I got a lesson in how dramatically that river has changed in five years.

Thirteen years ago, Rotary International celebrated its 100th anniversary since the founding of the club. In anticipation of that, years in advance, they sent out notices to all their clubs to start looking for civic projects that each club could spearhead in their own communities to mark the milestone. The three Rotary clubs in town here banded together on a common project: a pedestrian bridge over a beautiful open space park along the river, connecting walking trails on both banks. They held fundraiser events, and came up with about $20,000 to donate to the city, which constituted almost a third of the cost of the bridge (in 2004 dollars). They also commissioned a giant stone monument which was erected near the entrance to the bridge. They held a big ceremony when it was completed, and a couple of men from our club flew over in a small airplane to get aerial photos of the project.

When the floods came, nine years after the bridge was completed, the river swept it all away. The bridge was damaged, the open space park was scoured by alluvium, and the monument was carried several miles downstream. By mere chance, the monument was found and rescued. For five years, the city has been working with federal agencies to restore the area along the river, focusing on widening the channel and preventing any future floods from having such a devastating effect. Part of the trails east of town, also in the flood plain, opened up a while back. Today the next section was declared complete, from the point of our bridge to the Sandstone recreation area to the east. In a few months, the next section, from the bridge west to the other side of Main Street, will be ready.

The area is beautiful, even in its raw, sparsely planted state. The ground is covered in straw, waiting for natural grasses and flowers to come in to protect the soil. There are trees dotted lightly throughout, and there are plans to add more in honor of local people. (There was a dedication to a freshly planted oak today, in memory of the president of one of the other Rotary clubs who passed away early this spring.) And by next year, once the wide channels and ponds just west of the bridge are grown in and stabilized, we will have a city park space for tubing and playing in the water.

For today's ceremony, I was tasked to create a couple of posters full of photos from the last ceremony. We stood out in the sun, listened to speeches, watched a ribbon cutting, and wandered around the area. Then we retired to a nearby event space for a dinner reception.

I'm on record for not being much of an outdoorswoman, but I believe once this space is mature, I'll be happily heading down there, covered in 100 SPF sunscreen, inner tube in hand, ready to play in the water. I have fallen in love with the space, and I can't wait to get to use it.

DGAF

Inspirational song: Red, Red Wine (UB40)

At one point during the day, or at several if I am to be honest, I was probably pretty worked up about one thing or another. I felt passionately about some topic, and thought, "this matters. I can write about this later." Then it turned into game night, and as I do on most Wednesday nights, my dedication to the concept of a keto diet got left at home, and a bottle of rich red wine got taken with me to share with my foster daughter, our GM. My motivations slipped away, and so did my ability to sit up straight. I'm just lucky tonight didn't end up with a fistful of my least favorite candies (Reese's peanut butter cups) like it did last week. The only reason it didn't was because of Hops, the new puppy that our neighbor adopted. We were asked not to bring any sort of food this time, while the puppy is learning how to behave politely around guests. (For the record, he sort of failed, when he and Barley were wrestling between the couch and the table, and knocked over my wine and my old college roommate's beer, soaking the map, the table, and Mr S-P's character sheet. Magically, my wine glass refilled, and the dogs were shooed away.)

I am living the best life I can right now, but I can't say that I'm pulling any grand stories out at the end of the day when I'm tired and still not 100% sober. I used to be good at digging bits of my history out to memorialize, but I haven't dedicated myself to that in many months. That ought to be my goal right about now. Find one good story from my misspent youth to share at least every 10-14 days. Five years ago, I was using this essay space to do that, so that my kids could have access to things I never shared with them, or at least for the broader stories that they had only gotten highlights previously. I don't know whether they ever really wanted them, but I thought it might be a nice thing to have for later, when I'm gone. And in the grand scheme of things, that is what most of my writing is anyway, an attempt to find something that will outlive me. If I'm lucky, it will all be something worth having.

Chasing the Dragon

Inspirational song: Going Under (Marillion)

One step forward, two steps back. And then another two steps back. And then turn and run half a mile even farther back. What a week this has been.

The big story from yesterday that I didn't know whether I could tell was that the Mr had a wreck in the new car he bought specifically for his side job as a Lyft driver, while he waited for the next semester's teaching gig to come around. After Alfred cost us multiple thousands of dollars at the emergency vet, and the Mr gave up all of his days off to drive double and triple time to make up the deficit that brought about, someone stopped short in front of him on the highway, and he slammed into the back of them, doing significant damage to his Focus. Because he was at work at the time (with a passenger), Lyft's insurance is in effect, with a deductible 2 1/2 times as big as the one he has under our personal insurance. And with all of the massive hailstorms that blew through in June, the body shops are backed up for more than a month. Can this get worse? Can the answer please be no?

I am trying to beat the bushes to find real estate clients, to bring in income in my chosen profession. I had a great line on someone I've known and trusted for almost three years, who had their eye on a very specific house in a very specific neighborhood. I looked up the house he asked about, all excited to walk him and his wife through it, and the place had already gone under contract, more than a week before he told me it existed. Step forward, step back. There are a couple other irons in the fire, but one is over the equivalent of a tea light candle, and the other is as yet an imaginary iron. Forward, back.

I've got to come up with some new, innovative ideas for filling in the financial holes. I am no longer physically capable of a regular job. I am too sick for that. But I'm not sick enough yet to qualify for disability. I'm in limbo. My mortgage broker friend and I were talking about how it really is a gig economy anymore, but I haven't figured out what my niche is in it yet. There are hundreds of different avenues to take, but what is right for me? I've been close to trying several things, but so far, none has seemed attainable. Step back.

To Tell or Not to Tell

Inspirational song: Poor, Poor Pitiful Me (Warren Zevon)

I made an error in my timing. I waited until too late to ask whether the biggest story of the day, which was not my own, was fit for public consumption. Until I get the go-ahead to tell it, suffice it to say that this year of big financial hits just keeps coming. It is not amusing, not in the least.

I think I've used up all of my words for the day. I hit my quota somewhere in the four handwritten notebook pages covered in my small script, of the summary of the latest story I'm working on. It has been tumbling through my mind for more than a month, maybe two now. I have been getting incrementally closer to having the plot line worked out in my head. Today, in the shower, I had a breakthrough, and had to sit down and write for hours. This was the most productive day for this story in weeks. I really want to keep going on it, but it's after midnight, and I am too tired to be coherent. If I wrote this late and this tired, I'd end up looking at it tomorrow and wonder what any of it meant.

At least I can feel like I accomplished something worthwhile today, when I realize that the story sucked away most of my day, and I never went farther outside than the front and back porches. Maybe if I spend several more days like this, I'll have a full-length, fleshed out story to tell.

Furry Boys

Inspirational song: The Boys Are Back In Town (Thin Lizzy)

My expensive little Alfred is home from hospital. It was agonizing waiting until evening for them to release him. He didn't get here until about 7:30. The first thing he did was climb up on the food counter and eat like no one fed him at all in lockup. He has shaved rings on each of his front legs, like a poodle cut, and his private parts are shaved as well. I tried to get pictures of the front without exposing the back. He was too busy eating to care where I pointed the camera. He's supposed to leave the exposed skin alone, else he could develop an infection that could become quite serious. I caught him licking one of his arms, and tattled on him to his father. That's when he told me the doctor's orders about the skin, and I was sent back to threaten him with the Cone of Shame. By the time I came back from next door and waved the collar at him, he had stopped, so I didn't put it on him. We shall see how long that lasts. I will do what it takes to keep him healthy. We are all lucky that he was sent to the doctor in time. Will take no more chances.

We had still thought we might make a run to the mountain today, to get a handful of stuff up to the build site. I was working on that assumption while I spent a couple of hours scrubbing and scraping the used windows that will be going up soon. Maybe we will make a run tomorrow. With Alfred coming home from the vet and our neighbor taking a big risk this afternoon, it was better to put off mountain climbing.

A few days ago, our neighbor announced he was finally ready to adopt a "Hops" to go with his Barley. Someone he knows from a rescue operation called him up and said that they had a whole new crop of dogs come in, and asked was he still wanting a second dog. He took Barley today to the shelter. They asked him what sort of dog he was looking for, and he gave the best possible answer: "I was planning on letting Barley choose." There were two or three who didn't give Barley the time of day, but then this mid-size black dog came out, and they instantly recognized each other as doggie brothers. This little guy had been in shelters since he was a tiny puppy, stranded in the floods after Hurricane Harvey. He was somewhat miserable, they said. Once he found Barley and started playing with him, the shelter workers said this was the happiest they had ever seen him. By the time I met him, they'd been together a few hours, and it was obvious they are a great fit. He's a charming, people- and dog-loving yearling, and we see great things in his future. If this first day sets the tone, this dog is a winner, in every way we can mean that.

Sick Bunny Boy

Inspirational song: Someone Saved My Life Tonight (Elton John)

There was a close call this morning--a very close call. I had no idea this was going on, and that fact has left me shaken. Before I had finished my first cup of coffee this morning, Mr S-P came in and announced that he was taking Alfred to the emergency vet. Our regular vet was booked, and he was convinced Alfred was so sick that he couldn't wait. Turns out he was right.

He had noticed that yesterday Alfred tried and failed to use his cat box. Without that hint, he might not have clued in when Alfred was lying around on the top step out back, growling and refusing to move. He checked him over, and saw that his abdomen was swollen. He immediately called and took him to the doctor. Poor bunny boy didn't even complain when he was loaded in the carrier and set in the car.

Alfred had a complete urinary blockage. He needed to be sedated and catheterized, whereupon they found multiple kidney stones and mucous stopping him up. (They said once the stones were removed, he "peed like a fountain.") Ominously, the Mr reported that had he not taken him in when he did, Alfred might not have lived to see tomorrow. I'm having trouble processing how close we came to losing him, without me having any idea that he was even feeling poorly. I had noticed he didn't jump on the counter when I fed them early this morning, and that was the last I thought of it.

He's still at the vet now, and will be until tomorrow sometime, for observation. It's tearing me up, not being able to cuddle and coddle him. He is an absolutely perfect cat, in every respect, and I hate that he feels bad, for any length of time.

If you are wondering, it was probably caused by his diet. I have had them all on Nature's Domain grain-free cat food (from Costco) for about three years, and overall it's a good food source. But it is fish-based, and what I remember being told decades ago is that male cats shouldn't have a predominantly fish-based diet. My childhood cat Schroeder was on a daily pill for years to treat a similar problem (and thankfully the pill was chewable and a flavor that he adored). I will see what the vets direct us to do after this. I'm sure they will suggest a prescription diet that I just can't afford with five cats to feed, and honestly, after the $3000+ that this will cost (assuming we don't have to have surgery and cost even more), I'm going to be lucky if I don't have to switch them back to cheap grocery store food. Between Alfred's renal system, Bump's terminal cancer, and Athena's teeth, this is going to turn out to be the most expensive pet-parent year ever. I seriously considered swallowing my pride and starting a GoFundMe this morning, but instead I think I need to beat the bushes and find new real estate clients asap. Anyone want to buy or sell a house in Colorado, to help me pay my vet bills?

I'll use some greatest-hits pictures of my Bunny Boy, and the video from when Mr S-P visited him at the emergency vet.

FPF

Inspirational song: Sheep Go to Heaven (Cake)

The last few weeks have been a wild ride, haven't they? It's not just me, right? I feel like I'm on a big time roller coaster, one with a few loops and barrel rolls, as well as big, big drops. These days there isn't time to settle down and really digest any bit of news before the next thing comes along. I swear, I'm sitting in bed right now, and I just checked my stress levels according to the phone app. I should be totally calm and powering down to sleep. Instead my heart rate is elevated and my oxygen saturation is mediocre. My stress is creeping up. Best I can tell, none of this is necessarily personally attached to my life, either. It's just because I'm watching news, reading tweets and articles, and talking about the world at large with my friends. It feels like we are living through one of those momentous periods in history. Our grandkids will ask us what it was like. Not sure what we will tell them. It will depend on how everything plays out over the next six months to a year, I suppose.

Thankfully I have a good group of friends to unwind with. We are together two or three times a week, and we do a pretty damned good job of keeping each other sane. Tonight was Fire Pit Friday again. We aren't doing this as often as the old Bonfire group in Charleston from a few years ago, but I can see this turning into exactly that sort of ritual. Come to think of it, if the guys had listened to me and put a gate between our yards when they rebuilt the fence three years ago, we could just open it up and it would be even more like Bonfire, with fire, beer, grilled meats, and hot tub, all in a contiguous space. (We are considering moving the garden back to the south side of the lawn, and putting the patio on the north, so maybe I can reopen the gate conversation with more success this time.) If it turned into a regular thing, I'd have to rename Fire Pit Fridays as Bonfire II: Return of Jafar.

That's really not a bad idea, making this a weekly event like before. It's not like we don't have an endless supply of wood to burn, and with the fire ban across nearly the entire Rocky Mountains right now, we'd be better off bringing the slash down the hill off the claim and taking care of it here where it's safe and legal. We also have plenty of the other stuff -- a five person hot tub, a neighbor who brews gallons of beer (and I have a fully stocked wine fridge), a large smoker and a Costco membership, and we have friends and dogs to keep the party rolling every weekend if we want. Heck, there's a chance this weekend there will be a new dog to keep Barley company, so we will have an even bigger surplus of fun to fuel the Fire Pit Friday parties.

Melted

Inspirational song: The Room Where It Happened (Hamilton)

You know what? Screw it. I'm going to blame the weather. Blame it for everything. I'm hot and thus I am sore and cranky and weak willed and probably a whole lot of other negative things. I just tried setting a fan in the window in the back bedroom, and it just about ripped my shoulders out. It just made me hotter and crankier. My sheets are still in the drier, and I'm dreading touching them while they're warm, because it will just make everything worse. Usually there is no better feeling than the first few minutes on a freshly made bed, but now it just sounds awful.

We went to have a meal with our daughter, who apparently roasted every vegetable in Boulder county and needed more humans to put them in. When we first arrived, her air conditioner was misbehaving, and I was deeply disappointed. I was almost as enthusiastic about hanging out in her chilled house as I was having lunch with her. Thankfully her father knew enough about machine maintenance to clear out the compressor and get it running a little more efficiently, but by then my daughter and I had already snuck out the the front side of the house to acquire milkshakes for everyone to cool us down. Did I need a caramel pecan shake? Not technically, no. Did I inhale it like cooling off my mouth quickly was the only thing between me and certain death? Yes. I did.

I've collected a few pet photos to amuse myself and distract me from the heat. I got to admire my grandkittens, my dogs went to the mountain without me yesterday, and I met the new tiny dog who now lives in my condo. (Tiny dog's face and bark are almost identical to my granddog Sheba, and now I miss her terribly too.)