Slow down, do little

Izzy has a friend who comes to visit each night.

Beautiful face (and she's grown into her ears)!

"Hey, this show about comedians in cars getting coffee is unexpectedly entertaining!"

I can't remember if I mentioned that I'm on vacation. Yesterday was my first day off and I'll go back on the the 12th. Taking so many days at once always causes people to ask if I'm going somewhere or have something special planned. I rarely say yes to either question. I find I need a stretch of time away from the office to recharge, and while I would travel, that requires that I first live in a world with job security. I don't mind having time off with no plans.

Often, I think about how nice it would be to get away from the phone, obligations, should-do's and everything else that comes with everyday life. Usually this involves daydreams about a cabin in the Rockies or a beach house along Lake Michigan. I'm finding that a week at a friend's house where the only TV is on a floor separate from everything else you need works just as well.

Right now I'm at the dining room table. Izzy has just come in from the back yard and is flopped onto her side, napping. The only sounds, aside from my fingers tapping on the keyboard, are the ticking of the kitchen clock to my left and the rhythmic on-off of the wine cooler on my right. It's about as peaceful as modern life gets.

I have ventured out into the world today. Around lunchtime I went to Mica's to hang out with the little white dog while she went to an appointment. He's wearing a t-shirt to keep him away from the stitches on his chest, but he's a crafty little thing so someone needs to make sure he doesn't find a way to fuss at it. The alternative is a cone, but experience has shown he can McGuyver a cone until it does his bidding. He once had a bump removed from his tail. He figured out that if he backed up against the couch and pressed is haunch against it, he could maintain a position that would allow him to curl his body toward his tail, then he'd pull is hail toward him and slam the edge of the cone onto it, which trapped the stitched part inside the cone...where his mouth and teeth could reach it. He had to go back to the vet to get restitched. They sent home a bigger cone, one so large and floppy on him that we sometimes had to hold the front up fso he could see where he was going.

After Mica left, I let him guard the house, which is what we call it when we pull an ottoman in front of the glass in the screen door and let him sit on it look out. Usually he naps. On a good day he'll get to growl at squirrels in the yard. If luck is really going his way he'll spot a UPS or FedEx truck and bark a warning that the entire neighborhood can hear. Today he slept with the warm sun streaming across him.

Before I left, he wanted to go outside. He wasn't interested in patrolling the perimeter, his usual routine. Instead he walked to the top of the slope and stood in the sunshine. I followed him and sat down on the concrete pad in front of the garden shed. He came over and leaned against me. We both closed our eyes to the bright light and enjoyed the warmth on our faces until Mica got home.

It isn't yet suppertime and I feel confident that I can post this now because nothing else is going to happen today.