Come by

Thursday

My laptop has been offline several days. Sunday night I moved from Paul and Eve’s house to Mica’s, and I didn’t realize I had never connected the laptop to her Wi-Fi. I had to wait until she could give me the password.

I’m on vacation this week and haven’t done much until today when I went downtown to have lunch with Blaine. We walked from his office to a place that makes good gyros and then over to a public space with benches where we ate in relative privacy.

Blaine’s friend who has been sick died during the night. It wasn’t unexpected but it’s still hard to get that call. We avoided talking about it for obvious reasons. I invited Blaine over for dinner and company but he preferred to go home, which was understandable.

Sophie dropped her dog Chloe off this afternoon. There was a death in Sophie’s family and she’s traveling out of state to attend the funeral. Chloe will stay with me at Mica’s through Sunday. Chloe lived with Mica for almost eight months when Sophie had knee surgery and then a follow-up surgery when the new knee had to be replaced. Her rehab had a lot of ups and downs so it was a long time before she was able to have Chloe home. In that time, Chloe and the little white dog got used to living with one another. She is the only dog the little white dog doesn’t mind having around for extended periods. Only this time he’s not very happy. When he’s upset he takes it out on his favorite toy--an alligator with a Christmas hat that I gave him many years ago. We call it the zombie gator now because every appendage is hanging on by threads. Tonight, one of the legs finally came off. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, so the piece that was the leg is now sitting in a decorative bowl by the front door. A place of honor.

Blaine called after supper and asked if he could come by. I let him know the answer to that question will always be yes.

After the two crazies greeted him and provided a floor show with the working title “Whirling, Growling Dervishes,” we left them with a treat a for each and went for a walk. Afterward, we sat on the patio while the dogs ran around the back yard. Chloe tired and approached Blaine. She put her paws on his leg and whined. He picked her up. She rolled in his arms so her belly was exposed, and he scritched it gently. After awhile the little white dog came over and settled between Blaine’s feet. Blaine reached down and rubbed his head. It’s unusual for the little white dog to want to be petted by someone he doesn’t know. Maybe he sensed Blaine was having a tough day, or maybe he just likes him. Either way, it did everyone good.