Still kicking...

Natalie decided to take a day off and take care of her dad, for which I am grateful. I had some moments over the weekend that had me wondering... so far today, everything has been according to Hoyle, and I hope the trend continues.

The stray that we found is likely one of the most intelligent canines I've seen in a while, and equally undisciplined and single-minded.

When I tossed a tennis ball across the back yard, the dog loped on over to the ball, grabbed it in its mouth, and sauntered back to my waiting hand. Upon yielding the ball, the pooch turned away with the kind of body language that I interpreted to mean: "See, mac, I know how to do that, and it's bo-ring, so go suck an egg!"

Whereupon it would go check out either (or both) of the gates on either side of the house that kept the back yard fenced, said activity including a physical check of every chink and crack.

If I called it, the dog would come and sit obediently in front of me, looking at me with some kind of expectation... I don't know of what, but if I stopped paying attention to the animal, it would go back to checking the gates.

Anyway, yesterday evening, Natalie took the dog for a walk, starting from our back yard. When she opened the gate on the kitchen side of the house, she inadvertently showed the dog how the latch mechanism worked, because that's the only way I can explain how the dog escaped while being allowed in the back yard this morning.

When the "breakout" came to light - gate unlatched and pushed open, dog gone - I decided against Natalie going out to find and bring back the animal. I figure there's some kind of "Lassie-come-home" karma at work here, and for all I know, the mutt is halfway to Oklahoma by now, driven by a vision of reuniting with some 21st-century Timmy or Kristy at the end of the road. I'm out a couple of cans of dog food, but the pleasure of making the pooch's acquaintance was worth it.

* * *Speaking of animals, there is something that comes by the back yard from time to time - a possum, or a racoon - specifically to raid my tomatoes. And not just any tomatoes, mind you, but only the ripe ones! Yeow!

* * *Galina made it to Pagosa late on Saturday. She took along a fellow that lives a few houses down from us here in Webster, who specializes in reworking the interiors of houses. The idea was for him to eyeball the old homestead in Pagosa and come up with a number to make it rentable or sellable.

Hopefully, the number will be much less than the estimate that we got from a local Pagosa outfit, an estimate that suffers from having sprung from the same womb as other estimates for work to be done for people who came to Pagosa from California and who thus have money to burn.

If everything went according to schedule, our local guy is back in town after flying back home from Albuquerque.

Cheers...

A curious thought

As I have doubtless mentioned before, there is a two-piece bookshelf/credenza kind of article along one wall of my office. It also has the appropriate features to make it a desk as well, but overall, I think the combination makes for a fine bookshelf and filing cabinet, if you get my drift.

I removed all of the books from the bookshelf part the other day, in preparation for moving the assembly out of my office (as I thought we had discussed with Galina and Natalie, now that Natalie is living with us), but after all the books were gone, the idea was deep-sixed.

I've been (slowly) taking books out of storage boxes and replacing them on the shelves, but a curious thought crossed my mind: Am I putting up the right books?

You see, a lot of what determined what books went into that bookshelf - and consequently, which other books disappeared into the bookshelves I shoehorned into the closet - was initially based on stuff that was useful to me in my translation work. And indeed, there is a core of books in the room that I refer to often, though by the same token, there are a lot of books that, frankly, I haven't cracked in years.

I'm thinking... there's no real utility in keeping such books "at hand," so to speak (and yes, there are those who would say there is no utility in keeping such books at all, except that I've wanted to refer to individual volumes "currently in Pagosa" often enough to know that there is utility in keeping 'em). Certainly, if I ever entertained ideas of impressing people with the fact that I have books (and to do so, I'd have to let them into my office), simply having books on shelves will do the trick, as experience has shown.

I think I will do a little shuffling to bring out some "fun" books and stuff some of the "stuffy" tomes into the closet.

When I'm up to shlepping books around, that it.

Cheers...