Walking and Waking

After my three hour nap yesterday I walked Lily to the pond. She might be thirsty I thought and we went to the shoreline. I dunked a stick into the edge of the pond and Lily daintily stepped in and retrieved it. The water was ice cold. We kept walking with Lily carrying the stick. As I walked down the street I started to cry thinking about Armand's garden. I ran into a man with a tall German wire-haired Pointer puppy - a liver-colored terrier that looked like a wolf-hound. He was a sweet dog only 9 months old but already he's as big as Lily. We chatted about Armand and how we'll miss him. Then we said goodbye. As I approached Armand's garden--I stood at the gate. The raspberry bushes were trimmed and the beds were all perfect mounds of clean dirt, ready for planting. I sobbed. Lily was still carrying her wet stick. We resumed walking and turned the corner. B was sweeping the porch of the mashed potato house with a push broom. I told him about Armand's passing. He was shocked and he opened the front door and told his wife who was standing right there. Lily continued to shred the stick while we chatted. B's daughter came out with her pup, Spud the min pin. She sang me a song. Then her sister M poked her head out and said she's having her birthday party tonight! It cheered me up.

At 12:20AM I woke up to the sounds of Lily barfing on the floor on my side of the bed. Bill mumbled - I turned on the light. There's not much actually, I reported snapping the light back off-- Now she's licking it back up! I said. I was too tired to move. She's a self cleaning dog, I said, rolling over. I couldn't fall back to sleep. Finally I got up at 2:00 AM. I saw bits of stick on the floor. I'll sweep it up later I thought, grabbing my clothes and heading downstairs with Lily.