Tomorrow, two big things will happen in my life. #1) “The Montana Creeds: Logan”, hits the bookstores. #2) I leave for my tour. First stop, Cheyenne, Wyoming. Yee-haw, open this chute, boys, I’m ready to ride!
Sadie continues to be our very own Biggest Loser. The slimming seems to be starting at her shoulders and moving back toward her sizable backside. 🙂 (Happened that way when I lost weight, too.) She had a big adventure on Saturday morning, one I could cheerfully have skipped. My cousins, Steve and Andy Wiley, stopped by for a visit, and came in through the front door. The dogs were excited, so I let them out to meet the company on the sidewalk, which I would not normally do, because there’s no fence. Amid all the hugging and how-ya-been’s, we all came inside. Or I thought we did.
We drank coffee and visited and I signed a pile of books for the home folks. Then I heard Sadie barking, and thought I’d left her downstairs. Up and down I went, in the elevator, calling her. No Sadie. I finally discovered her at the front door! In all the hubhub, I’d left her outside. (Steve even mentioned that he thought he’d seen her passing on the far side of the back fence, while we were drinking coffee, but knowing how protective I am of these dogs, he figured he was seeing things.) Sadie, it turned out, had gone walkabout. Thank heaven she didn’t meet up with any of our local coyotes, the larger dogs that sometimes roam the neighborhood, or decide to duck under the pasture fence to say howdy to the horses. (Beagles are famous for putting their noses to the ground on the trail of some scent and following it until they are thoroughly lost. Had this happened in better weather, I might still be out there beating the brush, looking for her.) As it turned out, I learned a valuable lesson about paying attention, and Sadie was all bright-eyed and waggy-tailed because she had been out there in the big world, and now she was home. Being the sweetest dog in the universe, she bore me no grudges–she was just happy to see me.
What’s different about this experience, for me, is that I didn’t get all twisted up about all the bad things that could have happened, and suffer as though they actually had. Instead, I was just grateful and happy. To paraphrase Mark Twain, I’ve worried about a lot of things in my life, and most of them didn’t happen.
Sadie is safe and sound, and she’s going for her ‘swimming lesson’ today.
Me? I’ll be finishing up “A Creed Country Christmas” and packing bags.
On the road again. Almost.
