Lots of dogs, and some progress on the book

The day started and ended with an extra dog: Jasmine, the young husky from across the street, who moved into the neighborhood this summer, has been leaping out of the back yard and going wandering when her people are not home.

Three sets of neighbors got involved in catching her again this morning. When we went out to take our walk, the folks who live next door to Jasmine’s house were in their car driving around to see if
they could catch the dog, because they’d not only seen her go over the fence but managed to snap their old dog’s leash on her collar before she bolted. They’re not too mobile any more, so they resorted to wheels for chasing her.

While we were talking, another
very new neighbor that none of us had met yet—carrying a baby probably no more than three weeks old and hanging onto the black leash—brought the dog back toward the bunch of us standing in the middle of the street.

Because none of her people were around, we took Jasmine for a walk with our two.

Jasmine spent time in our back yard as part of an earlier adventure (we have pretty escape-proof fencing and gate, thanks to our pups), so our dogs know her. But they are mature and she is not.

By the time we got back from the walk, one of Jasmine’s people was home so we turned her over. Her absence had not been noticed, but she was gratefully welcomed back.
__

Later in the day, I took a break from the computer and went to a friend’s farm pond at the north end of town so Ariel could do some swimming therapy.

We walk down this road to get to the pond.

Some ducks beat us to it. They stayed during our visit.

Ari loves to swim, but only paddles around for a total of three minutes or so, in perhaps thirty-second segments. She paces herself well. We usually spend about twenty minutes at the pond.

The swimming makes a huge difference for her arthritis—worth the drive across town. She wears a flotation vest to keep her ears out of the water and as insurance that she’ll stay at the surface in general. Tussah just wades.

The first time Ariel went swimming, a few weeks ago, she couldn’t stand up when she got out of the water. She’d rest a while and then go back in for a few seconds. Each time she came up on land, she was a little stronger. That’s still the case, although today she was relatively strong right from the start.

While the dogs goofed off in the water, I took stock of the insect population (mostly bees, several kinds) on a nearby rabbitbrush. This was the prettiest bug.

And I enjoyed the view. We need to sieze the beautiful days when they’re available.

At the end of the day, Jasmine had gotten out again and the people next door to where she lives had her in their house. We offered to take her for another walk.

When we got back, her primary owner was home and we turned her over again.

Dogs do bring a neighborhood together.

__

I’ve done all of the pen-and-ink drawings for the book I’m producing, and have scanned them and put them in the file.

All of the good wishes that have been coming my way have been helping with the computer problems. I haven’t heard back from tech support, nor have I had time to make another call in their direction (admittedly, I’m not very motivated to call because the previous connections have resulted only in a huge waste of time).

I’ve been continuing to devise new workarounds. Some of the electronic misbehavior is still happening (even though I’ve removed the offending components of the file), and I have neither diagnosed nor fixed the problems. But I can override them with comparative ease after my recent modifications and have been able to make progress. It feels like I’m flying an airplane that’s held together with duct tape and baling wire. The wings are vibrating and the rudder’s a little wonky, but nothing has fallen off completely this week. I’m grateful.

The page breaks are back where they should be, and they’ve stayed there for several days (knocking on wood and crossing fingers).

__

While I’m waiting for the computer to recover from a crash, to reboot, or to otherwise unscramble its brain (still happening), I’ve been reading Barbara Walters’ Audition. Good book. Makes the computer problems not entirely a drag: "Oh, a crash, I get to read a few pages. . . ."