"Dog"

I look at my curled up lump of a dog at my feet and search for inspiration.  She sighs.  An ear twitches.  She sinks deeper into sleep and twitches a foot.  I watch her belly go in and out with each breath.  That's it.  She isn't offering any more inspiration than that unless it's for me to take deeper breaths and relax too.  Course if I got up and said "Let's go for a walk", she'd be up and bouncy in a split second, which I think is pretty incredible since she's ancient.  I hope I'm doing as well when I'm her equivalent age.

I couldn't think of what to write next so I got up to refill my glass of iced tea.  I bashed the glass on the doorframe, sent glass and ice flying in a noisy crash, and my puppy lazily got up to see what I'd done.  She sniffed an ice cube and wandered outside.  The glass didn't break, thankfully.

I was making a sandwich when she came back inside.  She hovered hopefully underfoot.  I dropped a bit of cheese and pointed at it before carrying my sandwich back to the computer and everything became as it was before.  Old dogs are so easy.  We have a rhythm.  We understand each other.  She leaves my art piles alone.

Lacking any blog inspiration, I go back to watching her breathing.  In out, in out, I match my breath to her's and get myself into a dopey hypnotic peacefulness.

In this relaxed state, I remember recently painting a portrait of my cousin's cat.  A cat is close enough for a "dog" post, right?  I sent the painting as a congratulations gift because she recently finished her law degree.  I'm impressed.  She's roughly my age and clearly is still tackling new challenges.  That's inspiring.  Makes me want to quit watching my dog breathe and do something inspirational too.

I also painted a portrait of my niece who recently graduated with her masters degree.  She likes Asian things and bleaches the ends of her hair blonde, or blue, whatever.  This isn't my usual kind of painting, but I enjoyed making it.  I hope she enjoys having it.

Shaking myself out of my hypnotic dog watching, I did have weather excitement this week with a microburst of tornado like winds, hail, and thunderstorm.  Trees and branches came down.  The top of a tree came down next door, flying over their garage but stopping short of their house and cars.  Really, it could not have come down more nicely.  It even just missed flattening my gooseberry bushes and hibiscus.

The neighbor next to them had a tree take down the electrical lines and we were all out of power for a day.  When the electric company came they asked to saw up my next door neighbors' downed tree so they could bring their equipment in the back yards to rescue the electric lines.  This was a huge relief as they're 2 older sisters who don't do chainsaws.

I thought the excitement was done, but no, I woke up to fire trucks and lights flashing.  The grounded wires sent electricity into the ground which traveled into the garage of the neighbor 3 doors down.  The garage smoldered and smoked, but no serious damage.  Really, I think everything turned out as luckily as it could for a micro tornado and it caused the neighbors to socialize when they were out with their dogs.

"Spiral"

After spending most of two days shoveling snow, I thought it would be a good idea to put that de-icing stuff by my door.  One step outside, and shlumpf!  I was on my ass and banged my head.  Sometimes life isn't kind to me.

Ohio gets snow, sometimes a lot of it, but most of the snow usually falls to the east and/or south of me.  This time, I got all of it.  I shoveled my drive 3x Friday, about 4-6" each time.  By the time my puppy had to do her last night piddle, the snow was so deep she got buried in snow.  She and I agree winter sucks.  Saturday, the snow was deeper than my knee boots are tall.  I repeatedly worked up a sweat while simultaneously freezing.

I stare out the window and type very few words, hypnotized by fat, spiraling snowflakes.  Griping about shoveling is just recreational.  The weather report said I'm not getting a thaw before Monday to erase all this white stuff.  I had to shovel it, and I accepted that.  It's my winter exercise plan.  The sore knot in my shoulder is just a reminder that I'm healthy enough to move mountains, or in this case, create 5' mountains of white matter.

I watched my neighbors handling their snow problems.  A teenaged boy tentatively poked at the stuff and weakly tossed a couple cups worth of snow onto the pile, resting for a few minutes before doing it again.  His dad cleared yards in the time the kid did a foot.  Meanwhile, the woman next to them spent hours with her snow blower.  She was extra considerate and neat.  My crabby neighbor actually joked with me while we shoveled.  A guy drove down the road with a plow, saw me shoveling, and cleared the apron of my drive.  Bless that guy.  I'm not even sure who he is, but he seemed to think my grateful wave of thanks was payment enough for his kindness.

The roads were awful when all this snow was coming down, and I didn't have a choice about being in the mess.  People were understanding and resigned.  Someone got stuck, and a woman jumped out of her car and helped push, leaving her car in the middle of the backed up street.  Nobody honked.  I think we were all glad helping each other still exists.

Lately, I've seen too much in the news about how divided the US is.  I've been appalled at how many people want women barefoot and pregnant and how some people talk so hatefully about women, minorities, and gay people.  Get rid of environmental protections, public school, and overtime pay.  Yet, there are still people willing to help a stranger stuck in snow.  Just as more people voted for Clinton in the election, I have to think that most people are decent and cooperative.

There's something about nature dumping a load of snow to make us stop our usual self-interested vanities and become a community again.  Sitting inside and watching snow spiral down from the sky lowers my blood pressure and gives me a little hope that things have a natural order, that human nature isn't as bad as it seems to be on tv.  Maybe things would be better if Washington, DC got more snow?