If we were having coffee, I would excitedly tell you or better, show you that at seven months old Blanca has finally mastered the doggy door! Well, mostly. Thursday she woke up from a long nap having seemingly forgotten and had to be pushed through, but since then she’s done it all on her own, the exception being when Ivan the Terrible plants his commodious bottom directly and purposefully on the other side of it. Then she wisely whimpers, whines, and grumps for us to open the larger door. She’s maybe a slow learner, but not stupid.

She is also increasingly vocal, causing us to wonder if there isn’t a bit of Husky in her clearly complicated genepool. It would account for the soft white coat, though not the black-spotted mouth or ears. But she growls and whines and yips  about everything, but most especially “ballmergencies” when one of her 8,594 tennis balls rolls under the furniture just out of her reach. This necessitates one of us fetching and using “the magic stick” which is actually one of those telescoping dusting tools for ceiling fans but which other function, we’ve discovered, is handling ballmergencies.

Hopefully I wouldn’t spoil your coffee telling you that Wednesday, out of the corner of my eye I spied Blanca outside, throwing something up in the air, then retrieving it. It wasn’t a ball, not even Ratty Ball, which cover she’s torn off for the express purpose of throwing it in the air and chasing it. Closer inspection turned up a lizard, no longer playful. It wasn’t a good day for lizards, as Ivan also felled one. So this week it was Household Critters = 2, Lizards = 0.

If we were having coffee I could tell you how much I love Google, because a Monday afternoon Google search of local parks turned up a little jewel of a park almost literally around the corner from my house, and a perfect place to get some shots for my photography class. Tuesday I was up and out chasing the sunrise, but I didn’t take coffee with me, having to cart around my camera bag and tripod, and fully aware of my own klutziness. I had to wait for the sprinklers to stop and so missed a pretty pink sunrise but I think the shot of the gazebo and amphitheater-style terracing was nice even without it. It was a lovely, serene sort of way to spend the early morning hours.

Maybe one day we’ll take a thermos of coffee to the park and watch the sunrise behind the gazebo.

If we were having coffee I’d tell you that next time I will make scones to go with the jam I am about to start making as soon as I hit “post” on this, having been up and out early again this morning, this time to visit the Strawberry Lady in the Petsmart parking lot. I’ve got a lot of washing and hulling and chopping to do but my reward is listening for the POP! of each jar’s lid assuring me it is perfectly sealed. Like the sound of walking on gravel, a baby’s sleepy sigh, or my husband laughing out loud in the kitchen at a joke I tucked into his lunch bag, that POP! is one of my favorite sounds.

And finally, if we were having coffee I’d ask for your prayers, or sending of White Light if you’re more a secular humanist than religious, for my best friend and his sister, who are saying goodbye this morning to a good and faithful dog. Sweet Echo, who has faithfully stood by them through all of life’s travails, has reached the point where the best they can do for her is help her cross to the other side, where she will once again know where she is, free of pain and once again agile and active, reunited with her brothers who have gone ahead.

#weekendcoffeeshare