YES -- I CAN!

Mike has adventure goals that I don’t share, and we have a family (some people call them dogs) that tie us down somewhat. So, I tell Mike, “You go – and I’ll stay and take care of the dogs.” I’m not really a pet person, but the last two dogs (Nellie and Bess) have accepted my awkward dog ways and even feel some responsibility for my well-being.

Several year ago, Mike began taking motorcycle trips, and I kept Nellie at the town house. Then, when Bess joined us last year, keeping the two of them in town just seemed too difficult. So, I learned that I can indeed load the pick-up, coax the dogs to jump in with the supplies, and take care of all three of us at the farmhouse.

  

 

Mike left Tuesday (Sept. 9) – seems a hundred years ago now – to moto-cache Colorado with son Yancey. Through the magic of cell phone technology, I’ve heard from him daily, and I’m happy to report that neither one of us experienced an emergency.

 

It took me two hours to pack the pick-up with all sorts of things in addition to regular supples – my Bernina 630; embroidery toolbox; sewing “project box;” and lots of extras in case embroidery plans fell through (but they didn’t). I set up the sewing machine on Grandma Ina’s pantry hutch in the dining room, put my laptop on the ottoman in the living room, and covered the dining room table with my “Halloween Masquerade” quilt which is still a work in progress. While my sewing machine chugged away on a special Halloween free-standing lace project, I did handwork on the center of the quilt. I made good progress on both projects during our six-day stay.

 

But -- dogs are a solemn responsibility – and they make sure I take them seriously. Mike walks them almost first thing every morning, so they expect that. (He says the walk is to limber his back and not for the dogs, but they know otherwise.) Then on Day 1, I decided that we should take a noon hike, and if you know dogs, you know that they don’t forget an activity they enjoyed, and they tell time by the sun – so we had a noon hike every day. And of course, we always walk prior to suppertime – always. The exercise is good for me, but it does make me feel that my life revolves around the dogs’ schedule, which, of course, it does.

 

All good staycations must come to an end, and today was the day. The dogs knew what was up the minute I started packing. Nellie watched through the dining room window as I put the last items in the pick-up. When I said it was time to go, she marched straight out the kitchen door and jumped to her place. The set of her jaw said she was none too happy about it.

But Bess, who was sulking near the little cherry tree, said, “Tell me again why we have to leave here.” It took some coaxing to get her to join Nellie.

And now we’re back at the town house – all three of us tired, all three of us waiting . . . KW