Payton the Beagle

While Achilles and I were out for our morning walk today, a little beagle came running over to us from across the street. She looked lost, so I checked her tags and found her name and phone number, ran back inside to get my phone, and called the number. No one answered, so I left a voice mail and then tried to keep an eye on little Payton while finishing up Achilles's walk.

Finally took Achilles back inside and went back out with his leash to try to catch Payton. Thankfully caught up with her and took her home. Still no return call from her owner, so I checked her rabies tag and called the phone number of her vet's office and asked them to try to contact the owner, as well. Then we waited.

Achilles was freaking out about having another dog in the house, barking at the top of his lungs and occasionally snapping at poor Payton. I kept Payton on the leash so that he couldn't chase her through the house and so that she couldn't chase the cats, who were all hiding except for Punkin, who is scared of nothing and came right up to Payton to check her out. It was quite a scene. Payton alternated between sitting in my lap while giving me kisses and straining at the leash because she wanted to explore the house.

I was getting worried because I had to get to my vet's office before noon to pick up a prescription for one of my kittehs, and I still hadn't heard from Payton's owner. So we hung out in the living room for about an hour and Achilles settled down a bit and stopped barking, but kept a vigilant eye on Payton, who was tiring of being on the leash and was starting to whine.

Suddenly, I heard a woman's voice coming from outside, yelling, "PAYTON! PAYTON!" Payton's ears perked up and she started scrambling around. Just as I was about to open the front door, there was a loud knock and a woman's voice yelling, "Did you find a little beagle?" I opened the door and when the woman saw Payton on the leash, she hugged me and started sobbing with joy. It was so sweet. Payton went nuts and started jumping all over her mama.

Apparently one of the neighbors had seen me rescuing Payton and pointed her mama to my house when they saw her out calling for her baby. So, yay! Payton's mama thanked me profusely. She was just visiting a friend in the neighborhood and Payton had managed to get out of the friend's back yard. Since it wasn't her neighborhood, she could have gotten really and truly lost if I hadn't taken her inside. I'm so happy that I was able to get her reunited with her mama. And I still managed to get to the vet's and pick up Niko's prescription before they closed. I love a happy ending!

The mind is a wondrous thing sometimes.

As I was setting up my new phone the other night, making sure that all of my contacts had transferred correctly from my old phone, I caught myself trying to add my brother to my contacts. Ten years later, I sometimes still forget that he is gone.

Today while I was going through some old letters and cards, I came across the last birthday card he ever gave me, about three months before he died. Whenever I come across something like this -- a photo of him that had been hiding in a drawer, an old card or letter from him, a piece of his writing -- I always have the same reaction: I gasp, then hug it to my chest, then cry. I still miss him so much.

I like to think that coming across that birthday card today was not a coincidence. Maybe it was his way of telling me he's not really gone.

DROID!!

Oh my gosh, y'all. I went phone-shopping yesterday because my contract was up on the Sprint/Samsung Instinct I'd gotten two years ago. It was a really cool phone at that time, but it's amazing how quickly the technology improves. Two years later, it's kind of a slow, clunky piece of crap.

I'd been debating between getting an iPhone or a Blackberry until I started seeing the commercials for the new Motorola Droid and checking it out online. It was the only phone I looked at yesterday and I was sold. This thing is AWESOME. Very fast, great browser (incredible browser for a mobile phone, actually!), fantastic email capabilities, and so much fun to play with! Also, you can use it as a touch-screen or use the slide-out keyboard complete with mouse button! It is way cooler than the iPhones and Blackberries I've seen. Plus, whenever I get a new email or text message, the notification ringtone is "DROID!!" which cracks me up every time. I love this thing.

Well, hello.

Ahem. So apparently I haven't been blogging much this year. I sort of got busy for awhile and didn't have much time to blog, and then when I had time again, I couldn't think of anything to blog about. So for the past few months, this really has been a blog about nothing.

What have I been doing since February, you ask? Well, remember when I re-floored my bedroom last spring? And then I was going to re-floor the rest of the house bit by bit? Yeah, well I never did that. Until March, when I finally got back to work and spent a couple of weekends re-flooring my upstairs hallway and the landing between the stairs. The computer room is next on the list and I had really hoped to do it in April, but the problem is that I need a solid two-day period when I don't have any social plans, medical appointments, vet appointments, etc., and can just work on the floor uninterrupted, because it's hard, dirty work, and I have not had such a weekend again thus far. But I am really, really hoping to do the computer room soon. I just need ONE WEEKEND without any other obligations. JUST ONE. That shouldn't be too much to ask.

Then the month of May happened. Both of my grandmothers died (one on May 3rd and the other on May 23rd) and my dad had triple bypass surgery on May 28th (and was released from the hospital on June 1st and then back in the emergency room on June 4th with a kidney stone -- so, yeah, not a good week for him AT ALL). I would like to forget the month of May ever happened.

But I would like to start blogging more again. On that note, I am thinking of doing away with this blog and starting fresh with a new one. I think I've sort of outgrown this one (particularly the URL, which was also the blog's original title, which is way too melodramatic and self-pitying for me these days, because I've changed a lot since I started this blog). I'm still thinking about what direction to take with the new blog, so I'll keep this one around until I've decided. Either way, I hope to be making more frequent posts again soon.