Today is the 30th? Really? How did this happen? I have no idea. Unless I was abducted, which is a possibility.  I am going to have to give this some thought and figure out a good reason that will sound believable.

I don’t know how, but a bird got into the house and this is our third try to get it out. I believe Summer is going to have to carry the cat in front of her and try to encourage the bird to skedaddle. We have opened doors and windows, but the bird can’t find its way out.  I guess that is why we use the term “birdbrain”.

I will have to update or you might think the bird got us.

Last night I wrote that my legs tingled after four hours of raking; well, today, I believe the adjective would be aching, and that would include my arms. And, of course, there are still more leaves on the trees. AUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH.  I believe that was a primordial reaction.

Other than that, I am warm and under a roof and have had a foldover and am drinking a Diet Sam’s. (No way this AJ is paying $7.18 for a 24 pack of Diet Coke.) Since I don’t drink coffee, I depend on my caffeine boost from cola. I’m cutting back, but that morning combination of caffeine and carbonation seems to be a habit of a lifetime, and, as Churchill said, it’s dangerous to fool with those. He happened to be talking about liquor, but it’s in the same category.

The lady who lived across the street from me for many, many years until she was taken to a nursing home, totally against her will, died last Saturday. She was 90, had never been married, been orphaned at nine and  a real social problem for her in her youth was the fact her father was buried in a prison yard.

She worked almost every day of her life and was still folding towels at the YMCA right up to the time she became too mind-muddled to be trusted to live safely at home. She would try to sneak out of the nursing home and realized there was a clothespin device attached to her clothes that electronically signaled her passage out a door. So she would remove it and clip it onto someone else . . .

There were a few pictures of her as a girl and young woman – one showing her leaning up against the taxi she drove for four years. She had spunk.

I am lying here with my legs tingling. Raking for four hours will do that to me. My face is coated with a layer of “leaf dust” and I am thinking about pulling a blankie over me and not moving one bit more than necessary. I picked up Shane’s ashes at the vet’s this afternoon so actually it feels good to be really tuckered out physically.

I don’t know that it has to, life going on, that is, but it seems that time does. And something pokes at me and says, “Well, live that time.”  I guess I need to give it a shot –  you know, a big push for The Gipper. That sort of thing.

UPDATE: Perhaps the saying should be that “life bubbles up.” This morning I put on my short boots with my jeans; they don’t have zippers and you literally do have to pull them up by the bootstraps. I kind of grinned when I pulled the right one on, remembering those  sulky and reluctant  words I had just written. And then I looked around and the left boot was not right there.  I had to look for it and I couldn’t help chuckling almost aloud as I thought, Not only do you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you have to find the damn boot as well.

I am tired. I went to Ohio, taking a couple of back roads just for the heck of it. I really did a non-diet week end with Hot Head Burritos and Cousin Vinny’s specialty pizzas. I came back and don’t feel as if I have much to say, so I’m going to let it be.

This is LZP’s birthday and the stretched out and fun-appreciating (maybe pranks) celebration I had planned was derailed by an extended “rainy day” period. But I was ready to go full steam last week-end – priority mail and all that.

Then Shane got sick and died. A dog. I know that is what some would think. Just a dog. Well, to quote John Wayne, “Not hardly.”

Shane was a very special dog, not just because of who he was in his actions and behavior but because of the link he was to other people. To hug Shane was to hug the others who had loved him.

A dog, and yet I feel as if my world has collapsed. I am aware  of all the realities of the situation – aware of the horrific struggles people are faced with, but my gut hurts so bad and I can’t think my way out of it. I understand there is nothing to be gained by wallowing in this weird grief; but that’s what’s odd about it – it is like quicksand, not like the mud I have slogged through before.

Perhaps so many goodbyes are wrapped up in this one; I don’t know.

Shane passed away Sunday evening. He had a tumor on his heart. We are all devastated.