Where do I even begin?
The last seven days have been jam-packed and crazy. I blame Warren Beatty. Or PriceWaterHouseCoopers.
I left for Nashville early last Tuesday morning and I think I just sat down on my couch for the first time since then. It was a whirlwind of meetings and presentations and I’ll just drop this little announcement that my new book will be coming your way on October 3, 2017 and I’ll have more details to share about that at some point. I know it feels like a long time from now but it will be here before we know it and it will be fall which means we’ll be back in a season where we are complaining about how hot it is when it’s supposed to feel cool outside. I’m looking at you, spring 2017 and your ridiculous 90 degree temperatures.
I drove from Nashville to Birmingham on Wednesday and spent the night with Sophie. We went out for a delightful dinner and then the next day I spoke at the Samford Legacy League Luncheon. I can’t even tell you how much I enjoyed the women I met, but I will share that I was seated next to an eighty-seven year old woman who sorts jewelry donations for the Salvation Army once a month (YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE WHAT PEOPLE GIVE AWAY!) and has been married to her husband for sixty-seven years. She told me he can’t speak anymore but has a machine where he can type messages and every morning she wakes up to a message from him that reads, “THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR THE DAY” and it’s essentially his To Do List for her for the day. She said sometimes she listens to him and sometimes she doesn’t and THAT, my friends, is the secret to being married for sixty-seven years.
After the luncheon, Sophie and I were invited to the SEC Headquarters for a tour. This has basically been one of my life goals and so I can now cross it off my list. I briefly met the Commissioner and I suspect he would have liked to hear all my thoughts on SEC football but he was walking into a meeting with someone who probably wasn’t a blogger. But then we got to spend an hour in the official replay room watching film of last season’s games and being quizzed on whether or not we could make the right call. Spoiler alert: We were four for four. This will be a fact that everyone who has to watch football with me next season will live to regret.
I flew home to San Antonio on Friday afternoon and got home just in time for my Friday night Mexican food fix. We picked up dinner and I think I was crashed in bed by 10 p.m. Caroline had a soccer game on Saturday afternoon so that was essentially our Saturday. Then Sunday was church where I ended up working in the kids’ room since our regular helper wasn’t there. I have many gifts…I’m not entirely sure what they are, but I know what they are not. And working in the kids’ room is at the top of that list. At one point a little boy looked at me and said, “This is the most FRUSTRATING craft ever!” and I was like “I totally feel you. Who has the dexterity to glue googly eyes on a toilet paper roll using only a glue stick? That’s not even a real life skill.” So that went well.
Speaking of things going well, I had a working theory before I left town last week and feel that I confirmed it today. Every night before bed, I let Piper and Mabel out in the front yard. I don’t know why they feel like they need to do their business in the front yard at night when the backyard suffices during the daytime, but I’m pretty sure it’s my fault or Faye Dunaway’s fault. I let them go out there one time and it was like they discovered nirvana and settle for nothing less now.
However – and this is a big HOWEVER – every night I have to yell at them to quit eating cat poop. I don’t know why dogs like to eat cat poop when cats are their sworn enemy, but I also don’t understand why you would lick your own rear end so this is just one of many unfathomable mysteries of the dog universe. But they run out there and the cat has always pooped in the same place. It’s not our cat. I don’t even know which of our neighbor’s cats has decided our front yard is a toilet. But I have long suspected that Piper and Mabel have struck a deal with this cat. I don’t know all the intricacies of this agreement because this is the animal kingdom and who knows what all goes into this kind of high-level deal? I just know that cat poops in our yard like it’s Piper and Mabel’s own personal Favor delivery.
I told myself maybe I was imagining it, but this afternoon I was driving up to the house when I caught the cat unawares, pooping in that exact spot in our yard. What’s more, Piper and Mabel were watching the whole thing go down from our back fence and never even barked. This is significant because they bark at everything…a leaf, a suspicious can of paint on our back porch, and the air. Yet this cat walks freely about our front yard and they don’t make a sound. I have no definitive proof, but it’s all very suspicious.
And then I found a haiku Mabel wrote:
Oh cat, you’re my foe
But your treats are delightful
So I must bargain
I believe this is the smoking gun.
And, also, maybe that I’ve reached a new low by writing almost an entire entry about my dogs eating cat poop. I couldn’t be sorrier about it but too late now.
If nothing else, take comfort in knowing that La La Land won the Oscar for Best Movie.
Except it didn’t.
Because we are living in a world where dogs make deals with cats. What else proves that maybe nothing is as it seems?