Odds & Ends #15

Yesterday was my dad’s 80-somethingth birthday. I remember when he turned 40, over 40 years ago, my mom gave him an orange t-shirt that said “40.” The fact that I have enough longevity to remember something that long ago is pretty nutty. I’ll be hitting 50 next month, and if you’d asked me when I was 13 if I’d make it this long, you would have seen the most aghast face at being that old. It is what it is, I guess.

I also bought my house 19 years ago yesterday. Welcome to my mojo-dojo-casa-house! Chez Shasta has been a good little home, and in 6 or 7 more years, she’s all mine!

What I mean by all this is, time is passing by. Melina and I are 6 months into her 10 month stay. I KNOW—already!

Even if January is 462 days long, and we’re only on Day 25.

But thank goodness for the Australian Open. (You didn’t think that I’d get through a blog post in January without talking about tennis, did you? Tsk, tsk.) Even though it’s late nights and early mornings to see the matches, it really does perk things up during the long, cold months of winter to see fit, tanned athletes running around in 100’F temps chasing down yellow balls.

Piper continues to eat when she feels like it, for the most part. Fortunately, that is most of the time. I think it was due to her medicine, but I also think she’s a picky little bitch. There’s no reason for her not to eat the perfectly good food I cook for her, even when she whines for my spaghetti and meatballs. The saga continues.

Only six more weeks until Melina and I take off for the Grand Canyon! She was smiling the other day — as she is wont to do, anyway — and I asked her why. “I’m just excited about Spring Break,” she said.

The rescue work I do continues to go pretty well, but we have a dog in foster care right now who is showing signs of aggression toward humans. I’m not sure what to do. This is where being “in charge” is not as fun as it sounds. It’s keeping me up nights.

Well, that, and tennis.