UNITED STATES—The rains came, as promised… and then they came again. I was predisposed to tap away on my wonderful new laptop, the sleek silver one that I’m just getting accustomed to. Then it wasn’t there, nor was the new charger that I bought two days ago. Swiped, but I have an idea who did it, and it will be coming back. Folks used to start the day, “Where’s my coffee?”
And now, “It’s, where’s my charger?” Where’s my expletive charger…
Meanwhile, I’m back at the back at the library, having trudged here under the rain. To one side there’s a brochure for free showers. All the showers available at shelters and public facilities. Just look gaze out the window today—there is where the free showers are. From the sky.
This all brings me to Lupe’s latest adventure. Lupe in the rain. The still puppyish pit bull lab did it again. There rain was pouring down, it was pooling on the porch, it was ankle high in parts of the old cracked concrete walking that dips and dives in certain spots. Water, water, what a gift. And here was Lupe, barking ferociously from the inside of the front door. About that time an Amazon delivery came—these strangers with the blue swoosh on their shirt incite Mama Lupe to barking paroxysms. She continued to bark and pound on the front door. Lupe howled and with pummeled the door with all the might and power of her front legs, which she uses with great dexterity. (Sometimes I catch her practicing on opening the knob on the kitchen door. She’s going to do it someday.)
Now the odd thing is Lupe kept barking and howling, long after the deliveryman with the blue swoosh escaped from the rain back into his delivery van. Now I lay there on the couch. What else do you do on a rainy morning, lullabied by the quiet sizzle of raindrops, but stay under the blankets, comfy on the couch? Usually when Lupe goes into crazy barking mode, I will open the door and bid she go outside.
During the first days of the recent deluge, I did so. However, I soon learned that Lupe did not venture into a cold and rainy morning. Her companion, Baby DeVille, Lupe’s Chihuahua terrier companion, ever eager to venture out at the mere dangle of his red leash, stubbornly clung to his place on on the couch under the thick San Marcos blanket. The morning of which I speak, I clung to my place there too. Resisted standing up and connecting feet to floor.
There was a price to pay. When I finally put myself in a vertical position , I peeked out the front door. Fat drops were pouring down still. To my consternation I went into the kitchen, dirty dishes called, a floor that needed to be swept. And there in the middle of the white tile floor—it caught my eye last in this messy, rainy-day tableau: a very generous gift from Lupe’s digestive system. Large ginger-bread colored pellets.
Surely, another expletive escaped my lips before I could censor them:
%$#(*
No rancor did I harbor, at least no longer then a few seconds. I wiped the mess up. I was the nincompoop. Lupe was sending a message: I need to go baaaad!
To be continued…
