Lonesome

My dog is spending his second night in the doggie hospital (also known as Lynden Veterinary Hospital). His liver enzyme count is high.



When my alarm went off this morning, no fuzzy face thrust near my own reinforced the message that it was time to get up. When I came home from work, no hysterical barking met my ears. No dog leapt madly about me until I leashed him up and took him for a walk. When I get up and walk around the place, no little dog comes tickety clicky with his little toenails following me from room to room. When I lay me down to sleep, no warm, furry little body nestles next to mine.

I miss him.

Laughs and titters

Last night, after posting, I was still amusing myself with the blogging/blobbing typo and I thought I would like to ask people, "Have you perused my blob?" I thought this was truly funny.

Later in the evening I literally (and I know what that word means) laughed out loud when I read the following in the Wimpy Catholic's blog about attending a discernment retreat (to see if one is called to enter a religious community):

The retreat ran from Friday evening through Sunday morning. I bunked with the recovering addict and the drooler. Both nights, I was the last to fall asleep. Both nights, as I lay awake in that dark room, farts like a camel’s lowing blared from the drooler’s bed, filling me, to my surprise, with an almost paternal tenderness.

I am in my early 50's, but my sense of humor has never matured to the point that I can refrain from prolonged laughter at flatulence (also belching). Any by prolonged, I mean much longer than anyone else would continue to laugh, even 6-year-olds. I just can't stop.

The unbearable lightness of blogging

Well, my blogging has been light lately, so light as to be weightless, due to its non-existence. I am resolved to be more diligent.

I almost typed "blobbing" instead of "blogging." What would it be like to have an online blob and post new blob entries? I've been blobbing about my life.

It's a whole new paradigm, as Dilbert once said.

Ad infinitum

Today I bought my dog some flea-killing medicine (rather spendy, by the way). The poor thing has been scratching and biting himself excessively lately. We had a mild winter and are now in the hot days of summer, so it's a flea-palooza extravaganza.

When I asked at the vet's office for a flea treatment, I was expecting the oily stuff in a little tube that you put between the dog's shoulder blades (so he can't lick it), making sure it gets in contact with the skin and doesn't just sit on top of the hair. But this time they sold me pills -- one per month, and they sell six months at a time.

In the past, when my dog was supposed to take antibiotics, I never could get a pill down him. I'd put it in his dish with his food, and he'd eat the food but leave the pill. I'd try to jam it down his gullet with my fingers and, after considerable struggle, just when I thought I'd succeeded, I'd find the pill, half-melted and covered with slobber, on the floor somewhere.

So I was a little dubious about the flea pill; however, the young women staffing the vet's office said it was not a pill but a chewable tablet, and they recommended putting it in with his food, perhaps even breaking it up in the food. They said he did need to take it with a meal.

This evening I put half his food in his dish, then crushed the pill between two spoons and added it to the food, then put the other half of his food in the dish and fed him. He gobbled it down and licked the bowl, as is his usual practice, so this time I think it worked.

I'm so cute, even vermin love me.

Supposedly within half an hour of his taking the pill his fleas should start dying. He's poison now to fleas -- for a month.

Since I had fleas on the brain, I hunted up the famous couplet:

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.

Lord love a duck

In the evening when I get home from work, I take my dog for a little walk around our back yard, where there are plenty of trees for him to pee on. I like to look at the creek, so we head there first.

This evening, I was fortunate enough to see a duck in the creek. She was floating/swimming downstream and simply passed me by.

Ne'er so well expressed

So on my lunch hours, I'm working my way through The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, by Stephen Fry. It's great. He's humorous and witty, in that great British style, and he really does explain things clearly, then gives an exercise that lets you write practice lines of poetry using the concepts he just taught.

Strawberries

Last year I put together a hanging basket of strawberries for my dad, with four strawberry plants in it. Two made it through the winter, so I hung the basket up again. A week or two ago, I added some pale blue bacopa, just to fill in the basket a little and make the arrangement pretty as well as fruitful.

One berry is very ripe, another is pretty ripe, and other are ripening.



As the summer progresses, Fishtrap Creek drops in depth. A sandbar (is it a sandbar?) appears that is covered by water in the winter.



Yesterday my great-niece was down there, doing "catch and release" with water bugs, when she started screaming in terror. Her older sister ran to the rescue and I heard the little girl say that a lobster almost got her toe.

If there's one thing more sure than another, it's that there are no lobsters in this creek. Her older sister reported that it was a "crawdaddy." I didn't think there were even crayfish in this creek, but then I'm no naturalist.

Buy this book!

I'm loving it.

Nicotiana

Recognition

I was on a website a few minutes ago that had instructions how to clean silver. At the bottom of the page I momentarily thought I saw some religious symbols. One was obviously a symbol of the Holy Spirit and the other of the Son. Then I moused over them and realized they were not a cross and a dove but rather:

the google + logo

and

the twitter logo.
 

Hey, thanks!

Earlier this evening I told myself I really should water my plants, if not fertilize them, as today was a rather hot day (by Western Washington standards). But then the heavens did the watering for me.

The longest day of the year

This was the western sky over my neighbor's roof at 9:45 p.m.



This is the reward that makes up for the sun going down shortly after 4:00 p.m. around winter solstice.

Wednesday

Well, thank goodness that's over with.

In other news, the weather was highly changeable today, as it often is here, especially in spring, I guess. Anyway, it was sunny and pleasant when I walked my dog at around 7:00 a.m., but it was rainy and chilly when we left for the doctor's office at a little past noon. Then it got nice again in the evening.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here's a picture from this weekend of my purple petunias.

You don't want to know

Colon prep.

Begonias

And nothing but begonias.

Flora

I haven't posted pictures of my flowers yet this season. I'm preparing my sermon today, so when I need a break, I'll put up some pictures. Here are the first two:

Very young strawberries

Red and yellow nicotiana

Preparation

This coming Sunday, I'm going to preach at Hope in Christ Church, in Bellingham. I took my passage from the lectionary, the Gospel passage, which is Luke 7:36-50.

I'm feeling a bit of time pressure. I did do some studying and thinking even during my brother's visit, and even made some notes. This weekend on Friday evening and Saturday during the day, my own congregation, at Third Christian Reformed Church of Lynden, is having an important conference for church members, and I do plan to attend. So I would like to have my sermon as done as possible before the weekend.

Tonight I am sitting down to it. I am working my way into it by blogging about needing to prepare. Hopefully that gets my mind turned toward my message.

How good and pleasant is the sight

Me and my brother Saturday night.

Psalm 133

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
for brethren to dwell together in unity!

It is like the precious ointment upon the head,
that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard:
that went down to the skirts of his garments;

As the dew of Hermon,
and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion:
for there the Lord commanded the blessing,
even life for evermore.

Or as the Psalter would have it:

How good and pleasant is the sight
When brethren make it their delight
To dwell in blest accord;
Such love is like anointing oil
That consecrates for holy toil
The servants of the Lord.

Such love in peace and joy distils,
As o’er the slopes of Hermon’s hills
Refreshing dew descends;
The Lord commands His blessing there,
And they that walk in love shall share
In life that never ends.

Fragrance

Today, two of my co-workers brought in bouquets from their gardens at home with great big peonies and roses. They smelled heavenly.

Preparing a room

My guest room is ready for my brother to visit.

My brother and me a little over a year ago