THE DOG DAYS OF AUTUMN

I was a little startled when I left the house this morning and saw a cop car parked in the middle of the street at the end of our cul de sac. I was even more startled when I got down there and saw another one parked a couple of houses away, and a third coming around the corner. Have no idea what was going on, there were no police in sight.

I forgot all about them when I turned on the radio and they were talking about a piece of classical music inspired by Linnaeus’ design for a flower clock. He was that guy who classified stuff (genus, species etc.). Evidently he came up with a design for a clock based on what time of day various plants open and close their flowers. Seemed like a cool idea to me, so I looked it up when I got home. When I saw the list of plants, which includes dandelions, bindweed, hawkweed, thistles and goat’s beard, I quickly decided that we will continue to rely on watches and regular clocks to check the time. But at least it was diverting enough to keep me from wondering about all the cop cars.

Met some charming dogs today. Hooper belongs to a family of sports fans.I had to ask if they had said Cooper or Hooper. “Hooper,” said the elderly lady who owns him. “As in basketball hoops.” He was pretty bouncy, so maybe that was part of the inspiration for the name.

Jacques had just escaped from his yard and was being re-corralled.He is a French bulldog. I asked if he barks with a French accent, but I think it’s probably pure California.

Sammy is a chocolate Lab. Isn’t she a beauty?She is nine months old and is the only dog I’ve met on a driveway who immediately started licking my fanny pack. I don’t carry food in it. She was just a smoochy girl. Her owners were pretty elderly too, at least in their seventies, and said she’s a great dog but needs a lot of exercise, which is hard for them to give her enough. But their daughter has a two year old Lab who comes over and the dogs play for hours until they fall down exhausted. We agreed that the old saying is true: a tired dog is a good dog!

After Sammy I met Katie. Sorry my picture of her didn’t turn out better, because she was a love. Her owners told me they had been quite entertained by all the guesses people had been making about what breeds might have gone into her gene pool. I read somewhere that it only takes a few generations of completely random dog breeding to get back to the basic brown dog. Katie got sweet genes from all of them.

Around the corner from Katie, I stopped at a sale where the lady immediately told me, “I’ll trade you all this stuff for your car.” I declined (I’m sure it means I’m a terribly shallow person to love my car as much as I do) but encouraged her to go for a convertible the next car she buys. She told me she really wants one but it doesn’t seem practical, so I pointed out how extremely useful a convertible is for garaging on Saturday morning. Got that Heywood Wakefield vanity and mirror in the back seat just fine! As someone commented, my car is a pickup in disguise.

There were some shoppers at her sale with a small terrier (I’ve seen them around before) and when her husband came out with their dog they snatched the terrier up into their arms. “He doesn’t like other dogs,” they said. “He thinks he’s a person.” (I managed not to point out that I think I’m a person and I like other dogs.) Here’s the raging beast they were saving him from.

I guess you can never be too careful. Fortunately the terrier folks left before Nissa came by.

She’s a Samoyed mix that he got from the Samoyed rescue folks. I have a soft spot for these, since we had a Samoyed/Pointer mix for several years when we were first married.

So it was quite a doggy morning. Besides the dogs, I took pictures of one more thing while I was out. Saw this box and wondered what size they are. Opened it up, and decided the contents would not fit.

I spent $4.00 this morning. This has been quite an inexpensive hobby lately! My first buy was some mailing envelopes.When your order your copy of MY NOVEL :o) you can now be assured it will be sent in a quality, genuine, yard sale envelope. (I know…how special is that!)

The lady who wanted my car gave me a good deal on a couple of DVDs.Can’t wait to try At the Earth’s Core… the back cover promises murderous monsters, scantily clad prehistoric playmates and telepathic pterodactyls in an underground empire where all the humanoids have been enslaved. Zowie.

Found one item to give away to a children’s librarian. Hard to tell from the picture but the butterfly is mounted on the tip of a ribbon-wrapped stick, a sort of butterfly wand. Should be fun at storytimes. Of course, it means depriving our Noll. He was quite fascinated by those fluttering ribbons. My last find came from Hooper the basketball dog’s sale, and I just love it. Another addition to my acorn collection. It’s a vintage gold-toned pin, 1.5 inches across, probably from the Sixties, signed Giovanni on the back of the leaf.The leaf is etched to make it look more like an oak leaf. Tried to get a picture but my camera’s macro setting is just not that macro.

When I returned home, The neighborhood was still standing and no cop cars were in sight.

I took it as a good sign.