Vacation

Early tomorrow morning I'm flying down to Dallas with The Scholarly Gentleman and our friend Edd. This is the first real vacation I've been on in a few years.

There are no volunteer duties to be fulfilled, no auctions to be run, no difficult people to be cultivated, no relatives to please (or, at least, to not shock), no storage lockers to be inventoried, no moving vans to be rented, no presentations to give, no awkward reunions planned, and no schedules to be adhered to.

Theoretically we're going to visit an enormous bookstore in a tiny town in East Texas. But, since we all have houses piled to the rafters with books, it's not exactly a shopping trip. My plan is to relax, enjoy a warmer climate and a slower pace, and avoid rattlesnakes.

We are leaving in the cats in the capable hands of our house sitter, who spoils them rotten. Sheba is pretty much recovered from her nervous breakdown and is now living on the kitchen counter, purring. Mabel, back at the vet to have her nails clipped this week, has lost a few more ounces so she's scheduled for a more detailed round of thyroid tests when we get back.

In other animal news, we've caught the dog that's pooping on our front yard. And the owner.

It turned out to be the Scottie from down the street. We were headed out to do errands this afternoon when it came shimmering down the sidewalk (it lives four doors to the south) scampered right past us, and squatted down on the lawn. Meanwhile, the owner leaned out her front door and started calling for it. We kept the dog entertained, which had the effect of luring the owner out into the open, where we were able to inform her that her dog had, once again, pooped on our lawn. The woman seemed unfazed about anything except getting the dog to come home. But now I know where to deliver the piles of poop — either to the owner's lawn OR to the pristine lawn of the remodeled house they have up for sale, only two doors to the south of us!