For several years I've wanted to have a dog around. I haven't really had a dog since I was a kid. Jon brought Wishes along with him for awhile, but like all the other dogs I've had as an adult, Wishes was not interested in anything I had to say, like "STOP" or "STAY" or "Don't dig up my flowers!" So I wanted a young dog who would obey and who would like to hang with me as I stumble around the house and yard. It would be good to have a dog who would travel well as I take my picture taking excursions around the county.So, as I was getting the car out of the shop I saw that John Peoples, my mechanic, had a picture of a Corgi dog on his counter and a "free dog" sign. Seems his daughter had a sweet dog who needed more attention and more exercise. He needed a man to hang with who would play with him, drive him around and walk him up and down the street. Like me. So I agreed to take him on for a trial. Wrigley came home with me. The next day I began to feel queasy and I had some burping issues. The dog was great and I took anti-acids. After a few days of getting worse I realized that in spite of getting a flu shot, I had the flu. I had the serious shits and was very barfish. The dog curled up in bed with me and looked sorry for me, licking my hand. This went on for a few days until Margaret started getting queasy and burpish. There followed a very bad scene with her sick, as a dog, cramps and body aches and me with body aches and indigestion walking the new dog. It's been a couple weeks now and we have stopped having the flu at last and Wrigley is getting the kind of attention he needed.
Yesterday as we drove to the bus stop for Margaret we were flying down the interstate when the cars in front of me started braking and swerving. I had nowhere to swerve, however, being graced with a car on either side matching my speed. So I had a couple of seconds to see the head and most of it's body of a deer pop up from under the rear of the car ahead of us! With a whoomp and thud we went over it. By the time we got to the bus stop you could smell burning meat and hair from the engine compartment. As we stopped we could see steam coming from the hood and when I got out it was clear the radiator was losing every drop of fluid, which I needed to keep Wrigley from.
So we towed the car to John People's garage and he got to play with his grand-dog Wrigley. The radiator was split on the bottom with chunks of Bambi shoved inside. I called Enterprise and rented a small car for about a week and John told me that he'd have to hold off fixing it until the insurance adjuster could take a look at it. Funny thing, if the radiator repairs cost enough it might actually total the car! It's a 1998 Volvo after all. So we have a new dog, will have a new radiator and I think I need to buy a truck, like a Toyota Tacoma, so we have a spare car and one where muddy dog feet won't be a problem. The black leather in the Volvo has suffered from Wrigley's claws.
Finally, Izzybag Productions is steaming ahead working on my web site. I'm extremely interested in how they get my stuff up, the other sites they've done were so sweet and clean with great little features and class. My photos should be just great and hopefully somebody will buy either my sculptures or the images. We need to pay down Jess's debt. Her school loans are huge and it looks like employment might take awhile. So, look at www.picasaweb.google.com/fredbrighton for my web albums and cruise over to www.willshirley.com to see the startup of the new site. Someday when I'm famous you can say you saw it all in the beginning. woo-hoo! Life hurts, but it still is sweet like honey. Wrigley says "woof".
