July 28, 2020 – Tuesday
IT finally arrived. SUMMER!!!!
I know many of you have been trying to keep cool in the sweltering heat; weeks on end of 90º + temps … I’ve had three days now of not having my heat on and I’m ecstatic!
Yesterday was IT. Nearly 80º … a slight breeze that was as light as butterfly kisses … bird song … sun … blue, cloudless skies. THANK YOU, Mom Nature! Seriously. I’ve been waiting so very long.
And I took advantage of it as only one does in the NW – knowing that that kind of day is fleeting (by 7pm it was a mere 76º and I was feeling chilled!) … and that before too long we’ll be back in the 60s … and that this might just be our ONE SHOT at this season … this ONE PERFECT DAY.
So, you do what you can.
And, I did.
I laid out in the sun. As in … laid out … in the sun. Slumber mask over my eyes, tube top on, (dare I admit) shorts! … flat out on the chaise in the yard … lemonade within reach. It was GLORIOUS!
And no, I don’t think I even got a tint of color even though I was sure I’d have reached a hint of pink after 20 minutes of said sun-soaking. If I was a steak I was sure I’d be “medium” … but the sun isn’t that intense up here and well, I’m just glad the rays reached us, even if they were weak. After 60 degree temps … nearly 80º was HOT! And I loved it while it lasted!
And, the nearby rooster must have been lulled to sleep by the heat (or half-cooked) in his enclosure so no cock-a-doodle-dooing all afternoon long! Bliss! (I usually love it – but his clock is off and he doodles ALL day long … every 20 minutes his rooster alarm goes off!)
I’m a water or tea drinker. I’m not a sugary-sweet cola/anything drinker but I drank ice cold lemonade. LOTS of lemonade. So much so that after a few hours I was sure my teeth were going to fall out. They didn’t. I do best with non-sweetened anything … but, hey … it was Summer!
I ate an ice cream cone at 5pm. Not a very good one, but an ice cream cone – in the yard, in the sun, in 79º weather! Before dinner! Fabulous!
I ate dinner after 7 … a shrimp taco with onions, asparagus and corn-off-the-cob. It was so lovely to dine on my deck with the breeze wafting over my still bare arms and the hum of the hummingbirds sipping nearby.
For dessert I ate cubes of watermelon – perfectly ripe, perfectly cold, perfectly crisp. I couldn’t wait for my nightly walk as I was feeling a little water(melon) logged!
It was so nice that I emailed, read and pretty much stayed on the deck or the stairs – moving the hose and sprinkler (I ran through it, too) until I decided I’d best get a move on down the road. I went solo – I could have taken Sadie but she’s a horror on the leash and too many deer are out early evening. I’d have road rash head to toe and I didn’t want my one day of summer to end that way!
It’s to be 72º today. Maybe. It’s now 68º and early afternoon … we are slow to warm up. It’s nice but this warmth now seems inadequate compared to the magic that was yesterday … Summer – in all her glory. We were just missing fireflies and a roasted something over an open flame. But, I’ll take what today brings! Like I said, these days are fleeting!
The other day I shared with you a story about our cocker, Sera … here’s another glimpse of her story.
Twenty-three Pounds of Sugar – 10/9/1998
I came home today to a quiet house. My personal “welcoming committee” didn’t greet me. No flash of black fur jumping at me. No curly ears flapping. No stump tail wagging.
I wondered … where was she? She always waited for me by the door.
It was a cold winter’s evening when Sera first came to us. I was at home, looking over mounting bills–pregnant with our second child and our nine-month-old son, Ted, was asleep upstairs. My husband, Tim, was finishing up a double-shift of part-time work. It had been a tough first month of the new year. Ted had been rushed to the ER with an eye injury. I was having major pregnancy issues and had just been ordered off my feet and bedrest (which I wasn’t doing at that moment), Tim lost his job and it had been three days since our beloved dog of six years died unexpectedly while undergoing emergency surgery. She had been my “first baby” and I was devastated by her passing.
Tim came home and I got up to greet him and as I approached him a bit of black caught my eye … a dear, sweet, Cocker Spaniel puppy’s face peeked out at me from around the edge of our couch. It was love at first sight. She was so beautiful. We named her Sera (pronounced Sarah) as it means “evening” in Italian and the night he brought her home was the best evening we’d had in a while.
She stayed by my side for the next two months … through the death of my grandfathers and the death of our unborn son and for the next 13 years she has stayed by my side and been my constant shadow and loyal companion.
So, where was this twenty-three pound bundle of sugar?
Instead of being at the back door, as always, my darling Sera sat on the kitchen rug with her back to me, head cocked, looking away across the room. She hadn’t heard me come in … hadn’t heard the door close … hadn’t heard me call her name.
My dear sweetheart turns 13 next week. She is now deaf and won’t hear us sing “Happy Birthday” to her as we have done all these years–since my son was a baby. She is getting old. Her eyes are filmy and her vision is failing. She’s had a year of eye infections and gradual vision loss. I walk behind her or carry her up the stairs at night if I think she’s having trouble judging the steps. I know her vision is diminishing by the way she’ll cock her head – adjusting the angle to get a better view. She sleeps more. More than once I have found her asleep (in our bed) well after mid-morning. I let her sleep–the bed can be made later – as I don’t want to disturb her.
We don’t have any older family or friends in our lives and yet it dawns on me that over the past year our family has adjusted living with an elderly family member. Sure, she might just be “a dog” to some people, but she is family to us and this wonderful creature is teaching us all about adapting to an elderly being.
I suddenly realize how very important Sera is in our lives–not just because of her undying loyalty, affection and unconditional love–but because we are all learning so much from her at this stage in her life. We have watched her grow old–gracefully and without complaint. We have watched her adapt to her diminished capacities and capabilities with that same grace and acceptance.
Tim’s parents were not in our lives much before they passed away. They lived 1000 miles away and lived in a nursing facility. My parents live farther away but are just turning 70 and are healthy and youthful. We are all learning how to care and cope with an aging loved one’s abilities and issues through this little wiggly-tailed bundle of love.
We are gentler, kinder, and take more time with her because we sense she needs it. We are slower to scold and quicker to hug. We are less apt to judge and more likely to assist. Our patience is longer and our bonds are stronger – not only with her–but with each other. Our behavior, towards her, now spills over to how we treat each other as respect is greater and petty annoyances are ignored. I realize both kids (10 year old daughter, Sam, as well as teenager, Ted) hug and kiss Sera and tell her they love her before they go to bed or off to school. If she can’t hear them, I like to think she can sense their affection and what they are saying. I hear them and it melts my heart.
I realized all this in the moment it took to walk from the door to the rug where Sera is sitting. I walked around in front of her–so as not to startle her if I touched her from behind – and all at once … she saw me! The black fur jumped at me, the curly ears were flapping and the little stump tail was rotating so quickly – I thought it would lift her from the floor. Yipping and licking she wriggled about me as I sat on the rug petting her in her excitement and joy. The “welcoming committee” was in session and I was getting the greeting that I so desperately was hoping for.
There will be a day when she is no longer with us … and as heart-wrenching as it is for me to even think about that eventuality I know that all of our lives will have been changed, for the better, by this wonderful dog … all twenty-three pounds of sugar.