Yes, it’s true. You count a dog out, and he decides that he doesn’t care if the world is a slanty mess, and that he will have to walk tilted to the right for a while.

He has decided to get well.

And so we’ve been going to visit him every day, and each day he is more and more bouncy and frisky, and more excited about the carrots we bring…and today I would have brought him home for good, except that my husband and I are going into New York tomorrow to see our daughter in a play! YES! She plays Mona in “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean,” and we are going to sit there in the front row and clap and clap, which is one of the perks of being parents of an acting student in New York.

See? Here she is, with her boyfriend, smiling. (This is not her boyfriend in the play; this is her real boyfriend, who is very nice, and we like him a lot.)

And so when we come home tomorrow night, our hands sore from clapping and our voices hoarse from shouting, then we will go and get Jordie, and will turn the family room into a Safe Room for a compromised doggie, moving all sharp objects and putting his bed and his food dish down there, so he won’t ever have to climb stairs and risk hurting himself on the furniture. It has been lonely in the house without the sound of wagging and panting. And no one still here wants to go in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out…and well, I kind of miss that.

 September 2008 005