Humidity And Happy Dances

Days sometimes unfold in a different way than we expect, and end up being better than we plan or hope for. I woke up this morning knowing I had some tasks to do. We recently gave up the garage we were renting, and had to move the items we had stored out there into our apartment. Since Trent was unable to do heavy lifting so soon after his transplant surgery, I moved the boxes inside in the evenings during a record-breaking heatwave. Great timing, right? Then I felt a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of going through them and then storing them in our reading room. But the last couple of days, I managed to get some big chunks of work done in short periods of time. I got up this morning and finished moving the boxes around. Every time I went through the entryway and living room, my heart felt light because I had finished the hardest part of the job.

Late in the afternoon we had a storm system move in. Being Coloradans, we are unused to humidity. Hard to believe I was born and lived my first several years in Chicago, which is so humid that you are as wet after drying off as you were while you were in the shower. While we welcomed the rain, the sixty-eight percent humidity has us feeling like we had a load of bricks strapped to our chests. But when evening rolled around, it was a delight. The air was cool and fresh, cool enough for me to want to bake a little cake. 

As I sat on the sofa watching t.v. and eating chocolate cake, Paris sat next to me, intently watching the slice of cake growing smaller on my plate. As the cake slipped away from her, she wasn't able to control her manners any more. Lucky for me that she only weighs about nine pounds, because when she realized I had left some cake on the plate for her, she pushed me aside with her shoulder and ate every crumb she could find. Then she turned to me as if to say, "You have any milk in that glass? I really like to have milk with my chocolate cake." So she washed her cake down with some milk, and trotted off feeling very proud of herself.


It's absolutely precious to me how happy a smidgen of cake and a drink of milk can make a dog. After starting with her dessert, and then finishing with some canned food, she jumped up on the bed, truly content. I know this because she did her Happy Dance. She throws herself down on her side on the bed, talks, and moves her legs and head around, and repeats several times. Her joys expressed, she curls up and settles down for a nap. I hope her dreams are good ones, filled with beef stew and cakes and milk. And maybe I can make her dreams come true again tomorrow.