Today while walking Kona, we saw an unleashed dog running along a busy road by our house, no guardian in sight. She trotted up to meet Kona, then ran away. As we walked along we realized this stray dog was kind of following us, though staying ahead of us. She also kept crossing the road, nearly being hit by cars twice. She was a large yellow mutt with dark points on her face. She was pretty skinny, dirty, with patches on her fur around her hindquarters.

We were approaching the highway, and knew she would just run out into traffic and maybe be killed. By this point we knew we had to do something. Brian coaxed her over and took her collar. No ID tag, but there was a license. We called Animal Control, then the police. Neither of them were able to do anything. One suggested we take the dog home, put her in our car, and drive her ten miles to Silverdale Humane Society.

Plans for hanging out downtown abandoned, we walked back home, Brian holding the dog’s collar to save her from running in the road again. We reached our street and let go of her, but of course she followed us to our house. So we put her in the backyard, gave her water, and called the Humane Society again.

Someone there used the number on the license to find the owner’s address and phone number. The dog lived around the corner from us. Of course. We leashed the dog and walked her to her house. She was terrible on the leash and was probably never walked. Her house was tiny, at the end of a gravel road. A shiny new red pickup truck was out front, but the rest of the place looked impoverished. Right away we saw that the gate to the backyard was open, so we put the dog in and closed it.

Brian knocked on the door and two little girls answered. We told them we had found their dog. They had nothing really to say about it, not even thank you. I think they were home by themselves. We left. The dog watched us go, standing in her muddy yard, where she undoubtedly spent her entire life, caged, separated from the warmth and companionship of her owner’s den.

Why do people who obviously hate dogs, own dogs? Why??

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Tonight I ordered a couple of Bella Bands. A Bella Band is an elastic piece of lycra one wears over the tummy and over the top of one’s pants when one wants to walk around with their fly undone because buttoning up one’s jeans has become uncomfortable, yet one is not yet ready to transition into the world of full on panel-pants. I very much look forward to their arrival.

Lunch today was melon and brown rice. Dinner was sourdough toast, a fruit smoothie, and half of a butternut squash. See this is the kind of diet I should have been on when I was trying to lose weight. Sigh.

For now, low sodium triscuits are my friends.

We’re not doing anything “special” for v-day today (except Brian is making me something for dinner), but I do love these flowers.

[click to enlarge]

Not the most stereotypically “romantic” thing in the world, but last night at the market, getting groceries, we noticed the mammoth floral displays out front, of dozens of different cut flowers. Brian let me pick out whatever I wanted. So I chose four kinds of stems; tulips, purple freesia, roses, and lilies. I wanted curly willow too but the only one they had was like a huge four-foot-tall branch.

It reminded me of how my garden will explode with color in a few months. Can’t wait.