Dog days - and dog nights

 Dog days – and dog nights 

The dog is sick again, not that he gives a damn (to put it theologically). He doesn’t know that he’s sick. He’s a dog. He just knows that he is. I envy him frankly.

And he’s not that sick. He’s just caught in another attack of the sprays. Morning, noon, evening, midnight. Three in the morning he sticks his wet nose under my hand, hanging off 
the edge of the bed. He pushes, “Now!” And I scramble up, throw on a pair of jeans, slide sockless into a pair of loafers; and we’re off.

     We’re in the middle of the street when he hunches the first time. Kaboom. You can imagine the rest, if I tell you this much. He’s a big dog. I’m not a big guy. He’s on a leash. He’s on the run. He doesn’t stop for anything. It’s just kaboom, kaboom, kaboom.

     Then just as urgently as it began, it ends – screeeeches to a halt. And it’s over. “Let’s go home.” He says. And lopes off in that direction.

And as soon as we’re inside and he’s unleashed and has trundled back up the stairs, he’s asleep.

     I’m not. I can’t sleep, worried about him, about our yard the Gas Company is in the process of tearing up, about Britain leaving the EU, about every other thing my mind can latch onto for a couple of seconds at a time. I await wee-hours-of-the-morning calls from the vet, the Virginia Gas, and David Cameron.

But I egress.

06.24.16