Hilarious or Pathetic--You Decide

     Lest this blog become all wheelchairs/all the time, I thought you might like an update on the world back at home as I remember it, because in truth, I could not be here were it not for the friends and neighbors who moved in like a swat team so that I could be here with my brother as he goes through rehab for his spinal cord injury...
     Never was a point more driven home than last night when I received this picture on my phone just about the time I was taking Roz for her last evening stroll...

     <----In case you can't tell, it's Hix (brother of Rosebud, uncle of Roz)...sitting high atop a couple of nailed-together worker staircases, once used by builders completing my barn loft, (and later removed and reassembled as a goat playground...thanks to Builder Eric who spotted: "Hey, I bet the kids'll love this!" (thus hammering two ratty-tatty sets of worker steps together as a climbing euphoria for my 18 pygmy kids) Leave it do Digital Dave to snap the pic end of week as Hix surveys his kingdom. (Clearly Hix ain't sharing his thrown with no stinkin' goats.)

     [For the record, people stop to pet Roz non-stop throughout the day here in Atlanta, whether we're in dog parks, restaurants or hospital corridors. Those very same people marvel when I tell them  a) she's only a puppy (7 months old),  hence half the size she's gonna be and b) we got 4 more just like her back home...First of many "hilarious or pathetic" options...We'll let you decide...]

     Funnier yet...our same Saturday night, with Roz as my dinner date...(she, having scarfed a bowl of puppy chow, me, sharing my pizza with the security guard who let our delivery driver in)--Ed's wife Kim had arrived earlier in the day, leaving me with a happy brother and a mutt to share my evening with...the ultimate girl's night in!) My last "to do" before pulling out the monkey jams and slathering a mud mask on my face while curling up to a mindless Lifetime Original) was to head out one last time with Roz, to the corner lot where they leave pink baggies for your doggie's poo...

     The night is still young....a perfect sunset (they come later here). The sky was this hazy, pastel pallet of pinks and blues. As it turns out, Roz was in no mood for pooping (no good way to paint that picture...sometimes she's in the zone...other times not...This time, there was too much to distract her...from trains on trestles, trafficky street noises and a karaoke bar just across the way...)
     I check in with home, prompted by the hilarious Hix picture on my phone...just as Roz decides to become part of the perfectly manicured horticulture surrounding the statue in front of our rehab place. "No Roz...Not there!" I'm whispering loud enough for fellow passersby to laugh...(She's not pooping, mind you...She's plopped herself smack dab in a sea of ground cover and begins to wallow as if swimming...Something about the ivy tickling her butt, I guess...Now I'm tickled.)
     "You gotta see this dog" I say to the other end of the line. (Being inept at the techy stuff, my counter, staying with Rosebud (Roz's mama) et al, will have to FaceTime me, lest we get disconnected.)
     As I reverse the camera, so Rosebud can see what her silly girl is doing, Rosebud (on her end of the line) flips upside down and sideways, (I guess thinking belly rubs come with the voice...how to do that via phone lines, we're still working on) ... A second couple passes by.... (Are you getting this picture? It's not me doing FaceTime...It's Rosebud and Roz...one wallowing, one belly up... The humans holding the phones, are the pathetic idiots here..albeit it, laughing ones)
     Hilarious or pathetic? Will let you decide...As for me and my fam, thank God for technology...And thank God for people who are as nuts about animals as I am....Though perhaps not as good as a real-time hug, "I'll hug mine on this end...You hug all the rest..." is our last communique with the family back home.
     Another day in paradise...(be it farm...be it rehab center)
     We do what we do... The conversation may be virtual, but the love is for real and streaming in spades as are the tears of laughter rolling down my face...
                                 To the right----->
is Roz, after her walk and before final goodnights.  (The duties never end.) Ever ready for the hugging, she scarfs up her Aunt Kim's hugs just before calling it a day/a week. (Everybody needs a battery recharge. Pretty sure that's why God made dogs...and the hilarious/pathetic people like us who are nuts about 'em...)