Still here.

 Well. Here we are. It's a sunny day, and I'm sitting in the back yard with a travel book, imagining a vacation I might take some day* and listening to Patsy Cline. That's all good. I've got Dog #7** out here with me, and he's sleeping hard in the way that dogs do, making me feel sleepy myself every time I look at him.

Things are okay. We all continue to feel pretty crushed by current events, though Cook and I both do still have jobs and we all get up every day and do the things we have to do. We continue to recognize that we are extraordinarily lucky. And yet, this is a dismal slog.

We've been spending a lot of time outside since the smoke siege, trying to store up some air and sunshine for the long winter ahead. There may not be enough air and sunshine.

 

* I can't even tell you how much time I've spend thinking about multi-day walks in Scotland and Wales. Days. Maybe weeks.

** Dog #7 is a people-loving 80-pounder with a massive (mastiff) head. He drools abundantly, gets "mouthy" (aka "bitey") when he's excited , and is really leash-reactive to other dogs, which means that if he sees another dog, he lunges to the end of the leash, and sometimes gets so worked up that he leaps and writhes like a fish, barking and snarling and actually frothing at the mouth, which given that he already looks scary in his resting state, must look like a nightmare to the poor people walking past. He may never get adopted...