Lindsay Muses

It isn't easy being a dog, but it can often be comfortable.

Dogs come to understand quite a bit about the human culture and the personalities of their owners. They can recognize human behavioral patters with great ease and make predictions about changes in those patterns based on very subtle clues.

Lindsay can tell from the type of clothing I put on whether we are going for a run in the morning. It I put on the right clothing, she dances for joy at my feet and runs to the kitchen where we keep her leach.

If I put on the wrong clothing, she heads for the side door where I exit for the car and lays in front of the door. She wouldn't want to be left behind by shear accident, so she's giving me one last chance to take her for that run.

This week I've been leaving early for the Hospital and she's been getting no morning runs at all. I'm carrying a pouch of 5FU that is being pumped into my body 22 hours of a day. Wheezing in and wheezing out every few seconds. Lindsay has learned that that fanny pack and that noise add up to no early morning run, and she has given up even asking. Even hoping.

Instead she hops up on her chair and watches me go with saddened eyes.

The sadness lasts about thirty seconds after my driver pulls his car out of my drive, then she goes and barks at the back door for Linda to let her out into our large yard, where she delight in chasing away all the birds and inspecting all the trees for squirrel (or even better raccoons).

We are haring some work done around the house this week. Work I normally would have done but am no long able. The grass is being cut by a company and student painters are repainting our kitchen cabinets and our outside decks.

There were four students here yesterday and today both the student group and the grass cutters will be here.

I kid Linda that while I'm gone to the hospital to be pumped fun of poison, she fills the house with men.

Yes, she says, but she's got to pay them.

However their various and unpredictable comings and goings make for an interesting day for Lindsay who has to stick her long black nose into everything that's going on.

Which the men thought was cute at first and then a little distracting, so Linda was forced to keep her in the living room for much of the day.

Ah well, tomorrow I come off the pump, and if I continue to survive the week as well as I am currently, by the weekend we should be able to get out for a run again.

In her chair, Lindsay wags her tail with faint hope, as if reading my thoughts.