Monday, Monday

10/1/07 This morning I was busy. Being the first of the month, I paid bills, wrote thank yous and cooked breakfast and then scrubbed at the flour glued to our floor in the kitchen while John Kemmerly and Tony fed the 56 dogs outside and cleaned their pens.

After they had finished, John came to the trailer looking like he had been in a tornado! His t-shirt had a huge tear in it with a hole the size of a tricycle tire and his jeans looked like he had stolen them from Dwight Yoakam. When I asked him what had happened he laughed and said with a smile, “Since I started working here all of my clothes look like this. In fact, this was my last good t-shirt!” We laughed.

Then John told me that before coming to work, he had picked up Sugar Bear, the sweet little shepherd mix that we had rescued from the pound, along with our porcupined cohorts: Randy Travis and Abbie who were glad to get back home. And the main reason for his visit was to borrow some paper towels and disinfectant to clean up the van. And, before leaving, John looked at the kitchen floor and laughed. “I think I just saw a boll weevil come out of that crack in the floor!”

Later today, Tony and I headed to Kerrville to run errands. When we stopped at Hoegemeyer’s Animal Clinic we visited with Susan and Kathy Janssen, Dr. Craig’s beautiful wife. They told us that Celeste, a vet-tech had fallen in love with Sugar Bear and she wanted to adopt her even though she knew Sugar Bear was one of the puppies that we were fixing to fly up to Chicago.

Before I could say yes to them, the young vet-tech appeared and I said, “Kathy and Susan were just telling me that you wanted to adopt Sugar Bear. We have no problem with you adopting her, but you will have to move to Chicago,” I teased.

Celeste smiled. “I’m just kidding,” I said. “I’ll bring Sugar Bear with me tomorrow and you can adopt her then. We would love for you to have her.”

When Tony and I returned home, Kinky had called and had left a message for me to call him as soon as possible—it was urgent—and so I did.

When I called him he said, “Nance, I’m still in New York City and I’ll be back at the ranch either Thursday or Friday in time for the Wolfmueller’s book signing on Saturday. but more importantly I have some very exciting news to tell you ....”