What a week!

Wandering Wednesday. We had a fun week of adventures. It started when I saw Oscar, the gopher tortoise that lives in the dunes on the way to the beach. He was enjoying the morning sun, hanging out, looking over his front yard. I didn’t have my camera that day, but I saw him again today and this time I was ready.

The pups found lots of treasures. A big blue crab’s claw, some kind of seaweed with either seed pods or clutches of eggs attached. I still haven’t found out what this is. If you know – please share. But the coolest thing was a porcupine fish that freaked Curly completely out. He refused to walk on the same side as the hand I’d held it in (because you know I had to pick it up and investigate it from beaky nose to cute little tail). Curly was still leery after we got home. I had to hold both hands up over my head, turn my pockets inside out, and let Moe pat me down before I could get close enough to take off his harness.

And I got another letter, written by my buddy Melissha and brought down Mt. LeConte by llamas. I have got to sit still long enough to write her back.

One morning on the beach, a police officer drove up on his Polaris and my dogs went nuts. They don’t have a mean bone in their bodies, but you wouldn’t believe me if you heard them. The way they howl reminds me of the passage from Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy where the savages come riding in wearing the wedding veil of some innocent virgin bride, painted in the blood of their victims— It’s embarrassing.
Anything with wheels other than regular cars or trucks—motorcycles, bicycles, scooters, innocent little toddlers on tricycles and sweet senior citizens on Hoverounds, even the mailman’s step-van—set them off.
The police officer, stopped and motioned us closer. I couldn’t hear him over the attack dogs, and I couldn’t read his expression behind his dark glasses but when we were a couple of feet away he stepped out and started laughing. My dogs, still barking, rushed him to get pet. Josue, the nice officer, never flinched, and my pups calmed right down while he rubbed their necks and ears, laughing like a kid.
“Little bit, hop up! Hop up – see? It’s not so scary.” He coaxed Pearl inside his Polaris cop car. She even jumped up in the driver’s seat. The boys hopped in and sniffed around for a minute before checking out the exterior. Moe hiked his leg on a tire.
“I’ve got two dogs myself, I knew yours were sweet ones.”
I shook his hand and thanked him for being so nice. He smiled and said that he tries to do that with all the dogs that bark at him. “Maybe if they see it’s not so scary, they won’t raise such a fuss.” He said, still petting on Moe and Curly while Pearl tried to figure out how to start his vehicle and make a break for it.
I had to think the main reason he stopped was that the big bear of a guy named Josue was a kid at heart that had to pet all the dogs…
I was so proud of my Pearl and Curly. They wagged their tails and watched him drive away. Moe… well, not so much.

I couldn’t hear Josue’s laughter over Moe’s howls, but I could see it on his face as he drove off to find another lucky dog to make friends with. I proceeded to walk the pups long enough to wear them out so I could get some writing done.

Sunday, I ventured out to a new bookstore on the Island called Story and Song Neighborhood Bookstore and Bistro. I loved it. Now, don’t get me wrong—I’m a sucker for old bookstores with wooden bookshelves that match the old wood floors and smell like old books. Old fashioned bookstores that are all about the books. BUT, Story and Song is all about the books, too.
Yes, they have coffee (that smelled great) and a bistro (the cookies and brownies under the glass cake topper looked delicious) but the selection of books was impressive and the way they were displayed made what you were looking for easy to find. If you are one of those people that go into a bookstore with something in mind. I’m not—or I guess I should say—I get easily distracted and forget what I went in for. Which is how I ended up with SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES & Other Lessons from the Crematory, a memoir by Caitlyn Doughty, and AVENUE OF MYSTERIES a novel by John Irving.
I was missing my table at the Mexican “go have a margarita, sit, chill, read your new book place” back home, but found one here.

The service wasn’t the same as Las Maracas where they knew my name, which table was my favorite and had my margarita ready by the time I sat down, but the margarita itself was actually better.
Don’t tell Alejandro I said so.
p.s. I’ve already finished the memoir and loved every morbidly funny and eye-opening word. It’s not only laugh out loud funny, and also a little bit sad, it’s filled with tons of history about other cultures and how they view death. It’s not a book for the faint of heart, (or if you recently lost someone, you might want to wait a bit) but it is a book everyone should read (or have a friend read it and give you the good parts without the gross parts) if you aren’t sure – or better yet, if you think you know – how you want your body handled after you die.