Another Sunday

Arsenic and Old Lace was fabulous last night. My friend Judy did a spectacular job of directing and the set was perfect and the actors inhabited their roles as nicely and as believably as they did their fantastic costumes.
I got to sit with Kathleen and Rich, old friends whom I don't see very often, and it was a good time but I was exhausted by the time I got home. I brushed my teeth and took the dogs out and got in the bed and slept as deeply as I've slept in forever.
It was a good night out.
Two in one week.
And tonight, another.

It's dripping and gray here today and it seems as if it has been eternally dripping and gray although I am sure that's not true. I got a text from Lis a little after eight for me to please call her when I got up and I was already up so I did call her and she is in a very hard place. She's in Monticello because tonight's event at the Opera House is a project of hers which she has worked so hard to bring to fruition. It's a fund-raiser for the old building and she's brought in Peter Rowen who played with Bill Monroe and who is a very famous musician and a Tibetan woman named Yungchen Lhamo who is some sort of world-famous vocalist to perform and she drove over last night to make sure that everything is perfect for the artists and for the performers. The pre-concert catering, the hospitality food for the performers, flowers and candles for the dressing rooms...
No one can do this sort of thing like Lis for whom graciousness is breath.
But.
Sometimes life just gets too complicated, doesn't it?
Lis and Lon have had a beautiful black lab for years. His name is Buck and recently he was diagnosed with a terminal illness and the vet recommended that they get him in a treatment study which they did, but it hasn't saved their dog and he is dying and Lon, who stayed behind at Gatorbone with Buck is beside himself with grief and today is the day he will be getting his last shot and Lis has to go home to be with her husband so that they can say good-bye to Buck together, lay his body to rest in the dirt of their beloved Gatorbone.
As many times as I have wished that my dogs would trip the rainbow to go see Jesus, I understand this deep and abiding love humans can have for a true dog companion. I understand the deep sorrow of saying goodbye.
So Lis needed a little help with some food and her sister-in-law and niece are doing most of it but I'm going to make a little food to drop off for the musicians on our way in to go to the gala tonight.

I say "we" in hopes that my husband will be returning in time. I think he will be.

So a bit of a strange day. A sadness, thinking of that beautiful animal who has been such a constant and dear and loving and intelligent companion to two people whom I love so fiercely. This is the sort of dog to whom Lis could say, "Go get the boy for lunch," and Buck would trot over to Lon's workshop and notify him that lunch was ready and they would frisk back down the wooded path to the house together. His coat was the sleekest, blackest coat you've ever seen and no dog was ever loved more or better. He was a very fine dog and it says everything that Lis, the consummate professional, would know without a doubt that she has to go home to be with her husband on this day.

So. I need to tidy up this house which for some reason is not as neat and clean as you'd think it would be, having been occupied only by me for a week. There is trash to take and laundry to do and food to make and a husband to welcome home and love to send to Lon and Lis, and to Buck.
A very fine dog whom will be so grievously missed by the humans who have loved him so deeply and so well, every bit of that love returned and doubled as only the finest dogs can do.