Not amusing February musing

This morning my dog and I had a morning cup of coffee together, just him and me, as everyone else in the household is away in distant places, and I thought, how wonderful is the relationship between person and beast! – so perfect, sitting there, reading the paper, clipping Klinke’s coupons together, reading about the success of Olbrich Gardens (Horticulture included them on a list of ten gardens in the country that inspire us), not even noticing that I was actually thumbing through yesterday’s paper (local headlines are much the same from day to day), such a peaceful beginning to a Saturday.

Then I remembered that the exertion and strain of this morning activity for the dog (of sharing a breakfast Kodak moment with me) is going to require that he take the rest of the day to sleep it off: it is not unusual for him to take his morning nap from 8 am ‘til 5 pm. Luckily he has not yet learned to keep up with my blog (water spaniels are reading-challenged: he still can’t tell an A from a B and he’s almost 5), so he wont know how deeply disturbed, perhaps even resentful I am becoming over the inequities in our week-ends. Consider this. Dog’s Saturday: Kodak moments with owner, rest, eat, steal a few pieces of garbage, more rest. Owner’s Saturday: Kodak moment with dog, walk the beast, feed him, do a corrective read of today’s (as opposed to yesterday’s) paper, read 30 Admissions files and reject most of the applicants knowing that my flick of the pen will instill misery and gloom for the recipient of this largess, blog to bolster the spirit, pay bills due January 31st, think about which week to start gathering papers for taxes, think about going to the gym, rearrange contents of briefcase so that “urgent work” papers, crammed in some afternoon in 2002 finally get to see the light of day, feed dog again, yell at him for eating garbage, think about taking him for long walk, blog, by which time it will be evening.

The sad thing is, there is no writer’s hyperbole in that paragraph. It may be that a surprise will pop up – perhaps a call from my mother (much overdue as she is ‘processing’ my last weekend’s absence), or a note/call from a reader who will have read this and decided it’s best to check in, just to make sure we’re not all witnessing the disintegration and last desperate acts of a blogger, but otherwise, the course of this day is set.

The month of February is just too long. The framers of the calendar should have chopped off another 11 days and spread them among the remaining months. That thoughtful gesture would have put us on March 2nd today (leap year).