Sunday Silence

Every one in this house is asleep, except me. It's nine o'clock on a cool, grey Sunday morning.

We got up, as usual, around six and had our breakfasts. Bill didn't sleep well last night, for no particular reason, he said. I know when I got up to let a dog out - was it Fat Charlie or Easy, I can't recall - he was reading in his recliner. It was somewhere around two, chilly and pitch dark out.

"Can't sleep," I asked?
"I'm coming back to bed now," he answered. And he did.

I'm trying to switch the dogs to raw food. It's not working. I've tried before. It didn't work then. Isn't the definition of insanity to attempt the same behavior and expect different outcomes?

I didn't walk the dogs this morning. That is a radical departure from our normal routine. After coffee and the paper, Bill went upstairs and reclined in his recliner. I bought it for his birthday several years ago. He loves that chair. Mama Pajama and Delia keep him company on the day bed.

I poked around on Whippet World and Facebook. I let the gastric-ly upset dogs out again. That's going to be tough to scoop, I thought. I truly don't want to share that with my neighbors on walks, I thought. I poked around some more on the computer. The dogs went to sleep. Sound asleep. No lobbying for walks. We gave up or maybe gave in and went upstairs.

This town is quiet. The windows are open. It's crazy cool. Often this time of year the temperature never gets below eighty. It plummeted down to the fifties last night. The quiet blows in the windows on the breeze. I didn't even hear a church bell; maybe they gave in, too. Not a single car has passed. The whole neighborhood is a church this morning: empty, that feeling of a sacred chill, old, beautiful, at once familiar and aloof.

My front door opens like the heavy, antique, creaky mahogany doors of the Immanuel Episcopal Church in a tiny town in Maryland. Swede William ambles out. He stretches, yawns. The sun has decided to absolve us after all. William arches his neck. I am fascinated by the absolute, raw beauty of this dog, in its soft, satin paradox of art deco curves and Tour de France muscles.

The sun feels friendly. Time to walk.

Hug your hounds