August came and went, and I was there all the time riding the bucking bronc, reins in one hand and the other outstretched trying to maintain balance. Nahh, it wasn't that wild. Just unpredictable to a certain degree. Several times I thought about mentioning something of importance but the opportunities quickly slipped away.

It's somewhat astonishing, about the autumn months. All throughout summer, there's an inner anxiety to enjoy the long days of summer, so much so, that in cramming as much as possible in the daytime, it seems nothing is fully accomplished which is depressing and leads one down the path of 'why bother?' That little list so that nothing gets missed; just seems the items don't get checked off quickly enough. Perhaps, the old trick of breaking goals into doable tasks, and ticking those off one by one.

Actually, we did accomplish quite a bit.

We tried to change behaviors. We attempted convalescence and we took a week-long trip to the land of birth, a different place altogether from where we now live, and for which we'd not been back for more than 20 years. We tried to establish some new self- and other-person valuing behaviors. Not without sinking to some of the depths, and there's quite a way to go for reaching another plateau 'up from the ashes'.

Time marches on and our little dog's health is one measure of life well-spent, the time of a life-span. She came to us as a spunky 10-month old pup, but by dog years she was already 6-7 years old and her third home. A little girl. Adorable. An American Eskimo, not unlike a Japanese spitz in appearance. Intelligent and loyal. Already fiercely instinctual in her duties of protecting her latest family.

Teaching her feral owners some of the niceties of civility and basic lessons in self-pride, honor, and respect. Intensely loyal to those whose actions showed themselves a caring and considerate. The vet described her temperament as 'high-strung' not unlike a pediatrician would describe her younger 'family'.

Always ready for a romp, a walk, a run in an open field. Until her owners took obedience class, she was allowed to run ahead investigative nose leading the way to the right and left this way and that. Poor vision, but excellent sense of smell. A rabbit could fool her easily by standing downwind.

She is still a fierce rabbit hunter. At the corner of the front yard near the street a brazen female bore her litters of bunnies year after year under a bush just 2-3 feet beyond from where our little lady's leash extended from the pear tree knowing that she could provide warning and illusion of protection. But, it was always a roulette when the bunnies were learning to hop. If they strayed too close to our little dog's territory, they were fair game. Unfortunately for rabbits.

Her hearing phenomenal Her vision poorer at certain times than others. Bright lights, moving objects, but she could always appreciate Saturday afternoon opera. Singing along with the best at the Met, and joining in with Jacques (Brel), Luciano, and Jussi, and the male tenors in the household...o sole mio, and ave Maria, songs about love, loss, and yearning. Totally into musical expression. Understandable with a resident violinist.

Then, the humans she was in charge began a series of fracas at night, evolving in confrontational and loudly unloving interactions which upset her greatly for a period of time, disrupting her sleep and equanimity, causing surges in corticosteroid production and riling circadian rhythms.

First, she was thirsty, and barking for water, then when sated, left puddles, and had to stay outside at night. And the cycle continued for months in her reaction to her human's behaviors. Stress. She developed cataracts which cause her vision blindness. Running into low-hanging branches damaging the surface of her eyes. A thorn on her front pad took a long time to heal, and required gram negative treatment with gentamicin ointment. Very shortly after was diagnosed with diabetes.

The diabetes means her diet is strictly detailed. One cup of prescription food in the morning with her 2 units of N insulin and one cup at night with 2 more units of N insulin. She's doing okay. But, now, we take note that she seems as if she's older and frailer with the weight loss and drowsing all curled on the living room floor, all the windows open and whole-house fan changing the air, with NPR in the background.

A twist on the phrase, 'My dog has fleas' for tuning a four string guitar, comes to mind, with 'my dog has diabetes'. But, her current state of health makes mockery of the old poem 'Sunning' as she's not got a lazy bone in her old body, and deserves any measure of rest and pleasant dreaming.

From James Tippett, "Old dog lay in the summer sun, much too lazy to rise and run. He flapped an ear at a buzzing fly. He winked a half-opened sleepy eye. He scratched himself on an itchy spot, as he dozed on the porch where the sun was hot. He wimpered a bit from force of habit while he lazily dreamed of chasing a rabbit. But old dog happily lay in the sun much too lazy to rise and run."