How is it that when your day is mapped out to the minute — when you’re planning morning writing from 9-10, yoga at 10, grocery store at 12, cranberry sauce on the stove and simmering by 1, furniture rearranging, bathroom cleaning, vacuuming, silver polishing, dinner planning, picking up the kid, table arranging, dinner, clean-up, potatoes prep, all on a time table that includes no room for anything extra — how is that on that day the dog can magically wander through a plant that leaves dozens of tiny burrs in her fur? On other days when I’m feeling scheduled to the max, she’s been known to roll in opossum poop, which demands immediate and extensive bathing. No way around it. And the burrs shed little black seeds which means the morning vacuuming that I already started is being defeated with every step the dog takes.

Sigh. It’s like a toddler knowing exactly the wrong time to throw a tantrum, exactly the moment when you are least able and willing to be patient. Of course, that’s probably some psychological principle along the lines of always thinking the line you’re in is the slowest — not objectively true, but just the way it feels. But it does feel like I don’t want to spend the next twenty minutes pulling burrs out of Z’s fur.

Reframing for positivity — how lucky I am that I get to spend several minutes caring for my darling dog. Admittedly, she’s not so enthusiastic when she sees the brush come out, but she likes the petting at the end. We’ll both survive.

R comes home today. I woke up feeling happy and joyful. B came on the long walk with us and never flagged — my positive messages to him of how strong he is, what a survivor, so healthy are maybe getting through. At least to me, since I am, in fact, the person who decides how long a walk he’s going to get. But he did great, stayed with us the whole way and never pulled his sit-down-and-refuse-to-move protest.

And that’s all I’ve got, because I have to go pull burrs out of the dog’s fur now. Wish us luck!