Bravo, Jules! and Welcome Home, Bob! He looks so much better, already, doesn’t he?

Don’t get me wrong, I love my kitties, but every so often, I get the yen for a puppy. I can’t have one, but every so often…. No, really. The point was driven home very graphically this past 4th of July holiday.

We were at a friend’s house for an old-fashioned barbecue and view of the local fireworks from their backyard, when their beagle got out of the house and grabbed a baby duckling from the flock getting ready for a snooze under a tree, near the canal. Tweren’t no soft kronsche, neither.

I flashed on the micro wildlife habitat I’ve been trying to put together, the bird feeders I have in the backyard, and the summer morning and evening parades of Momma and baby ducklings (several of whom still visit, now that they’re grown) who come to hoover the fallen seeds from under the feeders. While a dog might help discourage the neighborhood cats from wandering through the yard (mine are indoor cats and only go outside in a “kitty playpen”) and stalking the birds, I’ve a feeling it wouldn’t be a great mix.

Love doggies…can’t have one… sniff!

No, no, I really didn’t. Shit happens. And when it does, I want to write about it. And then I don’t. Well, I really do, but then I can’t think straight, can’t organize my thoughts, don’t have time in the moment to jot it down, and then I forget.

Like today. Stuck in traffic in the rain for more than an hour, all sorts of things I want to go on about, but I’m not a multi-tasking driver. I can’t brush my teeth, put on my makeup, talk on my cellphone, and write notes to myself while I drive — in the rain. I’m not that talented.

“Don’t Block The Box”. That’s the latest traffic courtesy campaign being mounted by the State, urging motorists not to stick their cars’ asses into the intersections, thereby blocking traffic when the cars going across can’t get past them. Did that make any sense? About as much sense as urging these mannerless idiots to do something that makes sense and is – gasp! – polite. Really. If they thought they wouldn’t make it across before the light changed, would they have taken that risk in the first place? Driving in Miami is like playing the slots in Vegas: a calculated risk. How much of a risk-taker are you? Do you bet Junior’s college fund? Or just your lunch money?

And speaking of your lunch money, have you taken Bob to lunch yet, today? (Did you like the segue? Who says I can’t be subtle?) To remind you, Bob is an Italian Greyhound stuck in a tiny glass pen lined in, what appears to be wood shavings, in a strip-mall pet shop in California. Bob isn’t doing so well, to the point that his “ransom” has been marked down twice, but the folks who run the place don’t seem to care very much. Jules of “Dirty Feet & Lilywhite Intentions” and her family – a great doggie home, if I ever heard of one – are a little short and have reached out to us in the Blogosphere. So click on one of these here links and donate what you would have spent on lunch to help FREE BOB!

For all of you pet people — and many of you are my friends who probably didn’t even know that I do this from time to time, you should read about and help Bob, the Italian Greyhound, imprisoned in a tiny, icky pen in a petshop. I was referred by Miz Shoes, and when I saw the pictures and read the story, I turned into a puddle of goo on the lino. A puddle of goo with a PayPal account.