Glorious Morning

It is a glorious morning.

I got out of bed, fully-rested, without looking at the clock. While making coffee, I noticed it was only 7:15. Annie getting out of bed willingly, sans alarm clock, on a holiday, at 7:15am, happens about once a decade.

Fog was blowing off of the ocean, rolling across our patio, creating sparkling rainbows in every direction. I took the dogs and a mug of coffee to the Dana Point bluffs at the bottom of our street, and watched the sun melt the drifting clouds between me and the sea. The piercing, rising sun at my back laid my shadow across the clouds as they raced early travelers on PCH.

As I turned to walk home, and passed some very nice people with some very relaxed Golden Retrievers, Satan entered Jake and George.

With all the frenzied snarling and barking, you'd think they were trained police dogs attacking mean and nasty drug dealers, rather than a terrier-mutt and a spaniel-mutt intent on gutting dogs 10x larger and 100x better behaved.

I would like to take this moment to remind all my readers that they AREN'T MY DOGS.

In our household, we have a good cop (Patrice) and a bad cop (me). I've been away for two weeks, and apparently the precious pooches/demonic dogs forgot that they were, y'know, canine. When we got home, I put them on the patio, blocked the doggie door, and washed them with the cold hose rather than the warm tub they are used to.

If any of you are feeling sorry for the pups, remember: they are DOGS. Not babies. Not even puppies.

I know most of you want to know about my trip, and I'll post about that later, but right now I'm sucking down coffee while reading Ivanhoe, and enjoying the silent, cool, dog-free, lazy morning, and imagining the breakfast I'm going to make for Patrice and me when she gets up. Right now it looks like omelettes with tomatoes, avocados, and sauteed mushrooms and onions with coffee and orange slices. I'd make hashbrowns...'cept I don't know how.

What a glorious morning.

Happy Labor Day!