Friends

Three of my college friends drove over to see me this weekend. Two of them stayed over night. We had a four-hour lunch at Chuy's on Saturday! L-R: Cindy, Patsy, me, Mel. Friday was my birthday, so it was a fun birthday weekend.

Cold Saturday in January

It's a cold, bleak January morning, a Saturday. I get up and out the door early.

Mimi's excited to have her pink sweater and her leash both on. It means something is going to happen to her. But when I put her in her carrier in the back seat of my car, her excitement morphs into terror. I tell her not to worry, that we're just going to the nearby small town of Noonday, not back on an airplane to China. As usual, she doesn't understand.

We ride through nearly vacant roads on this weekend morning, made empty as others sleep in. These are back roads, lined with bare trees reaching their limbs to the frosty gray sky above.

This would be a charming ride through the woods if it were not for the wailing dog in the back seat.

We arrive ten minutes before the traveling small town veterinarian staff opens for business under a tent next to the Dollar General store. I don't want a line to form in front of me, so I get Mimi out of the car and we wait in the cold.

No line forms. No one else thinks it is warm enough to visit the outdoor vet today, not at this early hour anyway. Whether he offers cheaper prices or not, they have decided to stay home in their warm beds and postpone their doggy disease prevention to another day.

Mimi gets a blood test. We wait another ten minutes to get the result. Good news, no heart worms. We buy a year's worth of preventative medicine and jump back in the car.

Even though we had no stops at airports, Mimi is still not happy. She shrieks all the way home, over the undulating hills of east Texas.

I think she must get car sick, like me.