Tuesday

Feel like I’m operating on three wheels. Getting sick? Throat kinda scratchy.  Nice walk w/Walter at Kerrville-Schreiner Park this morning. I even - don’t tell anyone! - let him off the leash for a bit, but all he did was what he usually does, stand and sniff and then run in spurts.

 At 9:30 a.m. I went over to the Hill Country Center for Cancer Care and interviewed a cute oncologist, who had attended UCLA medical school in the late 80’s, for the Kerrville Area Business magazine.  I stayed on point this time and the interview ended up being only 600 words (need 800).

The interview I did last month (the issue is out now) was 1300 words. But Dell Sheftall is a true storyteller, I could have written a book about him! (Maybe I will?)

Got an email from Club Ed asking me to proof the text for their catalogue and realized, oh crap, that the day, and time, I wanted to offer my class is the same day that Daniels Elementary wants me to work with their 4^th graders. So back and forth with emails trying to find a different day or time. The Club Ed class won’t begin until February. I’ll start at Daniel’s next week.

Highlight of the day: conversations with two girlfriends, one in Fresno one in Sonoma.  Thank you Alexander Graham Bell for inventing the telephone!

Going online to read the Sierra Star, I found that Carmen George, a young girl I taught is now writing for the paper!  Several years ago I was allowed to picked a Student Poet Laureate of Madera County and I chose Carmen. I found her on Facebook and wrote to her and she wrote back. It warmed my heart!

Phone message from my mother: she wants to start a blog! Bravo, Alice. I’ll try to explain it to her. 

Walter was naughty on his afternoon walk.  I saw a woman up the street with a black Cocker Spaniel and thought we should turn around but just then he decided to poop, in a rock-filled yard. (Many of the houses around here have white rock yards, or portions thereof, to conserve water, etc.) After he pooped he kicked rocks all over the street. So there I was, trying to grip the bag of poop in one hand, pick up rocks in the other, and hold the leash while he strained to get to the Spaniel. The woman walking just smiled as she, too, tugged her dog along.

I figured I’d keep on in the same direction since she passed me going toward

River Hill Boulevard

. But, naturally, she doubled back, so we encountered each other again.  This time, after we passed, a man just getting out of his car called, “Looks like your dog’s walking you!” which is a comment I’ve heard before and don’t appreciate. “Yeah, well,” I just called back. I’d have thrown my hands in the air, but I was holding a bag of dog do in one and the leash in the other.

I’m sure everyone’s getting sick and tired of hearing about Walter’s walks.  So here’s a promise: I won’t write about them anymore. Unless there’s an improvement, because somewhere deep in my heart I keep hoping that one of these days he’ll be a good doggie.