Tuesday, June 01, 2010

The Return of "The BLack Phantom"...

06/01/2010

May 24th I made a trip to Richmond, Virginia with the purpose of picking up Stella.  Stella is back.

Stella is a mixed-breed black Labrador, more mixed, I think, than Labrador.  She is about twelve years old and is extremely docile.  As I sit here and type this she is plopped down on our very light beige carpet here in our family room spreading tons of black fur all over the place.  It leaves her body in clumps.  The hair thrills me.

This is one laid back dog, that is, until a car comes up or down our driveway.  She even barks at The Nancy or me when we drive up.  Sans the cars on the drive, she makes little noise except for snoring when she is in a deep sleep.  Sometime she lay so still for so long I have to ask her if she is dead.  But at the mention of her name, her head usually pops up, and that is a good sign she will be with us a little longer.

Yesterday The Nancy and I went for a walk in the fields of The Farm.  There are walking paths cut in them that may add up to two miles or so, if you walk them all.  We did, Stella did, too.  I had to cut mine short a bit and bring the old girl home – Stella, not The Nancy.  She huffed and puffed for quite some time after she got in her favorite spot on the ceramic tile in our foyer.  No worry!  She is fine, and it didn’t take her very long to calm down and resume her position as a big black lump that moves from one location to another in our house on her mission to spread as much black hair as she is able to do.

The hair drives me crazy, but the dog is really no problem.  I am not now, never have been, nor will I probably ever be a pet lover – dogs or cats.  I do enjoy seeing this dog and our cat interact.  They like one another and it shows.  Stella lived with us a couple of years ago for almost two years.  I enjoyed waving at her when she left that time and probably will this time in a couple of months when she goes to her home.  In the meantime, I will continue to feed her, bath her, brush her, talk to her as if she were a two-year old, and try to keep her alive. 

Stella hasn’t moved in fifteen minutes, time to do the check.

And that is all I have to say about that…