a flash of insight

It seems that I will never learn… a flash of insight last night inspired me to give Spike a haircut this morning. Instant revival. He’s jumping around happy and energized, playing with Adia again and eagerly participating in training games. The poor guy was just hot.

Last night we had a good visit with Pat. Everything was going great until Pat gave Adia a big shock on her nose… well, you would have thought that Pat was trying to kill her. It took lots of treats and coaxing before Adia slunk up for another go. I hope she has a short memory! We’ll have to install a grounding rod for Pat to touch before she pets the dogs :-)

It was grey with light snow falling still this morning, overnight we got 7 or 8 cm of fluffy snow - Carm had to snowblow - but gosh, the snow is lovely and fluffy. Adia went crazy in the drifts that lay across the field. The sun was determined to make an appearance and by 1pm it was shining and bright. Drawn outside, I closed my eyes and imagined that it was a hot summer sun warming my back. It is the kind of winter day that makes me believe that I could love winter. It was glorious!

Adia had her first ‘test’ of being out of her crate while we left the house for a ½ hour. She didn’t settle down right away, but wasn’t in a panic either - she mainly walked around looking out of the windows. She did get up on the futon and sort of relax a few times. It was just good luck that she was laying down with Spike when we got home - excellent positive reinforcement. She cried a tiny bit but there was no howling from either of them. We feel good about leaving her for a few minutes longer next time.

Have you been following the Corona scare? I read a blurb written about being in quarantine by a guy in China. He and his family are coping, I wonder how others will manage. How would I ride it out? 

I’m on a Sylvia Plath tear. I get most of my quotes from the GoodReads website - I can search by topic or author - you can probably guess that I’ve got pages and pages of Plath quotes to choose from. Oh, I pass many by, saving them for later, even though I love them, as I’m in a good place mentally right now. Some speak to me so loudly that they demand to be included. 

This quote insisted on being pasted… many times I’ve wondered which would be worse: to be physically ill, or to have a mental illness. I see people with a horrible disease that are so positive and I don’t think that I could be that way… my illness, when I’m really sick, makes such an outlook impossible. The brain can help heal the body, but what heals the brain when it is the sick one?

“I wanted to tell her that if only something were wrong with my body it would be fine, I would rather have anything wrong with my body than something wrong with my head, but the idea seemed so involved and wearisome that I didn’t say anything. I only burrowed down further in the bed.”

~Sylvia Plath