Blah . . . what a very Monday. Let’s recap, shall we?

• It poured with rain all day. Buckets of it. When I brought in the empty garbage can after work, there was at least half a foot of water in the bottom, and the garbage trucks only went through while I was home for lunch.
• Naturally, with all the rain, Chappy did not get a walk today.
• To make it worse, the poor boy was home alone all day–alone on a dreary Monday? Horrible!
• Adding insult to injury, he was alone because not only was I at work, but his grandparents were down at my cousin’s horse farm, where they met up with not only my cousin and my aunt, but also my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew, AND my other cousin’s three daughters, all visiting from Texas. In other words, practically the entire family except him, me, and my other two cousins.
• Not to mention my cousin’s new shelter-rescue, 7-year old spaniel, who I’m told looks like he could be Chappy’s cousin.
• And no, don’t ask my why they always choose to schedule these things on weekdays when I have to work. But, still, at least I didn’t have to drive an hour and a half each way in the pouring rain today.
• Also, making the Monday extra-Mondayish, I started off just wonderfully by accidentally pouring sour milk on my oatmeal at breakfast. Of course, I only eat the 5-minute Old-Fashioned kind, so when I had to dump out that entire bowl, that left me with no time to make more. The only cold cereal we had in the cabinets that wasn’t a year past its expiration date or so old it tasted like stale cardboard was Mom’s shredded wheat, which I can’t stand. So I ended up eating two pieces of toast for breakfast and being five minutes behind schedule. Which might not sound like a lot, but I detest running late . . . and so I started the day feeling rushed.
• When I got to work, a co-worker whose mother is very ill . . . as in, she’s been fighting cancer for years and isn’t expected to last much longer . . . walked into my office and said, “I need you to do something for me, but you can’t ask a lot of questions,” and laid down a photo of her mom, the lyrics to her favorite song, and what was basically a eulogy, and asked me to make it into a book and an insert . . . presumably for the funeral. She ran out to Staples and bought the paper to print them on, and then I sat and typed in this long, loving paean to her mom and felt like crying myself, even though I’ve never actually met her. (Although, her mom is actually one of the very few people on the planet ever to have read my book. Which means the readership for my still-unpublished book is dwindling already . . . but that’s another story.)
• And then, Chappy just isn’t himself tonight, I just can’t figure out why. He’s unusually quiet, but I can’t tell if it’s because he’s in a bad mood (exceedingly rare) . . . if it’s because he was lonely too long today and is holding a grudge (possible, but not very dog-like) . . . if his stomach hurts (considering he cleaned his dinner dish, I don’t think that’s it) . . . if his back hurts (faintly possible since it has in the past, but he doesn’t seem stiff so much as quiet) . . . or if he just doesn’t want to be bothered talking to me. I mean, that’s possible, right? I just hope he’ll be his usual happy self tomorrow, when things get back to normal and the rain clears away.
• Of course, he could be upset that I accidentally nicked him just a tiny bit on his thigh when I gave him his haircut yesterday. I told him to hold still!
• And then, tomorrow . . . well, tomorrow I have to go to the dentist, which means I’ll be an hour and a half (or more) late getting home from work AND I won’t be eating supper AND I’ll probably be numb until about 9:00 which means that *I’ll* be cranky tomorrow night . . .
• Hmm . . . it could be a long week here in the Chappy house . . .

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