in the middle of the week, the middle of the wood...

increasingly excited about the BE 4.0 -- maybe because the picture above is of the biggest boat I've been on to date--formerly the SS Empress of Canada, now--inevitably -- the Carnival Mardi Gras. The father of my children and I came back from England on the Empress in August of 1970. You do the math!!! I am not fully attuned to the idea of a boat as high-rise hotel lying on its side in the water. You may need to blindfold me and back me onto it. Just sayin.

...up early, after a pretty good night's sleep, to print off a bunch of paperwork for Big Committee Meeting this evening -- which looks like a long, weary way from here.

I did promise to keep everybody posted on the DOG situation, and meant to do so MUCH earlier.

Just after the most recent post I finally got to see the Ultimate Dog (Gordon Setter, for anybody who Hasn't Kept Up) in the flesh. Daughter Unit and I arranged to meet at a Dog Facility (daycare, exercise, training), in the unlit, unplowed, God-forgotten SE industrial zone of Prairie Metropolis.

I had an address, friends, and I found it, a door in a business strip-mall, no sign, no lights, no dogs. I considered the possibility of reversed digits in the address, and prospected further. Nothing. Back to the original address. Nada.

Now the next move, regularly, in situations of this kind (there have been others), is for the Rambler to stop the car, sit in the snowbank, and wail aloud. "Can't have a dog, NEVER going to have a dog, Can't even find the DOG PLACE, too stupid to be let to live," etc.

But before we got to that point (just), headlights appeared, heralding Daughter Unit, collaboration, strategies, and ultimately success. We approached the only illuminated facility in sight. We found a door unlocked. We halloo'ed for help. After minimal delay a cheerful youth in greasy coveralls responded: "Oh. Yah. They moved, eh? About four months ago? And Esmertilda didn't leave any kind of an address. But it's like, you go back up that way to the casino, and turn left, eh, and it's in there. Somewhere."

Daughter Unit's Blackberry, and the Rambler's old-school dog-eared hard-copy atlas of the streets of Prairie Metropolis, gave us more precise new coordinates.

And we spent a happy evening watching various dogs work an agility course, including three (count'em) Gordon Setters. We had happy conversation with the breeder. We shook hands.

I came home to start work to make Tether's End dog-fit. Daughter Unit went away to MUSTER her siblings (a direct descendant of Queen Boadicea, this one, I think) to ensure their now-motivated Ma doesn't give up, as is her wont.

The problem, as simply stated as possible, is that in the last ten years I have deposited two entire professional careers' worth of books* into a 4 bedroom bilevel house which was already over-full of books. *and notes, and files, and PAPER. PLUS a serious consignment of Ancestral Books (and paper and linens and china and paintings and bric a brac) from my parents' home.

We have begun. Pray for us.