Winning and Rain

Have you ever wanted to everything all at once? Occasionally, I get this feeling that feels like hard rain sounds. Its hard and fast and you have to run through to stay dry.

But you can't stay dry and you still get wet and sometimes covered in newsprint. When I feel this way, I want to run through everything in my life and act on it. I want to do that homework that was due three weeks and call that friend I haven't talked to in forever because I just lost touch and doodle and watch Friends and start my own newspaper and write a column and go shopping and crawl in to bed and everything in between.

Its a strange but exciting feeling in the middle of my ho-hum days of the simple tasks of ditching class, being stressed, and waiting to hear about some news or other.

I have scored over 100 twice now in my bowling class. This means that the majority of the time, I knocked down the majority of the pins. Winning is exhilarating like the hard rain and the great thing about winning in the hard rain is that you get wet and love it. There is no newsprint covering your fingertips and it doesn't matter anyway.

Right now I want to do everything. I can hear the rain, distantly in Georgia, calling me into the clouds. It doesn't rain nearly enough in La Mirada and for that I am stuck waiting. I am waiting for the clouds to roll in and news of the future and acceptance letters and apartment leases and credit card bills.

My checking account is stable today.

At Night In California

At night in California, I can hear the sprinklers clack-clack-clack across the yard. The water clacks as it hits the tree trunk, the grass, and the fire hydrant. It clack-clacks back into place and starts around again. Even though the timer goes off every night, my first reaction is to think it is my old dog, Scout, scruffling around the bushes. When the sprinkler hits the stop sign and the clack transforms to a patter I remember its just water but not before I've remembered everything about Scout.

He was a beautiful dog, everyone always agreed. Sweet, too, with big velvet ears and a really cold wet nose. He would always sit his nose on my knee when he wanted to play and he would always jump up on the couch and shove himself between Rob and I on the loveseat in a little ball as if he were a cat.

We had cats too and lots of animals always roaming the housing thinking they were dogs or birds. We even had a bird once that thought he was a dog.

Pets are amazing animals, being both animal and human, knowing thoughts and actions of mine whilst scruffling in bushes. He knows that pajamas mean bedtime and shoes mean out.

Scout is gone. Almost two years ago I said goodbye to him on the floor of Northbrook Animal Clinic. We had to put him down because of his agressive behavior towards strange men. My mom knows he was just protecting us but she also knows that we live in the Village of Northbrook where protection is left to the Northbrook Police Department.

Scout died with his purple collar on. Purple accented his brown coat so well and it brought out his eyes. I have never loved an animal so much.