So many things are happening in these days when I don't make time to write about them. Last week became The Week Things Broke--"things" here including my television (which we still somehow manage to coerce into showing us episodes of "Glee"), my car (which on Thursday simply stopped conveying power to where it needed to go, while I was make my 20 mph way to class--giving me fun experience with coasting and non-powered steering), and the dog (whose paw developed a worrisome-looking red area that has since been diagnosed as Irritation possibly caused by a Tiny Puncture, or similar). Yesterday was the day when the adventures all collapsed onto each other, as I drove myself, the wounded-pawed dog, and my Clevelander student (wingwoman to my worried driving) in my excellent friends' manual transmission car over to the vet's office, where I ultimately had to be the one to muzzle the dog, who was not so willing to comply with the vet technician. "He's cursing at us," the vet said, translating the dog's low, steady growl.

I am developing quite the bond with this dog. Somehow, his ready compliance with my attempt to muzzle him--as well as my intense desire to find many kinds of special treat for him at the grocery store, just after our visit to the vet--brought that home to me in a way that nothing else yet had.

In my silence during the second half of last week, I also failed to note my magnificent father's birthday (Friday) and my magnificent parents' thirty-ninth wedding anniversary (Saturday). No day goes by when I don't think about how lucky I am to be theirs.