When I started, I knew it would be hard to hold down a fulltime job and still get my writing done. Slowly, day after day, I slip further behind. There have been moments that I worried about having enough material. I knew I could go into great details about the moments of the day. I knew there were be some expected plot turns, and I suspected there were be some unexpected plot turns.

Here I am, about a quarter of the way through and I still haven’t gotten to the daily commute to work. Given the way this week is going, we’ll see when and if I’ll make it to the daily details.

Today, I was expecting I would write about a partly expected plot twist. I went to a Chamber of Commerce meeting and there is much that could and should be written about it. The meeting was honoring veterans, and at the end of the meeting, before the color guard left, they played taps for those that did not return alive. In this solemn moment, my cell phone started ringing. I tapped on the Reject phone call button and silently reflected on those who gave all.

After the color guard departed and the meeting was declared over, I glanced at my cell phone. There was a text message from Kim that read, “Wesley has been hurt. At vets”. There was also voice mail. I checked the voice mail and it was very brief. “Please call.”

I called Kim and started getting bits of the story. Wesley had come into the house and was bleeding. Fiona had a dentist appointment and our neighbor took her. Kim took Wesley to the vet where they sedated him and sent Kim home. Actually, the vet is closer to Kim’s father’s house, so she went there instead. She was waiting for more information.

I wrapped things up at the Chamber of Commerce meeting and went back to the office. I let me co-workers know what was going on. I work with other dog lovers and they were understanding. I knew that there wasn’t much I could do for Wesley or Kim, so I buckled down and tried to focus on my work. There were several projects I needed to work on and the day went pretty quickly.

Over the years, I’ve had plenty of pets. One of my first pets was a hamster I had in second grade. I named it after my teacher. However, I as a seven year old, I was not well prepared for having a pet. My mother ended up taking care of the hamster. It did not live long and I was very distraught when it died. Later, we got a kitten. The first one was killed in the first day or two that we had it.

We lived on a farm and the kitten was expected to be an outside cat, but some predator got it on one of the first nights. The second cat lived a long time, however. One of my chores as a child was feeding the rabbits. We raised these been New Zealand white rabbits. Yet these were not pets. They were food. With that, they never were all that friendly and I never grew all that close to any of them. We also had goats which we raised for milk. Through all of this, I developed a bit of a detachment for animals. Yes, I would cuddle with the cat on cold winter afternoons, but that was it.

Later, we got a dog. After I got married, the family got a dog. He was part of our family for many years. When I met Kim, she had a dog and he became part of the family for many years as well. It may well be that when they were sick or injured, I was as sad as I was today,