Welcome to the Saturday Morning from You Know Where

Don't read any further if you don't want to get sucked in to the chaos that sometimes is my life. Alright, I warned you.

I slept in a little this morning. Since Georgia died, I no longer have to be up at 6 on the dot or find a puddle on the floor ... although I actually like to be up and done with my morning yoga before the sun comes up. I'm weird that way.

Early Saturday morning is my favorite part of the whole week because it is so filled with promise ... and then reality sets in, as it so often does.

It started with a phone call. My friend was calling to cancel the tentative dinner plan we had for tonight (which was OK, because I had forgotten I had dinner plans for tonight. I would have remembered when I checked the calendar.) Made my tea. Gave in to the siren call of the computer ("I just have to check my email, and by the way, did a certain vice president die during the night? Hope springs eternal ...) when the doorbell rang. "Who could that be at 8:30 in the morning?" I muttered to myself.

Opened the door to ... OH SHIT! My mother-in-law. I completely forgot that we were taking care of her dog this weekend, and here she was dropping Angel off! I tried to cover up my shock, but I don't think I did a very good job. Luckily she attributed it to the fact that we hadn't listened to a phone message which she left last night, not to the fact that we had simply forgotten.

Angel is a good dog, but big, and we haven't cared for her here before. She did stop by to visit once a few months ago and sneaked down to the basement and did a little woodworking [she made a stool, haha, weak attempt at humor.] So I'm a little freaked out about having her here, but aside from another brief foray to the basement, she's fine, exploring the house. Molly was desperately trying to get her to play, which was cute.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ether gets up earlier than usual because he has a haircut appointment. He too expresses surprise at seeing Angel here. (This is why we are so compatible, except when the Packers are playing, as you will soon see.) After a couple of false starts, leaving the house, coming back for something, he leaves for his appointment. The house is quiet again. Wait a minute ... it's too quiet! I go upstairs to see what the dogs are doing. Molly has gone back to bed in Sparkly Seacow's room, but where is ANGEL? I look in all three bedrooms upstairs. I look downstairs. I look in the basement (but the door had been shut. Can she walk through solid wood?) I look upstairs again. I look in the bathtub. I look behind and underneath the furniture. I am starting to panic. For pete's sake, our house is less than 1200 square feet and she is a good-sized dog!!

It is during this time that I make the mistake of looking into Sparkly Seacow's closet. BIG MISTAKE. My blood pressure skyrockets, and I am momentarily distracted enough from dog searching panic to yell at her that today she has GOT to clean her room and I mean it!

Ding-dong. It's the doorbell. It is my neighbor Charlie dropping off a house key because we agreed to let his dog out today while he and his wife go to the Packers game in Green Bay. For the record, I did remember that commitment. But I must have looked a sight, because I was in the middle of near hysteria. At that point I was thinking that a) Angel was either able to curl herself up very small and had gotten into someplace I just hadn't thought of yet or b) (and yes, this thought was seriously going through my mind) that I had imagined the previous hour with my mother-in-law's visit and the dropping off of Angel. In short, I thought there was a good chance I was losing my mind.

Then it dawns on me: Mr. Ether went out, came in, and went out again. At some point during that 90 seconds or less, Angel must have pushed the unlatched storm door open and gotten out. She could be anywhere!

I was still in my pajamas (they have a vintage Dick & Jane motif on them, just in case you want to know.) I called Mr. Ether's cell phone and screamed incoherently at the voice mail, threw on some clothes, and ran to the hair salon, which luckily is only less than half a block away, to scream at Mr. Ether there, and headed back home calling, "Angel! Angel!" And I'm here to tell you that there is a god, because there's Angel trotting up the street toward me.

I came back inside, with Angel, to find the phone ringing. It's my neighbor, Charlie. Maybe he had noticed that I was a little unhinged and was calling to tell me that they had decided not to go after all, so I start babbling out the story to him. He says, "Oh, I saw a big dog running around out there when I stopped to drop the key off. I just didn't know it belonged to you."

Oy vey. Now it is no longer morning and the day has degenerated -- like all Saturdays do. This is what I take anti-depressants for. Mr. Ether is going off to watch the Packer game on TV this afternoon, which always puts me in a great mood. [sarcasm alert]

Feel free to cheer me up.