A No-Dog World

 

Peppermint Patti really likes whatever is going on.  Well, except for that horrid two hours where her food-provider locked all the doors.  What was that all about anyway.

The part she likes is that for the surrounding full acre or two, there are no people, and no dogs.  It’s quiet and she has full reign.  That’s two acres on her side of the car-path – she still doesn’t cross the car-path, that’s forbidden territory.  There are wild animals over there.  She’s seen snakes and dogs, other cats and raccoons.

On her side of the car-path, she can roam freely through all these vacant yards, no guard cats or dogs.

Finally Not Fat

For twenty-two years, I’ve been living in Monte Rio, but my friends and neighbors have always berated me because my BMI indicated OVERWEIGHT.

I started here at 190, plus – which went to and above 200, but I rationalized that I was on a cusp.  I was legally 5’ 8” [CDL].  Nonetheless, I have cycled to lower and lower weights, usually with a relapse.  I got down to 175 a few years ago.  Then the DMV shocked me, finding that I had lost an inch, my CDL now says, 5’ 7”.  So I have had to renew efforts.  This stressful past year with floods and CoVid-19 has provided me the opportunity to slowly, a pound at a time, drop down to 158, a 36” waist, reasonable for a well-fed, healthy male.  Barring an erotic love affair with a sous chef, I look forward to bragging to my Kaiser doctors this Fall, if and when they let me in, and to tell my neighbors to quit calling me fat.