Lullabies and Magic

It was a wet night, with solid sheets of rain painting the sidewalks in shades of Van Gogh, colors blending together and bleeding the way they do under pounding wet. Even Duncan did not want to spend much time dallying under the tall lamp post where the water glowed in bone-white sheets around us. But loving the smell of April rain we stood on the patio and watched it come down, battering the puddles which collected in the parking lot thirty-seven steps below, the ghostly sheen of the street light shimmering like a brilliant eye just below the inch-deep surface.


We went to bed--Duncan curled on the pillow next to me, his Bully resting just beyond his nose and under one curled paw where he can be sure of its presence even as he sleeps-- with a lullaby of pattering drops whispering us to sleep. At some point Winnie, Pip and Olive joined us in their usual spots, Pip tucking his cold, pink nose into my shoulder and purring in time to the rain.

We awoke to a new, old world this morning and as terrible as I knew it would make the traffic, I also knew Duncan would be overjoyed. He hadn't believed me last week when I explained that the snow was most likely our last of the season. He always seems to know more than I do and listens to me patiently in that cocked eyebrow way of his before deciding that my two legs and short nose somehow impair my senses. It doesn't matter, though, because he holds no grudges. He was curled on his pillow next to Pooh Bear and seemed reluctant to rouse until I pulled the blinds open and showed him the snow which had fallen steadily all night, gathering in an ice cream blanket around the tall pines where he likes to roll. Once he saw it his eyes lit up and he hardly paused to stretch before ambling down the hall to the door where I had his leash and my boots waiting for us.


The true joy of having a dog as a companion is the wonder they bring to every morning, making them as magical as Christmas.