Sadie and our cats have been moping about the house since Beau's departure. Poor Sadie started limping yesterday, holding her left foot up and giving us sorrowful looks. Toad has felt her foot, leg and hip and found nothing wrong. She doesn't cry out when the foot, leg or hip is touched. We suspect that she may be expressing her sadness either at the loss of her brother or as an empathetic gesture because Toad and I are so sad, or both. Hopefully she is not injured physically. The cats have all been keeping a low profile, except for the Owl, who romped about a bit this morning, getting into mischief.
A couple of people who know the guy who claims Beau is his dog (Digger) and took him from our yard this past Wednesday say that they are fairly sure that Beau is not chained up outdoors. I don't know anyone who knows the guy very well, but have heard from two people now that he is a "good guy". I hope so, for Beau's sake.
I wanted to go by the guy's house and peek about yesterday when I was in town helping at the high school, but as fate would have it three things stopped me from doing it. The main stopper was that I was asked to give a friend a ride home from the school, so couldn't very well say let's go look around this house on the way home--word would get around that I was stalking the guy's house, which I suppose I would be doing. Second, the temperature was dropping quickly and ice was already formed on my car when I left the school yesterday afternoon and I had to quickly fill the car tank lest ice crystals form in the gasoline (it happened in our 5-gallon gas can!) and screw up the car engine. Third, a painful reason, was that during my stint of helping at the school my lower back seized up and I had a horrible time even trying to stand and get my coat on and get to the car, let alone clean the ice off and get out to pay for the gas in the station. I needed to get my friend home and then get home myself as quickly as possible to take ibuprofen and try to get some pain relief. I'm fairly sure that the type of chair I was sitting in for much of the day at school is the cause of my back muscles seizing the way they did. I have to be very careful to not sit on hard surfaces such as bleachers or hard chairs because of my back, and the chairs in the conference room we were in are hard plastic. I've digressed, though, from my excuses for not checking on Beau's house yesterday. Or today.
With my back spasms and general feeling of crappiness and lethargy I haven't been able to do much at all today aside from prepare and eat a bowl of cereal and sit here in my chair with a pillow at my back, hoping for some pain relief via position and ibuprofen. It is very cold outside (minus 21C), so we have the car battery in the house to keep it warm enough to start the car when needed. The house is quite chilly despite the wood stove, the oil furnace (still awaiting the repairman who will replace the burner motor), and the insulation and plastic that Toad and I have put around the windows inside. There is a draft coming from somewhere. I have on two shirts and a jacket, two pair of pj pants, three pair of socks, house slippers, and am wrapped in a sheepskin--and I'm still chilly! My nose is as cold as a dog nose.
Yesterday evening I started reading The Book of Negroes, by Lawrence Hill, and am just about ready to get off this computer and lose myself in this novel. I'll have to re-read the first seven pages, which is as far as I made it last night, because I was in such pain that I can only remember a little bit of what I read and that it was so good that I didn't want to stop reading. I actually fell asleep while reading, sitting in my chair, and didn't go to bed until Toad roused me at 2AM when he got up to put more wood in the stove. If I can find a comfortable position, with the help of more ibuprofen and perhaps a heating pad, I'll be spending the rest of this cold Saturday in bed with my new book. Escapism isn't all bad. It gives a person a chance to heal a bit so that life's challenges, both good and bad, can be met with renewed passion and energy.
At times like these I want to keep in mind these inspirational words:
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.--George Bernard Shaw
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