Estoy Nueces

I'm up early and hopefully will soon be on the road to see Perfect C in Blanco. Don't know when I last saw her, but it is always too long. She's back in Texas for good this time. She's quit her California job and is home. Hooray. She has left a boyfriend that she is madly in love with out there, though, so we'll see how that works out and where that relationship goes.

I'm angry at my maladjusted aunt and her daughter. Well, I only have reason to be angry with my aunt because she won't go visit my dad and help him celebrate his birthday. Her birthday is next week and he had suggested to my mom that they come here to visit the aunt for her birthday. Mom called the aunt on the sly and asked her to come up and spend time with them since she always says she wants to visit but is just too busy. That's what she is saying again, because her 37-year-old, going on 18, daughter, is having troubles with her third husband. Shock, shock. This is a woman who has had two abusive husband before (she claims), who met this married man while she was still married and he abandoned his family and hooked up with her (while she was still married) and she fell madly in love, despite his little cocaine problem (and that other family). It just goes on and on and it happens time and again. Sure, this woman's dad abandoned her and her mother and their family when she was a very impressionable little girl, but YOU KNOW THAT.... find a way through it. So, bottom line, my dad is disappointed and worries over them all and mom and I just fume.

Today is my old dog J.J.'s birthday. Why do I remember the birthday of a dog that has been dead for 20 years? I guess because she was the best dog we ever had. We got her as a puppy when we lived in Colorado and she moved back to Texas with us. She was a sweet companion and always by the backdoor. She was a collie, but a mix so she didn't have the sharp nose that most collies have. She was smart. Dad would travel for work and be gone a week or more and when it was the day that he was expected home, she would lay out by the road and wait for him. She didn't do it every day, she sensed when it was THE day.

J.J. died when I was grown up. I went out to the house on Christmas day (I only lived 13 miles away in town). It was really cold and when I left that afternoon J.J. was deep under the back porch. I said goodbye to her, but thought "I'm not going to make her come out from under that warm porch, I'll see her next time." The next day my mother called and said, "I have some sad news." I said, "J.J.'s dead." She was shocked I knew and I don't know how I knew, but I did. We talked about J.J. a while and then I called my boyfriend, the cop. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. He was very comforting. Later he said, "I never want to be responsible for making you cry, I just couldn't have stood it if I had caused you to cry like that." Sweet guy. I don't suppose he ever did make me cry like that, either.