Luke’s arriving home from Thailand this evening, so it’ll be interesting to hear his tales.  He’s been there since mid-March, so that’s a long time.  If you’re a Facebook pal of mine, you would’ve seen the photo I posted of Luke and his five year old nephew each having a smoke.  Thailand!

Luke said he was smoking a cigarette, and the kid was bugging him for one.  He kept saying no, and then his in-laws, the kid’s grandparents, said sternly to Luke, “Give him a cigarette.”  Luke said the kid also likes tipping back the odd brewsky.

Luongo’s proving to be quite a spoiled little pup who can’t be by himself, even for a few minutes.  If I go into the shower he screams until I come out.  So I was a bit worried about what would happen on the weekend, as Bev was coming for our favourite activity, thrift store shopping.

Nicky announced he wouldn’t be able to look after the puppy at all, due to scheduled rounds of golf.  Bev brought her pug Charlie, and he doesn’t like being alone either, so that was convenient as we were both on the clock.  I said no problem to Nicky, as the pup has to learn how to be alone every now and then as I can’t be here all the time.

We put the dogs into their respective bedrooms at 9:00 on Saturday morning, and headed to the Sally Ann.  Can you believe it, but Bev found a Coach bag, in mint condition, for $20!  As you know, they’re a minimum of $200 new.

After a couple of hours I said we’d better head home, and we did. The dogs were remarkably good as neither bedroom had been torn to shreds.  They were happy to see their moms and I made Bev and I a nice lunch.  I’d bought lovely German rye bread from Monika the Baker at Okanagan Grocery, which we had with cheese and cold cuts.

We took another spin in the afternoon, emboldened by the dogs’ seeming acceptance at being left.  We hit a couple more stores, and at one, Bibles for Missions, everything was 50% off.  Hallelujah.

We got some great stuff, dirt cheap, and headed home to a pitcher of vodka cocktails.  I’d mixed raspberry vodka, Triple Sec, white cranberry and lemon juice together.  It was really good, kind of like a cooler.

Because I’m usually awake at 4:30 AM, I’ve been able to do quite a bit of chipping away at the yard.  I’m up at that indecent hour because Luongo (Louie) likes to bite my earlobes, chin, nose and throat until I get up.  Then since we’re up and my goal is to tire him out, we head down to the vegetable garden and I putter around in the beautiful silemce of the early morning.

So though I’ve sacrified sleep, leaving the house, and planting anything without a dog jumping on my hand with all its might, I’m able to see the beauty of living in the moment with this tiny fellow.  And really, what could be nicer than seeing his joy as he tears through my beds, green onions clenched firmly in his fierce white teeth.