Close Call

It's that time of year.  Up here, we can tell the seasons by the prevalent weed:  burr clover, those dreaded tiny daggers, etc., and right now it's foxtails.  After an outing yesterday, Bess started coughing.  Not just coughing, but choking.  Tongue thrust forward, drooling, and continually retching, it was scary.  What to do?  Bess normally has only dry food, but I keep a can of "wet" food for emergencies, and, trust me, this was an emergency.  My thinking was that if she would, or could, eat something, it might dislodge the foxtail and get it on down the line.  Wet food being such a treat, she happily gobbled it down and it seemed to have a positive effect, but there was still some gagging.  Hmmm.  Okay, go to Plan B.  I made a piece of toast, slathered it with peanut butter, and fed her small bites.  Ta da!  We dodged that bullet and let's hope we don't have that situation again.

Some time back, I bought a carpet sweeper for those times we are without power.  Unfortunately, at the time I didn't realize the sweeper had a rechargeable battery thingy.  Since it wasn't called to duty all that often, the darn thing was always out of juice.  Drat.  And then, to put the cherry on top, it just quit working, period.  Okay, fine, just fine.  Trying to plan ahead, I went online and found an old-time, only people-power required, carpet sweeper and, ta da, it would be delivered to the local hardware store free of charge.  I received notice yesterday that it had arrived.  Since I had to go to town anyhow, I plotted my travel route and included a first stop at the store up in Pleasant Valley to get the sweeper.  The hardware store is right across the road from the grocery store.  Hmmm.  Checking my list, I happily discovered that there was nothing that I couldn't get right across the street.  Bwahaha!

Bess was safe, I didn't have to go all the way to town, man, I was a happy camper.  Until I got home.  It wasn't until I was putting groceries away and put the few things into the refrigerator that I realized we had no electricity.  How's that for irony?  There I was with a brand-new, old-timey carpet sweeper to use in an emergency, and there we were without power.  The sweeper works fine, and it wasn't all that long before PG&E got things up and running again and the ceiling fan got going before I expired from the heat.

There were happy endings to all of the day's events, but I can't honestly say it was one of the better days.