Good morning everyone and welcome to Wednesday’s Morning Open Thread.
Morning Open Thread is a daily, copyrighted post from a host of editors and guest writers. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.
I’ve come to think of this post as one where you come for the music and stay for the conversation—so feel free to drop a note. The diarist gets to sleep in if she so desires and can show up long after the post is published. So you know, it's a feature, not a bug.
Join us, please.
While most of you were glued to the hearings yesterday evening, I was wrangling my sister’s two dogs—yeah, I’m dog sitting again. And this time they are at my place because her’s is getting hurricane-related damage repaired. They like it here (it’s new and they rarely get to spend the night) but their presence is like babysitting a couple of rowdy kids. The experience reminds childless adults why they don’t have kids.
I love these beasts. I do. But my life and home aren’t set up for dogs, so I just have to let it go and give them the run of the place. They’re small (one is a tiny, long-haired teacup chihuahua and the other a fireplug, slightly overweight, short-haired standard chihuahua) and relatively easy to look after except for outside. I have a patio so they can hang out there with me but they also like grass so I have to take them out regularly in an un-fenced yard and let them run around and bark at everything that moves or looks off or breathes or just exists.
The stray cats that sometime hang out here are fascinated by these little creatures and—though upset that their regular hangouts are now infested with stiff, munchkin creatures that yap—appear to get some amount of pleasure sitting on the patio wall cleaning themselves deliberately while two small dogs run in circles endlessly barking until the cats grow bored and wander down the road to bother the golden retriever that sits in a neighbor’s bay window waiting for the opportunity to bark at cats and anyone walking by.
Anyway, my sister is away in Paris. For her granddaughter’s 16th birthday, she and another sister of mine took my niece there as a gift. (Technically “grandniece” but I’m not typing that out each time.) They’ll be there for 10 days and, no doubt, have a wonderful time. My niece is a huge reader and loves museums so Paris will be perfect for her. A couple years ago I took her to the WWII Museum in New Orleans and she had me there until they were directing the crowds to the doors at closing time: she reads and studies everything plaque, every display card, every video, map, munition, piece of cloth. So, yeah, good luck to my sisters getting her through The Louvre. I Venmoed (can that be a verb?) her a gift and told her to treat my sisters to dinner and a good bottle of wine and blow the rest at Shakespeare & Company, to which she laughed and told me she would make sure it was the house red so she could have more for books. My niece, for sure.
Which reminds me that it’s time to text them updates on the dogs and wish them a lovely day in Paris, where the weather will be near perfect today. Cheers all and do have a wonderful Friday and an even better weekend.
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Be well, be kind, and appreciate the love you have in your life.
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Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?