A slice of buttered toast

Shabbat Morning dawns bright, and a bit chilly 41°.  Transcendent songs play on Pandora®, and Kippur the Budgie chirps and feeds in his cage beside the workstation.  The daffodils are spent, the hyacinths are blooming, and the paperwhites are preparing to bloom. The various planters need care, but I haven’t gotten to them yet.

I have half an hour to myself before the last rush preparing for morning services. On Shabbat mornings, Snookums delivers my pills and toast at 9:25; 9:40 I shower and dress; 10:10 we leave the house. A rather pleasant sleepy ritual on this day as the smell of stew that Snookums has prepared for oneg, the meal after service, permeates the house. We take lunch at the congregation following services. Then it will be a long, formal nap, one where you get into jammies, and luxuriate in an almost sinful afternoon snooze.

Annie-Annie, our black something-or-the-other as taken to spending her nights on my daybed. That is good, because I was fearing alpha-female issues with her and ‘Becca da Beagle.  Jenna the white puppy doesn’t have a problem yet. Both dogs have taken to teaching her many of her missing dog skills. A firm bite on her snout by Annie has taught her to be a bit gentler in her playful bites, and ‘Becca taught her how to walk on a leash.

And my first cup of coffee is empty as Snookums delivers buttered toast and V-8 juice five minutes early.  Blasphemer! Never the less, I consume them, glad that I have that extra five minutes to finish this morning missive.

It has been a long winter for me. This will be a new spring, with an unfamiliar routine looming. Simplify! My common sense tells me.  One bed for annuals, three beds for perennials, a few shrubs with enough space between them to get the mower thru.  That is my landscape goals for the year.

And that ends my morning as I begin to reawaken from my long winters hibernation.

Good morning, and Shabbat Shalom!

~r