Up With The Chicken... er... Dog

Actually Porter didn't wake me up, I just woke up, all on my own at 6:00.  (What's up with that???)  So I let her out, took my pills, got (semi)decently dressed, and took her on a little walk.  Not a big one, just around a few blocks.  She might be raring to go in the morning but I'm not.  It was short, maybe around 3 blocks, but it was better than no walk at all.  She'll just have to deal.  She barked!  I let her out first thing and then went back upstairs to find my sweats and heard a dog barking.  Close by.  I looked out the window and there she was at the back of the lot, just a-barking away.  I think I've only heard her bark one other time.  DS & DIL1 are winging their way toward Munich, flying on Polish Airways (or whatever it's called--LOT??) to Warsaw (Frederic Chopin airport) and then on to Munich where they'll probably sleep for 12 hours or so, then get onto some serious vacationing.  They're renting a car and driving, wending their way across Germany and into Belgium, sampling beer and touring breweries along the way.  Sounds like fun, no?  I'm staying all the way across GB (must be upwards of 4 miles) to mind the menagerie.  Penny's pretty low-maintenance, I just need to give her fresh food and water every other day and collect an egg a day if she deigns to lay one, that is.  Porter's a whole different story.  She wants walks and food and being let out and petting and her smokey bone and a whole lot of other attention.  I look on it as practice for when there might be a grandbaby.  Porter can't talk, yes, but she's pretty expressive and I can make up what I don't understand since she's usually happy with whatever you do (except last night I was late getting here and found a puddle, oops , [where do they keep the cleaning supplies?] not her fault) and is pretty darned good at nudging me to do her bidding anyway.  I won't go to bed as early as she likes to go though, not at 9 or 9:30, that's just crazy.  Although if I did I'd probably have less trouble staying awake to write... nah, too early, I manage to eke out a few words.  They may not be the best words or in the best order, but I get 'em out and onto the paper.  Yay, me.  I think I'm enjoying National Poetry Writing Month.  I may not be cleaving to the official prompt every day but I am writing and posting, and that's a good thing.  (urk, I channeled Martha Stewart there for a minute)

April 10--NaPoWriMo, Steal a First Line.

"When have I last looked on..." W.B. Yeats' Lines Written in Dejection

When have I last looked on
the face I love?
Only today through
sadness-shaded eyes.
His soft smile lifted
me up, kept me from
                sinking
to the bottom of my
soul.
~~~~~

Well.  Now that's cheerful, isn't it?  Not.  I need to perk up.  I need to put on my big girl panties, pull myself up by my (not-inconsiderable) bra straps and get on with it.  "It," in this case, meaning enjoying life, my life, not the life I wish I had because I'm never, no, not ever going to be svelte or have knees/legs that don't ache, so I just have to deal.  And I need to stop sabotaging my efforts to eat healthy and make the scale numbers inch down ever so slowly.  Oh, I'd love to wake up tomorrow a hundred pounds lighter but I've come to the realization that's never going to happen.  Never.  So I need to make myself happy with the way I am.  I am a perfectly adequate human being and I need to start remembering that.  Uber-expectations, begone!  I'm turning in my Superwoman cape, or I would if it just wasn't sticking to me so tightly.  I'll get it.  Ignore any ripping sounds you hear from my direction.  Oh good lord, listen to me rant and whine.  Maybe a bowl of Cheerios will shut me up.  How do you say goodbye in German?  Anyone?  Oh, I could Google it, couldn't I.  Just a minute...  well, duh... Auf Wiedersehen.
--Barbara