I woke-up at 5.45 this morning after lying in bed for a while, unable to sleep. It was then I began to panic about the various inane and urgent tasks I had to get done sooner rather than later.
- My taxes (already overdue).
- My research paper (ditto).
- My practicum documentation (as above).
- Various reports (post-haste).
- Proposal for next art project.
On top of –
- Installing the curtain which Max has temporarily (now permanently) tacked up with fishing line.
- Drilling the new rack for the dryer.
- Treating the algae in the pond.
- Getting Rufus a kennel.
- Spring-cleaning.
- Cleaning out the studio.
- Finishing my painting.
While sitting in the living room and contemplating hopelessness and doom, over both the trivial and critical, Rufus had one of his strange wheezing fits.
He is a strange little pound mutt, uncharacteristically friendly with humans and typically unaware of his stature when picking fights with other dogs (don’t I know that feeling!). On top of this, he has strange traumas about odd things like fire stairs which he refuses to go in or near. He is uncannily astute in sensing emotions and empathises keenly when things are tense but on other occasions seems blithely unaware of everything other than an undiscovered smell in the grass or a distant clatter.
I can’t quite work out why he has these funny coughs and splutters. It’s quite alarming like whooping cough on an infant. Is this what ‘kennel cough’ is? It seems as though he is trying to expel mucous in his lungs or clear his throat. Despite this, he is now snoozing soundly on the couch. He might have asthma and I’m sure he needs braces. He needs to put on 2 kilos after being a stray and then incarcerated in a concrete cage. I worry about him like an adolescent child but it’s not the same as thinking about myself.
I think it goes to show how dogs are terribly good companions, even when they are not trying to be.
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