Forgive me for my sin

That would be the sin of forgetfulness. I'm truly sorry if I am once again boring you with my art. I painted these puppies a few times. If you have seen them in person, you can see the pentimento (look that one up you lexographer!) and I love the little bits of pink and green that show through. Makes it feel like Spring.

We (me and the dog) were able to dress *Mila* and get her outdoors for some fun time. I harnessed up Suma to the Chariot and in true Corgi-Trojan style, that dog pulled with broken knees and all. She would have pulled *Mila* into the creek, to the YMCA, to Lake Ontario and back again. It's flooding every where around us, so our creek walk was wet and mucky for me and the dog. *Mila* managed to step outside of her chariot once to throw rocks into the creek, got her boots so muddy that she, of course, needed to hop back in for a ride over a couple of rocks and an ounce of water, followed by a dramatic scene where she splashed her new Easter bunny "KOKO" with mud. As if we haven't washed every other teddy bear in the house. What makes this one so unique? BAWLING GOES HERE. When we arrived home with our freshly cut pussy willows, Suma lay outside to dry off and we drew spring flowers on the driveway with our chalk stubbies from last year...

Then, we overheard a 70-something-year-old neighbour tell a 12-year-old neighbour to do something about her grass. To which the 12-year old and her smart-ass friends replied "Do something about your big fat gut fatso!" Whatever possessed the old man to start picking on the girl about the quality of her turf outside of her doorstep is beyond me?!? Especially since we all have grimy old dirt from snowplows, shoveling, snow blowing and heck - SNOW - still on our lawns. I hope he's not the lawn police, because we have a nasty infestation of grubs. Now I know what to do with my grubs when we extract them from the ground!

Our next adventure was to give Suma her quinquennial bath. She was so mad at me that she put the brakes on out in the hallway and subsequently cracked her other knee. *Mila* decides she's going to help me and refuses to let me use my old dye-my-hair towel for the dog. She picks out some of my "better" bath towels for the dog's stinky butt. To top it all off, *Mila* puts on her brand new bathing suit top and a pair of velour brown pants that are 3 sizes too big for her. This is going to be her dog-washing outfit. Part of me wants to laugh because I am world renowned for having all sorts of little love affairs with outfits for all occasions. I have an outfit for each type of pool to sit by, including my very own fishy blow up pool. The other part of me (the reality part) says "Kid, take off the clothes and get in here in a ratty old tee-shirt and forget the pants!" She reluctantly did it and in the end she was thankful. After we sprayed the bathroom down with the shower head, then the dog shook, and then the cleaning process began while a dog-hair-infested-four-year-old ran up and down the hallway skipping and singing. The dog sat on the deck and barked. Ok, Suma doesn't just sit outside and bark. She'll bark if someone comes to the door. On the rarest of occasions she's barked at me if I'm in the shower and the phone rings. But she let it be known that she was pissed with me for her bath this decade. And rightfully so. I had taken away her "eau-de-pew", her "joie de stench", her "fetor du jour" and replaced it with the smell of dog shampoo. Which, by the way, barely masks the miasma that surrounds her in the form of a living, breathing greenish black entity. Yes, she smells and I wouldn't trade her in for another dog. And I won't be replacing her once she hooks on to the doggy cart in the sky.

signed, the willow