Just For Fun and a Smile or Two

The story I want to share this morning has no moral, no theology, no hidden message except perhaps that sharing your home with pets can brings laughter and love to your heart. This is another "tail" in the continuing saga of Ms Maddie Sue, a little foster chihuahua who is living with me and trying to learn courage since she thinks the world is a scary place.


Among her quirks, Ms Maddie Sue is a Nervous Nelly about walking on the slick (in her opinion) floors; Gordon, my beloved, says she "over-thinks it" -- which is true. If she is just following along, she is fine, but when she stops to think about it, she twinkle toes around, darting and scrambling and leaping as if she is walking on burning coals.

To set the stage for this simple "tail" --

In the mornings, I like to sit on the side verandah which is right off the kitchen and is enclosed for the dogs. I feed them there and this is the drying area after their baths. To get there, obviously, you have to come through the kitchen's tiled floors and then go down one step: "the grand mountain range if you ask Ms Maddie Sue." But Maddie loves to come out with the group and lay in the sun, or sit with me while I have my morning coffee.

Also in setting the stage -- note that we have a very enthusiastic toaster. When it pops the toast, it hurls it into the air and if you are alert, you can even catch it on your plate. If you are not alert, you might find your toast a week later on top of the refrigerator. Suffice it to say, it pops the toast with gusto.

Okay -- so here we are on this glorious morning, Gordon had put some toast in the toaster but had come out to sit with his coffee, I am savoring mine, Lex and Ruby (Pekeapoo and Mastiff) are settled in their favorite places. And I hear Maddie, scrambling around the kitchen trying to get the nerve to navigate the last few tiles remaining on her journey to join us. I decide not to help her. I am allowing her to make these trips across tile by herself, hoping she will build up the courage to walk across floors without all the drama.

Then, suddenly, I hear the toaster pop with its usual gusto and out of the door, as if shot from a cannon, blows Ms Maddie Sue, through the air, double somersault, and Olympic dismount. If I weren't laughing so hard, I would have held up a "10" score card for her outstanding Olympic gymnastic performance.

And as she landed, of course, little piggy tail wagging, she is so proud of herself as if she says to us: I'm here! I made it! Are you happy to see me?!

She is such a nut.