Menage`a Trois

Stephen Huneck, a Vermont artist did this charming woodblock print, which surfaced today. I hung it in our bedroom. Our last dog, another black lab named Lucy actually did share our bed with us. It was a slow process in which she went from sleeping downstairs in OilMan's office, to sleeping on a chair in our room to sleeping on our bed. Tim and his wife , seizing on its appropriateness, bought this print for us while on a trip to Vermont to visit her sister. Ozzie may have won the battle of the bedroom (he has slept in our bedroom ever since we moved) but he will not share our bed!

In addition to prints, Huneck has also done some charming children's books featuring labradors in three shades. Among my favorites is Sally Goes to the Beach, . Sally is a black lab, so naturally we have a copy of that too. According to his website, Huneck attributed his recovery from a serious but undisclosed illness to his dog. He even built a chapel on his property where real dogs are welcome at services, and their people can sit in pews capped by carved dogs. Sadly, Huneck committed suicide a few years ago and his website had a single Huneck woodblock print--a labrador with a tear in its eye. A sad end for someone who saw the world of dogs so whimsically.

Today while OilMan wrangled with the county bureaucracy over taxes and deeds, I wrangled with the Safeway pharmacy. After the third trip to the store and calls to two doctors, we have succeeded in getting zero prescriptions filled and find ourselves in the Catch-22 position of not being able to pick up our prescriptions until the 29th, because the insurance won't pay for them before then, and not being able to pick them up after the 29th because they are only allowed to hold a filled prescription for 10 days and then have to throw it away. There must be a special place in hell reserved for those bureaucrats who come up with all these contradictory and frustrating rules. (Right alongside whoever invented and required trucks to beep loudly enough to be heard miles away whilst reversing...)

Tomorrow we go to the blue and yellow flat pack emporium in search of a drafting table and on to a Berkeley neighborhood party. What does one wear to that combination of events? We might get lost in the labyrinthine bowels of the emporium and never make it to the party.