I haven’t been posting as much because I’m in the heat of writing a new book proposal but the last few days have just been something.

Last night, my favorite dog in the world passed away and I’m very sad. Her name was Loupa. She was a quarter wolf, the rest German Shepard and one other breed. She developed bone cancer at a frightening pace. By the time they found a lump and had it biopsied, it was Friday. My friends were just thinking they would take her to a specialist on Monday when on Saturday the lump swelled to an enormous size and they found numerous lumps all over her body. She could hardly walk, but my friends took her to her favorite park for one last visit. Then the vet came to their house and put her to sleep. I’m still pretty upset about this. She was 13 years old. Maybe it was just time to go.

In other news, I decided that I’d had it with the goofy cat litter box that The Frenchman chose for Robie. It’s a roundish thing you rock back and forth, then all the way over, until a long scoop on the side fills up with the goods and you tip the box back to its starting position. In theory, you pull out the long scoop and dump what’s inside. The problem is that it fills up with litter instead of just the goods and litter spills out of the front hole during the whole rocking business.

So, I bought Robie a brand new normal litter box but this time I decided to go back to those trackless silicon “pearls” and see if he’s more successful with them that Cairo and Ophelia were. Well, I filled it up and I watched him climb inside…and he tried to eat the silicon pieces. I started yelling, pulling bits out of his mouth. Eventually he understood that this was not a snack, climbed inside and did was he was meant to do.

Oy.

And then this morning we were milling around the kitchen making breakfast when our house was surrounded by cops. Nice! Eventually, one came to the door. The Frenchman answered with Robie in hand. A blond female officer asked if we’d seen a black female around our house. “No, just you officers.” The Frenchman was surely a sight in his robe, squeezing a kitten in one hand.

But last night — although I slept badly for lots of reasons — I had a very cool dream that foretold wonderful things to come. I’m a-hanging on to that one, monkey boy.