heat wave

i realize my posts have been terse lately. it's just too hot to think. it's been in the 90s again, and muggy, and today it's supposed to be almost 100 degrees. i have another serial i'm thinking about writing, but in the meantime you get short lazy summertime posts.

we have a regular saturday afternoon walk that we take. it's about twice as long as our normal week morning walk--it goes past the school, past the house with the matching frog planters (the frogs wear seasonal hats during holidays), all the way to California Street and back again. it takes about an hour and 20 minutes. there are several houses along the way that put out dishes of water for dogs in warm weather.

one of riley and boscoe's regular stops is a brightly painted, cheerful looking house with a wonderful messy and blooming front garden and a cut-out stylized rabbit on their screen door. the owners put out a white enameled dishpan of water and a hand-lettered sign: "For Thirsty Dogs."

so last summer, we started doing this too. it worked so well that someone stole the water dish. so we started over this summer with a new one. riley and boscoe go ballistic when they're trapped on the front porch and a rogue dog stops by to take a drink. but that's what the water is there for. especially on days when it's 100 degrees.

and the dogs are grateful--or their owners are. today we came home from work and found that someone had posted a little thank-you---a tiny milkbone---through our letterbox. riley was out in the backyard trying to coax a squirrel out of a tree, so boscoe got the milkbone. i'll eat it, he said. but that doesn't mean it's ok for them to come by and drink our water.