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My dog crashed a wedding last Saturday. And a few days ago, he took a little walk down Hwy One.

Bad. Dog. But, not really.

See he's sad and he needs a lot of attention and he's not afraid to show it. His buddy and big brother hasn't been able to play with him.

Why?

Because a few weeks back when fog gave way to sweltering nights on the California Coast and when we discovered we had another pet, a bat we named Vlad [but I won't go into that], Oso and Joe [my husband] were doing what they always do. Wrestling on the floor, playing and hanging out. Oso, although he's a 75-pound dog, thinks he's a lap dog, so he would at some point crawl into Joe's lap which made Joe decidedly uncomfortable in the heat, but, well, it's Oso's thing.

When the heat subsided, poison oak flared. Wow. Joe had it bad, bad last year and he's got an amazing case of it again. And so, Joe can't pet toxic dog who we nicknamed Gozer in our horror at what a cute, toxic-laced-furry form The Destructor chose. And so it's been weeks of very little petting and wrestling and been a general lap-dog-free zone. Poor guys. Since then Oso is glued to me. He doesn't want to go outside and sleeps all day inside. And, when I have let him outside he's run away. Whenever the phone rings my heart skips a beat thinking it will begin, "Hi. I've got your dog here..." So, my poor hubby is hopped up on steroids, barely able to sleep at night, and I've got a depressed dog. You might wonder what the upside is. Is there one?

Well, yes. And, no.

Oso has brought a whole bunch of new people into my life. People I wouldn't have otherwise met had he not gone galavanting around. He's gotten to be the talk of Burns Creek if not the South Coast. I met a great gal from Santa Fe, NM today when I took Oso out for a walk. I didn't need to explain why Oso was on such a short leash. She'd heard about him running away. She shared the wonders of Yapala, Mexico with me and I shared the wonders of Pie Town, NM with her. We got out the map to see our future destinations. On her ride back to New Mexico she thought she'd stop for a piece of pie in Pie Town, a place she had never heard of. Which is why she brought up Yepala, a place I'd never heard of, in the first place. Ladies hawk pieces of pie on the beach in Yepala. My kind of place:) This led to a discussion of what pie I was making this weekend and how different siblings can be which segued into our birth order and the karmic nature of things. Then there was the guy Mack Murphy who called and helped Oso find his way back home, and the young girl Chrissy who called to say Oso was their newest wedding guest.

Thanks Oso. That was cool.

I guess he thinks I should get out more, meet more people.

There really isn't anything cool about poison oak. Especially coming down with it when Joe did as he winds one job down and starts another. It is kind of tripy seeing Joe up at 3AM and not me. But not fun. Especially when he works all night.

Here's hoping these two can get back together again soon. That the poison oak goes away fast and that Oso and Joe can play and wrestle again and one day very soon I'll find Oso asleep on Joe's lap.