Lily is going to a specialist tomorrow and I have been peeking through thick curtains that hide my thoughts as I sleep. In dreams I see anxiety I see me with curls from pink sponge rollers mom pinned into my hair the night before. My bangs are straight like maybe my hair is really curly and she ironed them.

My nightgown is pink and my arm is around Gypsy's neck. Gypsy our first dog was big and loving and died of arthritis in her hip that swelled like she had a watermelon jammed beneath her skin.

Dad said she knew it was time. She smelled terrible. I miss her.

I think of Gypsy and somewhere at night I roll over and jostle myself just enough to throw that memory off its loop.

Another dream starts. We're in my old Bronco rolling downhill. My friend Jack and I are waiting to see Ozzy the pug in a field or somewhere I am not sure. The road dips. I see the drop and the hard turns but my reactions are slow we bump the curb and I can't explain why I am not stopping. It's like my foot won't press. That image drifts away. It's a tale unfinished in my head. Where were we going?

Dad wants to come with me tomorrow to see this specialist but I have to leave the house around 8 am. How is he going to go with me? I don't want to say no, but I don't know how we'll have company in the middle of our morning while we rush from bedroom to bathroom to the washing machine, where are my underwear!

Brushing teeth and showering and getting dressed and how do Jerry and I do this?

Mom calls and I finally admit that it's easier and less stressful to just go on my own.

Any other time of day would have been better, I tell her. Dad gets on to say, don't worry, I just wanted to be supportive. I know, I tell him, but if it were at any other time of day….

In the woods we visit the foundation and I keep waiting for some hints of its long-ago owner to emerge from the ground. The dogs and I roam the site -- all of us seeking different things.

On our way up I follow their flopping tails and ragged path through the woods down into a valley. From between rises I wonder who last walked across this ground. Lily is great. She never wanders away she never chases after Bandit's curly, furry tail and disappears.

Do you think she has always been like this and her owner just told us it started suddenly with a vaccination shot?

I don't think he would make things up, I tell Jerry. Who knows, really. Who knows.

I am afraid to hear the specialist's thoughts I am also afraid not to hear the specialist's thoughts. What a funny place to be.