Amazing that we all succumb to the spell of "not really realities" like texting email reading, a movie the web. Is it because no mirrors reflect our sorry faces in these places? Is it because we have reached through the dust and crumpled shirts to the back of our minds where the special stuff hides? The stuff that only we see, and only if we're looking for it where it sleeps peacefully without light or sound or swearing or car horns or crabby neighbors.
Lily jumps up and barks and I wonder if one of my churlish bad moods is outside in the dark, dirty and ratty, loading its slingshot. It doesn't want to damage me really, I mean, it's me, but it really wants an award for being annoying.
I won't walk past a window for a few minutes.

Can the dogs sense moods descending like they hear thunder minutes before we do?

Patty had told me, if you're in the woods and this dog's ears perk up and she stops, stop. If she snarls or backs off, get out. Run away. She smells something dangerous, the trainer told me. She had also told me that there are Shepherd People and she could easily place this dog in a home.

As if a secret signal has passed among them, the Shepherd People soon emerged. Like a new word I have learned, they are popping up everywhere. Suddenly I understand Patty's comment. Certain people out there are dog lovers. Others are Shepherd lovers. I am a Lily lover.

Someone is prank calling a friend. He is too far for me to reach with anything other than a helpful idea. I can't sit with him and make reassurances that the sounds he hears are not threats coming true, but only the wind whipping branches across the window in a remote and barely-there part of Maine. By straddling the imaginary boundary drawn in a nearby river, he has a foot in Canadian territory. I want Lily to scare and bite his prank caller. Record THAT on the answering machine.

I look at Lily and see the bones beneath. I see the shrink-wrapped version of her at 46 pounds, but the same hopeful and curious expression. I see a doggy with a head like a pin cushion, the ticks large, shiny, and ripe enough to fall like plump bubbles into the grass. I forget the large ears and incisors that are stark against her black fur. I remember the hikers who stepped into a clearing from a trail as their big, fluffy dog shot past them, wagging, eager to greet Lily. I know Lily would have welcomed it. She is Miss Social. Loves everyone. But the woman stopped, gasped, and slapped her hands to her mouth. Was she worried her dog would head for the road? Was she worried about Lily?