Grey Day

A tough night. No kids in the house. Scout yelped once, it sounded like he turned the wrong way and hurt himself. Just once, surprise, pain and that was it. I sat on the side of the bed and waited for more, but nothing else. I know the feeling. It is surprise, even more than pain. Twist the wrong way and suddenly you're in unfamiliar territory.

Smudge came in to check on me, maybe to reassure me that everything was OK. He didn't do any dances to get me to follow. He's a good friend to Scout. It's interesting to watch Smudge pick up some of the Alpha duties. He still makes sure to be deferential to Scout when he leads. Scout allows it and even appreciates it for the most part. Like a grumpy old man, once in a while, he'll snap at Smudge, when Smudge pushes past him to get out of the door first. I think that's more about getting jostled than about being second dog out, but it may be a little bit of both.

Smudge always runs off the deck while Scout tries to keep up and hustles but it takes him a little longer to get loose enough to run like he used to. Scout's also more of an open-field runner. He doesn't take the corners like Smudge can. But Smudge has gotten into trouble taking corners too tightly. Twice he's clipped a corner at high speed and caught and torn his coat, pretty badly. Had to go to the vet and get sewed up. The first time he ended up in the dog hospital for a week.

It was pretty close. We've had close calls with both of our dogs. But they've hung in there. They're good friends to each other and to us. I'll miss them when they gone. I hope that's some time off.

It seems like I had some ideas for a story but for the life of me, they've taken off for now. I tried a murder mystery yesterday, but I don't think I got my point across with it. I might rewrite it to make things more clear. That doesn't save me from myself for the story today however. I would like to work on the noir style, again. Clipped, fast-paced. I should read a bit about Noir Fiction to refresh my vision and try some for today.

Maybe have somebody witness a crime and then try to get away from the perpetrator. Have to set it in a bygone era so that there's no cell phones and quick fixes. I should be able to work something out with it. So I'll write a new piece then go back and change yesterday's story to make it more clear.

I don't want to lose too much of the descriptive portions. It's important to set the scene and put the reader there in the story. I just need to work on that a little harder.

I'll refill my coffee cup and get to work.

More later,