This was taken in 2015 in Lexington, Kentucky. I had four dogs then, but strangely, the three dogs pictured here are the ones that are still with us. We had adopted Yoko, the chihuahua in the foreground, just a month before. She was still a little fat. The little beagle next to her is Winston. He just turned 15 this week. He would have just turned eight in this picture. I wish he could be that young again.
Here's another picture from another July 9th:
The context of this picture is that I was returning from Dallas. I was on I-30. I was going to my home in Fort Worth. Because Fort Worth was the western end of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, & because storms tended to come from the west, Fort Worth would mostly be where the storms started. & more than once I found myself driving west, trying to get home, & suddenly facing a deluge.
This is what happened here, in 2017. I found an old email I wrote to my wife, who was out of town, about the damage from the storm. In addition to almost being stuck in a flood - I drove through pretty deep water to exit the highway, & was incredibly lucky that I didn't stall - I also noted that one of our trees in our backyard was uprooted. Mostly I was sad I was away while the storm came in, & it was almost certainly stressful for our dogs. I was in Dallas because I had made a promise to help someone because I am a nice guy even though the person to whom I was nice was probably not worth the gesture. Appropriately, that person is no longer in my life so remembering this, I am even more guilty than I was at the time.
This is what happened here, in 2017. I found an old email I wrote to my wife, who was out of town, about the damage from the storm. In addition to almost being stuck in a flood - I drove through pretty deep water to exit the highway, & was incredibly lucky that I didn't stall - I also noted that one of our trees in our backyard was uprooted. Mostly I was sad I was away while the storm came in, & it was almost certainly stressful for our dogs. I was in Dallas because I had made a promise to help someone because I am a nice guy even though the person to whom I was nice was probably not worth the gesture. Appropriately, that person is no longer in my life so remembering this, I am even more guilty than I was at the time.
What is true is that I do not miss those storms. They made terrifying torrential downpours & threatened tornados. Holy shit! Nothing like that in Portland. Well, except wildfires. Wildfires are fucking horrifying.
