The wind is so strong it blows open the dog door. Henry gets spooked so I have to get up from my comfy couch to let him in by the human door, and Henry doesn’t wait patiently. He bangs the door with his nose. Right now he is napping, probably because of the trauma of having to wait outside a couple of minutes.

Today is an ugly day. It rained earlier, and the sky is still covered in clouds, but today is warm, even with the wind. It is in the mid-50’s. I have errands today. One of them is easy to guess.

Nala likes to play fetch, even in the house. I throw toys down the hall, and she brings them back to me. She also brings in stuff from outside. The other day it was a pine branch. The needles on the floor of the living room and the hall gave Nala away. The dirt on the door mat and in the kitchen also gave Nala away when she tore apart my succulent garden. It was left counter after I had watered. I thought it was safe. Silly me forgetting Nala, the Destroyer of Worlds, loves surfing the counter.

I almost feel like a grave robber. Nala pulled apart a Santa cloth ornament she had stolen a while back. Sadly, Henry is complicit in this theft but after the fact. He also enjoys chewing poor Santa. This morning I found white stuffing on the floor. I followed the tufts from room to room and caught Nala trying to pull out some more from Santa’s head. I grabbed the ornament and pulled out all the rest of the stuffing from Santa’s head leaving him a shell of his former self. During all of this, Jack was meowing for attention.

When I was a kid, I never knew how to answer when aunts, great aunts and my aunt the nun, whom I seldom saw, asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. It usually took me days to decide what to wear on Halloween let alone decide what I’d be doing the rest of my life. The enormity of that question floored me. I had no idea I was supposed to be planning my future. I still thought Saturday was a long way off. I usually said I didn’t know. That ended our once a year chat.