'The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth'

My normal go-to-bed routine was violently upset the other weekend with Robert outta town.

It's typically a snuggle-fest with my two Dachsies, each claiming space on our king-side bed by pressing tight to an upper thigh and under my arm during a last-minute on-line scan for drama, shout-outs and anything pressing.

Hey, wait a minute..... nine-tenths of the mattress is gone unused..... "Go find your own space!"

Never works.

This week on my own we (the pups and I) had a visitor, my parents' aging Dachsie. I babysat her for three days while mom and dad attended a convention. She's 12 years old and has my parents very well trained. The words matriarch and queen come to mind. Set in her ways. At home her throne by the front door is occupied, mostly in sleep, as she waits for the familiar sound of mom and dad.... her loyal subjects.... and their cars pulling up the driveway.

She caused a major ruckus after I helped her into bed by bringing along a half-chewed, cruddy piece of a rawhide bone she was attempting to dissolve with spittle and lazy chewing. No bones in bed is a standard rule for bed-sharing household canines, which is always quickly corrected if there's an attempted sneaky violation.

Little P left my flesh to get a sniff, or, as he does with his sister, snatch away the prize if given an opening,  and the growling ....... 'RRRRrrrrrrrrrr'....... teeth-baring.......fur bristling...... and mean-dog looks (if that's truly possible with 12-pound heaps of fur) quickly escalated. Then they went at it, snapping jaws, in each other's face, the slimy two-inch piece of leather dropped to the blanket, and I quickly separated the two, a tiny cut on the top of my hand.

Little P, scourge and deadly hunter of the creature population that roam the backyard, undefeated in roughhouse battles with his younger and slightly larger sister, youthful, sinewy and the household Alpha dog..... backed away ears down, looking for the fleshy solace of my hip and petting hand. Battle lost to the smaller, twice as old, gnarly bitch.

A moment later Little P decided to find a place more comfortable, tentatively moseyed over to his cousin's territory at the foot of the bed, and rested his head on her loins. In a few minutes they were entwined, fur to fur, eyes closed, battle long forgotten.

I went back to the headlines, bored with The Ukraine, Gaza, Africa, the cowardly, idealogical battles by the dimwits we elected to Congress, humanity's zeal to kill itself with the food it eats and the land and air we call terra firma, the silly tension between we humans which diminishes love and everything else that is truly essential.

I look over my laptop screen. Fast asleep.
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