Laura and me

About two weeks ago we had a heat wave. I'm thinking maybe it was the worst heat we've had while living here. I couldn't sleep. I laid on the couch with fans blowing on me and listened to the radio all night long. Every so often I'd wipe myself down with a cold wash cloth. I wrote another little trilogy of posts about it one morning before heading out to the air-conditioned library. Apparently my faithful editor had been thinking of redesigning this blog. As a result there are two places where I can click on 'new post'. I clicked on the wrong one, so that trilogy of posts is out there by itself on a fragment of new blog. While it was so hot, our dog, Sadie, stayed quietly stretched out on the floor, only moving occasionally to a new cool spot. Bear the Border Collie was not so smart. She kept right on jumping up and wanting to cuddle with all her hot black fur while she panted slobber all over the place. I kept rather forcefully thrusting her away from me. This week we've had beautiful summer weather. The temperatures dropped from the nineties back into the eighties. Better yet, the dew point dropped from the seventies into the forties. It gets almost cold in the house at night. I've been making up for all the sleep I lost. Last night I sat down on the couch to watch the news on t.v. before going to bed. Bear hopped right up beside me as usual. But she was more tentative with her cuddling, not sure if she would be rudely pushed away, I suppose. Instead of forcefully shoving her head under my chin, causing me to worry about my expensive dental work as she usually does, she laid her head very gently on my shoulder and slowly wiggled her nose under my chin. Laura Bush came to Minnesota yesterday. So we watched her on t.v., comforting the rescue workers of the bridge disaster in her practical, kindly way. Then I went to bed. I woke up about six a.m. and thought about getting up. But instead I fell back to sleep and had a very vivid dream. It seemed that instead of watching Laura on t.v., I was there in Minneapolis in the crowd of people. Laura kept looking at me, almost as if she knew me. When she was finished speaking, she came up to me and talked to me as if we were old friends. I've been reading Jane Smilely's latest novel. In it the characters are staying for a few days in a new, large mansion. The manager of the mansion encourages them to feel free to look into any of the rooms. In my dream, that's what Laura and I did. We went from room to room in a large building, Laura talking all the way. Eventually we came to a room with bunk beds. My legs were tired, so we laid down on the bottom bunk. Laura put her head very gently on my shoulder and then shifted it under my chin just has Bear had done the night before. I kept thinking two things: I couldn't wait to tell my husband about this, and I had to think of something clever and friendly to say to Laura. But frankly, I couldn't get a word in edgewise. She kept talking and talking. I never got a chance to tell her what I think about how things are going here in America under her husband's leadership. Oh well, that probably would have been the end of my dreamy new friendship.