He wasn’t any friend of mine, anyway.” Ben sighed and finished his drink. “Well, I need to go check in with the suite-mates and schedule another study session for Philosophy of Religion. I keep hearing how hard that final is going to be.”
“Then go do it. Thanks for stopping by.” We stood up and I hugged him. He’d gotten past that point of being embarrassed by a public hug once in a while. I probably couldn’t get away with it on a daily basis, but I could definitely get more hugs than I had any time since fifth grade.
I watched Ben walk away and then I took our mugs back to the counter. Maria wouldn’t even let me wash them before she shooed me away for the evening. Since I needed to start studying for finals and finish up final projects for my classes I let her have her way. Maybe after seeing Ben I could go home and get some school work done. It made a poor example for my son if I didn’t get grades at least equal to his while we both attended the same school.
Driving home, I gave everything I’d learned a lot more thought. I didn’t come up with any big conclusions, other than the fact that probably several people had wanted Frank Collins dead. He seemed to have gone out of his way to make enemies of people, and I didn’t even know all that much about him.
Pursuing that line of thought wouldn’t get me very far without more facts. I tried to shake it off and think about other things. Before I got out of the car on the driveway, I breathed a prayer to ask for God’s presence and peace. I needed both. Maybe for once I could have a restful evening at home, just studying. It sounded like a good idea. I could stop by Dot and Buck’s house first and “borrow” a dog to keep me company and be set for the evening. Getting back into a normal routine would be good.
Chapter Six
F riday started off more like a normal day for me than any other had in the week. Getting a dog to join me for the night helped immediately. I was limited by which ones would happily climb the open staircase up to the apartment, but that still gave me several choices. For company, I’d gone with Dixie’s sister Sophie. The mostly-lab female was the mother to the puppies that had all gone to new homes in the last two weeks. She probably felt her “empty nest” as much as I felt mine. Whatever the case, she’d been good company for me in the apartment overnight.
I got up, enjoying the chill in the air that hung around for the first few hours after sunrise. It might have been cool, but it sure wasn’t anything like what I was used to in the Midwest a week after Thanksgiving. In Missouri this time of year we’d have frost, maybe even snow. And no matter what the precipitation situation, morning would more than likely mean temperatures below freezing.
Here in Southern California there are freshmen going to school with Ben who have never seen snow unless their parents have taken them up to the ski resorts. They might have gone to one of the big promotions at a theme park where a machine pulls up in a parking lot and spits cold stuff that’s promoted as “snow” but I didn’t count that.
The coldest mornings here might make me put on jeans instead of my shorts, and even think about a jacket, but that was about it. The crazy part about weather here is that no matter what the season, you need to dress in layers because the temperature fluctuates so much in the course of a day. When the area anywhere fifty miles around Los Angeles suffers drought, which it has for the last several years, it’s easy to see that the whole region is basically desert. And like any desert, when the sun goes down the temperature may drop twenty or thirty degrees. It still makes me marvel that I’m as likely to need a sweatshirt after dark on the fourth of July as I am on Christmas Eve.
This morning a light jacket felt good as I went out to do my normal work around the kennels. Buck let me pitch in now that he wasn’t feeling uncomfortable
“Then go do it. Thanks for stopping by.” We stood up and I hugged him. He’d gotten past that point of being embarrassed by a public hug once in a while. I probably couldn’t get away with it on a daily basis, but I could definitely get more hugs than I had any time since fifth grade.
I watched Ben walk away and then I took our mugs back to the counter. Maria wouldn’t even let me wash them before she shooed me away for the evening. Since I needed to start studying for finals and finish up final projects for my classes I let her have her way. Maybe after seeing Ben I could go home and get some school work done. It made a poor example for my son if I didn’t get grades at least equal to his while we both attended the same school.
Driving home, I gave everything I’d learned a lot more thought. I didn’t come up with any big conclusions, other than the fact that probably several people had wanted Frank Collins dead. He seemed to have gone out of his way to make enemies of people, and I didn’t even know all that much about him.
Pursuing that line of thought wouldn’t get me very far without more facts. I tried to shake it off and think about other things. Before I got out of the car on the driveway, I breathed a prayer to ask for God’s presence and peace. I needed both. Maybe for once I could have a restful evening at home, just studying. It sounded like a good idea. I could stop by Dot and Buck’s house first and “borrow” a dog to keep me company and be set for the evening. Getting back into a normal routine would be good.
Chapter Six
F riday started off more like a normal day for me than any other had in the week. Getting a dog to join me for the night helped immediately. I was limited by which ones would happily climb the open staircase up to the apartment, but that still gave me several choices. For company, I’d gone with Dixie’s sister Sophie. The mostly-lab female was the mother to the puppies that had all gone to new homes in the last two weeks. She probably felt her “empty nest” as much as I felt mine. Whatever the case, she’d been good company for me in the apartment overnight.
I got up, enjoying the chill in the air that hung around for the first few hours after sunrise. It might have been cool, but it sure wasn’t anything like what I was used to in the Midwest a week after Thanksgiving. In Missouri this time of year we’d have frost, maybe even snow. And no matter what the precipitation situation, morning would more than likely mean temperatures below freezing.
Here in Southern California there are freshmen going to school with Ben who have never seen snow unless their parents have taken them up to the ski resorts. They might have gone to one of the big promotions at a theme park where a machine pulls up in a parking lot and spits cold stuff that’s promoted as “snow” but I didn’t count that.
The coldest mornings here might make me put on jeans instead of my shorts, and even think about a jacket, but that was about it. The crazy part about weather here is that no matter what the season, you need to dress in layers because the temperature fluctuates so much in the course of a day. When the area anywhere fifty miles around Los Angeles suffers drought, which it has for the last several years, it’s easy to see that the whole region is basically desert. And like any desert, when the sun goes down the temperature may drop twenty or thirty degrees. It still makes me marvel that I’m as likely to need a sweatshirt after dark on the fourth of July as I am on Christmas Eve.
This morning a light jacket felt good as I went out to do my normal work around the kennels. Buck let me pitch in now that he wasn’t feeling uncomfortable
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