To celebrate Rosh Hashana I invited Alex and Aja to go out to dinner with me last night.  When I was showering to get ready, something light in color ran across the floor of the shower.  In that first nanosecond I thought it was a scorpion, but in the next second realized it was just a small buff-colored (baby?) lizard.  It scurried behind the Clorox bottle - and was never seen again!  So much for rescuing it and taking it outside, when no doubt it would be happier.  (If it did have some bright colors I might have a chance of spotting it again.)

At dinner I ordered my usual, the talapia nocciola.  Of course it was delicious (as always) so I was quite surprised when, halfway through my meal, the chef came out from the kitchen and delivered a second plate to me because the first one was 'a little too browned'.  But it had tasted just fine to me, and I certainly hadn't complained! The end result is that now I have another dinner for tonight.

Around 9:00 Elmo let me know he was ready for his evening constitutional, but when I opened the door I was surprised (and not happy) to discover that it was raining! Elmo is a dog who doesn't like to get his feet wet and won't even walk on the dew on the grass, so NO WAY he was going to go out in the rain (and the prospect didn't thrill me either.)  Shades of Taffy, Mom? I tried to get him to use the dirt in the one-brick-high planter on the back porch, but no matter how many times I placed him on the dirt there he just kept stepping out.. So I gave up on that game plan.  When I checked outside later, around 10:00, it was still raining, so Elmo was just going to have to hold it all night.

And he did great, though of course he was quite ready to go out in the morning when I got up.  (Naturally this was the one morning I'd slept in, until 8:00, after taking a Lunesta around midnight.  Yes, we'd shared a Chocolate Dream dessert after dinner last night.)  We had just started on our walk out back (I hadn't had my coffee yet or even taken time to find and put on my glasses) when I saw what I thought was a large coyote out in the Back 40.  But it just didn't look quite right - and that's because it wasn't a coyote at all but instead one of John's friendly greyhounds from next door.  I tried calling them but they didn't answer their phone, so I put Mr. Greyhound (with muddy paws) in the backyard and went across the street to pick up Dick and Joy's newspaper for them.  As I walked back into the house I could see through the back door to the pool, where the pooch had fallen in and was having difficulty getting out.  Bobbi to the rescue!  Got him by the collar and pulled him around to the steps.  Now he's really not coming inside, so I hope I get a return call from John and Kyoko soon!

THEN I sat down to have my coffee.

A number of errands on my list today, plus my Monday session at the gym with Jim.  Who knows what further adventures await me today?