I worked today and took Kinnikinnick to the vet. I thought that she was dying and was kind of freaking out about it; she wasn’t eating and she was vomiting bloody vile and there was blood in her poop. It totally took me back to the time she ate rat poison and the vet didn’t prescribe enough of the antidote and the instant we ran out she switched into “dying” mode, and she hid under the porch and looked at me with these watery, half-shut eyes and her gums were pale and her body wasn’t very warm and it was all very scary. She had been hospitalized, that time, and in the end she had been alright. And today she was alright too- I had convinced myself she’d eaten something sharp and was bleeding to death inside but the very nice vet took x-rays and held them up to the window for me, tapping them with her pen to show that there was nothing stuck inside Kinnikinnick but that she’d eaten something so foul in her daily scavengings for poop and compost that she had given herself a sort of doggy food poisoning and would have to be put on antibiotics. Look at that nice strong heart, though, said the vet, tapping the x-ray. And such good hips. No displasia at all!

So there was the relief of learning that my most precious treasure was not, after all, going to die, and then the fatigue that comes after such a relief. I spent the rest of the day in a daze, driving the bread around, and Kinnikinnick drank a little water, although she later projectile-vomited it all over her seat. Then for dinner I fixed her ground beef and sweet potatoes, mashed together with a fork, and hid her antibiotic in a bit of bacon fat. It was interesting to see her gazing down at the dinner in her food bowl, trying to decide whether to eat, her nausea competing with her inherent love of eating and intense passion for ALL THE FOODS. In the end she ate almost all of it and then put herself to bed in my down comforter, making a tight little donut and resting the tip of her tail over her nose.

I LOVE HER.

I also found a dog sitter for her today, a dear friend who also loves her and has two dear children who love her and another small dog who is her buddy. So now she has a good safe happy social home while I am hiking!!

Speaking of hiking, my campaign has I think two and a half hours left to go. And because of the incredible support of my readers, I am going to hike the PCT! I am going to hike the PCT SO HARD! I can’t wait for it, can’t can’t can’t, but I will, because what else is there. But I am going to explode!! To celebrate the fact that everything is awesome and my dog is not dead and sometimes, if you try hard enough, the universe matches your energetic investments step for step and things that seem unreasonable and possibly insane end up coming together in a lovely and serendipitous way, I’m giving away a postcard from the trail to anyone who buys a physical copy of the book in these last few hours of the campaign. This is your last chance to pre-order a signed copy of my book, AND you’ll get a postcard from a mountaintop somewhere! And thank you! SO MUCH! FOR YOUR SUPPORT!! And your nice words of encouragement!

Now I am going  to put myself to bed alongside my small dog, who has the patience of an old-growth forest and who trusts me in a blind and incomprehensible way. What a little soul! A saint! She is a saint!