What a day! Yesterday, during

What a day! Yesterday, during my Portuguese class, Ray called to tell me that we're laying off more people and not to show up at workl until 1pm. The good news was that I wasn't being axed, the bad news was that some of my coworkes were.

So I had the morning free. Since we didn't take Homer for a walk last night (we were sending Shannan off at the Cedar Stree and the finished the night off at Mozart's) I wanted to take him for an extended hike to the Wallnut Creek park. It was a beautiful morning, the park was empty and we explored sections we haven't been to before. Then five mountain bikers showed up and Homer got spooked. He usually runs up a trail, gets out of the way and then comes back once a biker passes. Not this time.

I called and called and eventually retraced our steps to where he disappeared. Nothing. The place where he wanished was a meeting of five trails and many of the quickly branched into other trails within a hundred yards or so. I whistled and called and went down all the trails looking for his footprints - still nothing. I ran into other people and noone had seen him. Eventually I gave up and started walking home, in my mind designing the "Lost Dog" poster and worrying about the lack of recent photos of him.

When I finally got to the house (a couple of miles or so away) there was Homer, sitting happily and acting all innocent. I rejoiced and petted him and was glad that he was found.

So that ordeal made me think of the biblical story of the good shepherd and the lost sheep. Although the Bible never mentions it, I bet the shepherd wanted to beat the shit out of that damn sheep after he's been looking for it for a couple of hours with no success. Sure he was glad when he finally found it (and maybe even gave the sheep a treat) but while he was searching he must have been quite pissed...

So I have my dog and I still have my job. But I lost my office mate and a bunch of other good people at work and I'm about to go to the Drought House to hang out with some that are left. At least the weekend promisses to have gorgeous weather.