Good-bye to good friends

©2014 Lydia Hinshaw

Lily wonders if I've noticed the empty dish

Ginger dozes under a camp chair

 SACRAMENTO -- The gentleman who owns this house is on a plane tonight, headed home from his vacation in Paris.

 I'll pick him up at the airport sometime around midnight, and Monday morning, we will end our nearly month-long stay here.

 We are eager to return to our gypsy lifestyle, but we will miss the friends who have allowed us to share their home.

 Lily is the best dog I've ever known, perfectly behaved except for a couple of mornings when she decided 4 a.m. might be a good time for a walk.  I thought 6 a.m. would be a better time.  Lily could access the fenced backyard by per-door if she really, really needed to go out at 4.

 We wandered the nearby park and its adjacent neighborhoods for an hour every morning, after Lily had vacuumed up her breakfast and before I fixed my own.

 She is trained to bark only when the doorbell rings, and she barked only once, when the next-door neighbor rang the doorbell to pick up a package we had collected for her.

 Ginger the cat is a tad overweight, probably because she spends most of her life in imitation of a rug.  Buddy, the camera-phobic black cat who seems to be wearing a bright-white shirt, is much more active, often disappearing for hours into the backyard.  A few times I spotted him stalking birds who were far out of his reach.

 On a typical morning, all three would be outside our bedroom door before 6.  We quickly learned not to sleep with our door open.  Lily danced and the cats paced anxiously while I dished out the food.

 Five minutes later, Lily would be dancing again, ready for our walk.

 We've enjoyed the animals, and our time here.  Being in the same place for a month has allowed us to get some repairs done on the Magic Bus, get some mail forwarded and renew several prescriptions.  We made two trips to San Francisco, three to nearby Davis and one to Point Reyes National Seashore.

 We joined a gym for a month, and worked out at least 10 times.  We visited a number of farmer's markets, plus Trader Joe's and Whole Foods.

 We watched the Tour de France on a big screen, high-def television, a real treat for the Prince.  We had access to a refrigerator, a range and a microwave.  We did not have to buy any ice at all.

 And now we are refreshed and ready to be on the road again.