My Latest Bright Idea

OK, I sucked it up and formed the Meetup group for writers in the St. Petersburg area. At the moment, I'm the only member, but the Meetup.com people will be e-mailing all those in the area that have an interest in joining a writing group. I've gone to the web site countless times looking for a local group; finally I thought, "Why not start one myself?" There appear to be a number of people in St. Petersburg who would be interested in such a group; we'll see.

I scheduled the first meeting for Thursday, just to keep myself from having too much time to get nervous about it. If no one signs up, I'll just postpone it for a week. It is rather short notice. But now that I've taken the first step, I'm kind of excited about it.

I'm starting to feel a little better, more "normal," in spite of myself. I took the dogs to the park after work today and let them play for an hour or so. The various "park people" are always asking me how I came to have two such terrific dogs, because they're both so friendly and gregarious (Pancho likes to jump up on the picnic tables and kiss everyone sitting there). So I tell them about Fred, and how I went to the SPCA a couple of days after he died and found Timmy. I sometimes get a little choked up when I relate how it all happened, especially when I say how close I came to NOT adopting Timmy. I can't even imagine my life without this dog, he's such a wonderful companion. And Pancho is Timmy's sidekick, his little buddy. They even play together at the dog park, and it's so much fun to watch Timmy trying to chase down Pancho, who is actually pretty quick and has some great moves, too.

So it's been an ok day, for a Monday.