This has been a landmark day for me. I was interviewed by Sacramento magazine for an article featuring local authors, including this one. I'm very honored to be written about in the premier magazine of my hometown. The article will appear in the November issue.

Another sebaceous cyst has popped on Bubba. This one is on his neck. Sometimes they heal on their own, but this one is really messy so he's going in to the vet tomorrow to have it removed and stitched up. Fortunately, they can do it with only a local anesthetic so he doesn't have to go under anesthesia. I don't like to take a chance anesthetizing an old dog like him unless it's absolutely necessary.

We've had the coolest summer in Sacramento I can remember. While riding my bike the last two days, the air has felt like it's coming straight off the ocean. I could swear I was in San Francisco. You can smell the moisture in the air. It's heaven, especially for old basset hounds like Bubba I worry might not make it through the dog days of summer. We've lost two in the month of August before. Tomorrow is the day we lost our first beloved basset, Butterscotch Sunday, 20 years ago! She was the longest lived one we've had thus far--12 1/2 years. It only seems like yesterday I stroked her for the last time as the vet spirited her back into the surgery, never to return to us. I'm reminded of the line in the song, Mr. Bojangles, "Dog up and died. After 20 years he still grieves."