The sun is rising to my right. In front of me the dogs are trying to figure out if I will play ball this early in the morning; it's about 6:30 a.m. The table and chairs on the deck were covered in dew. I had to go get a towel to dry them off and a towel to put on my chair to sit on. Before I sat down, I cut the dead parts off of the flowers in the two flower pots that greet you, at the beginning to the small path, that leads to the deck out here in the backyard. Then I sat down to coffee, a pen and a notebook.

Love said, yesterday, that if I cut the dead parts away from the plants and started watering what appeared to be two empty containers, that, soon, new flowers would appear.

I hear birds chirping. A frog just belched; he made such a loud sound that I thought that he was a cow.

Yesterday, Love and I drove up and down winding mountain roads, mesmerized by the beauty of the foliage that surrounded us. We looked at N. Georgia lakes that were built by angels. I would tell you that this is God's country, but I don't want you to show up here to check it out and ruin the tranquility and beauty that I have found. I want you to think that N. Georgia is as it was portrayed in the movie Deliverance.

Sadly, the most beautiful lake up here is covered with houses that men and women with many extra millions of dollars have built. It is surrealistic to look at these houses and think that these are just lake homes for these people, a place to stay for a week or two in the summer. A friend of mine, now the GM of a restaurant that is near the lake, described much of his clientel as "obnoxious rich republicans." Do you have to be an asshole to be wealthy?

It is cold, this morning, but still the dogs want to play. I am soon covered in their hair, my hand wet from grabbing the saliva soaked tennis ball out of their mouth, before I throw it for them. I try to be fair with my tosses, making sure that the older dog somehow beats the younger dog to the ball around a third of the time; I don't want either dog to get discouraged. The idea is to get exercise and have fun, but if you saw the way that each dog charged after the ball, after I throw it out onto the lawn, you would have trouble thinking that that is what they think about playing ball with me.
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I want to see every bird that lands on our new bird feeder, but I can't; there are other things to do today. This house is very pretty, but it is empty without Love; she is at her mother's and I am alone with the dogs and the cat. I will be shacking up with Love, officially in a week. I will see more of her then. She is a very lucky woman. Har. Har.

I imagine the deck that I am sitting on to be the playing field, the trees that surround the dogs and I to be the seats, and the birds who are chirping so loudly, and seemingly happily, to be the audience. The audience has not paid for their seats, but they have earned them simply by being alive, and in the right place at the right time.

Love sometimes describes the knick knacks that I buy for the house, and for the back yard as "tacky." I have learned to smile when she says this. It used to piss me off; I mean, how dare she not recognize the great artistic aesthetic that I possess. The gnome, the mushroom, the ceramic cat and dog and little metal mouse know my talent and that is all that matters.
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I peek out the front window at the bird feeders and bird baths before opening the door and walking outside. A blue bird is patrolling the ground underneath the bird feeder, eating fallen seed. A squirrel shows up and joins the blue bird. They eat side by side for awhile and the the squirrel climbs the pole that is attached to the little water bath that we have attached to a pole, and takes long sips of the water. The bluebird jumps up on the real bird bath and starts drinking from it. The squirrel thinks that he is sneaky; he slinks off as I open the door. A finch lands on one of the feeders. My dog, Morisson, watches the bird, fascinated. One bird just went tweet tweet and another bird, far off in the trees that surround Love's house, went tweet, tweet, tweet, and I imagined the two birds to be potential lovers possibly trying to hook up, or, I thought, maybe they are an old married couple arguing about something. It was mesmerizing to stand there and watch the one bird, who was standing on the feeder in front of me, while listening to both birds communicate with each other.

The big and beautiful black bird, a crow, I guess, who I first saw yesterday, flew past me, today, and went down the street headed to who knows where. I hope that he comes back tomorrow. He is beautiuful to look at, and he is beautiful to listen to.

Caw. Caw.