The End of Sweet Week

This week we’re all writing about sweet things.

Thursday night it was almost eight p.m. when I left my yoga class. I stopped at Whole Foods on the way home and as I was getting ready to pull out of the parking lot, I heard a low flying helicopter and a lot of sirens. My first thought was the cops were chasing somebody. For good reason, in the past one of their high speed pursuits had ended right around there. I looked out into the street and after waiting a few breaths and not seeing any flashing lights, finally pulled out. I made it home without incident. More about that later.

Goldy was waiting by the door to remind me that I was late in taking her for her walk. The good part about it being late is there was less traffic to dodge. There aren’t sidewalks for most of the walk, and I feel like some drivers aim at us. The bad part is that there are more night animals to content with. I took her for an extra long walk since it was so late. As we were walking back, I noticed an animal running up the street. I was hoping it was a raccoon. It wasn’t. Just before we were going to turn on our street, I saw the coyote hiding behind some bushes in someone’s front yard. Was it hiding from us, or planning to attack Goldy? I don’t know, but to be on the safe side I picked, Goldy up. She weighs 20 pounds and isn’t that fond of being carried, plus I had my walking stick (for protection, though waving it around didn’t seem to faze the coyote), my little light (the light is supposed to go on Goldy’s collar, but a screw fell out and so I was carrying it instead) and a bag for clean up (luckily empty). Goldy squirmed and squealed and I had to put her down and reposition everything and pick her up again.

My heart was thumping, from carrying her and concern that the coyote was going to start following us. We got around the corner and down the block before Goldy pretty much demanded that I put her down. I kept looking back, but nothing was following us down the street and we made it home unscathed.

When I watched the news later, I found out there was a high speed police pursuit of a woman driving 100 miles an hour and from the description of her route and the timing, I realized she and the cops must have gone by just as I was approaching the parking lot exit. The sweet part is that I missed getting in the middle of it. And it was sweet that Goldy and I got past the coyote without any trouble.

In case you’re interested the woman kept going all the way to the next county, and drove up to a house, got out of the car and ran in. The cops followed her and pulled her out. A news helicopter got it all on film. They think she was under the influence of methamphetamines.

And in a final bit of sweet news, I found out that Kate Collins, my friend whose family tragedy came just when her book Dirty Rotten Tendrils was coming out, made the New York Times Bestseller list for the first time. So sweet that she has a bright spot at such a hard time.

Did you have some happy news or escape something bad?