The little family that moved into the neighboring rental after Jewell&Deaven's group departed were not there very long. The mother complained that nothing was repaired, the place was a shambles, and they packed up and moved unexpectedly and overnight only a few weeks after moving in. The place sat empty for six or eight weeks. Then ten days ago a crew of laborers swept through it, hammers and saws banged and rasped day and night, and I awoke yesterday morning - 5:30! still dark! and a Saturday! - to a cacophany of shrill echoing excited little-dog yelps and barks that lasted for an hour. At some point I did get up and close the window, but the pitch of the barking was such that it penetrated anyway. The walls. My skull. Later in the day while moving sprinklers about I noticed a flat-bed trailer laden with rolled-up carpets and upended tables and chairs parked in the driveway there and heard the barking again, now muted, from within the house. At some point the trailer was emptied and everyone vanished.

They're back now, this morning, late, and so I guess they're moving here from somewhere far away - Los Angeles, maybe, or Portland, or Boise. The dogs are barking in the delirious and anxious way small dogs do. I finally see them. I was guessing Shih Tzus but they seem a little thick and closely clipped for that. White. Two adults and three pups. Five disoriented Shih Tzus. In the chain-link-fenced concrete-floored enclosure. Next door.

"Maybe they'll give us a puppy," I said to husband. He was sleepily preparing his first cup of coffee. It took a minute for my words to sink in. He expressed alarm.

***

I've started reading a novel by A. S. Byatt. The Children's Book. Three halting pages in I finally have to stop altogether and look for the dictionary. How my vocabulary has shrunk. I love how Byatt's vivid worlds consume me. Yet I must stop once per page, at least, to look up and note down words that probably are commonplace in her milieu.

The terminus of an arch. I think I know what that is. Kobold figures - no. (I find the dictionary. And remark how few words there are in English, apparently, that start with the letter 'k' . . .) I love holding this heavy cloth-covered volume with its clean ivory pages deckle-edged and dust jacket newsmooth and cool in both my hands. And I don't mind having to dredge up my Webster's from deep within the bedside midden. Still, I sigh to think of my Kindle with its helpful cursor that generates in the margins automatically the definition for any word it stops at.

We forge ahead.