But the dog seems to be settling in.

Kathy and I drove to Chicago this weekend to pick up our adopted pup--Kodiak, an eight year old Lab/Great Dane mix. Our daughter can't take him to Ireland, and the deal with the next door neighbor to take him fell through. We had lots of fun as always, eating too much, as always. When we arrived on Friday afternoon we picked up daughter Ann and we all went to lunch. We paid with cash (this is an important detail, sometimes called a 'clue'), and left the restaurant sated at last, since we hadn't eaten anything for about nine hours. As we drove out of the parking lot, Kathy said, "John, isn't that your wallet on the hood?" And so it was. My wallet must have fallen out of my jacket pocket in the parking lot, and some kind soul picked it up and placed it on the hood by the windshield wiper. We said a quick prayer of thanks and blessed our unknown Good Samaritan. I stopped the car and Kathy plucked the errant accessory off the hood and gave it to me. All the credit cards, cash, expired auto club cards and quite active bank cards were all there. For the rest of the trip, Kathy kept asking me, "Do you have your wallet?" I can't ever be trusted again.

Apparently we missed a ferocious snow storm while we enjoying springtime in Chicagoland. Cleveland got about six inches of snow, breaking our old record for total snowfall. It all melted by the time we returned today, but we still didn't miss all the fun of the storm: the power was out in our neighborhood! We had no heat, no lights, certainly no computer until about half an hour ago. The waterbed is too cold to use tonight, so we're in the guest room.

Time to catch up on all the blogs I've missed reading.