Why why why why why.

Do you ever have days where it just seems that nothing makes sense? Why won't that person get back to me on this or that important thing? Why does that person need to continually come into my office and interrupt me for no real reason at all? Why is the air conditioning on so high, so as to simulate December conditions in the middle of June?

I am having one of those days.

Last night I went into the garden for a little much-needed dirt therapy. I made some interesting discoveries: one, that the neighbor's dog had found 'our bone' again, and left it on the lawn; two, that I now have one eggplant seedling instead of the eight that I started out with last week, and; three, that I have this fabulous hardy geranium in the backyard that smells sweeter and more flowery-lemony than anything I have smelled in my life. It is heaven.

Here's the story of 'our bone' (and it fits with my why why why why why theme of the day): We have this dog that lives next door, except that she's never tied up and thinks that our house is hers as well. It's not a problem, because we love the dog like crazy, the cats have gotten used to her, and I believe she protects them from the wilder elements of the surrounding forest (she's a fairly-large white husky who barks a lot). A little while ago, a deer was killed in our neighborhood by a pack of something, likely wolves or coyotes. I know it wasn't Toulouse because she was asleep on our couch that night. Well, Toulouse obviously found one of the bones - a shinbone I believe - and informally adopted it. I was digging in the garden beside my shed one day when my trowel hit something hard, and I unearthed this foot-long fresh bone. The funniest thing is that aside from a few plants being turned up, the earth was perfectly smoothed over top of the bone, not in a pile as you would imagine. I was curious - "is this a human bone? Should I call the cops?". In the end I just threw the bone into the woods.

A little while later, I was digging in the garden down at the other end of the yard, and lo and behold, I see a lovely flat area to put my dahlias. I stuck the trowel into the dirt, and 'clunk' - you guessed it - there was the bone again. I groaned and threw it into the woods again, in a different spot. Then I was digging in my new terraced front hill garden, which is newly-planted with lots of teeny perennials, and I noticed that one of my sedums had been harrassed. I assumed the cats had been relieving themselves in the new dirt. I went to plant one of my wee ranunculus seedlings, and CLUNK there was the bone again! I chucked it into the woods (in yet a different location) and kept gardening.

Yesterday morning, the bone was laying on the front lawn. I have become so familiar with that bone that seeing a big deer shinbone on my lawn no longer phases me. And I am also convinced that Toulouse has a damned good sense of humour.

Now back to work. Why why why why why?