I made a long weekend out of this past weekend and went west to visit Rodney. And also Graham (as well as his parents). But Graham can visit me, and has, and neither of us want to put Rodney on a plane — he’s too big for carry-on and putting him in cargo is too scary. So…I flew. To play with a puppy.

He’s not really a puppy — he’ll be five soon. But he’s a Westie, which means he’ll always be a little bit puppy.

This is my favorite shot of him on our afternoon trip up to Lake Tahoe. He was transported — he got a car ride, which he loves, and then experienced his first beach (dog-friendly, researched in advance), and then got to ride in the car again to get home.

I think he’s still sleeping it off.

It was worth the trip. Rodney, never a lap dog and not big on cuddling, jumped up in my lap without prompting and hung out for a while the night I arrived. So either he’s starting to remember me or he was intrigued by the airport smells on my jeans. Either way, I’ll take it. The closest he usually gets to lap-dogginess is letting you hold a bone or a treat upright so he can attack it more efficiently — it’s his way of getting around the whole not-having-opposable-thumbs thing. He parks about 30% of his body on you as a reward…or because he has to if you hold the treat far enough away.

The puppy love made up for some other unexpected twists to this between-terms trip. Graham’s dad wound up in the hospital with severe abdominal pain, which was treated as SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY until an intrepid young surgeon decided to cut him open to see what the hell was going on. Less than an hour later, the surgeon removed a cantaloupe-sized appendix, which may (and I emphasize “may” because I’m disinclined to accept the explanation) have been difficult to see on the scans because other bits had wrapped themselves around it. He’s recovering well enough, but it’ll take a couple of months for him to be back to normal. Consequently, though, we spent a good deal of time going back and forth to the hospital and talking with Graham’s mom and calling family and neighbors to keep them up to date.

A quick trip up to the lake was about all we could manage, but it was enough, and totally worth it.