Sunday May 11, 2025: A Small Moment of Delight

Also Happy Mother's Day

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.

Daily Diary, Day 1712:

Before I get into my post, wanted to wish all of you who “mother” others no matter how they are related to you, a very happy day. And a few flowers to mark the day.

I have been thinking all week about what to post day, and this is definitely a post about small moments-with the emphasis on the plural moments, because I kept noticing during each day the moments when our rescue dog Leeza delights me.

We got Leeza in the first year of Covid. Our old dog had died right before covid started, and we probably would have started looking for a new one immediately (we hadn’t been without at least one dog for decades), but with the start of lock-down, my husband moved up to Olympia to help our daughter and grandsons for five months. And I know that walking a dog is way past my capacities.

However, as soon as my husband got back, we went to Helen Woodward (a dog and cat rescue organization where we had gotten our last dog.) Leeza was two yearl old rescue out of Texas, supposedly from some fires that had been raging that summer, and she came to the San Diego rescue center pregnant. After she had the ten! puppies and her numerous health problems addressed, they put her up for adoption. By the time we got her, she was very healthy (so far the healthiest dog we have ever had), and she immediately bonded with my husband.

We are pretty sure she might have been a farm dog, maybe even living outside with other dogs because she was very hesitant at first about asking to come back in from the yard. She will still sit quietly by the back door until we notice her….unless she has lost sight of my husband.

She really doesn’t like to not know where he is. So while she will hang out in our back yard or up on what we call her throne, (see photo) if my husband is in the den where she can see him, she is fine.

But if he disappears from her sight, then, and only then will she open the screen door and come waltzing in. And when he leaves the house, she sits on the couch and stares out the window until he comes back, no matter if he’s gone for hours.

Other signs we interpret as part of her earlier years is that she really doesn’t like to be approached when sleeping, as if she was used to defending her territory. She is also known to come running to look at tv when there are the sounds of chickens.

She also herds me—not my husband. If I am up and about, she will sort of nudge me into place. Especially in the evening, she would prefer I stay put in my rocking chair in the den, and if I move, even if she is asleep in the other room, she will rush into the den, growling, then look sort of embarrassed and pretend she just wanted to have some water. Seems instinctual, and I expect if we worked to retrain her, might be something we could get rid of, but since she clearly means no harm, I find it endearing.

She is also the first dog we have that likes to pick through the pile of toys and get a favorite. She doesn’t play with the toy long, it seems to be the process of getting it and bringing it to her bed or the couch that delights her.

Prior to getting Leeza, we have had a Boston Terrier, two Irish wolfhounds, and two rescues that were part Border Collie, but she is the first dog who routinely howls when she hears fire engines (which seems at least once a day) and she gets very upset with planes that pull banners (which seem to fly almost every day on their way to advertise things at the beaches to our west.)

And every time she howls or growls looking up at the sky, bring a smile to my face and a moment of delight.

And she just looks so sweet when she is asleep.

Anything special delighted you this weekend?

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