Maddie hit by a car

Maddie got hit by a car, the grill broke, and the porch light fell down and hit Joe's friend on the head.

What a night. First and of course most important, the dog.

Jim, Katie, Ben and I were planning a nice cookout. I was showing Ben some weeds I wanted him to pull out of the garden, and the dog was puttering around with us. She has done this a lot. If she disappears, it's into the woods behind us, and she always comes back. I said casually, "I'm going to get the dog," and at the same time we heard the screech of tires and the sound of a crying dog.

For some reason, she had run across the street one way and then reversed direction quickly. Bill, the guy who hit her, was driving a big old van. He and his wife stayed and helped. He was really sorry, to the point of tears. I saw Maddie lying in the road, motionless. Jim said I should stay away and that it was very bad. I thought she had died. Bill called the ambulance driver, who came and put a tourniquet on her profusely bleeding left leg. They got her in the car to take her to the nearest animal hospital, and I got a look at her. Her eyes were open and alert and she was breathing. Jim drove and Ben rode in the back with her.

The vet called a few hours later with good news. There is no internal bleeding, though that could still develop in the next 24 hours. The major problem seems to be her leg, which is really torn up. But the vet said she would operate tonight, and she thinks she can save the leg. "She's a lucky dog," she said.

She might even come home tomorrow. I'm a little less worried about getting a bad call in the middle of the night, but I'm still pretty anxious.

Joe is back at school in Maine for a few days, so I wasn't going to call him until I had more solid information, though I was thinking about reconsidering after the "lucky dog" conversation. Before I could change my mind, though, the Internet took care of it for me. The phone rang and it was Joe asking if everything was OK at home, and I asked why he was wondering.

Apparently a friend of his had communicated through Facebook that there was an ambulance in front of the house and a dog lying in the road. Good old Facebook. Can't keep anything quiet for a minute. So now he has been brought up to date.

Joe, Ben and Jim and Katie talked me down after I said I felt guilty for the dog getting away and angry with the guy who hit her.

It wasn't anyone's fault, they said. Stuff happens. She never ran into the street before, so why should I think she would now. The driver did the best he could also, and with the dog dashing one way and then the other, it wasn't his fault. When I went out there, Bill was shaking and kept saying to me, "You're angry, aren't you?" I replied, "I'm not angry, I'm upset."

I explained to everyone that I understood it was nobody's fault, but that doesn't keep me from being upset and yes, probably angry.

By this time it was around 9, Ben and Jim had just gotten back, and we decided we might as well eat something. So Jim put our delicacies – hamburgers and hot dogs – on the grill, which promptly konked out. Now things were feeling out of control. Meanwhile, the porch light, which always wobbles when the door opens, said enough of this and fell on Joe's friend, who had stopped by to deliver hockey equipment that he had borrowed.

Ben, a good positive thinker, was overjoyed with the luck we had tonight. He asked if I was too, and I said yes, I was happy and relieved, but at the same time I'm still stressed by what happened.

Anyway, the food went under the broiler and was finally cooked. I put out the fruit salad and salad and potato chips. Most of it got eaten.

I had also bought a sinful dessert: bite-sized brownies to go with vanilla ice cream. Dessert time came around 10:30. The crowd dispersed and only grabbed a brownie, but I couldn't stop thinking about the dessert.

It's comfort food, and I thought it would help me. So I had one serving and, because it tasted so good, I had another. It's way past a reasonable bed time, and here I am stuffing down sugar. I know that's bad, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.