A dog, a cold, and the flu

On my afternoon walk with Tasha yesterday, I ran into one of our neighbors (Philippe is his name) out at our back gate. He was out walking his tiny dog — a chihuahua, I think. Tasha and Philippe's dog have always gotten along together without any aggression or hostilities.

Philippe had rescued the chihuahua (whose name I don't know) more than a few years ago — I can't remember how long ago it was. One day, I was just getting home from a walk with with Tasha when Philippe pulled up in his car at our front gate and asked me if I recognized the dog that was in the car with him that. No, I told him. Well, I just found him about a mile back, out in the vineyard, and he seemed to be abandoned. I told P. that just the day before a man I didn't recognize had walked by while I was out with Tasha. He was walking with a small dog. I couldn't remember exactly what his dog looked like.

The stranger and I had talked for a few minutes, and he told me he had just moved into a house at the bottom of the hill we live on. It's the first house on the left when you turn left off the main road down the hill, he had said. I told Philippe about that encounter. Well, I'll just ride down and see if he's at home, P. said. A few minutes later P. drove back up the hill and said the man was there, with his dog, out in the yard. His dog wasn't the one that had been abandoned or that had run away.

I think P. asked me if I'd be interested in adopting the unclaimed dog. I said, no I couldn't, I had my hands full dog-wise already. Well, I guess I'll just keep him then, unless somebody shows up to claim him. I'll take him on afternoon walks, P. said. Maybe somebody will see us and recognize him.

As I said above, that was many years ago. Yesterday out at the back gate Philippe asked me how I was doing. I've got a bad cold, I told him. "You too?" was his answer. I said yes, I've been coughing and sneezing for three weeks. Me too, he said. I asked him if he had he been to see a doctor. Yes, he said. The doctor just prescribed some cough medicine which from my point of view is worthless. I told him I had had had the same experience. Have you had a fever, I asked him. No, no fever, P. said, but very achey joints. Me too, I said. We wished each other Meilleure Santé and went on our merry says, him down the hill with his dog and me out into the vineyard with Tasha.

The saddest thing he told me yesterday was that an old friend of his had caught the flu (la grippe), which has also been going around the Saint-Aignan area. My friend came down with flu and a fever last weekend, Philippe said, and he died early this morning.