This week’s column is more personal than advisory, but there’s nothing else I can focus on at the moment. So I’ll tell you about it. I think last Thursday morning must have begun something like this:

Dear Maggie,

This is the Universe speaking. I really have it in for you at the moment. I’m sick of the pollyanna positive thinking bull you’re always spouting, so I’ve decided to kick your ass. Be ready.

Universe

Dear Universe,

Bring it.

Maggie

Mind you, I’m only aware of this conversation in hindsight. Had it been a conscious one, I would have probably chickened out. However it began, here’s how it unfolded. I went out last Thursday night, and when I came home, there were emergency vehicles lining the road, lights flashing everywhere, firemen smashing out my windows, and thick smoke billowing from every one of them. My house was on fire. At first, I could think of nothing but the dogs, my pals Wrinkles and Sally. Wrinkles is a fourteen year old English bulldog I’ve had since she was six weeks old. She’s mostly blind now, and her health has been failing more and more. Mostly she just sleeps these days. Sally is an eleven year old great Dane, and while I’ve only had her a bit over a year, she’s always been in the family. My daughter had her for 8 years and we were best pals even then. Before that she was my mom’s dog. Sally’s health has been going downhill too, though not as severely as Wrinkles’.

At any rate, being who I am, I pulled my car into the only open spot on the roadside, and dove out of it, keys in hand, and ran to the house, yelling about my dogs, and to stop smashing windows, because I had the keys. (Keys have nothing to do with why firemen smash windows, but I was slightly stunned at that point and not thinking real clearly.) I unlocked the door, stepped into the hall, and faced the thickest smoke I had ever seen. A firefighter quickly took me right back out again, then went in himself, mask on his face, as I shouted directions to where my pals would be.