Behavior Modification

BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION: THE RETURN

I have a new IPad, an impressive machine, obviously much more intelligent than I am, for it seems to know what I want to say or need to say before I do.  I am hoping everything works the same here, only better, as it did on the old model.  Well, let’s see. 

Goodness manifests itself in my life in many simple ways.  It was 12:30 a.m., a while ago now (currently it’s 3:50 a.m.).  I was sitting in my little study, where I am sitting now, when suddenly a torrent of barking occurred behind my chair.  I looked down to see my little black dachshund, Simon, looking up at me and barking the way he does when he wants me to share with him whatever food I am eating.  The problem this morning: I wasn’t eating, just wrapping up my notes for the day.  As Huck would say, it’s a poser. 

After a bit it occurred to me that I had left the living room, left my big motorized chair where he and I sit together well into the new day dawning.  I had omitted that element, Mary had come behind me and closed up the rest of the house, lights out, the pattern changed.

”What do you want, Simon?”   I asked as I got up.  Immediately Simon turned and ran into the dark living room.  I followed, turned on the lights and sat down in my big motorized chair, Simon in front of me.  He barked at me again, I lowered the front part so he could easily jump up, which he did.  I picked up my Lee Child mystery, Make Me, which I’m reading for the third time.  I like Reacher, the six foot five version in the novels, not the five four Tom Cruise movie version.  Simon settled down on my right side and fell quietly asleep.  I read a short chapter, got sleepy again, put the book down and fell asleep.  It wasn’t bed, where I had been aiming to go earlier, but next to Simon, it was very good.  He was content; me too.  An hour and  a half later I woke up, raised the chair, Simon jumped down and I got up.  Simon then hopped up to his place on the sofa, next to my chair, where his blanket resides, burrowed under the blanket and disappeared for the rest of the morning, order restored.  Goodness manifested in both our lives.

Well, having written up this incident, I am not certain there will be a picture of Simon available on this machine.  The only way I’ll get to bed is to give it a try.