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Day’s Verse:
A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal,
but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.
Proverbs 12:10
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This is Daisy. She is the golden retriever in my life right now.

She is still young and extremely enthusiastic about…well… pretty much anything. I ride by her owners’ house a few times a week, and occasionally when it’s nice out, she’ll be laying on the cool front porch until I come by. Then she comes bounding out into the yard, all floppy ears and long, well-groomed fur and endless excitement. I’ve chatted with her “mom” a few times and bought lemonade from the kids’ stand last summer and, of course, was introduced to Daisy. Now I will stop if I see her, even if there’s nobody out in the yard, and spend a minute getting my golden retriever fix.

Seeing Daisy yesterday afternoon almost equaled out the bee sting I got on my chest as I was riding home. Almost, but not quite. I assume I rode into it, but the odds of getting a bug down my barely-unzipped jersey and past my sports bra seem incredibly slim! It took me what felt like an eternity to dislodge the bug (I never actually saw it) by flailing around one arm under my jersey while still riding, most likely flashing all the cars driving by in the process — but who cares about that when you have a stinging bug in your clothes? I spent the entire rest of the ride grimacing and muttering “Ow, ow, ow, ow,” presumably looking so miserable as to make anybody who saw me never want to ride a bike. I later found the stinger still stuck in the stung spot. It’s little consolation that the bee died stinging me.