Ralph bought a new squid dog toy for Frodo, his Labrador, and a miniature sunken treasure ornament for Zeus, the goldfish. It’s better to give than to receive. Still, on that overcast Saturday, he felt a little, well, down. Alone with his pets, he took out a frozen dinner. Frodo was happy and coated the squid with saliva. Zeus darted eagerly back and forth from the treasure to the artificial weeds. Soon they would have dry dog food and fish flakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As he ate his microwaved mac & cheese, the doorbell rang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Hi, Ralph.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Oh, hello, Rayette.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No longer living with him, she was still friendly enough to show up unannounced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I was in the neighborhood. I hope I’m not interrupting, but I bought you something.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“No problem\u2026 My birthday was last month, though, Rayette.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I know. But better late than never.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That’s…”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What was the word? Thoughtful? Kind? Nice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“…fine.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Here, Ralph. I hope you like it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She handed him an octopus dog toy for Frodo and a ceramic mermaid for Zeus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ralph bought a new squid dog toy for Frodo, his Labrador, and a miniature sunken treasure ornament for Zeus, the goldfish. It’s better to give than to receive. Still, on that overcast Saturday, he felt a little, well, down. Alone with his pets, he took out a frozen dinner. Frodo was happy and coated the … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-ZO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3833,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3832\/revisions\/3833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
David Sydney is a physician who writes fiction in and out of the EHR (Electronic Health Record).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"