“Give me your morning. Breakfast, waking up, walking to the bus stop. Be specific as possible. Slow down in your mind and go over the details of the morning.” 
Natalie Goldberg Writing Down the Bones

Miller slithered off her green couch. Mornings were quiet without her dog; she turned on the television on her way to the bathroom.  Miller stood in front of the TV watching CNN while she brushed her teeth.  A reporter wearing waiters was standing in a streambed that was overflowing from the excessively high snowfall that year that produced 71 inches of snow.  In Miller’s mind she imagined the snow fell all in the same day and she visualized standing suffocating in 71 inches of snow.

After brushing her teeth, she clicked off the TV, put on Hunter boots over her pajama pants and went next door to April’s apartment to retrieve Millie for their daily morning walk. Millie was a fawn Great Dane that weighed seven pounds less than Miller.  Millie walked Miller around the 4.5 miles of Lake Merced and up to Fort Funston for the last time. Miller had to time the walk perfectly before the shooting range on John Muir Drive opened. Millie just couldn’t stand the sound of shotguns hitting skeet. Today, they were earlier than usual the entrance gates to The Pacific Rod and Gun Club were stilled closed. Miller almost kept circling the lake along Lake Merced Boulevard when Millie jerked her on course back to Higuera Avenue.