“You look different!”

—“What can I do for you?” asked ****, my usual contact at the kennel that daycared Killian while he was still alive.
I looked at her a second, then “you look different!” I said.
“It’s your hair,”
“Yep,” she said. “Every once in a while I let it down.”
“Well keep it that way,” I shouted. “I like it!”
“Well thank you!” she gushed.
All-of-a-sudden **** was cute.
Long ago I did that with my wife: “you get rid of them glasses, and let your hair grow, and you’ll look a lot prettier.”
My wife was raised by her mother to be a frump. I badgered my wife into making herself pretty, causing her mother to go ballistic.
“GUILTY! I tell ya.”
I bet **** goes home and tells her boyfriend/husband/whatever that the old geezer who previously owned Killian liked her with her hair down.
“I came here hoping I’d see *****,” I said; “so I could tell her that cover picture on my train-calendar was taken by my brother when she and I were on the phone discussing how to take care of Killian.
She was at Emergency-Vet in Henrietta, and I was trackside in Altoona, way out in the middle of nowhere.
260 miles apart. Thankfully I still had cellphone service, although I almost ran out the battery. And there was no way of charging it; no charger.
“***** isn’t here,” **** said. “She had to leave early to get herself ready for a medical appointment.”
What’s important here, of course, is that I said anything at all. 10 years ago I woulda just done the perfunctory with ****, and not noticed her hair at all = that she looked a lot cuter.
Things are a lot different since my wife died over eight years ago.
Back then I wasn’t the person I am now; and telling a girl she’s pretty woulda been utterly beyond the pale.
But now I can do it — and that’s partly because of Killian. He got me unafraid of talking with pretty girls, by dragging me into talking with pretty girls.
And now I have flirted so many times, I’m no longer scared of flirting. (And to me flirting is just striking up a conversation.)
So congratulations ****; I think you looked great.
And congratulations to ME, for having gotten to where I can tell you that.

• “Killian,” a “rescue Irish-Setter,” was my most recent dog. He made age-11, and was my seventh Irish-Setter, an extremely lively dog. A “rescue Irish-Setter” is usually an Irish-Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. Or perhaps its owner died. (Killian was a divorce victim.) By getting a rescue-dog I avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Killian was fine. He was my fifth rescue. I lost him over three months ago, my fifth Irish-Setter lost to canine cancer. Emergency-Vet was treatment.