I want to remember the love you gave all of us – unconditionally. I want to remember how you made us smile and laugh with your antics – throwing your blanket in the air, carrying your leash in your mouth, giving us your paw when we asked for it. How you tapped on the front, glass storm door when you wanted to come in. How you knew certain words “cookie”, “ride in the car”, “hurry up” and, most of all, your name ”Pepper”. I want to remember you as a puppy and as an old man. I want to remember your bark and your mewing and your moods. Your soulful brown eyes. Your wagging tail. How much you loved us and gave us with your presence.
I want to forget that I let you be in pain. That sometimes I wasn’t patient or didn’t address your needs and I want to forget my guilt and regret for all the times I failed you. I want to forget how stubborn and intractable I can be and how vulnerable and sweet you could be. I want to forget that I could flash into anger. And that I could push you past your limits or step past you. I want to forget that sometimes I even left you alone when I shouldn’t have done so. I want to forget that sometimes you wanted to hurt me, too. I want to forget the bad ending and the pain. I want to forget that we’re here for so short a time and that we mustn’t squander it. I want to forget what happens when you don’t honor the love you get.
Something has come over me lately. Today when I was about to hit the local farmer’s market for fresh flowers, I nixed the idea of spending money unnecessarily. I have a perennial bed overflowing with hydrangea blossoms so I came home and cut myself a bouquet. Me? Not spend money frivolously?
I can’t even remember what set me off on this path, but my reading took a decidedly interesting turn this week when I visited the library. Even going to the library for books rather than shopping on Amazon or at one of my favorite local booksellers is another step in a long overdue direction.
First I read The Bag Lady Papers by Alexandra Penney. Continue Reading »
It feels like a Monday but today is Friday, April 1st. And the joke is on everyone in “my neck of the woods” with an April Fools Day Nor’easter. We got five inches overnight so I’m using that as an excuse to have a work-in-my-pajamas-day. So far, no practical jokes have come my way and I’ve yet to perpetrate any – but I’m working on that!
I live for TV. I love my Internet connection. I refuse to give up my land line. I would no more pull the plug on my cable willingly than I would jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. No voluntary living off the grid for this gal. So imagine my surprise, Continue Reading »
What do procrastinators have for breakfast?
Lunch.
Why do procrastinators love Mondays? Because we have an entire week ahead of us to shuffle tasks along on our To Do List. Therefore, Fridays can be pretty grim if Continue Reading »
Forgive me readers for I have sinned. I have not been to my blog site in more than a month. Sure, I can come up with a bevy of excuses: shoveling snow, lacking ideas, shoveling snow, dentist appointments, and of course, shoveling snow.
The bottom line is Continue Reading »
My dad played poker every Tuesday night. Big deal. Until one morning we woke up to strange noises coming from downstairs. A kind of mewing or whining, but not human. A cat? Continue Reading »
I am reading “Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg, some parts for the second time. It is 10:32 in the morning on Veteran’s Day and I am still in bed. I can not seem to get moving so I pick up Natalie’s book again. I read a page that I hadn’t read before but it resonates with me in my depressed, listless state – about writing through pain and just writing no matter what. The suggestion is “I am a friend to…” and then answering with only an inanimate object, so I can not write about Pepper.
Pepper, my beloved Portuguese Water Dog, is sleeping across the room Continue Reading »
The leaves have now covered my front and back lawn and the hydrangeas have dried up and are awaiting their annual pruning. I misplaced my clippers when I re-organized the garage and resort to using the new Cutco ones. I do not know why I was saving them anyway. Three days ago I managed to trim back the first bush. Yesterday I handled the second and today I’ve pruned the third. Only two more to go but it feels daunting in so many ways.
A few green leaves remain and there is still one faded blue cluster of petals. Continue Reading »
There was a boy. How many stories begin that way? But it’s true. The cute boy-of-the-moment, Kevin Fitzpatrick, liked me. We were seniors in high school – he at Central Catholic, me at William Allen. We had a mutual friend named Eddy who lived in my neighborhood. The details are fuzzy but Continue Reading »
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