42

February 20, 2016

My Pops tells me the day I was born was much like today:  unseasonably warm and sunny.  The baseball coach at Southwest Missouri State, he was headed to practice that day over at Meador Park when word came that my mom was ripe for delivery.  These were the days when the dad was prohibited from the delivery room drama and the baby’s gender was a mystery until he/she found his/her way out of the blessed canal.  So it was on that day that Dad got the news in the waiting room of St. John’s that he had a daughter. 

On this, the celebration of my 42nd year, it is thus fitting that I spent time in the sunshine.  I soaked up as many rays of light as possible before the privileges of motherhood called me to basketball, debate, volleyball. 

It’s been quite a year, and I’m grateful. Hell’s bells! It’s been quite a 42. My gratitude is without end.

I thank you, my dear friends, for the birthday love you sent my way today.  You are the stuff of a life worth celebrating.

I'm in the front row these days. And I’m grateful. 

Must Be Love

February 5, 2016

I'm in love. It's still new, so I am hesitant to talk about it. Things can go wrong. The endearing qualities can turn frustrating and annoying. One too many shits on the floor or destroyed pairs of shoes and things can get dicey.

But I think this might be real.

Halpert is a camel-colored Lab-Retriever mix. She has little eyebrows that make her look like she just lost her best friend. She watches me with the interest of a skilled and skeptical detective. I often wonder if she has an old-school typewriter buried under a mound of my clothes (not outside the realm of possibility--the clothes, not necessarily the typewriter) on which she uses her elegantly long paws to key in the goings-on around here: "the tall older lady says she loves me all the time. I wouldn't love me if I shat on the carpet like I do. Then she lets me lay on her face or anywhere I like while she sleeps. Seems a tad needy if you ask me. I think she is the weak link in this whole operation. The tall blond girl won't let me get by with anything and seems to hold the other members of the house in the same regard. There is a boy who I used to try to bite but it stopped being fun when it started to really bother him. We enjoy an evening of Netflix together regularly. I find 'The Office' particularly charming. The scruffy yet intelligent Jim Halpert reminds me of someone...hmmmm..."

She begs for food as one deprived. When the kids leave the car for this obligation or that, she stands with paws on the window and cries for them as if her life might come to a heartbroken end.

One of my best friends told me kids and dogs forgive and love unconditionally. I've had occasion to realize that truth of late.

So this is our life thus and so: enriched by a canine for which I have longed MY whole life. It wasn't until this day and time that my life could allow her in. And now, because of the sweet presence of my ever-growing Halpert and a confluence of other miracles, this life of ours is bursting with a happiness that is beyond my powers of description.

Granted, I could measure and articulate a decent amount of happiness should she decide to, oh, I don't know, poop outdoors. It's the little things. 

And it's most definitely love.