Our Canine Village

After being out of the house all day, Heidi and I were running a quick errand before going home to our pets. We had had a fantastic Sunday of brunch and documentary shorts, but Heidi worries about the three of them-- tomorrow Lucy will be a year, but she is the senior member of their group, and believe me? Such a fact is sobering.

"Oh my gosh!" I cried, glancing out the window, "look at that golden doodle! It looks exactly like Lucy!" As we rolled past, I started to laugh. "That was Lucy!" I said.

Our good friend and neighbor Lauren had taken her for a run with her dog, Lady. As it turns out, several of our neighbors had stepped up and entertained little Lu Lu. Her day was just as fun as ours, and Heidi was very relieved.

You Can't Please Everybody

We said goodbye to our old carpet this morning by inviting three neighborhood dogs to come in out of the foggy rain and take advantage of our cleared out living room. For a solid 90 minutes it was practically an indoor dog park with plenty of runnin' and wrasslin'.

Lucy? Loved it! And it made it possible for her to rest (somewhat) easily, closed in the bedroom with both of us and the cats all afternoon.

They are finishing up the trim on our new floor right now, and as nice as it will be, I don't think the dogs will like half as much.

Shoulda Woulda

"February? That would be this weekend!" I said to the floor salesman. "I don't think we can clear out the rooms by then."

"Oh," he assured me calmly, "you don't have to move the furniture, just anything loose or breakable."

I surveyed the living room with its loaded bookshelves and considered the discount. "Deal," I told him.

And now? 20 bankers boxes later? Well, I guess it's too late to reconsider. 

Pleasantly Surprised

"How long has it been since you've had a filling?" the dental assistant asked.

"It's been ages," I told her, "I really can't remember."

I was there not because I had a cavity, but because some of my old metal fillings were ready to be replaced. On the walk from school I had made peace with the unavoidable sharp sting of the novocaine needle, and I was actually very relaxed in my reclining dental chair.

"This tastes terrible," she said, placing a cotton swab against the inside of my cheek, "but it's pretty good numbing. You'll feel pressure but no sharpness."

She was half right. The stuff didn't taste too bad at all, but from that point on, the procedure was painless. Thirty minutes later I was out on the street and headed back to school, two brand new composite fillings in place. The left side of my nose felt a little weird, but, as promised, it wore off within a couple hours.

Civil Disobedience

"Did you hear about the walkout?" one of my students excitedly demanded this morning before homeroom.

I actually had heard some vague rumors about an action today in support of those who had lost friends, family, or their own lives at Douglas High last week.

"Will we get in trouble if we do it?" she asked.

"Why does that matter?" I countered. "If it's a cause you believe in strongly enough to break the rules, then you should also be willing to accept the consequences."

She considered my point briefly. "Are you going to block the door or yell at us?" she continued.

"No," I answered.

"So we won't be in trouble, then?"

"I don't know," I answered, "I haven't heard how the administration will respond."

"So we're allowed to do it?" she asked.

"If you're allowed to do it, it's not exactly a walkout," I told her.

"I don't want to get in trouble," she said.

"I understand," I answered, "but a little trouble might be the price you have to pay for standing up for your beliefs. It's your decision."

I saw her again at 12:20 on her way back to class after the 17 minute protest. "I'm so glad I did that!" she called. "It was amazing! AND I don't even care if I get in trouble. It was the right thing to do!"

"Way to go!" I nodded and gave her two thumbs up.

Together in the Backyard Again

My quarterly reading class is analyzing Billy Collin's poem "On Turning Ten". As part of the activity, I always ask the students to recall one event from each year of their lives, kind of as the speaker does in the poem.

At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

"Try to capture the spirit of who you were at each age," I tell them. "Think of what you loved, what you believed, what was new, what you lost."

Today I looked out at the class, grasping for a timely example to illustrate what I meant. I thought of my nephew, Richard, who is also in sixth grade. "Like, at four, you loved the Backyardigans," I suggested.

"Yes!" many of them agreed, their heads nodding, their eyes misting nostalgically. And before you knew it, through the miracle of personal technology, the theme song from the show drifted dissonantly from table to table, as a roomful of 11 and 12 year olds were temporarily reacquainted with their cute little preschool selves.

Oh Crap!

Kyle and Josh's graduations are the same weekend, 930 miles apart.

Now that's going to take some diplomacy.

Stay tuned.