Gonna buy us a dog...

So, we bought a new dog.

It occurs to me that much of what J. and do must seem really random and spontaneous to people.  It does rather seem sudden that we traded in cars, bought a new house, got pets.  Sometimes it is, I suppose; we never intended to move from one house to another just down the street.  Life has a way of making things happen, though.  That's another blog altogether.  Often, however, we have talked about whatever it is for a long time.  We just don't inflict those conversations onto others.  My dad and J.'s mom get to hear more than enough about some isssues that we try to spare them giving input on every single event in our lives.  I'm sure MomBee is still scarred from the Ford Fusion discussions and I am fairly certain that dad doesn't really find our mortgage all that interesting.  But both give us their patient input and the wisdom they've gained over the years and so we try not to take advantage of that.  I'm not really sure why we dont talk to others as much.  I suppose it might be because we know that we take forever to decide anything so we want to spare people the agony that we put ourselves through.

In other words, we have been talking about getting another pet for probably close to a yeat, on and off.  We came close a few times, but it never worked out.  But we kept checking the website of the place where we got Stupiddog, waiting for the perfect pet.  Sometimes it was a cat, sometimes a dog.  A cat seemed good as they are lower maintenance - but then there was the incidents of Lucycat and Oz,  We weren't sure that Fatcat would really warm up to another feline.  Not that her and the dog warmed up, but they don't fight across my bed and they've actually been known to nap together.  I know, craziness.

So, we watched and waited.  And then we saw Cora.  Her name will probably change - J. likes it, but he hasn't met her yet.  I have and I don't think it fits.  She's a rescue from Georgia - a BostonTerrier /Chihuahua mix.  She looks like a puppy, but really is full grown at 13 or so pounds.  I love her already and while it makes sense to let them fix her before we bring her home, I still don't want to be waiting to bring her home.

It may have taken us a long time to decide, and find, and decide to get her.  Several phone calls, a discussion while sitting in the car, a flurry of texts when my work obligations were over and I was free to go meet her.  Knowing that meeting her meant buying her.  When the decision was finally made, however, it meant we were ready to throw our all into this little bundle of cute that someone had thrown away.

Then we can share the results of our private summit-level debates, knowong that we must look like spontaneous, go-lucky people when we are, in fact, just the opposite.  We act on impulse only becuase if we do not ambush ourselves with DOING, we will spend all our days just talking ourselves into and out of actually living.

Entered Into Rest…

I enjoy walking around in cemeteries. As many of you know, there's one that makes up the back landscape at my house and while it isn't a particularly large or spectacular cemetery, it's a wonderful place. I walk Oliver out there, always careful to keep him from bothering mourners or from leaving unpleasant remainders of his presence. With or without the dog, however, it's a wonderful place to explore and I feel like I find something new every time I go there. Sometimes it's the wildlife – there have been a couple of deer sighted, along with the countless crows and squirrels, meandering cats, and even the occasional groundhog. That's not all of it, though.

There's a sense of peace – a sad peace in some ways, but a peace nonetheless. Cemeteries are generally quiet and lovely – rolling hills and landscaping, towering trees and colorful flowers dancing in the breeze. I cannot ever separate myself from the countless tears that made the soil fertile, or the broken hearts that have seeped into every corner of these places, but there's also a gorgeous sense of history, a lingering tranquility, and an almost fervent celebration of life. For those who have left the markers of their loved ones here, they carry on in defiance of their loss. They visit these places not as a morbid reminder of what is gone – but rather a concrete marker of what will always live on. Our loved ones are never gone from us, we know this. So, we look for places where they have left their mark, or where we have built markers for them. And the markers can be so exquisitely beautiful.

Those who know me know that I am not a religious person. I don't much care for the message of religious institutions in a general sense, and so my relationship with the Divine has found its own Way. But that is not to say that I don't find beauty in churches and cathedrals, and in the markers we erect in these places that are intersection of life and death, permanence and passage, sorrow and joy, past and present, yesterdays and tomorrows. The upturned face of the weeping angel, the outstretched hands of Mary, the child enveloped in the arms of St. Anthony. So many beautiful carven images – so many dreams, wishes that when we leave this place, we are taken elsewhere, where there is love and peace and release from toil.

I love to read the names  – walking amongst the stones and reading messages and epithets that tell stories without telling them. Wife. Loving Husband. US Army. From County Cork. Infant child. Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. So small, so sweet, so soon. Worn dates and faded names, moss growing on etched stone. These are powerful images and powerful places. Words of comfort and memory from those who are now nothing but memory themselves.

These souls are not my souls, these names are not my names – except they are. The story of human love and human suffering, etched in stone and surviving through the ages. A name here, a date there, a marble lamb, an angel with wings unfurled. Beauty and sadness rolled into one.

There is more to say, but there are pictures I want to share and words I want to get just right. I will go again…and I will write again.

Simple Pleasures (300 Words)

(I've decided to see what I can say in that magical 300 words that writers talk about so much...so, here it is...300 words exactly not counting this explanation)

I don’t mind letting the dog out at 5 o’clock in the morning this week, when it has been relatively frigid.  For this to make sense, there are three things that are important to know…

First, I have low-level heat intolerance.  For this reason, I sleep in shorts and a T-shirt no matter the temperature so I don’t wake up too warm in the middle of the night feeling generally unwell.  Second, I use a twin-sized electric blanket on my queen-sized bed because I’m too cheap to replace it.  For a number of reasons, I don’t spend money easily on myself.  Third, I am not usually in charge of taking the dog out at night, that job falls to my husband.  Whenever he is out of town, however, the responsibility falls to me.  

Add these things together and you have an under-dressed groggy person standing on the back steps in the freezing cold because she did not have the wherewithal to grab a robe.  So, I stand there, shivering and looking at the stars, listening to the silence of a winter’s evening.  Our house is in front of a cemetery and so night time is a muted silence that reminds me of living in the country, except different.  It is a beautiful moment, despite the cold that makes me shiver to my very bones.  It is so peaceful that I do not mind the terrible cold for those few quiet moments.

Once I move back indoors and upstairs, I am enfolded softly into a warm and toasty bed that erases the cold in that delicious sinking feeling that I’m not sure I can replicate in any other way.  Except maybe a hot bath.

So, I don’t really mind letting the dog out at 5 o’clock in the morning this week…