family

Our commute to work involves a car. It’s a 2007 Volkswagen Passat with leather interior and a moonroof. We paid less for it than you think. My husband and I were a great team at the negotiating table, because our “act” was, in fact, real. I, the somewhat whiny batter of eyelashes, pleaded with Jed while he, the conflicted adjuster of eyeglasses, silently contemplated. The salesman, the poker-faced maker of deals, made offer after offer after offer. He was determined to convince Jed to appease me - to sell us the damned car already.

I'm sitting in the airport, in Marquette, MI. It's easily the smallest airport I've passed through, and the most exclusive -- Only Delta and AA fly commercially through this city. Folks are trickling in. Every non-uniformed person in here will fall into either of two groups: Folks waiting for arrivals, or folks waiting to fly on the same plane I'll be boarding. Only about four flights are departing from Marquette today. Dad went out on the 11:20am and I'm on the next flight... at 3:50pm. He's going through Detroit and on to Pennsylvania; I'm going through Minneapolis and on to Oregon.

Thank you, Mom, for giving birth to me. Wait, back up. For carrying me around for nine months and two weeks THEN giving birth to me.

I got the most ridiculous letter in the mail on Monday. The author was a doctor whose care I came under last summer (2008, to be clear). She said she hoped the letter found me well. She informed me that due to 60 days of inactivity, she was closing my file. At first I was dismissive, ridiculing the correspondence because I'd actually been inactive for over 6 months and the bitch was LATE. But, the more I made fun of it, the more I thought about what it meant. My file was closed. It was CLOSED. And that stupid piece of paper morphed into a certificate of accomplishment.

Please pardon the agitated nature of the previous post. I hope that those of you who've been through clicker training (or may have started it and then...) can sympathize. Here's a brief progress report: We all seem used to the click click click associated with feeding and treating Charlie. Hopefully on Monday Trainer Tim will think we've sufficiently "charged the clicker" and by the middle of next week we'll be embroiled in another clicky challenge. Fingers crossed. Public Service Announcement: Look, Something Shiny! is about the shiny new thing on my mind. Right now it's Charlie.

Meet Charlie Browne. The "e" at the end is for femininity. Or something.

When Pawly was still with us, you could say "Get the kitty!" and she knew exactly what to do. Whether outside or around the house, she'd find one and then move him with her nose or herd him back to where she started. There were many occasions when a found cat would shoot through the back door, Pawly strolling triumphantly behind. "Get the kitty!" was a handy command at dinner time or when somebody disappeared after a storm. Of course, she didn't do it because she liked the cats particularly well.

Accepting the fact that we are building an extension of our society on the World Wide Web, I think it's important to remember that the same social rules should apply. When I meet you on the street, I don't give you a fake name when I shake your hand. If I'm spoken to (and I actually hear what is said) I try to respond. I keep rude thoughts to myself. There aren't any ready-to-share racy photos of me handy in my purse. And? I damn well don't publicize my personal problems for all to read.

When you step into freshly fallen snow. That soft crunch--that is my favorite. Everything about snow, from the brisk air that accompanies it to its ability to completely transform a landscape, is awesome. Snow inspires me to play, to laugh, to dig, to make memories. I'm willing to say that snow is essential to the holidays. Without it, they're just not as merry as they could be. As a little person growing up in the mountains of New Mexico, I came to expect blustery sub-zero conditions just after Halloween.

I may not be the best at GIMP, but that doesn't mean I love you any less.