In the past six months, Eliot has turned into a much older dog than he was a year ago. Earlier this year, he lost his hearing seemingly overnight. I feel like one week he was coming when I whistled, and the next I was trying to teach him hand signals for “come.” He’s not the first deaf dog I’ve had. BT couldn’t hear or see for the last year of her life, maybe more. Though Eliot losing his hearing didn’t bother…
I’ve written about The Little Prince on this blog before. I wrote about how Tim’s crooked path led me to discover the book (as many other things I’ve discovered), and how it helped grieve the loss of him. The words in that little children’s book gave a different meaning to death, and I needed them at the time. I keep them with me, but that’s not all I took from the book. There’s a passage in The Little Prince with the prince…
Even though I’ve lived in Austin for seven years, I’ve never been to a Texas beach. It seemed like native Texans were the most hard on them. “Don’t bother!” “Watch out for flesh eating bacteria.” “You’re not missing anything.” “It depends on how recently the tractor has drug for seaweed.” Still, I like to explore around where I live so I decided to round up some friends to rent a house for a weekend in the sun. And honestly? It…
This morning on Facebook I was nominated by a friend to do one of those 5 day Facebook posting challenges. Now I typically hate those kind of things, but this one was about dogs… and well, I love dogs. Because I cannot follow directions, I modified the rules to suit my fancy. As I typed up probably my longest Facebook status ever, I thought no one is ever going to read all of this… if only there was a platform for long…
Getting bluebonnet pictures were really important to me this year. Even though I’ve admired the amazing wildflowers in Texas for seven years now, I’ve never actually taken any kind of bluebonnet pictures. Maybe that’s because of this hilarious tumblr that makes fun of people squatting in the bluebonnets for pictures, but mostly I’ve just been lazy. Originally, the plan was to meet my roommate at a little patch of bluebonnets by our house and take some photos of the dogs….
Last year I did my best to skip Christmas. While I attended holiday gatherings with my family, my heart wasn’t in it. As a lifelong lover of all things holly jolly, I can’t tell you how weird this was for me. Weird, but understandable. The goal of Christmas 2015 was survival. This year, the stakes are higher. Grief has stolen so much from me that I’m not going to let it take my holiday spirit. I’m not back to my…
It was bring-your-own if you wanted anything hard, so I brought Johnnie Walker Red along with some resentment I’d held in for a few weeks, which was not helped by the sight of little nameless things pierced with toothpicks on the tables, or by talk that promised to be nothing if not small. But I’d consented to come, and I knew what part of the house their animals would be sequestered, whose company I loved. What else can I say,…
The weather has finally taken a turn in Texas. Instead of feeling like you’re walking around in someone’s hot breath all the time, the cool taste of fall is back in the air. I love that feeling. It makes me want to sit on my porch all evening and stretch my arms wide open into the chill and let my body begin again. Some people associate January as a time of fresh starts and new beginnings, but for me that’s…