safe haven

Grizzly has had it.  He had adjusted to life just fine, thank you...

why this creature?  He has played second fiddle to a huge, cranky old Newfoundland, put up with a boat load of canine relatives who come and go at will  and eat his food and drink his water- and take his bed.  He has been terrorized by the resident terrier mix who decides when he can enter the family room, when he can eat, when he can sleep -and where...  (she plays dirty, too).

Tank, the four pound pug put him over the edge.  Grizzly never

sits between the chairs near the windows.  Never.  but it was safer there than out in the room where who knows what might pounce on an unsuspecting giant?

Peace

Whatever you may consider to be "perfect contentment"-

This has to be near the top of the list.

reflection

     How many deaths must we endure before our sins of commission and omission cease to haunt us?  We have lost two women in the last two weeks whose lives wrapped around so many hearts that it is impossible to comprehend the depth of the collective grieving.

     There are no guarantees in this fragile life.  We don't have assurance that tomorrow or even the next moment will be ours.  We all have reason to regret the unsaid kind word, the phone call not made or the hug not given.  I told my mother that I hated her when I was old enough to know better and my thoughtlessness has haunted me for decades.  She has been gone 42 years.  I can only hope the kindnesses I did have time to do for her cancelled out those angry, childish words.

For Judy...

For Judy...

     I lost a friend, sister and sort- of- mother this week.  I had known her for 45 years or so.

She taught me how  to hold, feed and bathe a baby.  She helped me let go of my first child when I needed to let him explore the world...she never complained, criticized or found fault with anyone.

     I felt better about myself and the world every time I was around her- a hallmark of a true friend.  When my brother died, she came and sat with me.

     We didn't see each other often in later years but when we did, we took up where the last conversation left off, without missing a beat.  

     The last time I saw her was when she came to my house a couple of weeks ago to have lunch with two ladies who knew Jeanette well- and one of them a nurse!  She made friends with them instantly and poured over old photos and talked and talked and talked.  We looked at her yearbooks from high school.  And for a few hours, she was young, beautiful and healthy. 

She was home again. 

     She never lost the beauty- it revealed itself in everything she did and said.

     Her spirit lives on in the wonderful family she had and nurtured and was so very, very proud of.

     Please... someone feeds her birds for awhile?

     

squatter's rights

This may be difficult to make out at first.  If you see a large black form plunked into the middle of a newly prepared garden bed- you are correct...it's Grizzly.

Sometimes a body needs to assert itself.  Claiming a tiny portion of one's  surroundings becomes all important.  Was it the smell of the freshly turned earth...the cool dirt on a hot tummy...or was it a statement?  Here, in the space of a few square feet of dirt, Grizzly reigns supreme.  He chews his feet in peace.   He has boundaries.  He is safe.

terrier terror

"OK...here's the plan"

bad fit

There are just some days that don't "fit"- 

you are out of sorts for some reason, maybe

you don't even know why.  Your jeans are too

tight, you are moodier than usual...you are

at loose ends.  and then, finally, at the end

of the day, when it's time to relax- the chair is 

too tight.