it was like this

A chilly morning, as expected. But a blue sky changes our feelings about everything. It doesn't seem cold if there's sunshine on the porch. Come on Millie, let's listen to the birds in the lilac tree! (Over breakfast.)

I almost don't believe it, but Millie is actually settling into a walking schedule. Two days without accidents! (Update: make that one day without accidents!) And the new fresh food from Farmer's Dog disappears from her bowl every time. My fussy eater loves her new meal plan. So far, the age of six months seems to have been a turning point.

(time to brush you, little one...)

 

Wednesdays are typically chore days for me. I do not have kid duty, so my time is mostly unscheduled. Today, I crate Millie and head out to the farmette. I have three goals: to weed some of the flower beds, to dig up some day lilies that have been hidden from view by unruly, spreading neighbors, and to help Ed repot the gigantic orchids that I have handed over to him because they're so big that they do not fit into a normal residence. (We keep them outside in the summer and in the sheep shed, where they bloom profusely all winter long.)

As I work on the weeding and digging, I get that feeling of enormous pleasure, knowing that the flower fields will benefit from my efforts. It's vigorous work and I haven't done much of that this spring. And I am surrounded by nature. Suburban gardens are lovely and I'm looking forward to planting the yard at Steffi's House, but working in them doesn't feel the same as working at the farmette, where you are not fully in control -- the land, the seeds, the saplings, the roots and weeds are all powerful players, and their word must be reckoned with. My friend in Australia used to tell me -- don't try to tame the landscape. That's not the point. She was right of course. In the new development, on the other hand, things are mightily tamed. Us humans have bulldozed, dug in it, transformed the place into something suited for our needs. Whatever I do in a garden there will be a small trifle. Nature has already lost the battle to the humanization of the land.

So again I feels rather sad to turn my back now on the farmette fields. But am I really turning my back? I tell Ed I will return later in the week to weed some more.

With Millie still in her crate, I can head out to my next item on the list: a haircut. It's a fun one today. Lyndsy, my very long time hair trimmer, has just gotten a puppy of a doodle variety and we are full of dog stories as we relay months of dog and puppy issues. It's great to talk about dogs with a person equally immersed in the process of rearing a puppy. I am not actually a chatty customer in settings like these -- it's an enormous effort for me not to groan when I'm asked -- "Got any plans for the rest of the day?"  I do not want to be rude, but nor do I like to be engaged in what has to be the most superficial form of discourse. But with Lyndsy, time flies. And when she shows her doodle pics and I show her mine, I feel a kinship that is born of being with a person who understands strong attachments to these animals.

(At home, with Millie)

Eventually I take Millie to the small dog park. It's a brilliant day for it. The slight chill gives a zest to the air that's lost on us on hot summer days. A perfect moment to take in the beauty of the plant life all around us.

 

 

 

Millie has learned to stay close to me, liking to trot by my side or run to me after sniffing out an enticing something or other, even more than playing with the other dogs.

And we stop over at the farmette after our park visit. It's on the way!

 

 

("Mildred, do you see that animal coming up the walk? We better hide!" "You're darn right, Martha. Can't trust those furry beasts!")

 

 

I had forgotten to drop off some stuff of Ed's and, too, I had some printing to do. Millie rests.

 My evening is one of returns: a tree I purchased on line? Sick. Another plant? Half dead. A pair of pants for travel? Too thick. A barefoot rose for the garden? Never sprouted. This is where working with reliable vendors helps. It's horrible to save up for something and then to have it be a dud. So I call, I write, I print labels. In the meantime, Millie cavorts from one room to the next, feeling more confident now in her explorations. She is still quite the velcro pup. I haven't used the bathroom once since she came without her lying down besides me there. But she also tests stepping into spaces without me. So long as she knows I am on the couch, she feels free to poke around. My girl is growing up!

Tomorrow, the warm up begins. Slowly at first, and then boom! We will be in the thick of summer weather.

with so much love... 

half a year

Surely this is a "careful what you wish for" type of spring. I'll be bringing in the tomatoes the next two nights. Too chilly for them out on the porch. If left alone, they may develop a stunted growth. But after that? Summer, full blast. Hot days, coming up. Hot nights too. I'll be turning on the dreaded AC, that's how hot it will be. So maybe I should revel in the cool morning! And the quiet outside! No dirt moving today! A lovely breakfast on the porch.

And Millie learns a lesson: eat the dirt in the tomato pot and you will throw up! Perhaps she'll stop now, right, pup?

I give some thought to the garden I will be planting in about ten days. I like, but do not choose to replicate the typical herbaceous border. I prefer the English cottage look. So, no orderly plants in clusters, spaced, artistically presented to recognize each species. And not even the French Giverny style of grouping flowers by their color. I love, instead, a blend of flowers. This, unfortunately, is hard to do well and I've made all the mistakes possible in my previous borders. (I've worked on this in three different properties over the decades, each one bigger than the previous, each one more complex. This will be my fourth.)

To my credit, I never had a strip of land, with good soil, plenty of sunshine and an unchanging size to work with. (I will have that now.) And over time, I really pushed day lilies, as any reader of Ocean would well remember. (I still love them, but I no longer want them to dominate.)

What's the biggest challenge? Combining plants very well. I purchased (and additionally will move from the farmette) some 60 plants of varying heights and blooming times. They need to fit in beautifully together. I suppose the skilled gardener would first draw a flower map and then buy according to its dictates. I did it in the opposite way: I purchased the flowers first (for reasons explained earlier) and now I have to think about how to place them. For this, I looked up each of the 60 plants, wrote down their height, color and period of flowering.  This basically took up the whole morning. 

I'm not sure yet how to place them. It's hard to imagine 60 flowers all at once. Some rules are obvious: tall in the back, short toward the front. But most are in the middle range and they all have to be in harmony with their neighbors! 

As Miss Scarlett famously said -- I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.  

When I'm done scribbling notes, it's time to take Millie to doggie day care for her three hour romp with other pups. This is when I go to a nearby coffee shop to read and rest before kid pickup.

 

I think about gardens. I think about Millie. I think about the numerous texts I got from a grandchild this morning worried about something very trivial. What do they have in common? They all need a thoughtful response. Maybe these days I can pause and do things with greater care. 

This is the beautiful thing about being older: there is more time to think through all your options. They are more limited now of course, but perhaps that's not a bad thing. I can look more closely at what's before me. At breakfast this morning, I saw that the house finch came back to the nest in my lilac tree. The partner finch was perched on the roof top. The squeals come from up there. Is the bird is looking out for enemies? Birds, kids, dogs. Flowers, nature. I'm reading a book now ("Raising Hare") that I put off until I was done with my Irish run of Maeve Binchy. The hare book is about a woman who, during the Covid years, rescues a day-old abandoned leveret. I'll admit this: until this week, I did not understand that a hare and a rabbit are two entirely different species of animal. I had made up a song for the grandkids when they were little about a bunny rabbit hopping. I still sing it to Millie. I may have changed the lyrics around a bit had I thought about the animal that figured so prominently in my silly composition. 

I lived the first years of my life in the deeply rural part of Poland. With my grandmother who took care of the inside, and my grandfather who took care of the outside world. When I began to seriously plant flowers 30 years later it was because I had a pull toward working in nature born of those early years. But I didn't think about it much. And now that I understand its importance, I want to be deliberate about it. Birds, kids, dogs, flowers. I have a chance to study, to work with all of them.

 

Kid pickup: I bring Sparrow home. I bring Snowdrop. 

Millie and I are home now. I recognize the signs of growth in my pup. She's bigger, not a mere fluff ball, more graceful. And I am starting to understand her eyes now. What she is signaling through them. What she needs from me now. 

A milestone has passed: Millie is six months old today.

with so much love... 

shifting Monday

Adjustments had to be made. The weather is bringing us an erratic week of rains, heat, chilly nights, with the possibility of strong storms. When I wake up just after six, I see that there is a big rain shower coming straight at us. Best to walk Millie soon, before we have another downpour. Up early? The girl is more than happy to oblige.

 

 

 

We eat breakfast on the porch. Warm enough.

And now I have to think through the day: at 8:30 the landlord is doing some kind of an inspection of Sally's House. It's best to get Millie out for that. We go to the farmette.

(It's the month of Allium)

I notice that Millie is positively shaking when I take her for a "car ride." She is no longer getting motion sickness, but she does seem to have a fear of the unknown. I can reassure her, and label destinations, and still she shakes.

Once at the farmette, she's happy again.

I had planned on separating some daylilies and hauling away a few, to be planted in a couple of weeks at Steffi's House. But this plan is just not working for me today. The grasses are wet. Everything is wet. When I loop Millie's leash around a post, she does sit down patiently to wait, but in so doing, she, too gets wet. And she nibbles on the surrounding plant life. That's not good! It may well be toxic. 

Basically my babe is a distraction. I can't focus and make decisions, and dig out plants with her there. 

We go inside and she relaxes on the couch as I chat with Ed. We decide to postpone the digging until Wednesday. Maybe I'll crate her, maybe I'll take her to day care. Today is just not a good day for it.

After a while we leave and I drive over with her to K&A Greenhouses. To look at their perennials. Maybe to pick some out. Millie is welcome here!

It feels very strange picking flowers for a brand new flower bed. For years, I've just added stuff in corners or expansions. Over the decades (I've been doing this since I was about 30), I have worked my way through many hundreds of perennials sold around town or sometimes in distant nurseries. I've watched some fail over the winter, despite my appropriate zone, some spread where I did not want them to spread, some topple without stakes or cages, some die off with bug infestations, some turn a ghostly white with powdery mildew. I know which ones finish their blooming season quickly, and which ones get smothered by their neighbors. Decades of growing perennials have left me a bit hardened. I want to avoid trouble. And so I pick carefully. Garden design will come later. Right now I just want plants that will thrive in our growing season and give repeat blooms for a good many weeks. I want strong color and textural variety. This isn't a time for impulsive cart loading. And because K&A's selection is a fraction of what the Flower Factory (where I shopped most often until they closed down a couple of years ago) offered, I walk away with very little.

I bring it all home -- the perennials, cut flowers from the farmette...

(iris, false indigo, and a peony bud)

And I give Millie time to recover! 

 

 

 

And then, just after noon, I take her to doggie daycare. Now we are in our standard Monday pattern: kids, Millie, Sally's House. 

In the meantime, the construction company that's putting up houses across the street from Sally's House has chosen to dump soil and rocks on the lot right next to me. The noise is horrible. The dirt covers everything on the porch. Time to write those letters of complaint! Blissfully, at 7, the dirt dumping stops. The noise stops. I open the door and look sadly at the nest a finch family built in the lilac tree I placed temporarily just outside the porch. The birds gave up on it with the arrival of the construction monsters. Such a shame. It was grand to listen to them early in the morning. Even Millie quieted then, dozing next to me to the sound of chirps, flutters, squeals. But of course, who can blame the birds for moving on. It's no place for a mama, looking for a restful home for the little ones.

Tomorrow? Who knows. The weather, like our political climate, is shifting frequently in directions that make no sense and give little ground for optimism. Though at least with the weather, we know that splendid late spring days are just around the corner. Short term troubles. Unlike in our nation's capital. 

with so much love... 

wild and perfect

If you are a parent of an adult child with a family of her own, you're not likely to have a weekend with just your child. For one thing, you do also want to see her family. You cherish days with all of them. Stepping into her family life is a gift. You love every minute of it. But when by chance, or through circumstance you do get just her, it's like a jolt to your heart. Suddenly, you remember.

my older girl lives just sixteen minutes by car. My younger -- two and a half hours, if the traffic is good. It is seldom good. But yesterday, she took the bus and now she is here. Yesterday, I had both girls with me here, on the porch of Sally's house. And after dinner out with the two of them, my younger girl returned home with me. She asks -- what are your routines in the evening? Movies? Music? Actually both. I start with a movie or show and then retreat into music. 

And so we do that: I pick one of the items on my Netflix list -- Derry Girls. We watch the first episode. Quite good. I'll continue with the series without her. Without her, with her. It's hard to believe that I am with her now. 

 

This morning, Millie is cautious, but not reluctant. She tries to make sense of this: an overnight visitor, unknown to her and yet, there's something about the scent...

My pup and I wake up early. As usual. 6:30 is my get up time. The pooch is nicely quiet as we go downstairs. My daughter sleeps a bit more, then comes down to join us. Millie is less and less tentative today. A kindred spirit?

Breakfast is indoors because it is a ridiculously cool morning. And it wasn't supposed to be this way. I'm in shorts and a t-shirt. Clearly under-dressed for a 50sF/10+C morning. My daughter, who has taught me to make the world's yummiest granola, asks what I eat. I admit that I gave up baking it myself. I introduce her to my current choices from Seven Sundays. And my favorite yogurt from La Fermiere. She and I share food tips often enough. We both obsess quite a lot about finding something that is healthy and utterly delicious.

I'm preparing a family brunch -- for her, for the young family living here, closer to me, for Ed. Simple stuff. Bagels, smoked salmon, bacon, cheeses, eggs, fruits, lots of fruits. And a rhubarb cake. Farmette rhubarb is exploding and I grabbed a few stalks last time I drove by that way. This morning, I mix up ingredients for one of those snacking cakes. I haven't baked in a long time and my younger girl asks me why that is. She and I share this too -- a love of baking from favorite cookbooks. So why not bake more often? Maybe because she isn't here to egg me on...

I open presents. Birthday, Mother's Day. A lovely card from her girls. Beautiful, thoughtful items! So happy to make this a day of celebrations with her.

 

Our other guests arrive. Goose too. 

 

 

 

And something remarkable happens: Millie and big Goose take up play. They've avoided each other up to now, but today, they're at it! They run like wild dogs unleashed, pushing away furniture, rolling up rugs. Millie has definitely shed a truck-load of shyness this weekend. I am so happy for both of them!

And Goose finally stops his barking mission toward Ed. It's as if a switch was flipped and everyone is at their most perfect. 

Brunch is ready.

After, I want a photo! I should include myself in it, but I'm thinking of just them today. Two daughters, one set of kids, one husband, two dogs. Ed dozes on the couch, I snap away.

The dogs have calmed down a bit, but the weather outside hasn't! Out of the blue, there is a tornado warning. With so much going on this weekend, I hadn't been paying attention to weather forecasts. We wait it out.  The basement is ready for us if the winds suddenly pick up. 

In the end, we are lucky. Nothing comes our way. A big exhale for the kids, who tend to worry more than the adults, who process probabilities quickly and listen to storm signals carefully to assess the severity of  the threats.

 

The visit ends there. My younger girl has a bus to catch. The locals have their local stuff to return to. Millie needs a nap badly!

Hold on, little one! Let's drive my first little one, the one that came before you, to the bus stop. 

We go in blinding rain, but it doesn't last. I note that this amount of moisture is exactly what the gardens and sweet corn fields need.  

She gets on the bus. Millie and I go home.

 

(Millie, looking very much like her poodle dad) 

 

 

My daughter had asked me what I'd be doing the rest of the day. Reflecting, of course. Thinking about that feeling that came back, from the days I used to visit her in college, then law school, then in her own apartment. On the trips she and I took together -- to Turkey, Morocco, Poland, Italy. 

Lest this seem a bit wistful or sad, let me assure you, it isn't. I like what's there today. I like thinking about my daughters' lives as they unfold now. And I love being part of that story. But this weekend, I was momentarily put back in that other wonderful world -- when my girl and I walked in step, briefly, together. 

with so much love... 

living with a pup and all the rest

There is much that you cannot do on a warm and beautiful Saturday morning if you have a young pup at home. For example, you cannot go to the Farmers Market -- not the downtown one, not the west-side one. I can understand the downtown restrictions. The place is so crowded that it's tough to walk nimbly. A big dog could spell trouble. But the spacious west side one? I truly don't get it. Yes, of course, I could leave Millie home alone, but I'm already doing that this evening. Twice in one day is pushing it. So I pass on the market. And therefore I pass on the flowers that I almost always pick up for the week. I'll make do with grocery store tulips, farmette lilies of the valley, and a few stems of lilac from Sally's House.

It really is a gorgeous day!

Breakfast? On the porch of course! In a sleeveless shirt and shorts. And with Millie. And flowers. All very beautiful.

I want to plant my tomatoes in the big pots today. Yes, there will be a couple of cool nights this week. Tomatoes like warm weather, 24/7. Still, I have a busy set of weeks and I want to get started on acclimatizing them to the strong sun, the breezes, the vicissitudes that come with the growing season.

Why am I growing tomatoes? Truly for the fun of picking and eating, for slicing them into a salad, for the kids to snip off! 

Millie watches. She likes my work out on the porch. And I like having her there.

 

 

Toward noon, the two of us go over to the farmette. Ed shows me the fallen tree branches from last night's storm. Wait, there was a storm last night? I was so tired I slept through it!

(What's blooming at the farmette right now? Clematis. False Indigo. Bleeding hearts. Allium.)

 

 

We go to the small dog park. I would have liked to go see the lilacs in the arboretum, but guess who is not allowed to walk there?

You know how in January, if the thermometer shoots up to an unseasonable 50F/10C you feel positively toasty? Well, when it spikes to 80F/27C  in mid-May, it's like you've stepped into a steam bath. I can't believe that this would be considered cool in the summer!

 

 

 

Millie definitely feels the heat. Like Ed, she is quick to seek out the shade.

At home, I build cages for the tomatoes. The door to the porch is wide open. It has it's disadvantages: Millie hears every sound of every human and every animal and every mechanical device. She thinks they all deserve a riotous session of barks and puppy growls. Suddenly I am glad not to have a patio door at Steffi's House. Millie's opportunities to spy on neighbors will be limited to her time out in the yard.

 

 

 

In the afternoon, the big event of the weekend, indeed of the season, is upon us: my younger daughter arrives by bus from Chicago. Tired of waiting for me to come down, she managed to squeeze in a trip up here to see me. And I do feel at once thrilled and sorry -- that she had to do the traveling, that I wont see the kids this month. But truly this is an exceptionally wonderful gift for me. Millie is still a puppy handful, and her gastrointestinal development and potty training have been slow going. Keeping her to a schedule helps move things along for her and therefore for me.

The two daughters spend some afternoon time together -- another rare treat, since typically we plan family-centered activities when they are here or we are there. Eventually my girls come to Sally's House. 

 

 

 

Dinner is for the three of us, at Cadre -- a place I've never tried, not being one to go out much these days. It's always fun to be with them. The stories fly nonstop, interrupted with bursts of laughter. It always makes me wonder if it's their age that lightens the mood so much, or if it's that I have two especially funny and fun to be with girls.

And the food is fabulous! Like being in France only without the overnight flight!

 

I can only hope my pup wont disturb my overnight guest, especially at the indecent morning hour Millie calls "normal wake-up time." My sweet, sweet youngest ones! How good it is to have them both under my roof tonight, tomorrow!

with so much love... 

hot and not bothered!

Well, for sure it is a hot May day. Not initially, but by the noon hour shorts are appropriate (with the exception of for Ed: he's been wearing shorts since February). 

(the beauty of sunshine and flowers, together)

 

 

And I am resolved not to get frustrated with little Millie, only because she is little! Why would I be even mildly vexed with this incredible package of goodness? 

It's the potty training: she will not hold it in. When she feels the urge, she goes. Taking her outside frequently? Oh, I do! Believe me, I do! She'll go outside. And then a half hour later, she'll go inside. Usually in the playroom because that is her preference.

You could tell me to check with the vet. Perhaps she has a problem? But of course, it'll take a lot to get me to call the vet yet again. I need to give that lifeline a rest before they throw me to the dogs! Moreover, Millie stays in her crate all night -- a solid 8 hours and there will be no accident, ever, because it is her den. Even if she wakes up earlier and has to wait for me to open up the door, she'll hang on until I do so. So, a strong bladder after all!

To her credit, she did test the possibility of using the porch for peeing. She watched me, befuddled. Why are you cleaning up? I went outside! I explained to her the difference between porch and grass, but I could tell she wasn't listening. 

Of course, I'm not really mad at her. She is still learning stuff. Chewing books on the shelf is a no? You didn't tell me! And some behaviors are so endemic to her breed and personality -- for example, scratching furiously on the couch cover before nesting -- that I wont even touch that.

When we move in July to Steffi's House, there will be a fenced yard, but I know that this is no panacea. You have to go through the garage to reach it. Will she sit by the garage door to let me know that she wants out? I doubt it. Moreover, the grass there is not yet set. Almost all the landscaping in a new developments is done for quick results. Looks okay at the beginning (if you like lawns), but the plantings are without imagination, and the turf doesn't always take, and at the edges it is easy to rip it up. I am quite sure Millie will attempt to rip it up by digging her way to the other side of the earth. She's not really a digger, but the temptation there will be too great.

So no, I'm not really bothered by her potty routines. In nice weather at least. Downright hot.

 

Breakfast on the porch and it's quiet today! I don't know why. I do not understand the construction schedule, but I surely do appreciate the lull in the noise.

Afterwards, I brush the girl thoroughly. You'd think that such a short coat doesn't require daily brushing. You'd be wrong. I can tell when I get to patches that I missed the previous day (because she wiggled out of my hold): it starts to matt overnight. You really do need to groom these dogs daily! It's a chore I actually enjoy. The end result is very satisfying.

 

 

 

I take her to daycare. Friday is not usually a daycare day, but I have a doc's appointment and a chore or two to attend to and then of course there's the school pick up, so I think it's better for her this way.

At the doc's  office, I am told that of course I would have great eye pain! Such dry eyes! But I use drops... You dont close your eye lids fully when you blink. You probably sleep with your eyes partly open. So now I have to practice blinking fully? You also have cataracts. Wait, I had them removed! You have secondary ones. It's a good thing I am otherwise fond of my eyes (performance wise), because they sure have been coming up with irritating issues, requiring repeated interventions.

 

I'm early for Snowdrop (Sparrow is not with us today). I see a very excited girl come to the car. Guess what, I had a major trauma in school today!

Trauma? I can't imagine what it may have been. She seems okay now... She continues: when half the fifth grade was out at recess, the lockdown alarm went off. We all ran like crazy, all the way to the police station. Well, some kids ran to Culver's. My friend said that if she was going to die, she may as well die eating something she likes. Some kids were crying, some were trampling over the slower ones. It was awful! I, too, thought I was going to die! They provided counseling afterwards, but since in the end no one got killed, I thought I could skip it.

This is what being a kid in an American school feels like. 

It had been a false alarm, and for that we're all grateful, but the kids were scared because so many times it isn't a false alarm. In 2023, there had been 352 school shootings in American schools. Where shots were fired. How many countries can boast that kind of a statistic? And of course, kids know this. They drill for it. And they worry.

 

Snowdrop and I pick up Millie. Given that it's 83F/28C outside, I am so very glad the pup got a coat trim. 

Ed comes over in the evening for supper. Not that he is necessarily crazy about the salmon I bake for us, but the asparagus is abundant and the supper is healthy and I love it!

And now it's late evening once again. A hot day that turned out quite okay. And for once, Millie did not have an accident, as of this writing anyway!

with so much love...

sunshine

Without question, May sunshine is superior. Balanced between summer warmth and spring unpredictability, it offers near perfect days, where you can slowly unwrap yourself from layers of clothing and soak in the great outdoors without reservation. Today is such a day. Oh, those green plant colors! Oh, the birdsong! The Millie song!

 

(Millie only sings in the mornings)

 

 

 

Because it is a cool morning, wise people would eat their breakfast indoors. But the allure of a sunny porch with flowers blooming is just too strong. I take everything out to the porch.

The meal itself is far from grand. Millie is with me, my book has one more fabulous dog essay for me to read -- the whole set up is really great. But it is at exactly this time that the construction workers decided to move the dirt off of the empty lot immediately to the east of me. Horrible noises, disturbing me, disturbing Millie too. We lasted for the duration of breakfast itself, then went back inside, shutting out the noise and retreating to the couch.

Eat, play, walk, rest, walk, comb, rest. It never varies. If dogs like schedules and routines, then I really am giving Millie the best life!

At noon I take her to doggie daycare. And at four, the kids and I pick her up and the four of us head out to meet Ed at our local farmers market. The Thursday afternoon one, that's both intimate and very familiar. And of course there are cheese curds. And treats.

It's a first for Millie. (This one, unlike the downtown one, does not ban dogs.) All those people! What's a friendly puppy to do?!

(meeting Luna, the bernedoodle that hangs out with the bike repair guy)

At home, we still have a little time to read and play, and then, too quickly, it's the evening. I'm thinking about the book I just finished -- essays on dogs ("The Best Dog in the World"). Not all the essays were great (and some were more than great!), but uniformly, the authors wrote about their strong and unique attachment to their pup. Surely that bond is not new to this century. Dogs have been our domesticated companions for some 40,000 years. But dogs as pets were treated differently, even when I was growing up: they, like children, were part of the background in a household. You did not entertain them (nor did you especially entertain children). You did not try to understand them (ditto children). You took care of them, maybe showed them some affection, and that's about it. That seemed to be the working paradigm. 

My relationship to my dogs this winter followed a different path. I thought it may have been because I moved and for the first time in a long time I was living alone, but now I think that had little to do with it. Somewhere over the last decade or two or maybe three, our eyes were opened to the fact that these living canines are not just pets for our amusement. For me, they formed the core of my everyday, and this continues now with Millie as I work hard to understand her gestures, her moments of complete mischief, her attitude toward food, toys, people, me. 

One of the essayists wrote that over time, he came to even know what a particular movement of his dog's tail signified. Millie's tail is conspicuously long and yes, I'm beginning to recognize the variations! And of course, some of her behavior is easy to interpret. Her boisterous morning song. Or, try saying "let's go for a car ride" and watch her fly under the couch. Her tail is still wagging a bit, so maybe she's not totally scared, but I cannot coax her out. She wants to be dragged out and carried.

Do I notice such details in my grandkids? Of course I do! But that is a given! No one would be surprised, no eyes would be rolled. But devoting my free hours (and not so free hours) to learning about Millie -- that's new for me. When I decided to get a dog, I did not think about how important these guys would be to me. How much emotion would go into the whole deal. How brutal the loss is. How radiantly beautiful the bond.

with so much love...