Something About The Lining Of The Planets...Or Something Like That

Happy Saturday night. Well, I'm happy. My kids are in bed, which is a nice change as opposed to last night. We had a sleepover, so we added two more little girls to the mix last night. It was our first non-family sleepover at our house. It was fun and the girls were really awesome--for four little girls under the age of eight. They just wouldn't go to sleep. It took a very...very long time for the last little eyelid to shut. So you can imagine just how much I am enjoying the quietness of my house tonight.

I don't know what the connection is--which there probably just isn't--but I totally had a math dream last night too. Is this what sleepovers are going to bring for me--crunching numbers all flipping night? I hate being stressed in my dreams. It is a place for good things to happen. Rainbows and boys with Australian accents, kinds of things to happen. Not math. I must have anxiety over something. I don't know what it could be. Unless it's just my cycle, the moon and the lining up of the planets or the tides or...or...sleepovers.

On a completely different note--I miss my dog. My Calvin. My little buddy. It's approaching the one year mark of his passing and he is on my mind so much. I don't talk about that day much, and I don't think I will tonight either, cuz it was awful. I feel the frog forming in my throat right now as I'm typing this. But there has been constant reminders of him lately.

Yesterday my sister brought over two letters I had written her about 12 years ago. Basically my letters were all about Calvin. Which is why she gave them back to me. Funny, given how much the boy has been on my mind. See, the letters were from my pre-kid days. I was the very proud mother of a yellow-lab pup. He was my baby dog. I had a lot to say about my buddy in those letters. My poor family back home, getting all these letters from me. All the puppy talk. All the puppy pictures. Here's Calvin in his Halloween costume. Here's him opening his first Christmas present...Here's a video of Calvin saying, "Mama" (He seriously could say it--we totally should have had him on Letterman)...It's amazing my family is still talking to me.


Yesterday I caught a few minutes of some reality cop show. You know where they are videotaping from the cop car's dashboard? This particular part highlighted how this K-9 dog/partner saved the day and chased down the bad guy over a four-lane highway. After that chase, they retired the dog and honored him for being such a great "partner"--for 13 years. He was 13 when he chased down that guy. All full of guts and glory, with one blind eye. Calvin was 11. It just made me sad. It brings back a certain memory of that day, a look that Calvin gave me. It's a picture I have to squeeze my eyes shut to push away. It's too hard.


And of course I'm reading this wonderful book by David Wroblewski called, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. It's not primarily about dogs, but it has some good ones in it (which remind me of Calvin-boy). It's a book that literally gave me a smile, on page 30. I'm pretty sure it's going to make me cry too. It's a story that I know I'm going to hate have to end. I'm going to read slower toward the end to slow time down. I'm not going to want to leave. I can already tell. Kind of like the last book I read by Audrey Niffenegger called, The Time Traveler's Wife. Thanks to the recommendation of this lady--Bits and Pieces . I wanted a book that would make me cry in the bathtub, and I got it.

Wow--I went a few places tonight, didn't I? I started off happy and really, I am. But I've got this tiny bit of me that's trying to be sad. Again, I blame my cycle. The moon and the lining up of the planets. The tides. I think I'll just go ahead and blame the sleepover.