what we learn from our dogs

Of all the small changes I've made in 2008, one of the coolest has been to start a weekly writing date with an old college friend turned writing partner, Mayumi. We meet for about 6 hours, once a week, alternating houses, and feed each other lunches and gossip about our work and life and in between all that, amazingly, we probably get a good solid 4 hours of writing (on our own projects) done every week. To quantify that, on days by myself, in a 4 hour period, I'll output about a thousand words. On days with Mayumi, I can surpass two thousand. Which means in our time together, I've actually started and completed two short stories, am working on a third, and have made room in my brain for two new ideas, both of which I'm excited to crack open.

Pretty good for a small change, right?

Nearly as exciting as the writing has been this:

Well, we go there once a week (Nano in tow - someone get me a laptop backpack already, the ten pounds of computer and the ten pounds of dog on the subway gets heavy!) and she comes here once a week and well, it was bound to happen. Mayumi (and her husband) fell in love with Nano.

And then raced out and got one of their own. And aside from really and truly feeling like a fairy dogmother for being the spark of an idea between May, Dave and little Nahe (you should have heard me shriek when the ASPCA woman called to ask for their references), I'm also delighted to see someone else's life being transformed by the power of canine.

This is all just a way to point you towards May's latest post on the subject, which made me all nostalgic for those first glorious, tumultuous weeks that this shy little dude tiptoed into our home and proceeded to upend our lives and make them infinitely better. And I showed you some cute pictures along the way.

no like ike!

At about six tonight I decided to call my Grandma Pauline in Katy, just to say hi and that I loved her and that I hoped the hatches stay well battened down. Hello, newcomers, did you know I love Houston and about a third of my most dearly beloveds still live there? It's true; catch up, will you.

Anyway, I called the number I had in my cell phone, and it went to voice mail and a woman spoke, saying, "hi, you've reached Dee," etc etc. And I thought, well, she doesn't sound much like Grandma, well, a little right THERE, and sometimes my Grandma goes by DeeDee so I thought why not, and left a message saying I loved her and hoped they were all safe and sound. (They being my extended fake Texan family of Grandma and her four grown sons and passel of grand- and greatgrand-children.)

About twenty minutes later my phone rang and I saw a (281) number so I answered and said hello, and this nice woman named Dee said hello, and had I called for my grandma? I said yes and she explained that she was pretty sure she didn't have a granddaughter named Christina so had I gotten the wrong number?

She also went on to ask where my grandma lives and oh, she's in Katy? Well, this Dee is in Katy too, and she thinks they'll be fine and won't have much damage if any. She told me her husband was in Iraq and worrying about her, and she assured me that my grandma would be fine. She also said she'd go ahead and pray for her anyway, and I thanked her before my Yankee voice got too choked up to do so.

And that's pretty much why I miss Texas sometimes. And also why I'm obsessively refreshing the Chron's science blog for news from my new favorite blogger, Eric Berger.

And crossing my fingers and yeah, praying, for everyone I love in Houston to make it through the night with unbroken windows and unflooded homes.

story people

I think I might be a little late to this party but I've just discovered Brian Andreas and Story People and I've fallen completely in love. Particularly with this one...

text: "I remember once I went to my great-grandmother's house. It was a big white house & it always smelled like slightly burned toast & raspberry jam. She had a picture of Jesus on the wall in her living room. She told me his eyes would follow you around when you walked. I told a friend about it a while ago. He nodded & said he used to have a Chihuahua that did the same thing."

...For obvious reasons.

wordsmithy

A few weeks ago, the inimitable Holly Burns wrote a post about favorite words and phrases which has been rolling around in my brain pan ever since. And then, a few days ago, I noticed my word list at the back of my trusty little notebook and decided to share it with you, because these little beauties are too wonderful to stay locked up in a notebook. Here are a few of the best:

coterie
hirsute
apotheosis
disconsolate (bonus: SO much better than "inconsolable"!)
cortege
meretricious
draconian
cupidity
desultory
labyrinthine
ersatz
insouciance

and, a small trilogy of words that make me think I should be a theologian just to get to say them all the time:
exegesis
apocryphal
canonical

But then I was thinking about taking it a step further to favorite phrases, which gets distinctly more difficult for me. I have favorite expressions, but mostly I love them for what they mean, not what they sound like. For instance, I wish my life included more opportunities to say "rode hard and put up wet", because it's just so delicious; before you get filthy, it refers to horses, and best said in a Southern accent. I also love the descriptions "trussed up" and "a constellation of freckles". They're both very visually pleasing.

But a phrase beloved just for the way it sounds? I got to thinking and so far have come up with "voir dire" and "sexual congress", and also, "de jure" and "habeus corpus". And of course, those of you who know me well know my almost inappropriate affection for the name Slobodan Milosevic. Go ahead. Say it. Let it catapult off your tongue like a rollercoaster. Forget, you know, that it belonged to a genocidal tyrant. Slobodan Milosevic! It's just fun to say.

So I guess if I have a favorite phrase, it's the name of a genocidal tyrant. What are your favorite words or phrases, and why?

wherein i turn twenty eight and fail to document almost any of it

Hello! Guess what. I am twenty eight now! I know. Some things we did this weekend to celebrate include decorating our apartment in beautiful pink and red floofs and carnations, throwing a marvelous party for about thirty people, eating a delicious ice cream cake (I blew out most of the candles in one go!), drinking rather a lot of champagne, having delicious brunch and wandering around the village in the sunshine, seeing a movie in the afternoon, and eating Indian food.

Of course, I didn't document essentially any of this because apparently I forgot that I always take pictures of everything. I KNOW! I'm just as dissapointed as you are - you'll just have to trust me, it was fabulous. I did manage to take exactly one picture of my lovely party dress that I adore (okay, you can only see the neckline - just imagine that the rest flairs and flatters and is generally lovely), and one picture of our pink and red decorated living room (plus bonus dogs). Honestly! Someone's going to take away my Flickr pro membership at this rate.

Nonetheless, even without photographic evidence, 28 has been awesome. I'm thinking it's going to be a good year. Maybe it could see about scrounging up more of that ice cream cake.

friday night hilarity

Stuart had a face perfect for licking this evening. And as Nano amply demonstrated, little dogs never say die. Allow him to show you.

Climb on his shoulder:

Have a seat:

VICTORY:

last night's loudest truth

I was pretty damned impressed with Senator Obama's speech last night. I will say that I noticed a smoothing, a streamlining, of his fierce and powerful voice and rhetoric, until we came to 35 minutes into the speech, and Obama said this:

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America – they have served the United States of America.


So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

That moved me; the truth of it was strong in his voice and his delivery. I hope, more importantly, it moved people who weren't already Democrats to their core.

election fever

I have to say, although I voted with clear eyes and a full heart (who's in FNL withdrawal?) for Senator HRC and I truly stand by my vote, I'm really starting to feel the excitement coming from Denver and the DNC. I'm looking forward to being totally floored by the Junior Senator from Illinois - I've heard he's got a knack for this whole speechifyin' thing.

millard says relax

We're back from England, spoiled for R&R and weary with jetlag, ruthlessly dunked back into our work routines (not sure what Millard does for a living but I'm guessing something in venture capitalism), and wishing we had another two weeks of vacation.

Actually, if we can bring Nano this time, go ahead and make it a month.