Blood runs like sweat down the white beadboard of the kitchen cabinets. Our beagle is restless, sniffing the air. His nose leads him around the kitchen, a toy duck pulled by the string. Don butchered while I was out. Butchered in the kitchen. The kitchen. I was aware, before I headed out tonight,…
Teresa Bloomingdale’s I Should Have Seen It Coming When The Rabbit Died opens with that very line. In Stephen King’s Pet Semetary, Jud says, “Sometimes dead is better.” Well, I should have seen it coming when the cat died. And though it pains me to disagree with Mr. King, dead wasn’t better this…
As it turns out, watching Lake Placid two days before you leave for a lakeside vacation in Maine is a really terrible idea. I always think I will be able to keep the zebras under control. And I am always wrong. And I know I shouldn’t do such things, but when Don is on overnight call and…
There’s always about 10% of me that believes our family hikes at The Cabin are just a pretext. As we drive through rural roads, further and further from civilization, I am always mindful of every Lifetime movie ever made. The husband, tired of marriage, takes his wife to a remote locale to hasten that whole…
I stared as the goldfish swam weakly around the toilet bowl. Suddenly Don’s words, once dismissed, now surged back into my head. I was brought to the toilet bowl that fateful night because of our son. Our son, who had been on an epic run of goldfish deaths. No matter what I did, every…
Don has introduced me to an Instagram account that’s just compelling. And terrifying. He hesitated to show me, sure, but I pressured him and now I can never go back. It’s called Nature Is Metal. And it is just what it sounds like. Take a peek. I’ll wait. Didn’t I tell you? …
I’d like to take you back. Back to the roughly four days of warmth and sunshine between Willie’s illness and Indy’s Parkinson’s. They were gone in a blink, those days. It took me a year and a half to bring Willie out of illness. Almost as soon as it was over, I started another year and a half journey bringing Indy into illness….
I think Willie is pranking me. Indy and I have a standing date. Every Tuesday morning, I roll into the apartment he and Willie share. I set up the dining room table for Indy. I log into the telehealth appointment. Because every Tuesday, Indy and I do speech therapy. It’s early when…
I promise you this is not becoming a blog about my mom’s illness. But if you read with any regularity, you know my family gives me so much material. And if we’re being honest, my mom is responsible for half of that. Simply put, there is no blog without my mom’s antics. Case…
I don’t know what I’m going to do when Indy has completed his round of speech therapy. Those appointments just give me so much material. He has two more weeks of telehealth visits. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts, right guys? We settled into our appointment this week, Willie running the…