She would say,
“You may
apologize
all day,
but until
you change
your ways,
it doesn’t
mean
a thing.”
She had a way
of saying
things
that could
really sting.

Got an e-mail sent to the six survivors
of the years since grade school. He
wanted to show us his new “hacienda”
that he and his much younger, fairly
recently acquired “trophy” wife just
bought in Mexico to go with the
really big house in San Antonio.

One of the other survivors sent an e-
mail extolling the virtues of his M.D.
kids and where they all live at the
posh family compound over-looking
Puget Sound.

I thought about sending an e-mail
about how my kids are finally getting
out of jail but then I thought about my
dog’s key to survival — remaining
silent at our departure and wagging his
tail at our arrival.

And so I remained silent and then
wagged my tail in celebration of
my classmates’ survival and decided
not to send the e-mail.

I got a call from my favorite cousin the other
day. I hadn’t heard from her for, oh, say,
thirty or forty years. She actually didn’t call
me. She meant to call my sister, but mis-dialed.
I didn’t even know she had my number. She
must have gotten it from my sister who
probably told her that I would like hearing
from her. And so I was sort of excited to hear
from her but she didn’t seem pleased at all.
Well, anyway I told her that I got grandpa’s
gene for baldness. She said, “Oh that’s too
bad. I envisioned you having that wonderful
head of hair like your father,” like I was
disappointing her. And with that she abruptly
said goodbye and hung up.

I had a dog, actually a dog for
my kids but you know how it

is with little kids. I got it;
I had to take care of it and so

I tried. He was a really cute —
half dachshund, half beagle

and I never won a discussion.
For fifteen years he had a very

strong personality and I didn’t
know squat about caring for a

dog so I didn’t do a very good
job, in fact, doing a very bad

job, and I can only hope that
when I reach the pearly gates

to heaven and, as a friend once
said, the little dog will be there

to confront me, I can only hope
he is more forgiving than I was

when he was our family dog
for all those years of my

continuing shame. It’s one thing
to mistreat a human, but a dog?

For shame, for shame, for shame.

The vet said, “Amen,” when
I said it should be so for us,
describing the lab’s last day.
When each of our labs
ended their days
they were given sedatives
and a very peaceful way
out of this troubling life
and all of its strife.
We can only hope
that some day
we will be treated
as well as our dogs
and their grace-filled,
compassionate
end of life way.

An apricot? Why not?
He just read that the
fruit of doom was
not an apple but
actually an apricot.
Really? But then why not?
An apricot may be
as seductive as an
apple, at least his favorite,
an Apricot apple.
An apricot? Why not?

Our watchdog, watching out
For us every step – perfectly
Quiet paws moving our way,
Always watching when he
Thought we might stray.
He was quiet, very quiet
For a big dog, a ninety-pound
Chocolate lab. He didn’t make
A sound but his presence was
Profound. His body was
Growing with toxins, poisons,
Sepsis and cancer, but he
Never let on. He just came
Silently alongside us to guide
Us along. He died today. He
Just gave up the ghost and
Now in the silence all around
We imagine his paws pawing
The ground silently looking
For us, finding us and loving us
In ways eternally profound.

We are back from camping
and kayaking. We kayaked
on a large lake yesterday
with choppy waters, big
winds and fast boats (fun
and a challenge if occasion-
ally a bit scary) and today
we were on a little, quiet
pond with all the turtles
on the dead tree trunks
and branches and two red-
headed, sand hill cranes
hovering protectively over
a nest on a small island
on the pond — so peaceful
and meditative…choppy
waters and big boats, a
little, quiet pond, turtles
galore diving in as we pass-
ed quietly by paddles cutt-
ing through the water, dipp-
ing by the lily pads, barely
slapping the surface and
cranes straining at our
passing, near silent boats,
watching, waiting, protect-
ing.

The commentator asked why the
rhetoric has jacked up so quickly
between the president and the

leader of North Korea jacking
up the stress and anxiety of the
American people. We didn’t

know to be so jacked up because
we were camping and didn’t hear
anything about it for the time it

has been going on, but, hey, two
psychos playing “Mine is Bigger
Than Yours” grade school recess

drivel is not real big on our must
watch TV even now that we are
home and watching TV, however,

the very mention of the president’s
name is enough to jack up our anxiet-
ies like when I was a kid watching

the original, really scary Mummy
movie especially for an eight-year-
old on a dark, summer night in the

neighbor’s side yard and I screamed
bloody murder as a fire-fly flew
by my eye.

The powers that be aren’t racist,
they actually are quite inclusive,
and they won’t lie; their budget
proposals cry that they just want
all the poor to rise up and die.
Poor whites have the least hope
in their hearts, less hope than
poor Hispanics and less than
poor blacks. While the rich plan
on Machu Picchu, poor whites
particularly poor, rural whites
think a pinch or two of heroin
or a pill or two of Norco will
do, all the while federal assist-
ance programs are shrinking and
proposed cuts are rising and
the powers that be could care
less if the poor are white, black,
yellow or brown, they just want
all the poor to drown in their
pain and hopelessness and pills
and booze and suicide and vanish
from the earth so the rich can
have the whole, stinking, putrid
pie.