It is our 22nd summer in Memphis. It is time now, in the midst of a global pandemic, racial reckoning, and massive upheaval, to tell the story of our house. But the story of our house, our home, would be void of meaning without the story of how we got here. And so, to start, … Continue reading An ordinary marriage.
Charlie Brown, best known for his outrageous bark and signature limp, has died. He was possibly 12, though also possibly not. His early life will always be a mystery, but it likely included an unkind man who walked with a stick and who remains the prime suspect in tossing Charlie and two canine companions (who … Continue reading You were a good dog, Charlie Brown.
The original plan was to write and post and share all of this stuff last weekend, but I was busy writing Charlie Brown's obituary, trying very hard to make it funny because if any dog deserves a funny send-off, it's Charlie Brown. One day you'll get to read that obituary and decide for yourself whether … Continue reading A few things: January 2020
A neighbor stoops to pet my dog (our dog, the littlest of our three), greeting him by name. It is a cool, but not chilly, late fall afternoon, children playing in their yards, lights beginning to turn on behind windows, streets laced with dog walkers out for a pre-dinner stroll. One of the children, a … Continue reading Many happy returns.
They didn't know their names, much less how to walk on a leash. They weren't housebroken. They were heartworm positive and required treatment. You said: Put your dogs in the car, and let's go. We had driven down to a rescue group's house in rural Mississippi to check out a pair of chocolate Labs I'd … Continue reading 9
It rained on Memorial Day, so instead of playing tennis, as I'd planned, I sat on the sofa with you, watched Trading Spaces and Nigella Bites while our son crawled on the floor and played with the red, plastic fireman's hat that he got at a Memorial Day parade and the green stretchy band that … Continue reading 17
Our friends, the ones who invited us (and only us) to their elopement in Santa Fe, are here from Chicago, and we visit the roof of the Peabody Hotel, looking at the duck quarters, me in my pink-print maternity shift (my favorite) and the green Smith sunglasses that are actually yours but that you've given … Continue reading 18
We slept in the back of the truck, at a rest stop on I-70 or I-55, somewhere in Missouri, I think. (Is this safe? I asked, because I'd never slept in a truck at a rest stop before. And you laughed and said it was safer, not to mention cleaner, than any roadside dump motel. … Continue reading 20
