Just sitting here watching TV and I saw a commercial for this:




Blonde coffee? Isn't that called tea? I mean, not that I've been amongst the coffee drinkers of the world for an incredibly long while now. But in my short time as a partaker I've found that if it ain't dark and strong, it ain't worth drinking. Maybe that's just me, though. Starbucks better hope so.

Whilst driving home from work on Wednesday, the morning show I listen to was talking about pets and how long people wait to get a new one (dog, cat, duck, etc...) after theirs passes away.

The consensus of the callers and the on air personalities was that it's a very subjective thing. But, for the most part, people seemed to err on the side of waiting longer. Some even had (what I would consider to be) crazy stories like waiting 9 YEARS after their old dog had died to get a new puppy - and their mom still being upset that they were trying to "replace" the old dog.

Shortly after we got Jessie was when this topic first came up between Melissa and I. I don't know exactly how or why, but it did.

I told her how, in my family, we always seemed to get a dog very quickly after ours passed away. The one instance that most stands out in my mind was in 1990 when our dog Rusty (who was born almost exactly one year before my brother, in 1974) died one morning, after several months of slow decline. That afternoon my dad picked my brother & I up from school and we went out to get a new puppy. This process also happened several times with the "guard dogs" from the shop - who never seemed to live quite as long as the house dogs. (Go figure, a steady diet of motor oil and antifreeze does not lead to long life.)

Instead of finding it weird that we should get a new dog so soon after an older one passed away - I found it more odd when susequent dogs passed and we DIDN'T get a puppy right away. Most notable example of this was when our dog Mindy passed away. Porkchop had long since decided to move into the house, so my mom was happy with just having two dogs instead of three shedding all over the place.

Melissa's view of this situation was more in line with the callers from the radio show, however. She loves Jessie so much that she couldn't imagine ever "replacing her" and felt as though she would need several weeks or months to mourn her loss when that day comes.

So we agreed to disagree.

Recently, however, our friend Marti's cat, Mortimer, passed away and Melissa got to rethink things with a different point of view. She heard Marti describing how it was so weird to come home from work now and have the house empty without Mortimer waiting for her. It was this thought that finally helped Melissa understand me on the matter.

With a dog who is as personable and ever present as Jessie, our house will feel oh so empty when she leaves us. We will be very sad for a long time, without a doubt. And I would also probably add that I don't think we will ever find another dog quite like Jessie. (For better and for worse!) But when that sad day comes, I am very sure that our house will not be dog-less for long. Not because we'll be able to replace her. But because a new puppy and all the work they bring are just the right medicine for taking the sting off of the emptiness in the house while still leaving room for all the good memories of friends gone away.

A brief add on to the post I made several weeks ago about "specialty channels" not showing what they're supposed to be "special" for:

Tonight.

NBCSports (formerly VS., formely OLN).

Hockey game?

No.

Point Break.

Really.

Fail.

(Tagging along with someone else's thought today. A brief picture of how I felt that day.)

We were at Brandywine Creek State Park, playing disc golf as usual.

We'd just finished the 16th hole and were settling in to drive on 17 when my phone rang.

"There was an accident. It's pretty bad."

I have no words.

My mind races, because I'm a doer. But I'm so far away. And I can't do anything anyway.

"Thanks for telling me...." (I guess.)

Clouds covered over the sun - the symbolism wasn't lost on me.

"Jesus... just save her. Restore her. Please."

I'm jarred from my numbness by my idiot friends laughing.

Someone put a caterpillar on my shirt while I was tiptoeing inches away from a breakdown.

I want to yell. I want to cry. I want to punch someone. I want to walk away.

"Real cute, jerk."

But I don't. I throw a frisbee at a little metal basket.

And the world keeps on turning. And the day keeps on going.

Oh, and He did. He did save her.

She's not completely restored yet, but she's here.

And once again I don't have the words for how this makes me feel.

X

Melissa and I went to dinner and a movie (not necessarily in that order) this afternoon for a pre-Valentines day date, since I'm working on the actual day tomorrow. We ended up seeing this movie:



I was not unfamiliar with the story, having previously read the book shortly after it came out.



I'd like to say that I picked the book because I'm deeply in tune with the literary pipeline, but really it was because Amazon recommended it for fans of JD Salinger. And, truly, it did appeal to me in the same way that Catcher in the Rye did. But somehow this book connected on such a deeper level. Probably because it was based on something that I lived through - even if indirectly, in the grand scheme of things.

Which brings me to the main topic I want to write about today.

There's been lots of people voicing opinions about how the book and/or the movie are in poor taste or somehow are profiteering off of the tragedy of 9/11. For once, I'm on the non cynical side of the argument, though. I think these kinds of stories are important. I mean, that's kind of the whole point of this book, when you get right down to it. Those who lost loved ones on September 11th (or any other day, really) won't ever wake up one morning and suddenly realize they're over it. But through telling their story - just like Oscar does in this particular tale - they slowly figure out how to heal from their wounds enough to go on living and making new stories.

There are so many stories that were born on that fateful morning 10+ years ago. If the way that some choose to express their feelings from that day is in fictional tales of people who found a way to go on living on September 12th, then I see no harm or exploitation in that.

This story is difficult. This story is raw. This story is graphic. But this story is hopeful. And this story is respectful. And this story celebrates life.

May all of our worst days be turned into something so beautiful in the days that follow them.

Did you know that my dog Jessie loves Jesus? Or, at the very least, she works for Him.

You see, shortly after we became aware of the fact that our three bedroom house would mainly be functioning as a one bedroom house, I converted one of the spare rooms in a reading room. This seemed to make sense as we had some extra furniture (including a comfy chair and a half that simply wasn't getting nearly enough play in the basement), a bunch of books and an empty room with a lovely paint job and new carpet.

Over the next few months, I also attempted to make it a habit to do some devotional reading in the morning. My standard routine became waking up sometime between 10-11am (isn't night work grand?), eating some breakfast while checking my various social medias and then heading back upstairs to do the aforementioned reading for a half hour or so.

As she is often wont to do, Jessie followed closely behind at each station of this morning ritual - ending up by sitting beside me on the chair and a half with her face either on my lap or wedged in my armpit. I think this was both because she loves being near me and also because the reading room has an eastward facing window that allows a wonderful sunbeam at that point in the day.

So anyway, this routine is pretty well cemented at this point in time. Except for the occassional day when some other project side tracks me and I get caught up with something else. These are the times when it becomes evident that Jessie works for Jesus. Because as I walk into the living room with a completely other agenda in mind, she walks to the landing at the bottom of the stairs, steps up with her front paws and then gives me a look that just seems to say, "Aren't you forgetting something here?" At that point I will almost always concede that, yes, I am forgetting something and we'll go upstairs to spend a few moments basking in the sun and doing some reading that will doubtlessly be more meaningful to my life than whatever random project I'd been ready to embark on before my furry conscience stepped in.

Now, I suppose if you are not a dog person - or maybe even if you are - you're probably thinking, "Well duh. Dogs are creatures of habit. If your routine were to go outside and throw baby birds into the creek she would probably expect to do that every morning as well." And I guess I couldn't necessarily argue with you on that point. Luckily, though, I don't need to debate this one. Because I just know that Jessie loves Jesus and that's all there is to it.

Learning new songs is a chore for me. Well, actually, let me clarify - learning songs is fun. Learning to play them properly (ie: as they go on their record of origin) is a chore. And, oddly, no matter how hard I try to learn them "right" - I invariably end up changing something that makes it just a little off.

This would normally not be a problem, except that these songs are worship songs that I'm supposed to be leading other people in. If I were the only person leading the song and the original recording didn't get listened to by people on their iPods, I guess it wouldn't be an issue. But.... I'm not.... and it does. Womp womp.

So, I'm left with two alternatives. Struggle on and try to improve the idiosyncracies or cowboy up and write my own songs so people can't tell me "how it's supposed to go." Right now, we're going with the former. Hopefully sometime soon it'll be the latter. Stay tuned?

So, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning. Which supposedly means that we'll have six more weeks of winter. If you add it all up, though, have we even had six weeks of "winter" to begin with this year? Ah well, let's eat some groundhog and celebrate anyway!