So I went on the treadmill today, because I didn’t have sunscreen and therefore couldn’t go on the track. I’m doing the Ease into 10K program, which is like the 10k version of the Couch to 5k. And today, for the first time in a long time, I really felt like I was okay. My breathing was in control, my legs felt fine, and while I wasn’t on pace to set any landspeed records, I was holding steady at 5 mph, a nice jog. I got nice and sweaty, logged almost 3.5 miles, and got to watch an episode of House Hunters. Really not a bad way to spend one’s lunch break.
Hot. Literally.
I’ve signed up for the zombie 5k and the Great Race 10k, both in September. And I’d honestly been getting pretty nervous about them, even though they’re still months away. But I think I’ll actually be able to do them. My body is feeling stronger and more capable and like it’s getting back to where it was before my neck had that big failure. If nothing else, the neck injury has really taught me not to take my health for granted.
Anyway, everything else is good. We’ve been enriching the baby’s life through the classic works of American cinema.
We also took him to see Cabin in the Woods the other night, which is hilarious because I had just seen several indignant tweets from parents about people bringing their 9 and 10-year-olds to that very movie and what terrible people they were for doing that. So, hi! Worst parents ever! Right here! We’re a family of horror movie buffs, what can I say? And no, he did not have nightmares, and he’s only eaten three puppies, which is a significant drop.
Speaking of the baby, his baseball season started on Saturday. They had their annual parade at 10, then their first game at 2:15. It’s worth noting that it was 40 degrees and rainy all day Saturday, so that was pretty miserable, though cute.
I was too cold to even make sure I could see my kid in the picture I was taking but I'm pretty sure he's there.
Also on Saturday, we went to Art All Night with the sister-in-law and her friend who were in town from D.C. because they had submitted works. It was also too cold for this and I sped through the entire thing like, “Yeah, great. Art. Whatever. Can we go somewhere warm now?” So we went to Primanti’s and it was amazing.
Last Thursday was the Big Freedia show. I had not adequately prepared myself for all of azz that I ended up seeing. Be sure to watch the dancer on the right.
I mean, I expected it from the dancers, but watching a bunch of Pittsburgh girls grind on the stage was a little weird. Very fun, though. I’m glad we went.
I should have clarified in my last post that while my announcement of our upcoming trip to New York City was not an invitation to rob our house, it WAS an invitation to break in and clean the place, do the laundry, and remodel the kitchen. Or, at the very least, take our garbage and recycling to the curb because we forgot to ask my mother-in-law to do it and now, well, we are overflowing with blue bags and good intentions. I hate when you guys don’t read into what I write here.
So, yes. New York. Just like I pictured it. Skyscrapers and everything. This was my third time there and this was definitely my best visit. The reasons for this are threefold:
One: we had excellent hosts with good insight into interesting places to go. The first time I went there, we stayed with some very nice and gracious friends who were there for only a year and who had not ventured very far from their Manhattan apartment building. As such, when we asked them to give us some ideas for places to go, we ended up at The Hard Rock Cafe (museum that only sorta serves frozen food), Planet Hollywood (I don’t remember anything about this except for some facsimile of Sylvester Stallone hanging from the ceiling, watching me eat), and Fashion Cafe (filthy and really who goes to a restaurant owned by anorexic supermodels and expects a decent meal?).
Two: the weather was excellent. The first time I went was at the end of October/beginning of November and it was already freezing, a point that was driven home by the naked, shivering woman who had wrapped herself in a trash bag in Times Square. The second time was during BlogHer in August, at which point the city had become a festering asshole of humidity and garbage juice.
Three: I had nothing to do but be in the city. BlogHer ate up almost all of my time last time, leaving me with only one day to explore, which I spent at MoMA. That was great, don’t get me wrong, but this meant that I really hadn’t had a chance to experience the city as an adult.
Naturally, our trip was rather food-centric. Saturday, we spent most of the day in Flushing, which has to have some of the weirdest, hard-to-find delicious nosh on the planet. We first went to the Flushing Mall, which is a mall, but slightly off somehow.
This statue had a really weird effect on me. The optical trick was enough to make me want to cry. So weird.
We didn’t go there to shop, however. We were there to go to the noodle shop in the food court. It’s one of those places where the noodles are handmade and stretched, you know?
I don’t have any pictures of the actual noodles because once they arrived I couldn’t stop eating them. Also, looking through these pictures, I realized that my son now makes some version of this face in every picture. It’s charming.
Apparently the noodles or the grease from them had an adverse effect on a few members of our party, but I was fine and ready to move on to the next carb stop: the Ganesh Temple Canteen. I had heard about this place on an episode of Anthony Bourdain, which I think is uncool to admit? Whatever, dude and/or his staff can sniff out some good stuff. The temple itself was really cool because you’re just walking along a residential area when suddenly:
Quoi?
The canteen provided us with some of the best dosas and vadas that we’d ever had while we enjoyed a Hindu religious movie depicting some ancient epic battle.
Huge dosa commands your respect
The baby wanted to visit the actual temple, but I declined since I had no clue as to what the etiquette for something like that is. We did check out the entrance, which was beautiful, but then the husband panicked because we had shoes on and we weren’t sure if that was offensive and we rushed out of there so that we could be clueless white people in the safety of the bodega next door.
Frank, one of our hosts, then led us into another part of Flushing and scurried down the stairs of a non-descript storefront. At the bottom of those stairs was another “mall,” where mall is defined as “a haphazard collection of eateries and businesses arranged in an underground location that may have been burrowed out by those infamous New York City rats.” It was, uh, weird. And there wasn’t a drop of English to be found there, which really makes me want to take a gaggle of those, “Why do I gotta press 1 for English this is ‘Murrica!” toads there and watch their heads explode. But it contained an eatery that had done some really interesting things with duck heads and whipped up some of the tastiest dumplings I’ve ever put in my face.
We headed into Manhattan so that we could get some quality Central Park time in. The husband, baby, and Frank threw the frisbee around while I stripped my shoes and socks off and laid in the grass.
After a few minutes, I heard a loud THUNK. What was that noise? I wondered for a second before the pain set in and I realized that the noise was the sound of the frisbee hitting me in the head. The baby swore it was an accident, but I made sure to keep an eye on him the rest of the time. Matricide is no joke.
He ended up playing soccer with a bunch of kids which was one of those parenting moments that makes you really, really happy for no specific reason. “He’s playing soccer! In Central Park! With some kids he just met! That’s so awesome! Buildings! Grass! Yay!”
That night, Andrea made us Pioneer Woman lasagna (more noodles!). After the baby had been put to bed (er, put to couch as the case may be) under Andrea’s ad hoc babysitting services, we headed to Williamsburg to see some friends of ours, Beautiful Swimmers, play at a party in a warehouse. And it was all:
I know Williamsburg is supposed to be this hipster hell hole, and maybe it was the particular crowd we were amongst, but it didn’t really seem that bad. No worse than an average night out in Pittsburgh for us. I did take note of the apparent revival of the tiny backpack trend of the mid 90s, which is just so so dumb.
Sunday we got a late start and headed out to a record store in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn then took a long walk (stopped at a candy store, natch) to our dinner destination, Lucali in the Carroll Gardens section. We had over an hour wait for our table, during which three fire trucks responded to an apartment that turned out not to be on fire. The sister-in-law, Frank, and I walked to a nearby wine store and when we came back, that same apartment was getting a grocery delivery, so I guess all was well?
Our pizza was so, SO good. And our bill, $100ish for 5 people, was our most expensive all weekend, which isn’t bad at all. The baby had stated his desire to try cheesecake, so we decided to make the trek to Junior’s. This kicked off the low point of the weekend. The baby informed us that his seasonal allergy/lung funkiness was kicking his ass. The sister-in-law offered to let him piggy back most of the way there. She gave me her sweater to carry, which I dropped at some point. She and the husband hated me for this and I hated them for whatever so I went into the restaurant and tried to buy cheesecake. The cashier gave me some kind of lecture on saving money and long story short, I bought a whole cheesecake. Hilariously, the baby tried a bite and decided that he definitely does not like cheesecake. WHATEVER DUDE. We were obviously all way too tired, which the cab driver who had the misfortune of taking us back to Woodside had to discover. In other words, he got screamed at because nobody was escaping that evening without getting berated. On the upside, the cheesecake provided me with breakfast the next two days.
Monday, we went to Chinatown for dim sum and bubble tea where we got to see a vendor scream at some obnoxious girls. We then headed to MoMA because I wanted to see the Cindy Sherman retrospective and the husband and the baby needed to be there for the Kraftwerk show later that evening. Cindy Sherman was amazing and we took a quick peek at Starry Night and stuff.
At some point, the husband started running toward some guy and it took me a minute to understand that he had spotted Ralf Hutter, aka the Main Dude from Kraftwerk. He and the baby introduced themselves and I tried to take a non-obnoxious picture of the encounter.
That's Ralf on the right, looking a little scared.
For dinner, we went to the burger place that is hidden in the lobby of the Parker Meridien and then went to Momofuku Milk Bar to get some tasty things, like pretzel milk milkshakes, compost cookies, and crack pie. The husband, baby, and Frank headed back to MoMA for the show and the sister-in-law, Andrea, and I went to the restaurant in Momofuku, Ma Peche, to get drinks.
Tuesday we got another late start and didn’t get to pack in any last minute things before having to go to the bus stop, but I left feeling like I had really been there. There’s a lot that I don’t like about that city. It freaks me out to be confronted with how many resources it takes to run a city and I don’t know what drugs the mosquitoes take up there but I got a bite on my leg that is just ridiculous. But it was cool to be just one person amongst millions for a few days and to have the “problem” of too many wonderful things to do and see and not nearly enough time to do a tiny fraction of them. I got the sense a few times that New York is wasted on New Yorkers, who spend too much time immersed in it to realize all that they have (not that it’s awesome for everyone). But I felt welcomed and a part of it, the noise and the heat and the pulse. It really is one of the best places in the world.
So, hey. It’s been a minute? No big, I just became a little overwhelmed with work stuff and needed to simplify life where I could. This meant more or less taking a hiatus from the internet, minus my usual spewing of brilliant nuggets onto Twitter when the spirit moved me.
Physically, I’m doing okay. My insurance had had enough of me going to that physical therapy snakeoil treatment, so I’m basically trying to make sure that my neck doesn’t get any worse the next few months and hopefully will continue healing. It seems to be doing okay and I mostly only notice any discomfort or pain if I sit for too long or if I get too ambitious during yoga and try to do like plow pose or something.
Neck says, "No."
What’s kind of really upsetting is that the combination of my neck injury, the required period of inactivity, Christmas, and the god-I’m-depressed-about-this-let-me-eat-this-stick-of-butter methods of dealing mean that I have more or less gained back all of the weight that I lost after working so hard at getting healthy and active. I’m bummed and trying to do what I can about it, but I easily get stuck in the, “I’ve ruined all of my hard work and now I shall be overweight forever,” rut of self-loathing. Also, last night I made the extremely poor decision to watch the first episode of the first season of The Biggest Loser (I know, I know) and one of the contestants was my size exactly. That was upsetting.
ANYWAY disordered thinking aside, things are okay. The husband and the kid and I are trekking to New York this weekend (no, that is not an invitation to rob my house). They’re going to go see Kraftwerk while the sister-in-law and I will spread our distinct brand of classiness all over Queens.
Now that spring is settling in, I’m getting excited about stuff that will be happening the next few months. On the 26th, presumably still glowing (read: scrubbing the grime off) from NYC, the husband and I are going to go see Big Freedia. You might recognize her as the singer in the episode of Treme when Davis and Aunt Mini go to a bounce show. She is also the creator of this wonderfulness.
Speaking of Azz, I made the husband watch a documentary from 2000 called American Pimp that had recently popped up on Netflix. It was obvious that it had influenced parts of Idiocracy (the Upgrayedd character) and “The Playa Hater’s Ball” from Chappelle’s Show. I, of course, fell asleep midway through. This morning, I asked the husband if he had watched the rest of it and if it was any good.
“Yeah. Great soundtrack. It was just kind of way too long for what it was. They just kept explaining the same thing over and over again.” Then he sighed, “Like, ‘Yes, we get it. You can’t show the bitch no love.'”
Having finished Downton Abbey a few weeks ago and still aching for costume dramas, our heroine returned to the offices of 1960 Sterling Cooper. After Roger Sterling suffered a heart attack while in the arms of a young model, Don Draper lingered in the hospital’s hallway. He noticed a commercial for Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy on the TV in the waiting room. As it played, our heroine’s ears perked up at the mention of a familiar phrase.
At 00:28, someone asked President Eisenhower about Nixon’s contributions while he, Eisenhower, has been The Decider.
“But…I thought…there was only one Decider,” our heroine whispered to herself.
I haven’t posted much about our kitten, Florian, because a) I don’t post that much, period (I got bills to pay, son) and b) of the many things on my bucket list, “Morph into a cat blogger” is not one of them. Other peoples’ cats are, I think, even less interesting than other peoples’ kids. But if we’re going to start stacking uninteresting things against each other, the internet will fold in on itself. (Read: there’s a lot of subjective joy to be had here. Find what you like and ignore the rest.)
I have to say, though, that this kitten is remarkably goofy. I don’t know if that’s common of all kittens or if he spent his brief time in the shelter huffing glue. He sleeps on my neck. He attacks his own tail. He tries to kill his dry cat food. He randomly starts fights with Greedo, who regularly sports an expression of withered annoyance when interacting with his younger brother. He gets his nose all up in Greedo’s butt, then emerges with this disgusted snarl on his face, like he can’t believe someone’s anus can smell so bad.
Florian regularly acts like such a fool, we’ve started calling him Derp, as in:
It's another piece of inexplicable internet humor. Don't ask me to explain why it's funny. It just is.
He’s just not clear on what his killer instincts are telling him to do, which results in the tail-chasing and the dry-cat-food-killing. He’s also not sure what the hell to do about sunlight. It creeps into the house at weird angles through the windows and then it just SITS there, which just bugs him out. He reminds me so much of Simple Dog from Hyperbole and a Half.
Recently, he noticed that there are little motes of dust that float in through the beams of sunlight and this has pissed him off greatly. His quest to KILL ALL THE DUST has had some unfortunate results, like this morning when he attempted to jump on top of our dresser, only to not quite make it high enough. He bounced off of the dresser, which sent him backwards. He grabbed a few of my necklaces and earrings to keep him company on the way down.
This is him this morning, sizing up the sun and the dust before retreating, at which point his tail scares the shit out of him. The glance at my slovenly bedroom is a bonus.
In the grand scheme of things, I think it’s safe to say that not many people know about Kraftwerk. Folks who are considered nerds about music history know that they were fairly popular in their own right as pioneers in the field of electronic music in the early 1970s and know that they then went on to heavily influence early hip-hop, electro, new wave, and dance music. But ask your average music fan who they are and you’ll probably get a blank stare. I don’t say this to sound elitist. I mean, really, they’re an odd bunch of guys from Dusseldorf who are enthusiastic about technology and bicycles. In a parallel universe, perhaps they’re megastars.
I didn’t really start listening to them until college, when I had been enmeshed in the dance music scene in Pittsburgh for a few years and started to research the music, as I tend to do with everything. I found that listening to Trans-Europe Express while doing my homework seemed to help me to concentrate. When the baby came along, the husband began testing his nascent theory that Kraftwerk’s music tapped into some primal area of kids’ brains by playing The Mix for him. Consequently, the baby was a huge fan from an early age, loving the crisp beats and rhythms, weird sounds, and whole songs devoted to such wonderful things as robots and calculators.
And then we named our kitten after Florian Schneider, one of the original members. In case you needed a reminder, our other cat is named Greedo, after the Star Wars character. Yes, we are nerds. No, we are not ashamed.
A few weeks ago, the Museum of Modern Art announced that as part of a Kraftwerk retrospective, the band, now only containing one original member, would be performing each of their albums there over the course of about a week. When the husband told him about the shows, the baby actually teared up. (Read: Shit, now we REALLY HAVE to get tickets.) Each show would only have about 300 tickets, which would be $25 each. This was huge news, and music nerds all over the world counted down the days to February 22nd, when tickets would go on sale at noon. (Pittsburgh plug: Pittsburgh-based company ShowClix snagged the ticketing rights for the event.)
Yesterday, after a lot of fevered coordination, we had a team of people at the ready to purchase the two tickets allotted to each person. I had to be on my computer at work, which meant that I had to actively ignore anyone who stopped by to talk to me. (By the way, sorry everyone who came to my office and was greeted by my icy stare.)
Over 50,000 people tried to buy about 2,500 total tickets. I was not one of the lucky buyers. But my husband was. We decided that he and the baby would attend the Monday night performance of The Mix. I was bummed that I wouldn’t be attending, but the baby getting to go was the most important thing. Besides, we decided that we would all go up and have a long weekend in New York City. Nothing wrong with that, right?
The best part was telling the baby the news. Prepare to have your day made:
I spent a good portion of the day yesterday sneezing, but was certain that I was in the early stages of seasonal allergies. “Woohoo! Spring!” I thought initially. Around mid-morning, my left nostril shut down while the right one went into overdrive to ensure that I had a steady stream of clear, watery snot. At that point, the first seed of doubt began to sprout in my brain, but I pushed it away.
“I’m cool. I just have allergies. I’m fine. I’m not getting a cold. I just have to stand in the middle of my office and forget what I was going to do while letting a Kleenex hang out of my nose. It’s my process.”
After dinner, I could feel my head start to feel like dough and finally admitted defeat. “I have a cold. Dammit,” I said. Only it sounded more like, “I hab a code. Dammid.” I was also coming to terms with the fact that I definitely had a stye in my right eyelid. I stood in the middle of my bedroom half-naked, having deliriously removed my pants at some point, and declared, “This sucks.” The combination of ailments made me feel as sexy as when I initially hurt my neck and had to adopt my Nosferatu posture.
Today there were no neighborhood watch emergencies. Instead she asked me if I had a fresh Kleenex, or “Kleeneksh,” as she calls them. Thoroughly out of it and breathing out of my mouth, I started to hand her the Kleenex that I had in my hand. “Well, I have this one, but I’ve been using it and so it has a little snot on it,” I said. She looked at the Kleenex, looked at me and, I swear to dog, backed away slowly.
“Sho, that’sh a no,” she said, reaching my conclusion for me since I was obviously in no shape for rational thought.
“Um, yeah, I guess so,” I replied.
“Becaushe we don’t want to shpread germsh around!” she called out over her shoulder, before wiping her nose on her sleeve.
My nose may be leaking and my eye may be swollen, but I can out-crazy the crazy lady when I really put my mind to it.
Frank and I communicate via text message almost everyday. We rarely, if ever, discuss anything important or substantial. It’s kind of like our iPhones are a perpetual 9th grade classroom and our iMessages are the notes that we pass back and forth. Occasionally, they give me a glimpse of how goofy we are.
"Watch" should be "watching." Stupid fat fingers.
I think it’s worth noting that this conversation took place on Valentine’s Day, which means that the husband and I were partaking in a very romantic viewing of that Michael J. Fox classic. It’s been on cable a lot recently and for some reason, I can’t not watch it. The husband and I discussed how popular it was when it came out, which is weird considering how little sense a lot of it makes in retrospect. I’ve also decided that there are far too few characters named “Boof” in popular culture. Also also wik, how awesome is the Beavers’ coach? (Be sure to note the fan with his junk hanging out at the end.)
I’m ripping that post title off of JiveTurkey because this is really just a list of stuff I want more of and stuff I’m sick of. Let’s start with the negativity because that’s my favorite part.
I have had enough of:
Statements about Whitney Houston and addiction. I know her death was untimely. I know addiction is serious. I’m just so, “Oh…bummer,” about her death. People lead messed up lives, they’re taken advantage of, and then they die in the tub. Alone. Just like all the rest of us.
Chris Brown and the cloud of bullshit that comes with him. I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to talented people who are also piece-of-shit human beings. I do know that responding to the women who tweeted appalling requests after his Grammy appearance with, “They get what’s coming to them,” or “Someone should beat them so they know better,” is pretty vile.
“Kids these days” whining. They wear their pants too low. They listen to terrible music. They don’t know who Paul McCartney is. Yeah, you know what that makes you? A cranky old person set in their ways and the reason why no substantive changes ever happen. Shut up.
Valentine’s Day hype. “Wah, I’m single and this day is so hard for me,” or “Please validate my relationship by gushing over the gifts that my significant other gave to me.” It’s just a day. Do it or don’t.
Communities on the internet and, obviously, the internet in general. I think at some point I may have been concerned about the dynamics of any given group of people on the internet, but that’s not the case anymore. It’s just one facet of life. If people are being jerks to you, disengage.
This dress is a little too small on me at the moment. I’m wearing it today and the buttons are working kind of hard. I’m really ready to get back to a normal level of activity. Speaking of which…
Cheers:
My neck is definitely getting better. This morning I was able to put my left ear close(r) to my shoulder, which I wasn’t able to do even yesterday! (Note: I started writing this post yesterday, so that fact might be relevant when considering the jeers section.) And I thinkthe numbness in my fingers is pretty much gone. I definitely still have issues with stiffness and tightness and pain, but measurable signs of recovery are so exciting. Check out this exciting physical therapy action shot!
No, that's not a booger. That's my nosering.
The husband and the baby. I really do just love the crap out of both of those guys. Despite my aforementioned annoyed indifference toward Valentine’s Day, we had a sweet time last night getting ready for the baby’s festivities at school. He signed his Valentines while I worked my crafty magic into a Valentines box in a swirl of Spongebob wrapping paper, box cutters, pipe cleaner, and ribbon.
Hold on a sec, Martha's calling me.
The husband had another Pittsburgh Track Authority performance at Belvedere’s on Saturday and it went really, really well. Again, about 300 people showed up to hear them and the headliner, Kirk DeGeorgio, and it was really cool to see so many people dancing for them. I’m so proud of him and them. I think something big might be brewing for them.
Mine's on the left. Aren't they cute? All squished together and wondering what the hell they're doing? *
Once again, I done brought the bake sale vibe to this performance and made brownies, which everyone assumed had drugs in them. (They did not.) Both were recipes from blogs that I read that I had pinned to Pinterest. They were Peanut Butter and Fleur de Sel Brownies and Mexican Hot Chocolate Brownies.
Along those lines, I’m finding that Pinterest is much more useful than I thought it would be when I first started using it. I do, however, need to start a board called, “Stuff I Tried from Pinterest that SUCKED,” because there have been a few duds.
Completely unrelated, the phrase, “Where’s Wallace?” has been a common refrain in our house and circle of friends, even though the scene from The Wire that it originated from first aired like 10 years ago.
It’s all very serious and intense, but then we got a Steeler named Mike Wallace. Whenever he does something good, the refrain, “WHERE’S WALLACE?” or “WHERE WALLACE AT?” goes flying. Imagine my glee when I came across this children’s book the other day:I have now redefined my life goals and am going to become a preschool teacher so I can read this to my young charges. What could be more adorable than a bunch of 4-year-olds saying, “STRING?!?! STRING! LOOK AT ME!?”
Today was not good for a number of reasons from the beginning. I had neglected to set my alarm. We had forgotten to put out the garbage the night before. And there was the looming knowledge that my husband’s dog, Sheba, was going to have to be put down today.
After trying to work out some details of the day’s agenda with the husband, I snipped at him a few times before heading into work fashionably late. I struggled with an ongoing project that’s been making me feel increasingly incompetent, all while trying to ignore my neck, which has decided to kick my ass the last two days.
I had just decided to lie down on the floor next to my desk to give my spine a rest when my phone rang. It was the baby’s school. He had just thrown up. I called the husband, who told me that the vet would be coming to his mom’s house to take care of things with Sheba about an hour. I told him to stay there with his mom and his dog, since they needed him there with them. I called my mom.
“The baby just threw up at school and the husband is with Sheba because they’re putting her down today and my neck is ki-hi-hi-illing me,” I said, as I began to sob. I must have been such a sight, lying on the floor of my office, crying. She kindly offered to take me to get the baby and go back to her house, which is closer than ours.
The baby seems to have been only momentarily ill, thankfully. (Right after I typed, that he threw up again, so no more diagnoses from me.) The husband called me about a half hour ago to let me know that Sheba was gone.
Sheba was 17 and in really bad shape, so there was no sense that it was too soon or unfair. My dogs that I had as a kid died very young, and that was, indeed, completely unfair. I noticed in the last year or so that I was trying to sort of compartmentalize my heart, rationalize that Sheba wasn’t really my dog so I wasn’t too sad about her impending departure. But when the call came, I cried just as hard as I feared I would, and my heart seemed just as whole and hurt as if she had been my own from the beginning.
Last night, we stopped by my mother-in-law’s house and told the baby to say his good-byes. It was as sad as you would expect and lots of tears were shed. The husband had an errand to run so the baby and I were by ourselves at home for awhile before he went to bed. He let me cuddle him on the couch, the two of us needing each other’s comfort.
“I’ll tell you one thing I know for sure about dogs,” I sighed, as my baby’s sobs settled into shaky breaths, “They break your goddamn heart every time.”
