Author: marylowd

The seven-year-old, out of nowhere: “My world is huge.”

Me: “How big is it?”

Seven: “Bigger than this planet…”

We’ve been looking for a Sheltie puppy since my 11-year-old Sheltie, Quinn, died two months ago. The prospects… are very uncertain. However, we’ve located a 1.5-year-old Sheltie we can adopt, from a breeder who we’ve adopted an adult from before.

We get to meet him tomorrow!

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That feeling when you’re excited to meet your new dog… but also sad, because the very idea of a new dog makes you miss your old dog.

We’ve been brainstorming for how to replace trick-or-treating. So far, we’ve got:

1) Walk in a park; give each kid an M&M every time they knock on a tree & shout “trick-or-tree!”

2) Walk kids back & forth between front & back door while spouse swaps out costumes for answering

Does not fail — I start making progress on writing, and the thirteen-year-old comes downstairs all upset about mortality.

To be fair, they lost two dogs in the last two months.

To also be fair, it’s 2am, and it’s not unreasonable for me to expect to be able to do some writing. Continue reading “The Lack of Shelties”

I know that the pieces of art carrying me through the hard parts of life were made by artists who don’t know how much I’m leaning on their work.

That’s why I keep writing.

The thirteen-year-old is awake in the middle of the night during a pandemic… trying to figure out how to make a hypothetical bakery profitable, so they can spend their life making cookies.

In an attempt to help Amy (the mop dog) and Hazel (the new kitten) figure out how to play together, I tied together two cat toys, a dog toy, and a shoelace. They both love the toy, but are basically bewildered by each other. Continue reading “Dogs and Cats Playing Together… or Trying To”

People seem to finally be accepting that it’s okay to refuse friendship w/people who want to take away their rights. But I think it goes farther.

I have trouble being friends w/ people whose friends want to take away my rights. Because they’ll bargain my rights for friendship. Continue reading “The Friend of My Friend is My…”

“When I was younger, I thought shorter people died younger… I think I just really internalized that Davy was the firsAs someone who can pass for Christian, it’s my experience that a lot of Christians are really nasty to non-Christians & really nice to Christians.

If you’re Christian & nice all the time, this nastiness may be invisible to you. Continue reading “False Christian Niceness”

“When I was younger, I thought shorter people died younger… I think I just really internalized that Davy was the first of The Monkees to die.” —the thirteen-year-old