Favorite time of year

I think it's the colors. Maybe it's the smell. Maybe it's the rustling of leaves as you drive down country roads creating a flurry of dancing leaves in your wake. For my West Coast Seattle peeps who will miss it again this year - these are for you.

Has it been that long?

Wow, so Ilya has grown so much in the last 4 months. I had forgotten to post updates. Here are a few photos of my baby. Fiesty as ever, but more beautiful every day.

11 weeks old, showing no signs of stoppin'

she is getting so big. I swear she grows every night and in the morning when I wake up, she's bigger. From her paws, to the ratio of her ears to her face, and her legs! Her legs are getting so long. Amazing. No wonder she cries alot. She's growing!

Antilamentation

Poem: "Antilamentation" by Dorianne Laux. Reprinted with permission. from Writers Almanac, March 7, 2011

Antilamentation

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don't regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You've walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don't bother remembering
any of it. Let's stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

Introducing Ilya Malachi Schatzi

so, here is my new friend. My new Siberian Husky puppy. Everything I do now revolves around where she needs to be, what she needs, what's she's chewing, where she is - but it's been so much fun. She is happy to see me after I've been away for, oh say 15 seconds in the other room. Can't leave my side that one. I hope to post more and have many adorable photos to share. Tigger would approve.

Bulldozers On Ice

How does one get paid for blogging? I'd sure like to figure that one out.

It's 4:35am, East Coast time and I am wide awake. Why you ask? Well, while living on Main Street is oh so charming, what with all its cute pawn shop store fronts, empty buildings and Frank Sinatra playing over the speaker system, it is also a testing ground for those of us who prefer to sleep when it is dark out. In the summer months, I either wake up to find men, looking like Robert DeNiro, putting up community banners across Main Street or I wake up to the sounds of the street washer trucks. I am sure there is a more appropriate name for them, I just don't know what it is.

But in the winter, oh in the winter, (sense the excitement) I get to wake up to bangs and thugs of heavy equipment scraping and lifting and hauling snow from the sidewalks and streets below my third floor window. With reverse alarms beeping and blades screeching and that scraping, god the scraping, like 10 nails down a chalk board.

I do appreciate the effort these men (or women) put forth, for pete's sake it is only, what 9degrees out this morning. They deserve a free breakfast from John Williams Euro Deli just around the corner. Hmm.. I'm up, maybe I should go get me some grub.

And to watch them all from above, it looks like some finely tuned choreographed musical of heavy equipment - bulldozers and snowplows and dump trucks - moving in and out and backwards and forwards all with the same momentum and goal. Bulldozers on Ice I shall call this show. A 4yr old little boys (and the local rednecks) dream. The snow could be anything - sand, dirt, mud, snow - all those trucks look like one hell of a good time when they are all playing nicely together. One big happy sandbox, or in this case, snow box.

Kinda makes me want to call the DOT and ask how long it takes to get me one of them licenses so maybe next winter I will be the one out there hauling away the heavy, white stuff, waking up unexpecting tenants who think living on Main Street is such a good idea.

Sparky on Christmas

Greetings from Wellsville, New York. I wanted you to see my parents dog, sparky on his soccer debut. He loves this ball and plays soccer all summer long with my nephews. More later after we eat the big bird and watch A Christmas Story for the 16th time.