Count the dogs

You can do it.  How many dogs do you see?  Please ignore the state of the living room, but if you've counted correctly, you'll see three dogs, a tidy excuse for three times the mess.  We dog-sat last night for friends and experienced quite the comedy show with these hooligans.  One gets up, they all get up.  One barks at a noise, they all chime in.  One follows Simon to the other room, the others are right on his heels.  But it's also three times the cuteness and cuddly-ness.  Certainly can't complain about that.

Boston vs. New York, Round 2

This is a bit more literal than my first post on this subject since my New York Rangers face off versus Boston's Bruins this evening at 7pm.  What did you say?  Did you ask if I'm going to the game?  Well, duh!  Believe it or not, they only come up this way twice a year and I almost always have to work during one of the games so tonight is my chance.  I'm so super duper excited that everything seems to be tinged with True Blue today.  It doesn't hurt that we totally splurged for tickets and are sitting in the 11th row directly next to where the Rangers emerge from their locker room and enter the ice.  Cross your fingers for a win (and that I don't get hounded by misled New Englanders accidentally rooting for the wrong side).

A Poem for a Monday

                                                                                        Nightsong

                                                                                        Philip Booth

   Beside you,
   lying down at dark,
   my waking fits your sleep.

   Your turning
   flares the slow-banked fire
   between our mingled feet,

   and there,
   curved close and warm
   against the nape of love,

   held there,
   who holds your dreaming
   shape, I matched my breathing

   to your breath;
   and sightless, keep my hand
   on your heart's breast, keep

   nightwatch
   on your sleep to prove
                                                                                        there is no dark, nor death.

Ever Have Days Like This?

The difference is, the hamster looks totally pumped to be going around and around and around, pumping his little legs on the road to nowhere.      

To the Dust of the Road

W.S. Merwin

And in the morning you are up again

with the way leading through you for a while

longer if the wind is motionless when

the cars reach where the asphalt ends a mile

or so below the main road and the wave

you rise into is different every time

and you are one with it until you have

made your way up to the top of your climb

and brightened in that moment of that day

and then you turn as when you rose before

in fire or wind from the ends of the earth

to pause here and you seem to drift away

on into nothing to lie down once more

until another breath brings you to birth

Addicted to Travel

Molokai, Hawaii

I'm addicted to traveling.  I'm certainly not the first person this has happened to, but scouting out destinations, selecting itineraries and hotels, and exploring new places is such a thrill.  I have a lengthy list of desirable destinations, which includes just about everywhere on this planet (and maybe intergalactic travel someday...).  I'm constantly in awe of landscapes--Tuscany's rolling hills, the jagged mountains of western America, and Caribbean-blue waters with gleaming beaches--which tends to drive my selection of vacation spots. 

I guess I'm thinking about all of this now because we recently booked a summer trip to Barcelona and Southern France and are contemplating a cruise/land journey through Alaska with family in 2013.  A friend just returned from Zimbabwe, my mother-in-law landed at Logan tanned and relaxed after a month on Bequia, and another friend is getting married in Italy this fall.  Travel is in the air!

Zombies!

I know I've expressed my obsession with the apocalypse.  Although I've read oodles of fictional stories about it, I haven't spent much time exploring the idea of a zombie apocalypse.  Sweeping environmental catastrophes caused by human abuse of the planet, yes.  Strange viruses that mysteriously wipe out the population, yes.  Crazy genetically-engineered plants that turn against their creators and devour humans, yes.  But I've always hesitated when it comes to zombies.  Perhaps because it seems slightly unrealistic--haha.

We started watching The Walking Dead, AMC's TV series featuring an injured cop who wakes up from a coma to find that zombies have taken over the world.  I'm hooked.  Not to mention, freaked out.  Those things are nasty!  And terrifying!  And quite realistic!  I've got to stop watching the show at night because sleep is hard to come by and riddled with freaky dreams of rotten, fleshy faces.  Despite that, I highly recommend it, especially if you like to hide your head in your hands and peak out of the corner of your eye at the screen.