i was up early again today...5am...the first of 4 days off in a row! yippee! i'm reading 3 fabulous books...Eat,Pray,Love...Odd Hours...and a Joan Anderson book - the followup to her Year By The Sea (highly recommend). i read a little, then cruised some blogs and waited for Diva to finish her dreams and come nudge me. do i adore her too much? i am totally GONE on this creature. and it's weird (yes weird that i talk about my dog like she was a Real Girl...but something Else weird)....before i had a dog, i never realized how individual their personalities were.....i thought a poodle acted like a poodle and all poodles were the same, as were st. bernards and chihuahas. (oh - i'm dogsitting for 2 tiny teacup chihuahas this weekend and am terrified i'll lose them!). so first came my love-of-a-lifetime mandog, Nikita. a handsome american eskimo boy...serious and somewhat laidback - well for an eskie. then Diva Dog, Nikki, comes blasting into our lives...all fangs and furious and terrified of everything from umbrellas to hiccups to laundry being folded to most men in general, youngblood & husband in specific, and you name it and it would send her under the bed for days. 8 years later, she's somewhat better. but where Kita was standoff-ish in the snuggle department, Diva is an absolute whore for tummyrubs. and clingy. when i leave the house, she is certain she will never never ever see me again. i am going away for good and leaving her. she backs reproachfully away from a goodbye pat to the head and gives me Eyes. as the door closes, the howling begins...that chilling wolf-howl-mixed-with-Zamfir that grips your heart and squeezes till the guilt pops out and floods your aorta then cruises thru your entire circulatory system, dropping off bits and pieces along the way...your stomach clenches, your head throbs, your feet become disoriented and try to turn around and go back inside. she then runs to the glass panel by the front door...the frosted glass. so the last thing your teary eyes see as you pull down the driveway are 2 blurry ears perked at attention. and that's just when i run to the stop-and-rob down the street. an entire workday away is an epic battle of mind over mind to not think about her fuzzy head, furry paws, and constant licking of the hand. arriving home is cause for celebration! in puppytime, i have been gone approximately 4 million, 300 thousand years. she launches at me, and will not be denied until i crouch down and she puts one paw on each side of my head, leans in against me and sighs in my ear. then the kisses start. i swear to you this is true. and i've often wished for a small half-bath just inside my door because by the time the greetings are accomplished and i''m able to disentangle myself and fly upstairs...it's just about too late. i've learned a lot from my furkids though...about living mindfully...be present in the moment, even if just to take a second to close my eyes and sniff the morning smells....dew-laden ferns, the smell of the earth as it begins to warm, listening to the calls and conversations of the nuthatches and woodpeckers and the cardinals that come early to feed...the one-note mourning dove....the resident owl causing havoc nearby in the woods. all of it feeding my soul as completely as if it was made-to-order. i miss these moments in the winter, and try to rememorize them during the brief non-winter months. ahhh...i feel a walk coming on. i will try to bring back pictures, but my camera is still broken and i can't tell when it's focused. now that could be interesting. breathe this day deep inside...the morning fresh...the details yet to come...this moment, this precious moment between the sandman and the sun - bring it with you in your heart today. L.