Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

–Mary Oliver, “Sometimes”… 

(re-upping my post from 2014, because it’s still TRUE)

Reason Number Pi why I love you and don’t deserve you:

…because when I’m leaving the dentist’s today after having a small helicopter crammed into my mouth (that is necessary now for a digitalized x-ray )

and I’m saying my goodbyes, trying to get my jaw to work again and reclaim my fresh mouth, 

the dentist tells me she saw you at the health club. 

Her seven year old was checking all the vending machines for stray quarters, a game she always plays after her mother takes her swimming,  

and you sneaked a quarter in a tray when she wasn’t looking

 and you told her to make sure she checked the trays again and then you left. 

Because you’re a man who practices random acts of kindness and then doesn’t even feel the need to tell me when you do

(when I would’ve created a .gif of myself doing the same thing and posted it on my blog and twitter and instagram and my facebook page) 

…because you like to scare me with your random Ronald Reagan face peeking out at parties.

…because your Gary Cooper makes me giggle like I’m six.

…because you bought a macramé bracelet from the little girl next door when she sat alone at the top of the driveway with a little table displaying her wares on our not-busy street

…because you told me that your excised scene from Spike’s her, the one about a man in love with a 747 is really about me

…because there’s Jesse in there, somewhere and you raised him up somehow

An incantation that is kindness, that is the pi of love  

A basket of walnuts is by the kitchen window. There are always more in the pockets of my housedress. And by the slider to the deck. There are three extra bags in the kitchen island. My husband and I have both admitted this: throwing nuts to the squirrels has become an addiction. Sugar, the rescue, knows the routine. She stands guard on the deck, quivering, leaning precariously close to the edge, beaming an “if I could only get my paws on you!” energy. But I am a benign goddess of Walnuttia, like the many-breasted Artemis of Napoli: mangia bene, rodents.

How to feel older than dirt: ask your four-year-old grandniece, the one you call “mini-me,” to sing a Christmas song. You plan to join in heartily, assuming it will be Rudolph or Jingle Bells, but are left gobsmacked when she belts “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day, you threw it away.” Complete with gestures. This makes you glad that you picked this one to receive “kid charades” as one of your gifts. Remembering her look of awe last year when you spoke doll to her doll. You enjoyed your temporary unicorn status. Gone now.

In a staring contest with Titi, (here seen cosplaying a mob boss), I am always the first to look away. Her eyes, enormous, black, show no whiteness, unless she is side-eyeing you. And she side-eyes. This week will mark two years that she has been with us, rescued from the cage, the forced births, the neglect. She perfected staring during those long and lonely hours in that cage. The only release was when she was yanked out to be mounted by a male. When she runs now, leashless, on the bay farm pathways, she leaves a trail that is palpable. I race behind, inhaling her joy.

In the past three weeks, my husband has saved:

three turtles: two from the bogs that were directly in a walking path with thundering dogs, and one from the middle of a country road in the dark of night

one baby rabbit, taken from the mouth of Sugar, our rescue dog, and returned unharmed to its hutch

and

a chipmunk that foolishly dove into our pool while I was doing laps.

Okay, he might not be Saint Francis, but this at least qualifies him to be known as “Christopher, Friend to Animals in Potential Danger.

(many thanks to TOM DESIMONE for his mad photoshop skillz)

Available VOD on Amazon Prime, AppleTV and more…

The moment I stir, there is a little black nose an inch from mine. Two loud sniffs determine if I am still alive, then the thud of two rescues leaping from the bed to the floor. The hurryup prebarking huffs begin the minute my own feet touch the floorboards. The countdown to fullscale arfing begins as I throw on many layers of clothes and race to the bathroom, which signals a dangerous escalation to yelping. The frenzied barking intensifies as I fumble the leashes and unlock the slider. The door opens. Squirrel! They bolt. I stumble after them, finally awake.