Art by Marisa Aragón Ware

1. Happy (Tibetan) New Year! From an email sent by Shambhala Publications: “The Tibetan New Year (Losar) 2145 February 16, 2018. This year is a Year of the Earth Dog.

According to Tibetan Astrology by Philippe Cornu, the dog brings idealism, justice, and reflection. The dog is all about honesty and loyalty, intelligence and conscientiousness. While it may become overly serious, alarmist, or pessimistic, it is generous and favors those who have good intentions.

The element of earth is all about crystallizing, working slowly and powerfully to stabilize things. It is fertile, abundant, practical, and prudent. Earth can be enterprising, selfish, and shrewd, but it can also be grounded and realistic, reaching concrete goals methodically.”

Sidewalk snow heart

2. Morning walks. They’ve been a little weird lately because Sam can only go around the block, but Ringo has been making the best of it, getting a human and all the treats all to himself for the longer walk.

3. Eric, and his kitchen counter love notes. He’s been holding up the ceiling for me when my arms get too tired, like in that poem, “A Marriage” by Michael Blumenthal.

You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.

But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.

So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner’s arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.

And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.

Kitchen counter love note: special edition

4. Flowers in the bathroom. They had Charmelia again at the store last week. I love these so much, they last a really long time and remind me of sweet peas.

5. Ringo and Sam. If you could, please send Sam some extra love. His limp isn’t going away, is getting a bit worse. We took him to the vet, and from what she could tell from a quick exam, there’s reason to believe he might need knee surgery. Next week, we’ll take him in so she can sedate him and really get a good look, take some x-rays, but my gut is telling me the poor sweet dude is going to need surgery. I can’t stand to see my dogs suffer, so maybe send some love for me too. And then, only if you have some to spare, send some Ringo’s way cause the whole thing is just boring to him.

Bonus joy: the new swimming suit I needed was on sale AND I got an extra 10% off, aqua aerobics, Wild Writing, Pilates, getting stronger, knowing everything is okay even when nothing is, pain meds, Sam doing so good at the vet yesterday even though they messed with him so much and it was the last place he wanted to be, that even though my washing machine has been suffering from an electronic form of dementia for at least a year it keeps going and still works, getting all the laundry done on Friday, being able to gift my Andrea Gibson tickets to someone who really really wanted to go when it turned out I couldn’t, the way Ringo went over by Sam (who is hiding under my writing desk, because laundry) just now and laid down even though they were already in the same room — it was like he wanted to be closer, clean sheets, good TV (Catfish and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee) and good books (An American Marriage by Tayari Jones was picked by Oprah for her book club for good reason), and being able to work from home.