1. Seeing all the animals on our walks. This week we saw a deer, a beaver, a pair of herons, this turtle (Eric wasn’t believing me that the swirly marks on the trail were turtle tracks, until he saw the actual turtle who’d made them), and two of this year’s baby foxes.

2. Wonder Woman at the Drive In. We try to go at least once a year, earlier in the summer rather than later because even then we can only stay up long enough to watch the first movie!

3. SUMMER VACATION! Yesterday I sufficiently bribed the person who’s going to water my plants for me while I’m gone, ate the last of the good chocolate, and put the out of office message on my email. I need this time off so bad.

4. My tiny family. One of the things I need most out of this vacation is more time with them.

5. Peony season. I just consolidated the six jars full I had in the house into a single one because most of them were starting to wilt. With the heat this past week, there’s no more new ones left to cut. They make me so happy, and I’m always so sad to see them go.

Bonus joy: my Siberian irises (they went crazy this year and had multiple blooms per stem which I didn’t even realize was possible; my friend Ann gave them to me, thinned them from her own garden the year she died, so they mean a lot to me), a cool shower after a long walk, sun screen, bug spray, fresh strawberries from our garden, a dream about Dexter, good books, good tv, good movies, good podcasts, clean sheets, a long nap, air conditioning, stretching, yoga.

1. Morning walks with the dogs. It’s light so early now, and everything is that particular bright early spring green. There are even baby geese in the ponds and news of baby foxes.

Not a great picture, but since the dogs were with me I couldn’t get too close

2. An award. I was joking at our English department awards ceremony last week that I wanted my friend Aparna to give me an award. A few days later, this lamp that used to belong to my friend Leslee was presented to me in a sweet little unofficial ceremony, and is now officially the weirdest thing in my office, (title previously held by me).

3. Ringo and Sam. With Burg being sick (the final diagnosis is an aggressive type of leukemia, with a prognosis of two weeks to three months), and Dexter’s birthday being this week (he would have been 14!), I am appreciating even more than usual the company and good health of these two goofballs.

4. Women who are creative, smart, kind, and funny. The ones who came to my Storybowl, the ones who couldn’t, the ones who make music and poetry, the ones who write with me, the teachers and the moms and the artists, the ones trying so hard to heal and make things better.

My living room waiting for Storybowl to start. Some day we really will get our floors refinished.

5. Eric. Always my date, making me dinner, walking the dogs, sharing private jokes with me that no one else would understand or probably think were funny, laughing with me, itching that spot I can’t reach, letting me rant about the same thing for the millionth time, helping me clean the house and then leaving so other people could come over and enjoy it, texting me in the middle of the day to see how it’s going, leaving love notes for me on the kitchen counter.

Bonus joy: flowers in the bathroom, lilacs, fresh chives, clean laundry, clean sheets on the bed, Aimee Mann’s new album, good TV, so many good books, poetry, Wild Writing, yoga, physical therapy, the internet, a cold glass of clean water, how green everything is right now, blooms and birds, clean sheets (just noticed I put this on the list twice — I must really really like clean sheets), getting the laundry done on Friday, sleeping in, taking naps, crunchy apples and crunchy peanut butter.