But I talked to this (now) 18-year-old, almost-high-school-graduate a lot over Christmas. She’s been ready for college since she was about 13, I think, but now she’s really headed there. To my alma mater, even. I don’t think I realized it until Christmas. And while she’s not my little sister by blood, I love her like she is. (She does not lack for older siblings. She has three incredible ones.)

I’ve learned some lessons between 18 and almost-26, some big and some small. Here’s what I’d want someone to say to me at 18.

———

Bonnie,

First, stop counting down the days until you get to move into Trinity (or Adams!) Hall. Just don’t count down the days to anything, ever. You’re not even promised tomorrow, so don’t wish away your time. Enjoy the end of high school, the moments with your hometown friends. Your relationships with them will change — fade away, in some cases — though I know it’s hard to imagine that right now.

Eighteen is really young. But, wait — I don’t mean immature. I mean young. And most of the ages that come after it (for a long while) are really young, too. Soon you’ll start hearing people 10 and 15 and 20 years older than you marveling at your youth. What a “baby” you are. How much life is ahead of you. Don’t brush them off — because they’re right, after all. Remind yourself daily just how young you are and you’ll stay that way for a long, long time.

You might have to declare a major by the time you’re a junior, but you certainly don’t need to know what you want your career to be after just four semesters of college. You also don’t need to know what you want your career to be when you walk across the stage to collect your diploma in (gulp) 2016. Take your time.

In fact, as a general rule, don’t rush. (Unless you’re late to class where you have to turn in a final paper but you can’t print it because the printer you share with your roommate isn’t working because it was her turn to buy a new ink cartridge and she didn’t so now you’re on your way to the library where that printer also doesn’t work and you didn’t have time to take a shower or even put on clean clothes and — well — you get it. You can rush in moments like these. Just don’t panic. Whatever you do, don’t panic. It won’t fix anything. Ever.)

Be kind to everyone, always. When you need to, apologize.

Go easy on the comparing-yourself-to-others thing. It’s a slippery slope, and not one that leads to anything productive. (With my blessing, though, find a literal slippery slope and go ice-blocking or faux sledding on whatever sled-like thing you can find. Cardboard works nicely. Maybe wear a helmet. And wrist guards. Knee pads? I’ll stop now.)

Boundaries. Have some. Be able to say “no.” And remember that Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”

Be patient. Be patient with your hallmates when they’ve left their EasyMac dishes in the sink for one too many days. Be patient with the cashier at the grocery store who doesn’t know how to adjust an incorrect price. Be patient with the traffic on the 210. And the 605. And the 101. And the 10. And the 57. (There’s never a good time to drive anywhere in southern California, so this one is particularly important.) Be patient with the friend who disappoints you. Be patient with your family. Be patient with the line at the coffee shop. Try very, very hard to be patient with yourself.

Don’t be patient with (or tolerate) anyone who is reckless with your heart. Likewise, don’t be reckless with anyone else’s heart.

Remember that if someone doesn’t know that something is broken, they can’t fix it. If someone has done something that has hurt or upset you, and they don’t know it, it’s your job to tell them. Oh, it’s not easy. But no one is a mind reader. And if anyone tells you that they’re a mind reader … well, I would back away slowly. And while you’re backing away, think of something really ridiculous, like Dick Cheney in a glittery pink tutu and bright yellow high heels, auditioning to be the sixth member of the Spice Girls. The look on this purported mind reader’s face will tell you whether they’re a liar or not.

Take risks. And know that a risk for one person might not be one for another, so go easy on the judgment. You know what your limits are. When the time is right, push them. (Oh, who am I kidding? The time is never right. Do it anyway.)

If you need help, ask for it.

Volunteer. Do good deeds and tell no one. The response you’ll get from a stranger you’ve helped will impact you more than the praise you would get from your friends.

Put your phone down. Disregard, for a moment, how many notifications you have waiting for you on Facebook. Resist watching every last moment happen through a lens. Some memories are best stored in your heart, not on photo paper.

Have entirely too much fun. I mean, really. Too much. Get donuts at 3 a.m. with your roommates. Run through the sprinklers. (Just make sure that you a.) evade Campus Safety, and b.) don’t tell your R.A.) Take spontaneous trips to the beach for bonfires. Send notes to your friends through campus mail. I don’t mean to undercut the value of your classes. Don’t skip those in the name of fun too often – they’re expensive. You probably won’t remember the all-nighter you pulled to finish a presentation or write a paper, but you’ll remember the conversations that kept you up and talking until 5 a.m. Like Katharine Susannah Prichard said, don’t sacrifice your life to work and ideals. The most important things in life are human relations.

Make plans, but don’t worry when things don’t go exactly as you’d imagined. And when things are no good, very bad, very hard or seem very impossible, remind yourself that once you’re on the other side of it all, you’ll get to see why it happened the way it did.

Love you, Bon. Happy (belated) 18th birthday. You are the coolest teenager I know.

Here are some of the highlights!
(And by highlights I actually mean only what I captured with my dear old iPhone.)

Winter in Oklahoma was brutal in 2011. I think I gave myself mild frostbite while etching my longing for the west coast into the windshield of my (now long gone) car. A cat! I got one. Foisted upon me by friends who could no  longer keep her, she now spends her days staring out windows, posing for anti-depressant ad photos that will never appear in magazines. (Look at that picture and try to tell me it shouldn’t have ZOLOFT written all over it.) I tutored a first grader! And a second grader! Baby Henry, my not-by-blood nephew, was not such a baby anymore.

We* planted a garden. I made His and Hers SuperSoakers for Kristyn & Daniel, far-away friends of mine. I volunteered at the Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts. I went to Meers, Oklahoma to meet up with those same friends that I decorated squirt guns for. We ate hamburgers and celebrated my birthday.

*Truthfully, I went to the zoo, the neighbors planted everything, and then I picked a lot of zinnias all summer long. I probably owe someone some money.

I turned 25! I flew to California on my birthday for a wedding. I spent time with dear friends & family & almost-family who I seldom get to see and am perpetually playing phone-tag with. I walked around the rose garden in Berkeley with my seester. My birthday dinner at Chez Panisse was absolutely wonderful.

I volunteered with the OKC Philharmonic, remained on their Associate Board, and pretended to know how to play a French Horn. I bought a shiny new car and immediately bubble-wrapped the walls of my garage so as not to let it be scratched. (True.) Weddings, weddings, weddings. We threw Marek a SURPRISE! half-birthday party. She was so surprised, in fact, that she cried. And maybe that is my favorite photo of 2011.

I HELD A CATFISH. I got trapped in an elevator. I picked zinnias (see above note about the garden) through spring, summer, and fall. Here in Oklahoma, summer 2011 was more like summer twothousandHELLeven. We had something like 973 days of 100-degree heat.*

*Possibly something more like 60 days, but whatever, it was terrible.

I remembered why I love The Mont. (It’s because of the patio, and no, I never really forgot.) I volunteered at City Rescue Mission most every Tuesday night, rocking babies to sleep and reading books and laughing, laughing, laughing. I went to Texas. Often. January. February. March. July. August. September. October. November. Arlington, Austin, Dallas, Ft. Worth.

I found a bit of a home in St. Paul’s – a place for me to receive, not give, and for me this was, well … monumental.

I happened upon a Toddlers & Tiaras-esque pageant in an almost abandoned outlet mall in Texas. I am sure that I nearly died choking on a cloud of taffeta and hairspray. (You see? I told you I went to Texas too much.) My friends threw good parties. My neighbors cooked. Monday Night Football with two very sweet French bulldogs became a new tradition. (“Monday night? Nope, sorry. I’m busy.”)

The neighbors pranked me. I pranked the neighbors. (I really do love my street. Maybe too much.) I started a new job — and it’s in sports! There was a flurry of earthquakes in Oklahoma — I felt a little bit more at home. We went to dinners and banquets. (It’s what we do. Well, if you have extra tickets, anyway.)

That new job? It afforded me the opportunity to take some photos from the sidelines of a Dallas Cowboys game. I’d like to retroactively put that on my Bucket List just so I can cross it off.

One of my best friends found one of the best girls, and they got engaged on the 50-yard line of the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas. Then they ended up on the front page of The Oklahoman. (I might have had an unintentional, very accidental hand in that.) My phone, more often than not, was an explosion of text messages from Marek & Nichole. I went to the zoo – again! (Tiger cubs, you guys. Four of them.)

I remained friends with all of the most beautiful people in the world. Antlers and all.

I graduated from Leadership Oklahoma City‘s LOYAL program and was named to iON Oklahoma‘s inaugural 30 Under 30 class. I continued falling in love with Oklahoma.
(It’s just hard not to.)

Bridesmaid duties called me back to Texas! Congratulations, Kristyn & Daniel.

Did I mention that I adore that little Henry? He’s nearly two. Christmas traditions of looking at the Christmas lights in Chickasha, Oklahoma lived on. December felt like one very, very long Christmas party, actually.

Charlotte and Hugh were married.
Christmas in the Bay Area.
New Year’s Eve with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

2011: fin.

]]> http://alamokie.com/2012/01/03/2011-you-were-just-okay-actually/feed/ 4 Lindsay IMG_4267 IMG_4268 IMG_4269 IMG_4270 IMG_4271 IMG_4272 IMG_4273 IMG_4275 IMG_4277 IMG_4289 IMG_4286 IMG_4287 IMG_4288 photo 1 photo 2 http://alamokie.com/2011/12/15/sports-this-is-lindsay/ http://alamokie.com/2011/12/15/sports-this-is-lindsay/#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:55:37 +0000 @alamokie http://wildflowersinherhair.wordpress.com/?p=1447 Continue reading →]]> Sometimes when no one else is around, I answer the general sports phone.

“Sports, this is Lindsay.”
“Yes, can you tell me what time it is in California?”
“Sure! It’s 7:30 a.m.”
[Silence.]
“Ma’am?”
“Yes, hello?”
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes, can you tell me what time it is in California?”
“Of course. It’s 7:30 a.m. in California.”
“7:30—what?”
“A.M.”
“Thank you very much, dear.”

Watch the whole talk here. Or here.

When it comes to cuisine, California and Oklahoma are as fax machines are to watermelons … or as washcloths are to parakeets. (What I mean is: you can’t really compare them without sounding like an idiot. And I don’t mind sounding like/looking like an idiot if it’ll make you laugh. I’m available for parties, ghostwriting … wait, I’m off-track again.)

Here’s what happened: breakfast (which included biscuits and gravy) was catered in for an event in my office several weeks ago. I CASUALLY mentioned that I’d never had biscuits and gravy, and suddenly it was as though I had told my co-workers that I hated puppies and glitter and the sound of babies laughing.  ”You have to try it!” “How can you never have had biscuits and gravy?” “Who hasn’t had biscuits and gravy?” “How can a person get to your age and have never had biscuits and gravy?” Look, guys, I don’t know. And besides, I’m not that old, so I resent the last one. Secondly, bread and gravy all mashed together don’t really top my list when it comes to delicious breakfast foods. You guys know that bacon is a thing, right? The conversation extended to Facebook and Twitter, and after that I was done for.

The food editor at The Oklahoman (full disclosure: he’s a co-worker as well) was devastated at this revelation. Rectification was coming whether I liked it (nay, thought it was necessary) or not. I knew that the NewsOK video team was going to be joining us, but for some reason I thought it would stop with, you know, the online story.

How wrong was I? So, so wrong:

The front page of the "Life" section of The Oklahoman.

If I knew what our circulation was off the top of my head I’d tell you, but let’s just say my face hit hundreds of thousands of doorsteps. Ouch. (“Do I know you from somewhere?” “No. No you don’t.”)

Verdict? I think I’d still prefer an omelet. Perhaps a waffle.

Over the last couple of years I’ve spent an evening every week in an ugly part of town, at a place where, all day long, people who are just trying to get better pass in and out of double doors. I go to play games, to rock babies to sleep, to hand out snacks and to stop toddlers from climbing up bookshelves. (That last one is harder than you’d think, actually.) I’ve become friends with women who are younger than me and have 1, 2, 3, and more children, men who are recovering from drug addiction, and children who have seen more destruction in their lives than I ever will.

The circumstances are different for each of them. Some are there alone – men and women both. Some are single parents, and some are there with their spouses and their kids, too. They all have different reasons for living in a homeless shelter – a job loss that couldn’t be recovered from, a mental illness, a drug addiction, alcoholism, domestic abuse – you can fill the “Why?” blank in however you’d like – it’s probably someone’s story.

I used to say (with a chirp in my voice and and skip in my step) that all that I wanted to do could be summed up in this way: just tell people’s stories. Here is where I say that I haven’t done a very good job of that. In fact, I’ve resisted really writing about my time and experiences at this place because the drafts always end up feeling like they’re about me. And, frankly, the space I have cultivated here is reserved (about 90% of the time) for the funny and absurd – not for the serious. Can I be a comedian AND a humanitarian? Is that a thing?

Only over the last year have I started mentioning my time there on Twitter, and in the last 6 months or so sharing the occasional photo on Facebook. When I started doing that, though, I learned something: that being willing to talk about things that are hard for people to stomach, (like kids living in a homeless shelter – hard no matter how you spin it), actually moves people to action. I’ve learned that a lot of people in my life have time, money, networks, and resources – and that I can reasonably expect those people to come together to solve problems and meet needs in our community.

Last week at the shelter I saw a woman who I recognized. She had been living there with her children last year, and I had come to really look forward to spending time with her eldest daughter every week. She was an incredible kid – and one day she was just gone. I asked another resident about them and learned that their mom had started using again. That they had left in a hurry. That no one knew where they were. I was devastated – knowing that I’d never know what happened to my little pal, hoping in my heart that she’d be protected, be safe. So when I saw her mom last week and realized who she was, my eyes darted to the now-a-year-taller little girl by her side, and it was everything I could do not to run to her and pull her into my arms. The relief was incalculable. And I wanted the world to know how important it was that she was safe.

It’s not just her, though. It’s a boy who, at 2 years old, knows to pretend that a plastic piece of  fruit is a gun. He’ll hold it up to a stuffed animal’s head, execution style. It’s an infant who, despite her mother’s best efforts, can’t stop throwing up everything she’s fed. It’s the sobs of a woman who is watching DHS take her son into protective custody. It’s the 4-year-old who tells me that the only time she gets to see her mom is “when the judge says it’s OK.” It’s the kindergartner whose last home was a pay-by-the-week motel. It’s a 10-year-old who is an incredible artist and tells me, proudly, that as soon as her mom graduates from the recovery program, she’s getting a dog. It’s about advocating for the ones who can’t advocate for themselves, it’s about listening, it’s about showing up, and it’s about changing the world, however small you think that change may be.

Why does it all matter so much? Why does it matter that you start doing something?

These are little acts, to be sure, but little acts push at the great big darkness, the darkness that is so huge we feel helpless and so we do nothing and try to make ourselves feel good about it. This is a heart problem. We don’t lack resources or opportunity, we lack heart. You can’t fix the problem of world hunger. Well, no, of course you can’t. Where did you ever get the idea that you were supposed to? But you can help the single mother feed her kids, and you can help the old guy whose Social Security check won’t come for another week. You and I, we can help the one on our path. That is enough. Try to get this straight, that really is enough.

Radical Hospitality, Homan and Pratt

Your city needs you. Your community needs you. Make the time or write the check, would you? You don’t have to go to another continent or to a remote village to make a difference. For you it might not be a homeless shelter. (For me, it is.) Identify your talent, what you can give – and give it. You’ll be amazed at what happens next.

Noodling is an insane, ridiculous “sport” that is (essentially) fishing for catfish without a pole or a line. You just reach yer hand there into that there underwater hole and pull out what ya can. Yes, friends, people lose fingers doing this, as other things live in catfish holes, like SNAPPING TURTLES AND ALLIGATORS. In this tournament (held at Paul’s Valley High School, no less), noodlers have 24 hours to fish statewide and get back to Pauls Valley in time for the weigh-in on Saturday night. Winner of each division (men’s, women’s, and under 18) gets a cash prize … with which they pay their medical bills, I guess. Also, a lovely lady is crowned the Noodling Queen. You read that correctly, yes.

So here I am holding a giant catfish, because I couldn’t say no to the little ten-year-old  in the background who looked at me and said, “Do you wanna hold one?!”

When I left California for Oklahoma three years ago, most everyone in my life tried to talk me out of moving. I was just going for a year, I said. Just for an adventure and then I’d be back. You won’t even notice that I was gone, I swear! And here I am, three years later with no plans to leave this incredible place that has become my home. It hasn’t been without its challenges, of course. Did you know that Oklahoma doesn’t have Trader Joe’s? Or Peet’s Coffee? Yes. It’s true. And these are the conditions I’ve been living in for three whole years. (My letters to FEMA have gone unanswered.)

Last summer, an Oklahoma friend about to embark on an adventure much like mine asked me a question like this: “On the day you left California, like, when you got on the plane, did you feel guilt? At all? Or just sadness?” And the answer was neither of those things. What I felt on the morning that I left California was that everything in the world was going to be just fine – and it’s that feeling that has carried me through the last three years.

I was standing in the too-long line at the Starbucks near my plane’s gate in Oakland International Airport. I had checked my three suitcases (all of the possessions necessary for the new life I was starting half a country away), and I was fighting back internal gasps of oh-my-God-what-have-I-done. It was also my 22nd birthday that day – a scheduling conflict with my new employer had forced me to move on my birthday. It was a bad idea in retrospect (moving on my birthday, I mean) – it’s just, imagine everyone you love calling you and wishing you a happy birthday, and you’re getting on a plane to leave all of those people behind. Quite a clash of the emotions, you see.

The night before my flight the mother of a dear friend of mine had pressed a $10 bill in my hand before I left her house and made me promise that I’d buy myself a magazine and an overpriced pastry & latte the next day in the airport to celebrate my birthday first thing. Ever a woman of my word, I lined up with the other early morning travelers for that latte and pastry because I certainly didn’t want to later have to admit that I didn’t indulge. That $10 turned out to be my first birthday present of the day and it happened to give way to my second birthday present, one that came courtesy of the universe and the one that has yet to be topped.

A young boy and his father were standing in the long, weaving Starbucks line in front of me. The kid, he was, oh, 10 years old. Ten years old, black, and he had an enormous scar on the back of his head. From the bottom of his skull and back up to the top – it was raised and pronounced and somehow it screamed, “HELLO! LOOK AT ME! I AM A SCAR!” The boy seemed developmentally delayed, but just only sort of. Something in his mannerisms, his speech – they were off. So was the scar a result of a removed tumor? A traumatic injury? Maybe everyone in line behind him wondered. I did. This father and son were in line behind a woman who looked 46 years old, but was probably 58, because this is the Bay Area, remember. She was white. The boy’s father and this woman were quite clearly from different worlds and had it not been for their traveling on the same day, I think they never would have laid eyes on one another, would have never collided in this way.

Waiting, waiting for chai teas and leave-room-for-cream coffee orders to be placed, the young boy had touched the arm of the woman to get her attention and had started talking with her. He skipped the pleasantries (he’s 10, remember) and launched into his unending list of questions about airports and airplanes. And luggage! And security! And x-ray machines! And flight attendants! And runways! And pilots and drink carts and everything that makes an airport magical to a kid – he wanted to know everything there was to know, and he seemed to have a hunch that she would be able to help.

His father was visibly uncomfortable with his son’s engagement of this woman. But she answered the boy’s every question – every last query – and with brightness and cheer in her voice, with enormous hand gestures and the warmest, kindest smile. She was so incredibly gracious. She hadn’t (and couldn’t have) seen his scar. It was just the ever-growing line behind them that knew that extra little (not so) secret about this child. She was just a normal woman, talking to a normal boy. Nothing else existed between them. Like Glinda the Good Witch had pit stopped at Oakland International, specifically because she needed a strong dose of childlike wonder to tide her over. And I got to witness it.

It was lovely and perfect and I found myself standing there, beholding something that was absolutely rocking my world, but I couldn’t even explain why. Immediately after I had my latte in-hand I sat down with my little mustard yellow notebook and scratched that whole scene out because I never, ever wanted to forget it.

It has been three years since that moment in the airport and it still feels like it might have happened yesterday. That was the way I left California – with brightness and delight. The oh-my-what-have-I-done feeling? Well, it came later. Like, not even 12 hours later. But for that morning my tiny piece of our world was perfect, a glorious end to 22 years in California. I like to think it set the tone for what things would come, and three years later, happier than I’ve ever been, I think I might be right.

While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation. This is particularly difficult for me when my mind falls upon the cruel person, the batterer, and the bigot. I would like to think that the mean-spirited were created by another force and under the aegis and direction of something other than my God. But since I believe that God created all things, I am not only constrained to know that the oppressor is a child of God, but also obliged to try to treat him or her as a child of God.

-Maya Angelou in Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now

Then it was like this:

Security guard: “Is he yours?”

Me: “No. He’s not.”

Security guard: “Well he can’t come into the store.”

Me: “Well, ok, he’s not mine – but – I. Oh, alright. Fine. But here’s my card – if someone comes looking for him.”

Security guard: “Nobody gon’ come looking for that puppy, honey. People turn dogs out here all the time.”

Me: “Someone – might – maybe. I can’t leave him here.”

Security guard: “You gon’ end up keeping that dog. Say, is this your job? You rescue dogs?”

Me: “No. But I can’t abandon him in a parking lot.”

Security guard: ” … because I’m looking for a German Shepherd puppy. You know where I could find one?”

Me: “What? No.”

And thus my entire evening was derailed.

You couldn’t have left him in a parking lot, right? (If your answer is “Yes,” please feel free to extract yourself from my life.)

So, the first thing I did was turn to Twitter and shared his picture with hopes that I’d find his owners. He had a flea collar but nothing else (imagine!) and my hope was that on this particularly windy day, someone’s gate  had blown open and the little dude had flown the coop. He was just too sweet and adorable to be an unwanted stray. This is the Tweet that started it all:

Because there are two ways to “retweet” on Twitter, it’s hard to say exactly how many times this was shared. The Plixi counters show that the photos were viewed nearly 1,500 times. (FIFTEEN HUNDRED TIMES!) The photos were also shared on Facebook and I concocted a funny little Craig’s List post that went like this:

I found this little guy this evening around 5:30PM. Is he yours? He’s very, very sweet and was happy to get food & water, but didn’t seem starved or stray by any means. He had a flea collar on but nothing else. I bought the leash for $1 at Homeland — you can have that for free if he’s your dog. Consider it a gift with rescue.

I’d like for you to prove that he’s actually your dog. If you’re a normal dog owner you’ll have pictures of him on your phone. (I will also accept framed photos from your bookshelves or Facebook albums.) If you just want to adopt him (I don’t blame you) we can talk about that too … but you can’t be crazy, should have recently showered, and if it appears you’re an animal hoarder (you laugh, but I have stories) you cannot have him. Sorry. No, actually, not sorry at all.

All of that, and no owners. Ri-di-cu-lous. So the next thing you know I’m buying dog food, shampoo and flea & tick medicine and it seemed like it was just a big slippery slope with a big sign on top of it saying “LINDSAY CAN’T TURN AWAY A PUPPY.” He got dinner, a bath, a new collar, and thanks to my dear friend Tiffany, a crate to sleep in for the evening. (At this point he’d been with me for 4 hours.)

The following day I took him to the Nichols Hills Vet (shout out: they were awesome) to check and see if he had a microchip. No chip, but he got a clean bill of health and a nail trim. Somewhere in this mess, I petitioned my friend Glynis to adopt this dog. Several people had offered to take him in, but I knew Glynis was my girl. After much almost no cajoling, Glynis and her family were sold on Rescue Puppy 2011. She informed me that his new name would be Dexter, and that was that. (Well, almost.)

I took Dexter on a walk that evening over to a restaurant in my ‘hood before I drove him to the suburbs. As we were leaving, a woman with a group of people in the parking lot remarked to her friends that “my” dog looked similar to a dog that had been found the day before. “Same dog!,” I exclaimed. She had seen him on Facebook, and she and all of her friends offered to adopt him right then and there. We chatted and as I walked away with him, a little girl set her sights on the puppy. While she petted him and I talked with her mom, another guest in their group piped up.

“Did you say that dog’s name is Dexter?”

“I did, yes.”

“Wow, that’s so weird. A friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook yesterday of a dog that was found and it looked just like that. And then today I heard it was being named Dexter.”

“Yeah … that’s this dog.”

So, Dexter is famous throughout the Metro, I have no idea where he came from – but I do know that he’s happy, healthy, and in love with his new family. All because I went to the grocery store to pick up bleach or carrots or whatever.

Addendum: Last night while taking out the trash a sweet, scraggly little dog with a pink collar ran down my street and into my arms. It’s like I’m a magnet for lost dogs.