kvetching up

I love the holidays. No newsflash, I know.  I hate the void left in Jenny's absence. I hate the feeling that I have no chance of seeing her again, even if it's only to say goodbye  I woke with the ache, the pain of missing someone you loved and will love until you can't love anymore.  ------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanksgiving 2025. 3:16 p.m. Willow and I just returned from the Park with no name. It was closed for the holiday, which was surprising and didn't stop us from our daily constitutional. I found the sole parking lot that wasn't behind a gate or 🚧 barrier 🚧, and away we went. It's the highlight of her day. Now, the heat is off, and she is on the porch, guarding the open 🚪 door 🚪. She is quiet and adorable. At the park, which is very large, as I like to point out whenever the opportunity presents itself, a man came out of nowhere and was approaching me rather quickly. I'm not saying I was about to get mugged, ...

Willow and I are about to go for our daily constitutional. I live in a neighborhood densely populated with dogs--so many dogs. I would guess fifty percent of the dogs are pitties. Most are super friendly; typically, their tongues are lolling out of their mouths as their entire bodies wag with enthusiasm. There are exceptions, of course. The other day, as we drove home from running errands, we saw two pitties being walked on opposite sides of the street. On one side, a sweet, happy, brown-and-white dog obediently followed its owner. Across the street, about ten yards up the road, a woman strained to hold the leash of her lunging black-and-white hellhound. The creature was as desperate as Donald Trump would be having learned McDonald’s was closing in five minutes and he hadn't had his daily Happy Meal.   The park is surprisingly huge. I haven't been there without seeing dogs everywhere. Despite its apparent lack of an official name, it is incredibly busy. Many peopl...

At the park, I walked my dog through the rain this morning— not really proper rain— more like air that has decided to shrug water at you out of habit. It suited my mood well enough. As I walked, my thoughts kept returning to the same small universe they often do. They are not new thoughts. They orbit the same losses. They consider the same betrayals, the same questions that never resolve. They have been captured, these thoughts, never to escape, never to be forgotten, never to burn up in the atmosphere. It is simply the gravitational field of my life now. What might seem or feel like self-pity is more like muscle memory, which tells me I need more exercise. The holidays are here, and Christmas has always been central to my life, atheist that I am. It was stitched into Jenny’s life — the love of Christmas — at least as strongly as it was stitched into mine. We carried that love forward with the kids, year after year, without ever needing to talk about why it mattered; it just did. I...

So many things, so many. I went to a scheduled doctor's appt today, and to my shock and dismay, there was no record on it--despite my calendar entry.