I'm sorry to have forgotten to post this but today is my fucking birthday. And if I transpose the numbers, I'm 26. And I look every inch of 26, let me tell ya.

We went to Whidbey Island where there is a magic dog beach (where we met a puppy almost the same age as Felix) and we threw the ball about a million times and Felix fell around and lept into the air and generally made a fool of himself. Puppies are effing funny. They're us when we DIDN'T CARE that we were goofballs with dirt and sand on our faces when we fell backwards onto the beach. The sun was shining, it was freezing and there was a bit of snow. The nice people with Oscar (the odd couple) told us to go to Gordon's on Blueberry Hill for dinner so we did and it was a beautiful sunset over a wee Puget Sound bay with wine and salad and chocolate decadence with a candle in it.

Perfect.

It was a perfect day and I'm grateful for my children and Milo and my whole family and my honey and everyone else who loves me. I had two glasses of wine and I can't feel my toes and I don't care.

Kiss kiss.

Felix Matisse

O dear what a week it has been. We lept into puppy parenting as soon as we returned from Kauai.

So.

We drove up to Canada to pick up the pup and I forgot my passport. So Deb continued on over the border while I cooled my heels in Blaine in a motel. For two hours. Then I was asked to leave ( I guess my time turning tricks was over). They let me sit in the lobby until Deb returned with the pup, who had thrown up in his crate. It was a pleasant drive home, with the smell of puppy barf wafting through the car.

Do you know that puppies are BABIES? They cry. They pee on themselves. They poop on the rug.

They're hilarious. Felix has been trying in vain to befriend the katz. Hugo is permanently insulted that we brought a 'thing' into the house. And we are feeding Felix and fussing over him too. Hugo is the house king, not some dumb baby dog. Felix doesn't care that he looks a fool when he hops across the lawn. He and Hugo will never be friends. Never.

Meanwhile, we've had another baby wave, three in the last 24 hours.

Even on vacation, I delivered babies in my dreams.

Um, this is where we were. And this is the beach where I SWAM WITH A TURTLE. Actually, I swam into her. It's possible. She was just there and I backed up but not before smacking her (gently) with my hand and saying (whoa) into my mask. Then I swam around and above her while she ignored me so she could snack on green stuff that grows on coral. O and there were fishes, all colors and an eel and more fishes and monstrous waves and really bad hair from salt water (who cares) and now I'm back with the katz and tomorow we pick up the puppy and the house will be in an uproar.

Three births in 48 hours, off to Atlanta at 3:30 in the AM. Sheesh. Way too tired. I threw a bunch of underwear in the duffle, my computer, ipod, headphones and an apple. Gawd. O, and two pairs of boots. Gotta have boots, don't I?

Where is my retirement? Where are my servants? I need a cool cloth on my head, a cuppa and a lie down.

Diet

I tell you
I wanted a cookie
one with butter and sugar
a special crackled surface
with bits of submarine and cheddar
not too tasty!

You brought me a burst appendix
radishes with the red rubbed off
a broken minesweeper you said was an heirloom
after they washed off the graffiti
you moved into the solarium

where you ravished the wild hyssop
bottled virulent sunsets in vinegar
brokered manufactured beeches
fletched mice and their harvest mouselings
sunk in the mire

I asked for honey
you proffered lapwings
I craved blunt icing
you fled backhand the arboreal spread
we played hide the sickle

the grass bled green
toads winked in your slippers
I limped back to the big house
with a pan of glisten
welts on my thumbs
and an appetite for rancor