An Old Creaky Dog

The dog's getting old on me. She has a hard time with steps, especially in the morning when her joints are a little creaky. This morning her legs slipped out from under her while she was going up the steps. I tried to catch her to keep her from sliding down the steps and, in the process sent dog food flying everywhere. I did manage to catch the dog, however. As I cleaned up the dog food (luckily it's the dry stuff), she comes back and looks at me with one of those, "hey, what's taking you so long" kind of looks. I had to laugh at that. I gotta give that dog credit; there was no whining and she didn't slow down a bit. In fact, she was out sniffing in the grass for squirrels as soon as I opened the door. I suppose we could learn something from dogs, creaky or not.

Good Cheer Indeed

The Christmas cards continue to come in. Some are fun like the one from one of my friends in Las Vegas who sent pictures of the two of them posing with various television celebrities. Others are downright depressing. In fact, I've had two really depressing cards already (and it's only the 11th), one talked of how his mother had just passed away and another, how his wife had a massive stroke and was unconscious and paralyzed. I tend to wallow a little in the sad ones.

I just got back from visiting my Mom and I realize that, as much as we would prefer otherwise, we are all aging, our friends, our loved ones and all that we care about. Less I wallow too much, it also gives me incentive to get out of the house and do things like travel and spend quality time with the people I care about. Aging is as much a part of life as youth, death as much as birth. The key thing, I suspect, is keeping a positive perspective on the whole experience. Ah yes, the picture is me posing with a wooden pig in Overland Park, KS.