the list

the weather's turned cold for the first time this fall. we enjoyed shorts and t-shirts for a good long time, and now the sweatpants are out when i go on my morning walks with the pups. i even wore gloves the other morning. not that i am complaining, because i know we are still way warmer than many other places, and some people would probably think my definition of cold is somewhat warped. twenty two years in texas will do that to ya. fortunately, texas has failed to warp too much else in my mind.

thanksgiving has come and gone. and even before it went, the stores were bombarding us with christmas carols, decorations, holidays sales. the sun had barely set on thanksgiving day before the neighbors had put up their lights. all year i have been wondering how this time would be for me, how i would react and feel. it turns out that the carols and the christmas decorations make me feel nostalgic. i turn fondly to the thoughts of past christmases, when there was a little friendly competition between jack and ronnie regarding yard decor. the other neighbors always got a kick out of seeing what new addition (preferably inflatable, and huge, and blinky) would be added in our yards. i think of how i would start planning the christmas party practically in october - well, not so much the planning but the construction of my annual invitation, a slant on some familiar secular christmas song. on my long morning walks with the dogs, i would work out the lyrics in my head - weird al style. then picking out the invitation paper, finding the right font, and throwing some confetti in the envelope - just enough to be festive, and hopefully not too obnoxious. i'd also hunt high and low for just the right ornaments for aly and emmett. finding something to represent who they were that year, what they were into, or a reference to some familiar inside joke. i just knew when i had found the right ones, and i was always so tickled. all of these thoughts are bittersweet now, since all of it went poof, but i still like taking that stroll.

what actually surprised me was not my reaction to the onslaught of christmas decor and music, but my reaction to the change in weather. the first time i felt that cold air on my face, the really cold air - so cold that it almost has its own flavor - i immediately recalled christmas morning. it was so cold that morning. we had had some ridiculous winds christmas eve, and it was so so cold standing out in the front yard. funny how 11 months later and it is still *right there*.

11 months! the house is getting so close, we can see the light at the end of our tunnel. it's a beautiful light and we're approaching it with eager anticipation. i still hold out hope that we'll have a move in date by christmas - partly because as much as this rental house has provided our shelter, i've just never felt like it was home and partly because of the emotional milestone of getting through this in exactly one year, being able to turn the page, exhale, and get on with life. but the reality is that christmas may come and go with us not quite making it - inspections and scheduling and waiting on supplies - these things may hold us up. and i am really ok with that, because the end of the tunnel is so so near. i know that sometime soon, we will be sleeping in the new house for the first time. it doesn't really matter if that is christmas eve, or new years eve, or valentine's day. regardless, it is a day that is imminent.

i've been saying for some time that i wanted to have our annual christmas party again this year, in the new house. i think it was part of my healing process - to pick a date at which everything would be back to "normal". months ago we approached our favorite band and good friends, the psychic cowboys, about a date and they've stashed it away for us. and now here we are less than 3 weeks away - and while the light at the tunnel's end is visible, it seems hard to imagine that we'll be ready. there is still a lot of work to be done. and i have come to realize that the date of the event pales in importance when compared to the significance of the event and the real reason for this year's gathering. this is about bringing everyone together - all of the many many people who have reached out to us, friends and family, acquaintances, and even some strangers - who all picked us up, held us together, and lead us through the fog. it doesn't matter when, it matters who - and why.

we've always been blessed with a large circle of friends so the christmas party has always had quite a crowd. and now, in addition to all of the usual suspects, we have so many more acquaintances who have become dear friends as well as old friends who have become renewed. i have been working on this year's invitation list and have been asking friends to help me remember everyone who should be included. it would almost be easier to just take out an ad in the paper, just to be sure that no one is overlooked. so many people.

i asked tracey and theresa to help me reconstruct who all was at the browns house on christmas night - who had taken the time, and given up their own holidays plans, to rally around us. i asked lynne to help me draw up the list of the parade of friends who brought us meals in the weeks following the fire. and i have asked baze to give me the list of people from across the world and across the pages of our lives who so generously donated to the fire fund that he set up from 2000 miles away on that cold day. the cards, and letters, the clothing, the furniture, the hugs...reviewing this list can't be done with dry eyes. we have said it once and a million times that we don't know what we ever did to deserve such love and support, and you can be sure we'll be repaying it every day for the rest of our lives.

we have never been alone in this journey. not for one moment. not since 4:15am on christmas morning.

this is going to be one huge guest list.

when all around you seems dire, squeeze your wubba

aly came home recently to surprise jack for his birthday. and in order to honor the occasion, emmett and i took her car to the special car wash and cleaned it up inside and out. we were also expecting jack's brother and sister-in-law, rick and kathy - so we were in "make ourselves presentable" mode. after cleaning the car, next on my list was to take dogs for a little bath and (for scout) a haircut. as i was driving aly's clean car to the groomer with the dogs in the back, slobbering all over the windows, it occurred to me that perhaps i should have put a little more thought into the sequencing of these events.

but, as most everyone knows, we have always been dog people. and dog people aren't always in their right minds. take for example "the ideal". that was the model name of the 8'x24' trailer that served as our first home on the rim of grand canyon back in 1986. it had a 5 gallon hot water tank which meant if you dropped the soap, your shower was over. we were two sardines in a can with barely enough space to turn around. so what did we do? yes, of course - we got a puppy. that was tai, who was shortly thereafter joined by kirby. and once kirby left us, there was barley. and after tai, came scout.

as you probably know, we spent 2009 with jack being un- or under-employed after being unexpectedly cut loose from his last employer. we had been quietly preparing for my eventual layoff which we expected to come sometime in early 2010 and we got blindsided by jacko's sudden freedom. it was a big blow to us financially, and also emotionally. and the job market was pretty grim, so 2009 seemed to drag on forever. we've always been a 2 dog family, and it had been 2 years since we'd laid barley to rest - but at that particular point in time it would have been totally irresponsible, totally impractical..heck, practically insane..for us to take on the additional strain and responsibility that you sign up for when you adopt a tiny, needy puppy.

so of course that's exactly what we did.

there we were, the kids and i, driving out to the deliverance of manor, tx in response to an ad someone had posted on craigslist for "great pyrenees puppies". we had opened the ad and stared at the photo.

a row of 8 little pups, all of them black and brown. i checked the ad title again. "great pyrenees puppies" it had said. so i called, and i had said to the guy on the phone "i don't think they're pure great pyrenees, though, are they?". "oh yes" he assured me. i said "but aren't great pyrenees' solid white?". "no," he said "they come in all different colors". hmm. maybe in deliverance, tx they do - but not in the real world.

anyway, despite their dubious heritage, there was this one. we just couldn't stop looking at her picture and so, off we went as 3 and not surprisingly, home we came as 4 (jacko and scout had opted to stay home). i mean, who goes just "to look" at puppies? no, we were pretty much doomed to suffer the effects of the cuteness overload the second we set out. we instantly fell victims to her powerful spell - all 3.5 pounds of it. i remember holding her in my hand and turning to the kids. their eyes big as saucers, both of them just nodding "yes, YES".

we were in love with her from first glance. well, all of us except for scout who didn't realize that fenway was a dog for about the first month. it took that long for fenway to figure out how to bark and when she let out that first little yip, you could almost see the lightbulb go on in scout's mind. "oh, that's a DOG".

it's amazing how great a totally irresponsible, impractical, spontaneous decision can sometimes turn out. fenway has turned out to be an awesome dog, pretty well behaved with a personality that fills a room.

she had already brought us so much joy and so much laughter and levity in the midst of our troubled times during 2009.

and then the fire came.

scout was with us the whole time that dark morning. but fenway was sleeping in her kennel in the office and was almost an afterthought in the surreal moments during which we slowly realized we were losing our home. "get outside", jacko had said, "i'll get fenway". and he went back into the house - which you are never never EVER supposed to do. ever. and minutes after he and fenway joined us on the front lawn, there were flames shooting out the front door they had just walked through.

they both emerged, and despite some smoke inhalation we all know that the story has a happy, a miraculously happy, ending. and we are so thankful.

jack has told fenway more than once "you better be the best dog ever". and she has been (mostly) a good girl, full of (now) 75 pounds of shenanigans and good nature. she has been a welcome distraction, a loveable nuisance, a tremendous comfort, for all of us during this past year. she somehow represents, for me anyway, the lightness and joy that can prevail under dire circumstance.

christmas morning so many people showed up with so many things for all of us. and two stand out in particular. our friend keri (who didn't yet know us all that well yet obviously knew this one thing about us) brought a big tiger kong wubba for fenway - still to this day fenway's favorite toy (so much so that it has on occasion gone "missing" on top of the fridge, out of sight, we need a break) - and our friends tim and cyn, who brought the world's largest box of dog biscuits (so big that we *just* finished it a week or so ago).

so many times over the past year and a half when i have felt overwhelmed and paralyzed by confusion, or sadness, or self pity, everything is thrust back into perspective as soon as i feel the nuzzle of a cold nose, meet the hopeful gaze of those (literal) puppy dog eyes, and have my ear drums split by the incessant squeaking of the tiger kong wubba.

love us, love our dogs. so very much to be thankful for.