God Save the King (and Grant Him Many Oscars)

Although my Irish ancestors would be horrified, I have been an Anglophile since I was old enough to read The Secret Garden and A Little Princess. So, despite Christopher Hitchens' complaints about the film's historical inaccuracies (none of which had to do with the relationship between George VI and Lionel Logue), I was inordinately pleased that "The King's Speech" received 12 Academy Award nominations today.

Sheep bites dog

For the third year in a row, we attended the stock dog trials at the National Western Stock Show, the "Super Bowl of Livestock Shows," a two-week long event that has been held in Denver for over a century.

If a herding dog nips any of the three sheep it has to guide through a variety of herding challenges, the dog is immediately disqualified. Apparently, however, if the herdee bites the herder, as one decidedly feisty sheep (twice) did a visibly astonished Border Collie yesterday, the dog doesn't score compensatory points.

A Three-Dog Life?

I've volunteered at the animal shelter for two and a half years, and only adopted one shelter dog--Jenny. We weren't supposed to have more than one pet (Hana) at our first Colorado house, a rental, although we did add Buzz to the family when we knew that we would be moving to our own home. Hana and Buzz co-existed peacefully, and Jenny learned to be a Gillette dog from both of them, although some of the psychological effects of the abuse she suffered in her former life remain. Life with three dogs could be tiring, particularly since our dogs have always gotten two walks a day.

Now Hana is a box of ashes sitting on the mantel beside her picture. Life with the "Odd Couple" (a Papillon and a Pit Bull mix) is calm, and affection flows among all parties. (Jenny is still not fully comfortable with Jim, but we can literally see her pushing herself to get over her fear, which is rooted in the five years of her life before she came to us. She will deliberately choose to go and sit next to Jim sometimes, shaking all the while.)

So why am I looking for a third dog? And why, when I went to look at a dog at another shelter this afternoon, did I even let myself hold her when I found out that she had been removed from a puppy mill less than three weeks ago?

The view from my desk chair:

Buzz has his own bed nearby,
but often chooses to sleep near Jenny.

Brother and Sister II

Patrick and Alison are 28 years old today. This photo was taken at the hospital with my dad, whose wide girth proved ideal for holding his first two grandchildren.

Brother and Sister I

December 1958

I don't see my brother, my only sibling, much anymore. Once he graduated from law school and moved to Minnesota, we've never lived closer than 700 miles apart. Aside from a joint trip to Paris with his daughters while I lived in Belgium, these days we see each other only at events: weddings, funerals, graduations.

My brother had a meeting in Denver this morning, so he spent last evening with us. Given the number of times I've been ready to strangle him over the past decade (example: on the way to Our Lady of Sorrows to plan our father's funeral, I threatened to make him get out of the car and walk after a particularly wounding comment), it was good to be reminded that remnants still remain of the strong bond we shared as children.

Favorite Books, 2010 Edition

Annie was comfortably dug in to her burrow of books.

Cathleen Schine, The Three Weissmanns of Westport

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I read fewer books in 2010 (87) than in 2009 (120). The move, the addition of two new dogs to the family, and the dubious joys of home ownership (mowing the lawn! interviewing contractors!) ate away at my reading time.

Unlike 2009, there doesn't seem to be any common theme to my 2010 favorites, although many of the quotes that I jotted down in my reading journal seem to be about parenting (2010 was a difficult year for me as a mother) or accepting (in my case, at 56, perhaps belatedly) one's true self.

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Parents are the mystified criminals, blinking in the docks, making it all the worse for themselves with every word they utter.

Michael Cunningham, By Nightfall

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In the order in which I finished them, here are my favorite reads from last year; I make no apologies for the two doorstops (451 pages* and 766 pages**) of novels that were guilty pleasures.

Dreaming in Hindi (Kathleen Russell Rich)
Where the God of Love Hangs Out (Amy Bloom)
The Happiness Project (Gretchen Rubin)
Committed (Elizabeth Gilbert)
The Season of Second Chances (Diane Meier)
Angelology* (Danielle Trussoni)
The Lonely Polygamist (Brady Udall)
The Passage** (Justin Cronin)
The Cookbook Collector (Allegra Goodman)
Slow Love (Dominique Browning)
The Blind Contessa's New Machine (Carey Wallace)
Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese)
Let's Take the Long Way Home (Gail Caldwell)
This Must Be the Place (Kate Racculia)
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating (Elisabeth Tova Bailey)
The Widower's Tale (Julia Glass)

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"Hammock or chaise lounge?" Randeane said.
Ray said that he was more a chair kind of person, that hammocks were unpredictable.
"Oh, life's a hammock," Randeane said.
"Exactly my point. I'll take the chair."

Amy Bloom, Where the God of Love Hangs Out