Walking with the Look-a-like Pups

These are my patient puppies, awaiting the word that will allow them to fly down the hall to the front door for our walk.

I find it interesting that they look almost identical in photos when in actual fact, they are quite different. Hopie (on the left) is slightly smaller in body size, her fur is smoother, her paws are delicate, her ears are smaller and she has the "feathering" of fur common to pure bred Golden Retrievers . Mollie is my pound hound, most likely a cross between a Golden Retriever and a Wolfhound. She has wiry fur that is slightly whiter in colour than Hopie. Her feet are MASSIVE, she is tall enough that her nose can (and does) sniff the kitchen bench. Mollie is also about 2 years younger than Hopie and prone to silliness and general pesty-ness. Hopie is prone to naps and getting her own way. I love them both more than you can possibly imagine. They bring me great joy.

Soon after this shot was snapped this afternoon we were off out the door on our walk. I have been walking for almost three months now. Combined with a lot of diet modifications, my walking has seen me lose 14kg (just over 30 pounds). It's exciting and I feel so much better for it.

Only one week until my Great European Adventure. Hooray!

Sunday Scribblings: Happy Endings

The kanji for happiness

We're raised on happy endings.

"And they all lived happily ever after."

I remember fairy tales and Disney movies where the princess met the prince and then lived happily ever after. My feminist self bristles at the unstated message in those stories, but another part of me melts slightly, believes and wishes that were so, and such a happy ending is out there, somewhere, waiting for me.

But what happens after the happily ever after? The next morning, the next week, the next month, 5 years from now when Tommy is diagnosed with ADHD and little Lucy is a stubborn 8 year old turning 15? After the relentless grind of every day life has battered that happy ending until it is weathered, faded and barely recognisable?

Ah, you see now, don't you? I am far too practical for happy endings. Far too much of a realist, with a toe dipped in the pond of pessimism, just as my fingers trail through the river of optimism.

I don't believe it. Happiness is a journey, not a destination. It isn't something attained before the end. It isn't even an end in and of itself. It is moments - wildly exhilarating, heart thumping descents into dizziness and dangerous depths; peaceful moments snatched between particularly good dreams in which I change the unchangeable and unwind the tangled strings of my destiny; warm furry hugs from two large white dogs who love me more than anything and give me everything they have, no holding back; breathing the air of an unfamiliar place and feeling at home amid strange places with cobbled roadways, brightly coloured cloth and faces wreathed in wrinkles with bright button eyes that have lived and known.

I refuse to wait for the end before finding my happiness. I am happy. Not every moment of every day, but I am happy.

Sunday Scribblings: Night

Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I have a fantasy of running across rooftops in the dead of night.

I will jump from one to the other, lithe and light footed, illuminated only by the frosty glow of the moon.

I will be stealth and shadow. I will crouch on the tiles and flatten myself against the shingles, lest I be discovered.

If I am discovered I will simply stare at my intruder. For it will be him intruding on my world, my rooftops, my freedom.

I wonder if my flight across the rooftops of the world in the dead of night will see me running to something, or someone, or from something, or someone. Perhaps it will be both. A flight of fancy across the rooftops of the world, the past at my back, the present inside of me and the future in front of me.

I will be surefooted. If I trip or stumble, in the space of a human heart beat grace will catch me, set me on my feet and watch as I continue my flight.