Well Trained

My dogs are at my bedside the instant my feet touch the floor in the morning.  The bounce about like they have springs attached to their feet.  They twirl in circles.  Apparently, twirling in circles helps them get what they want.

I grope my way to the bathroom, where the dancing continues.  Up and down and around they go.  Worthy of any trained circus dog.  Any pictures that I have tried to take of this morning dance have been nothing more than brown fuzzy blurs.

I stagger into the kitchen, followed by the Yorkie Dance Team.  Before I get the coffee on, which is the most important part of my day, I grab the jar that holds their treats.  As I unscrew the top, the dancing and whirling escalates.  You would think that a ham bone for each was awaiting them.  But the treats are small.  Smaller than a quarter.

By now, they are standing on their hind legs in anticipation of goodies in their near future.  I give each of them a treat.  Jessie runs as fast as her short little legs will carry her back to my bedroom and hides behind my bed to eat her treat.  And Lily is off and running in the opposite direction to hide behind the coffee table in the living room.  They don't share well.

By the time I get the lid back on the jar and start my morning coffee, both are back in their beds, where they sleep until the middle of the morning.

I, on the other hand, am still struggling to get my eyes open all the way.

They have me very well trained.

Dad and the Monsters

When I was a little girl I was afraid of the dark.
Monsters lived under my bed.
They hid in my closet.
I would lay in my bed, perfectly still, making sure that
my fingers and my toes didn't stray off the edge of the mattress.
If they did, the monster under the bed would grab them.
When the monsters were at their biggest and meanest,
Dad would come into my room.
He would sit in the rocking chair.
And he would quietly sit and rock until I fell asleep.
The monsters never got me.
Dad was there.

Ode to Spring

"Spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where
The flowers is."

Recited by my Dad every spring as far back as I can remember.  Usually performed as though he were a little boy who was standing in the front of an old country school room reciting his lessons, and always with a silly little smile on his face.

Isn't it funny, the little things that you remember......and miss.

It's Official. Spring is Here.

When I got up this morning, I looked out my living room window to see what the weather was doing.  On a branch of the little tree that grows there, sat a robin.  First one I have seen this year.  Spring is here.  I am so ready for it.  I want to see green lawns, green leaves and the first spring flowers.

I wonder if my kids remember going for a ride through the woods one spring on logging roads with Uncle Bruce and Aunt Etta.  That was back when going for a ride on a Sunday afternoon was a popular activity.  Before computers and video games and iPods and cell phones consumed our lives.  Going for a ride meant piling into the car and driving wherever one felt like going, seeing whatever nature had provided for us to look at.  This time, Uncle Bruce wanted to show the kids all of the beautiful May flowers that bloom in the north woods in the spring.  I particularly remember the tiny purple violets among the tall pines, along with many other varieties of flowers.  And the chokecherry trees in full bloom.

I'm not so sure that anyone but me will remember violets, but they might remember the two black bear cubs that wandered out onto the trail ahead of us.  We watched them for a time while they explored the world that was new to them, and then they scampered off into the woods.  The kids were young enough so that they wanted to get out of the car and go pet them, but Uncle Bruce said that their mama, although we never saw her, was close by, and she wouldn't be very happy to have anyone close to her cubs.

I think that sometime soon, after the river that is now busy flooding the walkway along it, goes back inside its banks, Jessie, Lily and I will have to go for a stroll along it and see if we can find some spring flowers.