The 4.11 on April 11th

The Three Pooches
A Typical Morning Walk

I walk my three dogs now.  Not two, but three dogs.  They dance around each other nicely and I do pretty well myself, occasionally hopping over a leash or twirling to avoid being wrangled like a rodeo clown.  This is the amusing part to me.  I walk along and people, without fail, say the same words.  They are, "You've got your hands full there."  Not kidding.  The only variance is when they tack on "Looks like" before "You've got your hands full there."  Upon completing the sentence they promptly urge their dog to run over and mingle with my three.  I then have a fourth pooch to wrestle around and avoid tangling leashes with as I am dragged around at mercy to the 95 pounds or so of canine chaos.  China, the little one, weighing about 13-14 pounds somehow pulls the hardest.  She has a bit of a "little man syndrome" when on a walk and competes with the big dogs to prove she's the alpha of the group.  She has a frantic greeting with other dogs.  It's the funniest half-bark-half-scream scurry I've ever seen.  Selma Lu Mela has all the potential to be the hardest to walk, but she is less curious than she is a nervous pleaser.  Honey (Te'a Lina) is quiet and steady and focused. She really stabilizes the group so it is no problem that she has joined our walks.  She helps out as best she can.  Selma Lu has started her annual Selma vs the bumble bee saga.  She jumps, bites the air, tries to be sneaky and suddenly charge them.  She never wins.  Once when she was a wee little pup she came over to where I was sitting at a table and when I reached down to pet her chin, not looking away from my mom during our conversation, she carefully put her upper lip on my hand.  I felt it and immediately looked down at her.  It felt so unlike a lip. She looked up at me with the fattest left upper lip I have ever seen.  The bumble bee started this life-long fight apparently.  She was stung on the lip.  A dog's immune system is marvelous though, and it shrunk back to normal size in no time at all.

Have you ever heard of the Niacin Flush?  If you ever take Niacin you will know what the Flush is.  I sit here typing with skin the color of a red pepper and I am itchy and on fire.  This is the worst it has ever been hands down.  This is normal I have read and actually shows signs of progress in the body.  It's all about blood flow and detoxification.  You'll have to put it in the search engine and read up on it if you ever try Niacin- I can't recite what I read.  It lasts only a little while.  It may be gone and I may be my usual winter white self by the time I am half way into my next paragraph.  

So, today is April 11th, significant because this is the ten year anniversary of meeting my husband.  We will be married 6 years come Saturday, but this date is just as important to me.  It is the date that my world went from No-Nick to Nick. An important transition.  I am less traditional I suppose by saying this, but I value this date as much or more than a wedding anniversary date because I could have lived with Nick "like married" forever and it would have been fine with me.  I was as happy with him before as I have been after a marriage ceremony.  Our behavior didn't change nor did our loyalty and love.  So, happily married I sit, but I am sure that I would be as devoted as I am now if we weren't technically hitched.  The ceremony of it and the way marriage presents you as a couple to society- that is the main distinction that I have noticed.  But, as I have noted before, we are the type to live 'as married' with one another whether we are married or not.  Which is a hefty dynamic in a relationship.  There is so much junk that I never have had to think about in our relationship and I am so thankful for that because the drama that some people endure with the ones they love is heartbreaking to hear about.  It must be draining to deal with certain devastations regarding an unequal approach to a relationship.

First Official Date!
April of 2001- KD Luau

As for April 11, 2001- I look back at all my giddiness and the gut-feelings I had about this handsome boy I found at a bar in Athens, GA and say with delight, "It all turned out wonderfully."  The main memory I have is the eye contact.  I locked eyes with this really handsome guy across a crowd and he didn't look away.  My eyes bounced around a time or two as I contemplated whether or not he was looking at me and he did a bang-up job of answering that question because his eyes stared straight at me and didn't move.  And that confidence (and his calves) definitely got my attention.  So, he came over, leaned in to my ear and said, simply, "I'm Nick."  Voila.  Hello, Nick.  I'm in love.  I think I stuck my foot in my mouth several times during our initial conversation.  And then I kept calling him by the wrong last name every time I introduced him to a friend.  He finally spelled it for me and I had it from then on.  What can I say... I'm visual... and it was probably 2 am at least by the time I was into introductions.

The Katherine and Beth Duo

Not long after I met my love, another love came into my life.  I think I may have been the first person on Earth to see her.  (Her birthday is Earth Day too.)  I was being the loving sister that I am (eh hem, Paige) and pampering my pushing sister during her first child birth.  Shane was focused on her completely and so when the time came for Katherine's entrance something came over me and I just had to be there!  I never asked permission from my sister, which may have been nice, but I was there and it was miraculous indeed.  And from the first moment she hit light she has been a beautiful ray of light in my life.  And the same goes for Landry and Madeline.  But, I was the baby in my family.  I had never seen a fresh, new baby.  This was my first infant to claim.  I never even knew if I could do kids before then.  I had never held a baby for any substantial amount of time, never comfortably without being scared the mommy was going to snap and bite me if I did something wrong.  I had no instinct.  And every time I was shampoo shopping and a cart full of screaming kids was sharing my aisle I really thought I was going to slam my head into the shelf to put myself out of my misery.  That's the sort of uncertainty I had before Katherine.  But, she came and I couldn't get my hands on her fast enough.  I could have swallowed her my affection was so intense.  And now she is nearly 10 years old.  A special thing Katherine and I share is that she was born on the 22nd and her Life number is 11.  I was born on the 11th and my number is 22.  So, we are mates.

Before Nick and I wed in 2005 I planted the Sunday before.  I was in my garden with the back door open so that I could see the golf tournament on television.  It was Masters Sunday and Tiger won and I remember it vividly.  This past Sunday I watched the Masters (a thrilling performance by all) and was pulling for Tiger again.  I like watching him play and especially in The Masters.  I think many are afraid to root for him now given all his past personal problems, but I still do.  I am not asking him to be a spiritual leader or an elementary school principal or an elected official or anything that concerns his personal life and poor or wise decisions.  I see him for what he has offered to be publicly and that is a professional golfer and he is amazing at that job.  I must also say that people who drool over JFK scorn Tiger Woods and that is perplexing.  JFK was an elected President who did many shameful things in his private life.  Tiger Woods is a professional golfer...  That's just an example.  Tiger screwed his personal life up royally, but I don't want to be in the audience- it is none of my bee's wax.  The fact that he was seven strokes back and I could say to my husband that he was still in the race and be right... that I will be a spectator of and say "wow."  Anyway, I am just saying that I pulled for him.  It was all crazy.  So many people were stepping in and out of the lead and all of Tiger's putts were spitting in his face.  How they didn't drop I do not know.  Golf versus physics is like Selma versus the bumble bee.  It is one-sided.

I am again translucent in skin color and do not feel like hot dragon breath is blasting me.  Thought that may be note-worthy.

April 11th has another neat memory for me.  It is Nick's uncle Oleg's birthday.  He would be 98 today.  According to his last plan that he told us about this would only put him slightly past the half way mark in his ten year plan. He said he started working with weights.  Anyway, he passed and I would ask him for signs occasionally to know he was there.  I got many.  Really cool ones like seeing a Punk'd episode where the 'victim' wore a 'COLEGE' teeshirt and his button-up shirt fell over the C and the E leaving OLEG in the middle.  That was right after I was talking to him in my head.  And I had a dream of him that was probably the most real life dream I have ever had in my entire life. That's too long to get into now.  There are many other neat signs but the one having to do with today is this: I told him often that I met Nick on his birthday and so I always remembered it.  I was driving my car in Atlanta after having returned from his funeral in NYC and I was thinking about it all, very sad.  (I am hoggish about asking for signs & the ones I love that have left probably get really tired of me asking for them.)  Then, suddenly, coming from across the many empty lanes of the road I was on was this car.  It zoomed directly in front of me and stayed.  I thought the guy was on crack.  It was the dumbest driving I had seen in a while.  But, there in my vision was his car tag.  It said APRIL 11.  And I said, "Thanks, Oleg."  Because the first thing I think of on 4.11 is meeting Nick.  The second thing I think of is Oleg.  So, the tag made sense to me.  Little things like that add up.  

Spring Flowers and Blue Skies
at The Cotton Mill

Spring sprung.  It is here.  The weather has been pleasant and being out doors feels better than it has in a long time.  Selma Lu Mela ran through a field of yellow flowers bringing her ball back to me so that I could throw it in pathetic fashion for her to chase.  Honey Te'a Lina hasn't been farther than an arms length from me all day. She didn't even leave me to explore in the woods by the creek.  And China Lingua has learned how to follow her leash around me so that I don't have to do anything but say "Other side, China" and she lines up.  She is a smart cookie.  It has been a very good day.  Oh, and!!! My husband has publicly (on facebook) agreed to "spoil me absolutely rotten" for the next 50+ years.  That sounds like a Master plan.  That is an April 11th to remember. (...Just in case he doesn't.)


pssst...* Here's a link to listen to another song that was on the long-ago song suggestion list.  Perfect song for a morning walk!
Norah Jones and Wyclef- Any Other Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPjATjFlIqk&feature=player_embedded