We Celebrate Tuesdays

 

We celebrate Tuesdays. We celebrate quiet miracles of normalcy because they are the moments of joy we build our lives on. Not fireworks, not New Year’s Eve, not grand glittering events, but the small smiles, the sighs of contentment. We celebrate tail wags, snuggles, baroos, and “talking” from our babies. We savor the sight of them lying in the sun, or sprawling in the grass. We caress soft ears and rub endearingly freckled tummies. We bury our faces in their sweet fur. We live our lives in small fleeting seconds of joy.

We celebrate Tuesdays and evenings when the sky is so clear we can see stars everywhere. We rejoice in perfect vibrant leaves falling in our backyard as the Munchkins jubilantly assist in raking multi-colored mountains. We celebrate the owl who visits our pine trees. We applaud the ordinary, which isn’t; we marvel at the normal, and we count our blessings during our usual evenings snuggled together.

Our Munchkins are now seniors with health issues, and we tweak their routines a bit, change their diets, make no plans to travel.  Their walks are shorter and they let us know when they’re ready to go home. We try to make changes almost before they are needed to make life easier for the Munchkins.

 Although she still leaps and twirls when her food is about to be served, Dasa gets tired and sometimes has difficulty jumping onto the people bed with its high mattress. We added  small carpeted pet stairs by the sofa and bed.  She looks askance at these new things. It takes Dasa a while to get used to anything new, so the stairs are there waiting, giving her suspicions time to fade. Gradually, our little Doodle will realize these new obstacles a) will not eat her and b) might be handy to have around.

I’ve been using treats and a clicker to coax her up the steps. I’m having some success with this, although she is still not sure this is a good idea.  Ivan leaps onto the bed, taking the fast track to the treats. Dasa follows the treats step by step, but she has the air of someone who is patiently humoring me, hoping I’ll tire of this new game. 

 

 

We celebrated little Doodle’s 14th birthday on November 22.  I believe 11/22/99 is among the luckiest of numbers, bringing most uncommonly good fortune and blessing us with Dasa. And yet, and yet, time runs merrily along, a river of days, hours, bright moments rushing past us. Time is a force stronger than gravity. The speed of sound, the speed of light, the speed of life. All those moments we try to savor flow through our fingers and somehow, we are miles and years from where we were such a short while ago.

We celebrate because the day comes, and always too soon, when ordinary, simple, usual, small joys and routines are replaced by heartache and oh how we wish for ordinary once again. So we hold our dear ones close, and we celebrate Tuesdays.