Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Now, I have to clear up something I said in my last column. I mistakenly said that my husband was not raised with cats, and I don’t know if I had a brain fart or I’m getting old and forgetful, but WOW did I get a talking-to from my daughter and my mother-in-law. First, I got in trouble from Regina because I inferred that she was not the world’s greatest multitasker. Of course juggling kids and her precious Persians and Himalayans was easy for her. She’s Regina Kage, for heaven’s sake. So, my apologies, Regina, I don’t know where my head was. My daughter corrected me because that was where my husband’s love of felines came from, growing up with long-haired cats. Mea culpa on my part. I will work hard to never mess up again, but you know, there’s the whole human part.
Because of the stupid weather, the blackbirds arrived early. I was not happy. I had enough birdseed to last through the end of the month, as I do every year, and now I’m basically feeding the birds I hate instead of the sweet chickadees. I realize these are small problems in the bigger picture. We are facing unprecedented horrors at the moment in our country, and we all need to work as hard as we can for the change we want to see. That’s all I’m saying about that. I will now return to railing about the blackbirds. Dobby hates them as much as I do, and anyone who thinks that small dogs can’t make a lot of noise and scare the crap out of things outside has never lived with a terrier or a Chihuahua. All the birds scatter when Dobby yells at them from the chair I put beside me in my writing nook for him. Kola says that he yells at kids to get off his lawn as well, and he is eight years old now, which is considered a senior dog. And while I know that small dogs live longer than big ones, seeing Dobby’s little frosted face now does concern me. Don’t even get me started on Chilly, who I think cackles behind my back whenever I have a heart attack over the fact that he might have passed away in the night. Conversely, Dylan’s cat, Harvey, just passed at twenty-six. Hard to know about cats. I will say that immortal would be my first choice, and of course my husband is not at all ready.
Okay, so Valentine’s Day was kind of a mixed bag, and I blame Aja, even though, technically, it was more like Aja’s friend Issa who was the culprit. And I really couldn’t fault her. She was trying to find her husband some guy pals to hang out with. Colin, her hubby, a computer programmer who worked from home, had only the husbands of her friends to draw from, and apparently that was not working out.
“Come on,” Aja had pressed Sam that Sunday at our normal dinner. “Just help me out.”
He squinted at her and then turned to Dane.
“I told her no,” he said flatly.
Sam looked back at Aja and gestured to her husband.
“Unless,” Dane amended. “You and Jory go with us.”
“That’s such a weenie-ass move,” Sam told him.
Dane’s insouciant shrug, and then, “I don’t like to say no unless absolutely necessary.”
“Because you don’t wanna be the bad guy.”
“There is that,” Dane agreed.
Sam was back to looking at Aja, who was gazing at him with Bambi eyes. “You and Valentine’s Day don’t mix.”
“Pardon me?” she said indignantly.
“Last year was the mixer thing, and that was terrible.”
She tipped her head back and forth. “It wasn’t great, no.”
He turned to me then. “The year before, Hannah and Jake were in that fire, remember?”
“I can’t ever forget Hannah being in a fire,” I assured him. “But that had nothing to do with us, and this year she and Jake are back together and having a romantic evening.”
“I got shot one year on Valentine’s Day,” he reminded me.
“Yes, I recall,” I said, glaring at him. “What are you trying to say?”
“Maybe it’s like Friday the thirteenth and we should just stay home and try and live through it.”
I shook my head at him.
“You’re ridiculous,” Aja told him.
He groaned loudly. “Fine. But what’s wrong with this Colin guy that he doesn’t have any friends of his own?”
“Where are your friends from?” she asked him.
“Work, and Jory.”
“Well, most people don’t have a Jory, and if you work from home and the only people you talk to are online, spread all over the country, how are you supposed to build a friend group?”
“Your kids’ friends’ parents become your friends. That’s how we got Harper’s folks.”
She shook her head. “They’re in either their late thirties or early forties, and they don’t have kids.”
“No kids?” he teased her. “That’s terrible. What about their legacy?”