Thankful

There are many things I'm thankful for.

Having Elka has changed and enriched my life in a fantastic way. The fact that I can share these experiences with my friends, my family, and you fine people is pretty amazing.

I'm thankful for my job. I'm thankful for the roof over my head. I'm thankful for my fiancé. I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for my friends. I'm thankful for my dog. I'm thankful for my love of writing, and my enjoyment of it. I'm thankful for the readers of this blog. I'm thankful for my love of reading.

I'm sure I've mentioned in passing here that I don't much like poetry. I've talked about it on my writing blog (which is not family friendly, so any of my younger cousins reading this, please don't get me in trouble with your parents!)

There are some poets that I like, though. Mary Oliver is somebody I'm reading recently. T.S. Elliot I like. Allen Ginsberg (and it delights me to no end that somebody on Twitter tweets a line from Howl every hour) (Howl is also not family friendly, depending on the age. I read it first my Freshman year of college. At the end of this post, I'm going to be very thankful for my family. And their understanding that I'm a grown up and use grown up words sometimes). But yeah, Mary Oliver. In New and Selected Poems, Volume II, she wrote Percy, about her dog. Part 1 is Monday Mischief worthy, about a chewed book. Part 2 is pure dog love.

Percy

(One)

Our new dog, named for the beloved poet,

ate a book which unfortunately we had

left unguarded.

Fortunately, it was the Bhagavad Gita,

of which many copies are available.

Every day now, as Percy grows

into the beauty of his life, we touch

his wild, curly head and say,

"Oh, wisest of little dogs."

(Two)

I have a little dog who likes to nap with me.

He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck.

He is sweeter than soap.

He is more wonderful than a diamond necklace,

which can't even bark.

I would like to take him to Kashmir and the Ukraine,

and Jerusalem and Palestine and Iraq and Darfur,

that the sorrowing thousands might see his laughing mouth.

I would like to take him to Washington, right into

the oval office

where Donald Rumsfeld would crawl out of the president's 

armpit

and kneel down on the carpet, and romp like a boy.

For once, for a moment, a rational man.

Thanksgiving is coming!

This happens to me every year, perhaps because of National Novel Writing Month, but Thanksgiving has snuck right up on me!

Last year I posted about this lovely holiday play set that Target had. I don't think Target has brought it back, unfortunately, but because I've carefully guarded it, we've still got it! But, I also talked about food safety, and things like that bear repeating.

One thing that we've noticed at holiday time with Elka is that sometimes, when somebody *coughnotmecough* feeds her things like turkey skin, she has the runs after. I guess this is a good indicator that she has just enough fat in her diet, and doesn't need more of it in "lump sum" quantities. We've never given her what seems to be a massive amount of turkey skin, but we won't be doing any of that this year. Pancreatitis is one of those things you have to watch out for, and I've seen other blogs and web sites caution against loading your dog up on high fat things at any time. There are other ways to give them treats, they don't need to be greasy and fatty!

I've discovered this year that Elka really loves sweet potatoes. Mostly because every time I have sweet potato, she sings at my plate until I give her some. I tend to just bake them, with some butter or some olive oil, and find they don't really need much more than that. I didn't used to like sweet potatoes; add it to the list, I guess.

So, safe and happy holidays, folks!