Bridget and her bed are going on an adventure!

How to have a relaxing family picnic with the dog:

1. Pick up a pizza.
2. Pack some drinks and plates and a package of cream-cheese brownies you’d accidentally purchased earlier.
3. Get a random text from your friend Mary and invite her to join you.
4. Tell her to meet you among the terraced flowers at Ellis Park.
5. Drive to Noelridge Park and realize that you can’t get to the terraced flowers because of all the damn endless construction.
6. Text Mary to tell her to meet you at Thomas Park instead.
7. Realize in a moment of panic that you’d originally sent her to the wrong park.
8. POTENTIAL MORTAL EMBARRASSMENT AVERTED!
9. Meet up at THOMAS PARK and start enjoying your evening together.
10. Collectively notice out of the corners of your eyes a young mommy chasing her little toddler toward a storm drain at the edge of the parking lot.
11. Watch the mom catch up to the little girl just as she threw something down the drain.
12. Watch the mom and dad look at each other in a wave of cheek-draining incredulity.
13. Walk over to see if they need anything and find out that their little girl had thrown their car keys into the sewer.
14. Marvel at their Zen-like calmness.
15. Realize that they honestly have no idea what to do, so find the local non-emergency police number for them and offer to drive one of them home to get a second set of keys.
16. Wait with them until the police and then a fire truck show up.
17. Watch the responders initially stand around and look confused ... then get some massive tools from their vehicles ... then pry up the drain cover ... then fish around in it with some long hooky tools ... AND FIND THE KEYS!
18. High-five everyone.
19. Finish your cream-cheese brownies.
20. Completely fail at getting the dog to look at the camera for a group selfie.

Bridget! Is! Visiting!

Bitch Kitty’s gonna be pissed.

Happy Tuesday!

Here’s a picture of Bridget yawning:

My underpants are kinda showing

1. Look at how adorable Bridget was as a puppy!
2. I’m going to greatly regret forgetting to wear a belt as the day progresses.
3. LOOK AT HOW ADORABLE BRIDGET WAS AS A PUPPY!

We put our paws on the floor when we’re told to stay on our bed but we still want to be in the room with our people

When she hangs her little paws over the front steps and looks out over her domain, MY HEART JUST MELTS

This girl

If my sister had done some damn alliterative planning when she landscaped her back yard, I could title this portrait Bridget and the Begonias. But nooooooo.

So we’ve had to rename the dog Prudence.

MISS! BRIDGET! IS! VISITING!

She mortally sucks at looking toward the camera for selfies, so I tried setting up a selfie before calling her and snapping the selfie as she came to me. But she also mortally sucks at not being blurry. So I must now formulate a Plan C ...

!

Good morning!

SOMEBODY we know just finished making a huge, loud, high-drama production about her disdain over Miss Bridget’s prolonged visit ...

#BitchKittyLogic

Good morning!

It’s not a visit from Miss Bridget until she sneezes on you then completely fails at taking a decent selfie

I got to spend the evening with the blurry Miss Bridget!

And with my nephew who came home from college to celebrate his birthday and we rarely get to see him blah blah blah BUT HOW ADORABLE IS MISS BRIDGET!

This is NOT, for the record, how I feel about going out in the snow today

10 things I remember about my Grandma Stigers

1. She made peach preserves in enormous glass jars every year to share with everyone in the family. Each jar had a cinnamon stick in it, which I thought was weird as a kid because cinnamon of course doesn't go with peaches but that never stopped me from piling indulgent amounts of the preserves on everything I could think of.

2. When her daughter--a young mother--lost her husband to cancer, my grandparents renovated their basement to give her and her kids a free, safe place to live so they could care for them until they recovered and got back on their feet.

3. She put up with my dad--who even by his own accounts was a handful and a seeker of trouble and somebody I probably wouldn't have liked if we'd been peers--and turned him into the father I love and respect and look up to today.

4. She loved to sing. Oh, how she loved to sing. Her rich contralto filled her church when she sang hymns and filled her home whenever we gathered around her piano or the gorgeous antique pump organ she had that was never in tune and virtually impossible to play but it never mattered because she was so full of joy from singing.

5. Her hair was so gray that it went beyond silver into the realm of misty purple-blue. And she had a wardrobe of purple clip-on earrings that always matched her hair perfectly.

6. She and my grandfather had a little black mutt named Rags, who was sweet and attentive and docile but always kinda smelled like he needed a bath.

7. She loved to make ceramics for people and she actually had a kiln in her basement. She'd paint and glaze each piece, etch her name and the year on the bottom, and fire up beautiful ornaments and decorations that I'm sure still grace the homes of friends and extended family from coast to coast.

8. She had a dishwasher that rolled around the kitchen and connected to the sink faucet with a hose. This really has nothing to do with her as a person, but when you're a kid and your grandmother has a dishwasher that rolls around the kitchen and connects to the sink faucet with a hose, that makes her pretty darn interesting.

9. She was unfortunately enthusiastic about thumping us kids on the head with her finger or some other small weapon--both as punishment and for her own entertainment. She called herself Granny Great-Thump. We called her Granny Great-Rump.

10. She and my grandfather had an enclosed back porch that ran nearly the entire length of their house, with enough room for a long table and plenty of chairs for feeding a steady parade of family and friends. They even had tiny paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling, which I always thought made the place extra-festive.

Grandma died 20 years ago today, after living trapped in the aftermath of a stroke for many months. She lived exponentially farther away from me than my other grandmother when I was a kid, so I didn't see her as often and I never really felt like I knew her. But she influenced my dad to be the kind, loving, decent, respected man he is, and I hope to think he's influenced me to be the same. So she lives on in our hearts and in our family and in yet another generation as my niece and nephew carry on the examples of kindness and love and decency that she lived.

Diary entry: January 12, 2019

Miss Bridget has dined this evening on an amuse-bouche crisp biscuit in a whimsical bone shape, a prix-fixe entrée of locally scooped, hand-poured dark kibble, and an apéretif of fresh water à la faucet.

She is now perusing the nap menu in the front salon.

Seriously. That FACE.

Oh yeah, and Nancy Pelosi becomes two cold, black heartbeats away from the presidency today.