The second reason I prefer animals to people: Puck

I decided since my last post was dedicated to the awesomeness that is Molly, it would be unfair to leave Puck out of this.

He too, had quite humble beginnings.

One chilly november evening in 2010, as I was walking Molly in our after-work evening constitutional, in the premature-night of fall in Virginia, I heard a very high pitched cry -- which as I rounded the corner in my townhouse development, I realized was a kitten meowing. Our neighborhood had somewhat of a problem with a colony of feral cats in the woods nearby, so cat-sounds were not so unusual, but this one made me worry. It was coming from a window well from a nearby townhouse, so loud I hear it around the block, and I couldn't understand why no one else was curious (particularly the people who lived in the house he was crowing beneath).

As I got closer to the source of the sound, I remember a man on sidewalk, seeing what I was doing, saying, "You'll never find it." But I persisted, Molly leading me with her determined sniffing. We paused over the window well, unable to see below it, and the meowing stopped.

After jogging back to my apartment to seek assistance from my roommate, a great woman who was as dedicated (some might say obsessed) with animals as I, and the mommy to two great cats, we retrieved a handful of grey fur. As I held a flash light over her head and she reached into the well, Puck even tried his hand at four-week old hissing. We LOL-ed at him, and brought him into the apartment.

puck's first time indoors

We discussed what we should do, having two cats already in the apartment as well as Molly. The most viable option seemed giving him over to a friend of my roommate's, who ran a cat rescue. But as we sat drinking white wine with some friends, waiting for her to come over and take a look at him, well…I fell in reluctant love. I didn't want a cat, but what is it the Japanese say? When you save a life, you are responsible for it. And I've never looked back.

scale - november 2010

interwebz premiere - november 2010

matching accessories - december 2010

his first crib - i may have been worried Molly would make him a chew toy

she was less than enthused to be an older sister

pondering his existence - january 2011

going through puberty- february 2011

bored with my french movies - february 2011 

one of my favorite pictures - april 2011

reppin' philadelphia - february 2012

Molly speaks

I have the fortune of having the greatest dog in the world.

artsy return to philadelphia - january 2012

lunching on rittenhouse - july 2011

mom's pool - summer 2011

beach bummin' - summer 2011

trying to steal my man since - december 2011

christmas day - december 2011

a real time snap - tonight!

like I said: greatest damned dog ever.

But her beginnings were not so glam.

I rescued her (and vice versa) three years ago this October 14th. She looked like this.

fall of 2009, walking around East State Penitentiary

She had been found by the amazing, wonderful, awesome, please-donate-to-them shelter wandering in the woods. As you can see, she was malnourished, had very thin and wiry fury (quite a difference, n'est pas?) and, most notably, could not bark. There were a few theories as to why, but no concrete conclusions.

Which is tragic in a way because either through physical or emotional trauma, my darlingest baby was traumatized (and if I ever found out a human was responsible and came face to face with that person there's no telling what I'd do or say), but also a blessing because she is in fact a Pomeranian, not exactly known for their discretion in barking.

That said, in the past few months, she has found her voice.

It first occurred a month ago. My mother was babysitting her (a tactic not at all devised to keep her off the grandchild fever train) and texted me around 10 pm on a Wednesday, "Molly said her first word."

It was "out." My mother and her boyfriend were having their typical Wednesday night on the couch watching tv and suddenly, a burst of sound came from the couch. A short, raspy, rounded...word.

She looked to him, he looked to her.

Mom: "Did you make that noise?"

Him: "I thought you did?!"

They then looked to Molly.

So it's been a running joke since then. Molly is not actually a mute, but a selective mute. Like Holden Caulfield.

And tonight, she exercised that selectivity again. Boyfriend and I were sitting on the couch, watching Game 7 (f-ck you Lebron, really) and it again, a sudden burst of sound from the floor.

We both looked immediately to Molly, perched on the floor, reveling in using her favorite word.

So I obliged her, and it was obvious her little squawk was a request to go out, because as soon as I stood she bound to the door by her leash.

And as pleased as I've been for the past three years with Molly's general quiet, I wouldn't be adversed if she talked to us more. Like the fur, the extra (healthy) pounds, and the diva 'tude at times, all of it came about because she's comfortable, happy, and loved. And I can't even put into words the changes she's brought about in me, so I'm happy I'm able to return the favor.

My pets are cuter and creepier than your pets

Meet Molly and Puck.

What the hell is heaven?

This morning, on hold with a client, who was at her place of work when she called, I was subjected to a rather mediocre pseudo rock 80s song for about thirty seconds while she scoured for information. The hook of the song struck me, amidst the generic, twangy soft rock.

"What the hell is heaven?"

After I got over the fact that this company found this song appropriate as hold music, I lazily jotted the line on my notepad. For some reason, it was really funny in that moment, and I mouthed the rather unimaginative wordplay and smiled. Even now hours later when I think about it I laugh a little. But as trite as I thought it was, and bemused I was by it, it still got me thinking: what the hell is heaven, for me?

My heaven is my mother's house, the two-story, tan house with green shutters at the end of the street in a suburban-but-really-rural northeastern Pennsylvania town, where I lived full time from ages 12 to 18, and then periodically through college, and then only as a visitor for the past two years.

I can think of no better way to spend my eternal afterlife than within those walls, probably drinking a lot of keurig coffee and watching a lot of jeopardy and luckily, if I'm in a ~warmer afterlife, plenty of swimming.

But then...then I felt a weird guilt. I feel a sort of guilt for being 24 and still attached to this obvious substitute for the womb.

Shouldn't my apartment, one I happen to share with a man I love, that I picked myself, that I decorated, that I spend most of my nonworking life in, shouldn't that be my heaven? My port in the storm? Surely, real adults don't fantasize about their mommy's house. Not only that but it seemed to cheapen what I've built here, of my own choosing and design, and so, guilt.

And you'll have that, I guess. Or I will at least, as a perpetual and often irrational guilt sufferer.

But the truth is the truth, which is why I felt guilty.

The truth is I've never felt as blissfully happy in a museum in Paris, in the best restaurant in Rome, in a cushy luxury bed in a midtown Manhattan hotel, roaming the peaceful, serene highways of Texas, or even sitting on my butt watching Family Guy and smoking hookah with my beloved in my own apartment in my favorite city in the world as I am laying on my mom's worn, slightly crooked couch while the sun pours in from the French doors and she sips coffee nearby. I just don't. All the traveling I've done has only further confirmed this as a fact.

One aspect of growing up I'm finding difficult to cope with is the complete and utter responsibility I have for my surroundings, how there is no one to plan my vacations, arrange my schedule, filter my friendships, or create my home. It's a thrilling, beautiful freedom but there is at least now, a loss of security in that freedom. So no matter how lush I can arrange my apartment, no matter how relaxed I can be in it, it will never be truly blissful. Bliss involves a kind of ignorance, a lack of responsibility, and it seems that diminishes just a little more everyday. Without bliss, a place can't really be heaven, can it?

I wish the client would have let me on hold just a little bit longer so I could find out what indeed the hell is heaven.

The beginning of the philadelphia story

I had a "bad" day at work on Tuesday. Working in customer service, I deal with a lot of unhappy people, so there are bound to be such bad days. Having a 22-mile commute on a very congested highway can influence those bad days, especially when an accident in a construction zone makes me an hour late. And of course, the pressure to study and perform well on an upcoming licensing exam is an ever present stressor.

I was at the end of my rope, emotionally, on the phone with a client. As he was filling out paperwork on the other end, he asked off-handedly where I was physically located.

"My office is outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."

Philadelphia.

The clouds lifted.

For two miserable years in the Washington D.C. metro area, I would have killed to say those words.

Suddenly the background stress faded and i felt relief.

Location, location, location.

That's why I decided to rename this blog. From a favorite quote from a favorite book by nabokov (a truth I maintain, on some level) to what it really is now, now as i blog about my life going forward.