After all this talk of bugs, I do not want to make you itch, scratch or curse like a sailor. So for this week’s Thursday Thirteen I present:

13 Things That Make You Feel Good

13. When you get your back scratched without even having to ask.

12. R&B — Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations… “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day/When it’s cold outside I’ve got the month of May…”

11. Soft pillows, cozy quilts and clean sheets.

10. Cherry blossoms on all the trees.

9. A new job. With new co-workers. And a new mug for your desk.

8. Chocolate brownies with vanilla ice cream.

7. Two flats of cosmos and pansies to plant, a big bag of hollyhock tubers, sweet peas, asters and calendula.

6. A birthday party and it’s not you who’s the one turning… I cannot say. But all of you, please tell my Wacky Sister HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! forty times. Heh heh. (Wait, what am I laughing about? I’m three years older. But not until June! Until then, I am two years older.)

5. When you wake up in the morning and the dishes are already done, the laundry is done, and the coffee is made. (This has never happened to me — I mean, not all three at once — but I bet it feels good.)

4. “Getting your hair cut and taking a bath,” says Wacky Boy.

3. Speaking of — lavender bubble baths and candles. Peppermint foot lotion. A big bouquet of flowers.

2. Not having to go to school.

1. Knowing that summer is on the way — lazy, warm nights, going swimming all the time, picnics in the bed of our truck. In the driveway. (Don’t ask — our kids adore this.) Drive-in movies, all of the windows and doors open, the garden in full bloom. Fresh peaches, plums and nectarines. Going to the beach for the day or the week.

Happy Thursday, everybody.

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO crew of the Thursday Thirteen. Do you remember being five? I do not. I vaguely remember my kindergarten teacher trying to sweet-talk me into taking a nap, and I was no napper. That’s about all I remember. I’m hoping that by keeping this blog, I’ll be able to help my kids keep more of their memories than I have. It could work.

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Hello, Thirteeners!

Would you like to move away? Would you like to stay where you are? Does the Caribbean sound good? How about Paris? Yeah, same here. However, we are stuck in River City, Ore. (aka The Other Portland) for at least a year due to circumstances beyond my (our) control. So I am wracking my brain to come up with:

THIRTEEN REASONS I AM HAPPY, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW:

13. The weather is okay at the moment. Even though it’s spring break and this usually means seven days of rain in this part of the country. It was sunny and clear today — the kids even colored with chalk on the sidewalk and played with the neighbor kids.

12. My husband and kids are happy, thus I am happy. I am happy where they are.

11. Chocolate chip pancakes.

10. Good friends, a good community, a women’s group I just joined and already love, and goodness — my yard looks great.

9. I mowed the lawn, the cherry tree and dogwoods are blossoming, the iris and peonies are ready to make an appearance, the hazelnut tree is out of control, the daffodils are still blooming away, and the yellow tulips (that I forgot I had planted) reappeared. This weekend I’ll go and get all my hanging baskets.

8. Midnight at the Dragon Cafe, The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (the book I referred to here), The Long Approach, The Little Book of Prayers and this, my favorite poem ever. So much good writing and reading, so little time. And I’ve been writing in my journal again and getting acupuncture. (Always two sure-fire cures for stress and blues.)

7. Waiting to move cross-country gives us more time to work on the little projects we need to do to sell the house (paint the interior, fix up the scenery Wacky Dog spent a lot of time chewing up, all that).

6. Speaking of woof — I miss my dog a lot still, every day, but I am getting over the regrets. (Maybe if we’d tried this, done that, figured out if…) No regrets. Only love and memories.

5. Wherever you go there you are.

4. The kids are on spring break and we’ve been having a lot of fun — movie nights, playing games, Chuck E. Cheese (which, you know, while I don’t always enjoy the large rodent, they always always always love it. And if you go in the morning it’s not too crazeee. This was news to me). (Also, Chuck E. was not present. “Maybe he’s sick,” Wacky Boy offered up. Oh, son — how right you are.) Hockey God is taking the next couple of days off, I can’t wait. We’re going to go swimming, and to the movies. And like I said earlier, sunshine and tulips: a winning combination.

3. Wacky Boy’s birthday is coming up (five?????? What???), and my sister’s, too. (I am not at liberty to disclose her age.) And my in-laws are coming to town, yay! so we can all celebrate.

2. I can handle four more seasons here. Well, five seasons, technically. Spring just started, so I guess that would be spring-summer-fall-winter-spring again and then move in the summer of 2008. Which is not that far away. (Doesn’t 2010 sound so space age, though?)

1. I am applying for jobs here and hoping to go back to work soon. Keep myself busy and all. And I found a great daycare today for both kids. (Keeping fingers crossed — this is a huge deal.)

Byeeeeeeeee! Happy Thursday, y’all!

Would Che Guevara play hockey, if he were alive today? Will we move to Iowa sooner or later? Should children be allowed to freely swear? If you commit suicide, are you going to Hell? These and other questions, on today’s edition of Thursday Thirteeeeeeeeeeeeeen…

13. Hockey God: “If Che had been Canadian instead of Argentine, he would have played hockey.”

12. This, from the man who designed a T-shirt with (what else?) a pic on the front of Che, suited up in hockey gear. More Hockey/Less War. Cafe Press banned it. Good for them. Someone needs to put a leash on Hockey God, and it’s not going to be me.

11. This, from the man who insisted on playing hockey on Sunday and refused to go on the huge peace march in downtown Portland, Ore. (I was glad, later, that we hadn’t gone. Arrests, pepper spray, some fights, “Little Beirut” reigns again.)

10. “I’m cold because you didn’t bring my damn gloves!” (Wacky Boy, yelling at me at the park, when I suggested he put on his coat.)

9. FYI, my late father is not in Hell for committing suicide, you freaks and trolls who have suggested as much. Hell is saved for you.

8. Swearing? These two blonde children of mine (ages 4 & 7) curse like sailors. I’m not so cool with this, yet am unwilling to stop swearing. Swearing serves a purpose in my life. Their father has suggested a Free Swear day, where our kids get to cuss all day as much as they want. Only not at school. We had some additional discussion on the following topics: Is “suck” a bad word? Is saying “Oh. My. GOD!” a bad word? Is “stupid” a bad word? I have not the words, honestly.

7. Wacky Boy has started a rewards system for his dad and me. We get post-it notes, with “NICE!” or “U ROCK!” scribbled on the top whenever we behave. Who named him boss? Not me — that’s for frickin’ sure. I mean — damn sure. I mean — darn sure.

6. I want to move to Iowa yesterday. “I WANT TO MOVE TO IOWA YESTERDAY, TOO!” says Wacky Boy. “Can we do that?” No, we cannot, son. Wacky Girl: “I’m fine, either way. Stay, go, move to somewhere else in Portland. I wouldn’t mind staying in Portland ’til it’s after my birthday.” (Next September.) (Also, we’ve discussed moving to heinous Beaverton to be closer to my husband’s work.) “We need to wait a year, then go,” says my husband. I’ll keep you posted.

5. In the meantime, I’ve started looking for work. Here and in Iowa. Because you never know…

4. Wacky Girl gets ice cream when she gets an “11” (all words spelled correctly, plus the challenge word) on her weekly spelling test. This week she got… less than 11. And wrote BLAH BLAH BLAH on the bottom of her test. To which her teacher responded, “Oh, no!”

3. Wacky Girl: “Don’t let Dad see that, willya?”

2. Everyone here has spring fever.

1. I’m still getting the inside of the house painted, move or no move.

HAPPY THURSDAY, YINS!

(Edited to say — whoops! I forgot to link!)

13. I could whistle like our neighbors’ guinea pigs. I trained the little rodents to run to me.

12. 1 loved to eat frozen lemonade concentrate straight out of the can.

11. I devoured Pixie Stix.

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Oh, Thursday Thirteen, I love you so! You give my crazy week a little bit of shape, meaning and (dare I say?) structure.

Go say hi to Carol and Beth now.

Thirteen Things I’ve Figured Out in the Last Three Weeks:

13. Everything I do makes a difference/nothing I do makes a difference.

12. I’m cool with that.

11. You can apply for jobs out-of-state, pack up your house, and get things rolling in an amazingly short period of time. You can change your whole life around. You can cry while you’re doing this and ten minutes later smile because the daffodils and crocus have sprung and it’s all OK. You can recycle a ton of documents you really do not need and suddenly your load feels much lighter. Then you find an old dog toy buried in the yard and start crying again. And then the sun will come out and for a minute, things will be alright.

10. Remorse and regrets shut me down. I cannot afford to be shut down.

9. Instead of fuming, it’s better to attempt to be straightforward and deal with the problem.

8. My kids drive me nutty-cuckoo every day.

7. My kids save my sanity every day.

6. Even if the breadmaker breaks, you can still bake bread.

5. I am profound, no? (Sorry.)

4. It’s OK to ask for help. You may or may not get any help, but sometimes, it is greater than you can imagine, the love and support that is out there.

3. If I stand by the ocean I realize how tiny I am.

2. If I volunteer in my kid’s class one extra time during the week, I realize how important I am.

1. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, or no matter what you do, people (and critters) just don’t get better. Cycle of life. I’m not saying I like it, but I am saying I need to accept it. Will continue to try.

Yours,

WM

I posted early for the Thursday Thirteen; my husband posted late. It’s his best one yet, in my humble opinion: War Must End (and Thirteen Imaginings for a Better World.)

Read it if you have a chance.

I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven’t got the guts to bite people themselves.
— August Strindberg

He’s wrong. I do bite. And yes, yes, I know. People can’t help that they’re stupid.

(PS — By the way, all of these stupid comments were made to my face or over the phone. Not on the blog. You all have been incredibly supportive and kind. Thank you. You would think, since we don’t know each other in “real” life — most of us, anyway — that that would mean license to be flip, or rude or whatever. Maybe we just save our best manners for the people we don’t know “face to face.” We should save our best manners for everyone, because you never know what someone’s deal is. I appreciate you guys, and thank you. You mean the world to me.)

(PSS — Thanks to Carol and Beth for keeping Thursday Thirteen going.)

For my Thursday Thirteen, here are…

Thirteen Stupid Things People Have Said to Me Since Wacky Dog Died

13. He was really old, right?

12. He was neurotic.

11. Your dog was really neurotic.

10. He would have drove me nuts.

9. All of that chewing would have drove me nuts.

8. You’d better find a way to deal with it, because he’s gone.

7. He’s still lost? (This from a friend who got my message saying, “We lost the dog.” Apparently my sobbing into her voicemail didn’t tip her off.)

6. Yeah, Labs have problems.

5. I’m glad we have a small dog. Small dogs live longer.

4. You’ll be glad not to pick up after him anymore, I bet.

3. At least he was old.

2. It just seems so… sudden.

1. Was he even sick?

Yeah, I know. I need to keep my mouth shut. More secrets = more better, right? Less information = less hurt. Yes, in some cases. But when you’re crying for a week solid, and you still have to do things like go out in public to get your kids to and from school, people ask questions. And what a lot of people don’t know, because 1) it’s none of their business and 2) I keep it guarded like the dark secret it is — people know that my Dad jumped. (I wrote about it here.) But what I never tell people is — he took our dog with him and killed her, too. (Because what? It wasn’t going to damage us enough, with the suicide? He had to throw a little more damage in there? Thanks, Dad.) She was a black dog, and really sweet, with a white blaze on her chest. She looked like a miniature version of Wacky Dog. And I was just a little older than my daughter when it happened. So analyze that in your spare time.

Also, Wacky Dog was our last dog, and some of my sorrow is because of that. I love dogs, even the crazy-kooky ones like Wacky Dog, and I’ve never not had a dog. But my husband and I decided this a long time ago. He’s not really a dog person, and I cannot deal with this kind of grief and sorrow again. Not when I can have a choice in the matter.

A lot of people have said the right things. Not everyone is stupid. So I give you:

13. I loved Wacky Dog.

12. He was a great dog.

11. You guys were a great family to him.

10. It’s good that he’s not in pain anymore.

9. My dog will miss him — they were good friends.

8. He was the best dog.

7. He ruled.

6. You’re going to keep hearing him — and looking for him — for a long time. I am sorry to tell you this, but for me it was (two months, six months, or just a pause, and then, “a long time”).

5. This must be tough for the kids.

4. This must be making you really sad.

3. I am sorry.

2. I wish there was something I could do.

1. He had a good home with you guys, and you did all you could.

No, the Thursday Thirteen is not going away. Yay!

Let’s have some happy puppy stories on this blog — enough sadness. My dog, Wacky Dog, was Good Dog and Crazeeeee Dog and he was awesome. So my Thursday Thirteen is in his honor…

And this post is in honor of Leanne, who is saying “No more Thursday Thirteen.” I am hoping she changes her mind. Because I love the Thursday Thirteen.

THIRTEEN HILARIOUS STORIES ABOUT WACKY DOG

13. One time a pig truck drove by us on the highway. An extremely large pig truck that was full of smelly, yummy, snorting pigs. You have never seen so much happy sniffing in your life as my dog that day, with his head hanging out the window, tongue out and drooling.

12. There was the time two girl dogs fell all over him at the park. No, I cannot go into details, but he was Happy Wacky Dog. Then there was the time I was throwing a tennis ball for him and a guy driving by yelled, “Sit, Ubu, sit! Good dog!” out the window at him, which cracked me up.

11. When we first got him my husband said NO DOG ON THE BED! Which explains why a week later there we were, napping happily with Wacky Dog snuggled between us. On his back. Legs waving in the air. Snoring. (This is my happiest dog memory.)

10. About a week after that, we couldn’t find the dog. Called for him, and up he popped from under a quilt on the floor, where he was completely covered up, snoozing. Woof!

9. I have beautiful memories of Wacky Dog and Wacky Girl, age two, racing laps around our kitchen, into the entryway, the dining room, and back into the kitchen. (This is Wacky Girl’s earliest memory, and how sweet is that?)

8. My son’s second-earliest memory is of his sister chasing him around, into the kitchen, the entryway, the dining room, and back into the kitchen, with Wacky Dog chasing both of them.

7. The Dog Who Loved the Game of Pounce. Wacky Dog liked to watch us from across the yard, and when we’d call him, he’d skulk, wiggle, hold as still as he could, for as long as he could stand it, and then finally SPRING across the yard and race to us. Pounce!

6. The dog loved to howl and never missed any opportunity to do so. He could bay like the hound dog he was. We’d have “Family Howls” where we’d all throw our heads back and bay. The neighbors, they did not know what to make of this.

5. There was the time he crawled through the window.

4. There was the time our housesitter and her husband did not know what to do with him — he wouldn’t stay in the house (without chewing it to bits), you couldn’t crate him, he wouldn’t stay in the back yard (why should he, when he could sit in the front yard instead?) and they couldn’t take him with them.

Solution: “We put his bed on the front porch, told him ‘Stay’ and ‘Good dog!’ and he was still there when we got home!” What a good puppy. He loved everyone and everyone loved him. “People aren’t strangers to him,” one of my girlfriends said, “just friends he hasn’t gotten to know yet.” I loved seeing kids’ reactions to him. They’d ask, really quietly, “Is it OK if I pet your dog?” then would love all over him while he wiggled and smiled. He was a smiley dog.

3. There was the time he rolled in a dead porcupine at the beach. Actually, this was not hilarious to me at all, and only hilarious to him for the first couple of sniff-happy moments. Yowch.

2. When one of us would call, “Who’s there?” he’d bark like a maniac. Ditto if you just said, “Who” or “There?” Also, he loved squirrels, birds and cats, and didn’t mind sharing his yard, but when I would tell him, “Git ’em!” when I saw a squirrel, he would go into this barking frenzy and chase it out of the yard. Then he’d strut.

1. This one isn’t hilarious, but I am happy knowing that he had almost ten great years with us. (We’re not sure how old he was, but think he was one or two when we got him.) It makes me smile thinking of all the good times we had.

Love you, Wacky Dog. Miss you.

Your Wacky Family