Monthly Archives: March 2024

Open Letter to A Puppy: Three’s Company


My frenzy,,

You may have noticed a fourth slow-feed dog bowl at the supper table lately. And no, we aren’t getting a third pup — yet (though the notion draws ever nearer).

You’ve got a roommate for the next few weeks. Mochi’s mom landed an acting gig for a few weeks, so we’re pup sitting this month. Which brings the poundage in the household to at least 180, dwarfing my own. 

And you wanna know something? I love it. I guess there’s no need to pretend I’m NOT that dog guy.

I’ve come to calling you the triplets: three shades of lab/pit  brown that will play triangular tug-of-war with the same rope, share wet food and sleep on the same single pad that nursed my back last year.

You all hop in the creamsicle hatchback, wrestling over squeak balls and whimpering to greet any passing canine. I should be so warm-hearted. 

More miraculously, even your pettiness charms.

What can be more beautiful than a jealous dog? One that bodies into you so closely it could be a vital organ? After dinner and some backyard fetching, I’ll drop to the cot and try to distribute two arms to three bodies evenly, though I know it’s never enough. 

When I return from another room, you cluster at the door like I FINALLY showed up for a staff meeting I’d called hours earlier.

If it sounds like I’m complaining, you should know: This is a lot more doable than I thought. Sixty pounds may be too much for this patch dirt. But 20? Ten? A man gets to thinking.

Until then, I’d ask you to make some home space for the rest of March. But when it comes to your hearts, I guess it’s never cramped. 

Windmills And Me


I never understood wind.

You know, I know

windmills very much.

I have studied it

better than anybody

else. It’s very expensive.

They are made in China

and Germany mostly.

—Very few made here, almost none,

but they are manufactured, tremendous

—if you are into this—

tremendous fumes. Gases are

spewing into the atmosphere. You know

we have a world

right?

So the world

is tiny

compared to the universe.

So tremendous, tremendous

amount of fumes and everything.

You talk about

the carbon footprint

— fumes are spewing into the air.

Right? Spewing.

Whether it’s in China,

Germany, it’s going into the air.

It’s our air

their air

everything — right?

A windmill will kill many bald eagles.

After a certain number

they make you turn the windmill off.

That is true.

—By the way

they make you turn it off.

And yet, if you killed one

they put you in jail.

That is OK.

You want to see a bird graveyard?

You just go.

Take a look.

A bird graveyard.

Go under a windmill someday,

you’ll see

more birds

than you’ve ever seen

in your life.

~ D. Trump

12/21/2019