http://servuclean.com/servuclean My exclamation points.

Chalatenango You may have noticed the new frame. Broad planks, low to the floor, stretching well beyond the mattress it holds.

Right now, our old queen perches there, a little island in the middle of a wooden sea. It looks less like a bed and more like a stage waiting for its star.

Tomorrow, if the truck shows, the king arrives. A mattress said to be so wide a man can stretch without fear of paws or tails pushing him to the brink. A mattress meant for space, for comfort, for the kind of sleep poets call “rest.”

But I know you two. You begin the night curled small, courteous as monks. Then dreams arrive, and with them, conquest.

Charlie lengthens across the diagonal like a fencer with a blade. Jadie, sunflower that she is, unfurls petal by petal until she holds half the bed in her bloom.

By morning, I am once again pressed to the rim, clinging like a cliff diver.

And yet, even as I daydream of space, I know better. Kings do not rule here. Packs do. What matters isn’t the width of the mattress but the weight of the bodies that choose to rest beside me.

So yes, pups, tomorrow we may find out what sleep in a king feels like. But tonight, on this undersized queen in an oversized frame, I already know what home feels like.

Love,

The dad on the edge

Open Letter to A Puppy: Dog Day of Summer

Dear Charlie,

For years, I thought you and Jadie shared the same birthday, November 1st. I was sure of it.

When I adopted you from Pet Orphans of Southern California, I could have sworn the paperwork said November 1st. Maybe I misread it. Maybe the form was asking about Jadie, the one I wanted you to meet.

Either way, I liked the symmetry of it: two dogs, same birthday, same age. Instant siblings. One big cake every year, no calendar reminders needed.

Turns out, I was wrong.

Pet Orphans emailed me yesterday to wish you a happy birthday — August 31st. That date already carries a lot of weight. It’s Samuel Flegel’s birthday. It was my wedding anniversary once, too, before life moved on.

Funny how a single date can hold so many lives inside it.

And of course, it explains everything. Jadie carries herself like fall: steady, calm, deliberate. She surveys the yard before stepping into it. She waits for the ball to stop rolling before picking it up. She is dusk on four legs.

You, Charlie, are noon.

Summer dogs don’t sleep when they nap. They don’t stroll; they streak. They live in exclamation points, never commas.

You burst through the door like the Kool-Aid man, tail spinning, eyes wide, heart cranked to eleven. You bark at neighborhood dogs because they have the nerve to walk by. You greet strangers like they’ve been gone for years (or pose an existential threat).

Summer dogs wag fast, run faster, think about neither.

And maybe that’s why you and Jadie work so well. She’s the long pause; you’re the punch line. She plans; you pounce. She’s fall leaves; you’re fireworks.

So happy belated, Chuck DeAndre Bowles. August 31st, the day of donors and vows and now a streak of fur blazing through the yard. You were made for heat waves and late sunsets and long, reckless afternoons.

So you’re not Jadie’s twin. But you are always her lighting bolt.

And mine.

My scofflaws,

Well, I hope you’re happy. 

Today, a friend and I disassembled the hefty wooden bed that’s been my nocturnal cabin for a decade and a half. The reason?

Your stumpy legs, Charlie. 

Don’t get me wrong; I love your low-rider suspension — in no small part because your six-inch legs don’t impair your hops at all. You can outleap Jadie.

But you bound so eagerly from the bed’s waist-high precipice, clatter so loudly on impact, I just know you’re gonna break a bone on a cold, old morning. Then again, perhaps your old man is taking about himself again.

Regardless, what’s done is done. The guest bedroom is gonna have a killer setup once I find a mattress, box spring, and sucker to drive us. You know anyone?

In the meantime, get used to fewer nighttime acrobatics. You’ll thank me in the long run. Besides, I’M the one sleeping on the floor. That’s your normal bed.

Anyway, like I said, I hope you’re happy. Honestly, I’m kinda am.