Well I have learned a new trick for getting a higher success rate on New Years Resolutions: don't start until 4 days in. I'm guaranteed to last at least a week.
So as I have said at least 4 times now, keeping a blog is a resolution for this year. However, it is not the only one. Here are my others:
-Keep going to the gym at least 3 times a week
-Cut Starbucks visits down to once a week (for people who know me...yes, I know this sounds impossible, but it will be done.)
-Save $150/month for a plane ticket to Australia in December
-Work on my conversational French at least twice a week
I'm also trying to be realistic with myself that those all sound doable now, but I also am not back in school or work, so they could rapidly lose plausibility come January 12th.
As I am writing this post, I am thinking it could swiftly turn into a rambling series of empty paragraphs, which will then lead me to hate my writing, which will then lead me to give up the blog altogether. So new plan: I am going to take the heading of my blog a little more seriously. I really just chose those words because I like the letter 'p' but I think that will be a good format - one place I've visited, and one thing upon which I've been ruminating. Done.
This week I am not back in DC, I am in CA soaking up the rain and the valuable time with family and friends-so-old-they-are-like-family. I haven't really been going anywhere new or interesting - in fact, I have purposely been going to all the places I've been a million times before, or staying home and doing absolutely nothing. My family is currently on a Shanghai Rummy kick (You should play!) although my mom winning every single time gets a little old...
One slightly different place we've gone this week is to the Humane Society in Ojai, where we were looking at a new dog to adopt. My parents have big, big hearts and they wanted our dog Lucy to have a friend, and they also wanted an adult dog to find a home. After much deliberating, and a few detours, we ended up applying for a Tibetan Spaniel we've decided to name George Bailey. However, there's a hold on him, so we have to wait to see if some other paperwork goes through...it's all up in the air. As a side note about the Ventura County Humane Society, if you live anywhere near there and are thinking about getting a pet, please go check them out. They care so deeply about all the animals, and take really good care of them, but we learned it costs $10,000/month just to keep the doors open. So if you're looking for a place to volunteer, donate or adopt, go visit. Ojai even built you a new yogurt shop to draw you in...
My pondering actually came from this visit. When we first walked in and saw all the dogs, they were all cute enough - it is very hard to convince me I don't like a dog. We weren't even going in to look at the Tibetan Spaniel, we were coming in specifically to look at another dog we'd seen on their website. But I saw this little boy in his cage and started to pet him and he was just the sweetest thing, so we took him out to play for a bit. He was unnamed, so of course I immediately started thinking of all the things we could call him. It was just after Christmas (the 30th, I think?) so obviously Christmas names were coming to mind. Kevin McAllister? Ralphie? Scott Calvin or Bernard? George Bailey. My family has watched It's a Wonderful Life religiously, every Christmas, for as long as I can remember. So George it was. And the second I thought that, and repeated it to my mother, the bond between us and the dog appeared and strengthened instantaneously. Just in the act of assigning a name, he became ours and we became his and my heart was set on this dog. So is that why I name so many inanimate objects, like my computer (Ginger) and my Kindle (Toby Ziegler) and my phone (Stackhouse)? I want to feel bonded to everything around me? Or is that why we give so many nicknames to the people we love? The name everyone else calls them is just the species. The name that is just for us bonds us to each other more deeply. In high school, all my friends and I had these ridiculous captain names for each other - I was Captain Dubious, I believe. But being able to call each other and answer the phone, "Hey Captain Mathster" or "Captain Innuendo" makes me feel like no space has grown between us. And even though I'm sure everyone else at our school thought us incredibly nerdy, I wouldn't trade that feeling of closeness for anything. This week I got a present from my best friend, who signed the little gift tag simply "<3, PTS" and made a joke as I was opening it about the great amount of thought put into the signature. But I loved it. In those three little letters, a nickname we share for each other, were all our years of friendship and love, conversations going until wee hours of the morning, knowing each other well enough to speak without words, and, as we got older, years of counseling, mourning, celebrating, and confiding. A small little name can say so much.
No comments:
Post a Comment