I’ve teamed up with two friends to start IMHO, a joint blog with a pop culture slant.  Go check it out.  I might be back here now and again, too, but for now you’ll find me over there at least twice a week.  We hope you like it!

Oh yeah we were.  Our plans for day 5 were to take the “ferry” to Pinel Island, a short, two-minute ride from SXM.  From one slice of Paradise to the other.  I say “ferry” because it was really an overlarge rowboat with a motor, but it was a whopping $7 so who really cares?  Plus, it brought us here:

There’s no electricity on Pinel, no roads or cars, but there’s plenty of  crystal clear, shallow water, soft sand, and snorkeling in the marine reserve on the other side of the island.  There are even two beach bars and an outdoor “boutique” area selling clothing and souvenirs.

For a little change of scenery, Luke and I took a little hike over the hill to see the marine reserve on the other side of the island.  Check out this view:

So crowded. Can’t stand it.

Many of the reviews I read about Pinel complained that it was overcrowded.  Not while we were there.  We did have an interesting “sighting” though.  There was a lady sunbathing near our umbrella with short cropped, bleach blond hair and tattoos all over.  I nudged Luke and said, “Look, it’s Pink.”  I’m sorry to admit that I know what Pink’s tattoos look like, so although this lady looked A LOT like her, it wasn’t.  Luke’s still convinced it was.

We all boarded the 3pm ferry and headed back to our place to change and take off again for Philipsburg to pick up the ring we bought for Luke.  I didn’t mention that in the last post about Philipsburg.  We’re on a never-ending quest to find a wedding band that Luke will wear and while we were in the jewelry store talking about the Molly ring that I had ordered from Etsy, the lure of the sparkly things won us over.  He found a simple white gold “comfort fit” band that he really liked and I said go for it!  He wanted to have a memento of Molly like I was going to have, so he asked to have “Molly” engraved inside the band.  The day we picked it up, I asked the jeweler to clean my rings (which have our names written around the outside).  He read, “Luke…and…LISA?”  He looked up and said, “Then who is Molly?”  We answered at the same time.  I said “Our dog.”  Luke said “My other wife.”  That’ll teach him to ask silly questions.

Next, a sunset dinner at Chesterfield’s overlooking the bay, then a walk on Dawn Beach, and we were ready to call it a night.

Day 6, our last full day in SXM.  Luke and I opted to stay close to “home” and hang out on Dawn Beach while the rest of the group went to finish their souvenir shopping with a trip back to Philipsburg.

It was nice to have a quiet morning to ourselves.  We bobbed in the water, read our books under the umbrella, and even saved a baby sea turtle.  We were looking around in the water for jellyfish (Luke kept thinking he felt them bumping his legs) when one of our fellow bobbers said “Look, a turtle!”

He was itty bitty and seemed to be caught where the waves were breaking.  Luke scooped him up and brought him out of the water for a quick photo, then waded back out past where the waves broke to set him free.  Good deed done.

The gang returned and met us at the beach for a quick dip before Luke’s suspicion came true and the jellyfish really did appear.  We packed it up and headed to the resort pool to try and absorb as much of the beauty as we could before it was time to leave.

That night, one last visit to The Red Piano, and our trip was officially over.  The next morning we had to pack up and head for colder climates.  I woke up feeling like I was having nicotine withdrawal.  There aren’t any no-smoking laws in bars in SXM and I inhaled a couple of lungfuls that night.  Despite the secondhand smoke, we had a blast and it was a fun way to end our trip. (This is what it look like inside. This was the piano player probably teaching us another dirty toast.)

Day 7: pack it all up.  Another great thing about staying in our palace was that it was a private residence, not a hotel, so there really was no set checkout time.  We were able to pack, clean up the place, hang out and enjoy the view a few hours longer, and then head right to the airport to check in for our 4 p.m. flight.

Goodbye awesome condo:

Goodbye many roundabouts with your random statues and monuments:

Goodbye vague, understated signs:

Goodbye palm trees:

Goodbye Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, thanks for another great week!

Day 3 in SXM started out slowly with Megan and Elke heading to the resort’s spa for fancy manicures and pedicures.  The rest of us hung out, took walks, and waited for the ladies to return so we could head into nearby Philipsburg for some shopping.  Philipsburg is one of the ports where cruise ships dock and hoards of tourists flock looking for cheap liquor, Cuban cigars, and deals on jewelry.  It is not my favorite place.  It’s like a city of pushy car salesmen, but it’s on the water and there are gorgeous views and the jewelry stores give away free beer, so hey, it’s worth a look.  The girls wanted to check it out and buy some souvenirs, so we spent the afternoon wandering and shopping.

My one favorite part of Philipsburg is a little French cafe on Old Street called Au Petit Cafe.  We ate there on our past trip and this time we had the same sassy waiter and a meal just as delicious as we remembered. After a long day of shopping and eating, we headed back to our condo for a light dinner on the roof and an early bedtime.  Do you remember the view from the roof?  Should I remind you?

Day 4 made up for any lack of excitement we may have experienced on day three. Our plan was to head to the Loterie Farm and finally go on the zip line course.  Or as they like to call it, the “treetop adventure obstacle course”.  We stopped there on our last trip to the island, but didn’t get the chance to go on the zip line.  This time we weren’t going to miss it again.  The six of us sucked up our courage and plunked down the €55 ($72) and got suited up for adventure.

In case you’re wondering, closed-toe shoes that cover your heel, a restrictive, mildly humiliating harness, and a single leather gardening glove are all the gear you need.  No one else seemed to notice that the hardware on our harnesses looked a little concerned, but these were the faces we were making, too, as we took off for what turned out to be two and a half hours of sweaty, exhilarating, shin-banging, finger-pinching, high-flying fun times.

We rode up Pic Paradis in the back of a rickety truck and were deposited near the top for the start of our awesome trip down.   There were probably about 15 of us in the group with one very laid-back guide named Adrian.  A quick lesson on what to do and more importantly, what not to do, and we were off.

The zip lines varied in height and length and were broken up by ladders, wooden slat bridges, and tightropes.  It was a blast.  Two of the last zip lines were 1,400 and 1,600 feet and the views were amazing.  I brought my Flip camera, hoping to shoot some video, but the battery died at the first platform, so I had only my iPhone, which I was terrified to pull out of my bag since it had not strap on it and we were, you know, UP IN THE TREES!

I did catch a couple of videos of Luke, and this one is my favorite.  Apparently Luke, who is good at everything, figured out how to play around on the zip line and had been barreling toward me upside down.  Unfortunately the trees were in the way and I only caught him as he turned back around to prepare for his smooth landing.  We made it to the bottom, bruises, sweaty bodies, wobbly legs and all, and high-fived ourselves for having such a great time.  By that point were were starved and exhausted, and decided to head toward Simpson Bay for a little lunch and looking around.

After a delicious bay side lunch of fish tacos and ribs at Skip Jacks, we took a trip across the street to show the girls the Royal Palm, where we had stayed on our previous trips to the island.  It was happy hour, so it was two-for-one rum punches for everyone!  Well, almost everyone.  Virgin Mudslides for others…

We soothed our exhausted legs in the ocean and headed back across the street to the Simpson Bay Yacht Club see if we could find Brian, who had been the bartender at The Lady C, our favorite floating bar which is now out of business.  We lucked out, not only finding Brian, but spotting a double rainbow, and catching the drawbridge in action as the sun was setting over the ocean.

We made our way back to the car, happy but exhausted, and wound up stuck in construction traffic heading into Cole Bay.  Luckily for us, we spotted a restaurant called The Carousel which specialized in gelato.  Perfect!  We took a little traffic break to wander around the beautiful restaurant, complete with full-size carousel in back, and had an early dinner of creme brulee gelato before heading back to the resort hot tub for a little relaxing before the night’s end.  Sigh… I could get used to this.

Last week, as you may have heard, we were in St. Martin (or sometimes Sint Maarten, depending on which side of the island you’re on) or as I like to write it, because it’s just easier: SXM.  This was our third trip back with our friends (who marked their ninth trip to the island) and this year they brought their two daughters.  Due to our new, extra-large group, we had to find a different place to stay than the previous years.  A larger place with more bedrooms.  This is the quaint little place we settled for.  It was alright:

And by alright, I mean that it was flipping amazing.  Stunning.  Mind-blowing, and every other adjective you can imagine.  I found it here on VRBO and if you’re planning a trip to SXM, I highly recommend it.  For instance, this was the view from our private balcony off of our bedroom:

Yeah, like I said, it was OK.  (!!!)  Want to see more?  How about the private rooftop infinity pool?  You read that right.  The condo complex has its own private rooftop infinity pool for the 18 privately owned units and we were apparently the only people staying in the building last week so we had the place to ourselves.

We flew into SXM on a Friday afternoon (hence the “Day 0.5″) and made our traditional stop at the Sunset Beach Bar in Maho to toast our good fortune and watch the drunken dummies sand blast themselves on the beach as planes take off and land at the tiny airport.

Let me stop here and say that, like most of the people in this picture, I took many of the photos on this trip with my iPhone. I had my big Canon with me, but the iPhone was smaller and less conspicuous, and WATERPROOF with this rad totallyworththemoney case from LifeProof.  OK, back to the photos.

Here’s the gang (minus me) at the bar.  Megan (in the shades) is drinking ginger ale, in case you’re wondering, and Emily (on the right) is 19, and therefore legal to drink in SXM, so get used to seeing that. From Maho we headed to our palace—I mean condo—to gape at the amazing view, drop our bags, and head to the pool at the adjoining Oyster Bay Beach Resort.  Did I mention that there’s another infinity pool there, too.  Here’s a shot of the resort’s pool area from the top of our condo building.  It’s on the right, there, alongside THE FREAKING OCEAN.  I still can’t believe they let us stay there:

We had dinner that night at Daniel’s by the Sea, which is on the beach on the other side of the resort.  During the day it’s Mr. Busby’s Beach Bar, and at night it switches gears to become Daniel’s.  It was delicious.  We walked along the sand back to our SXM home happy and stuffed.

Day 1 began with a terribly exciting trip to the Grand Marché to buy groceries and nearly have a heart attack watching the total on the cash register go upwards of 345.00 until the cashier said to us “Dollars?” and switched the total from the Dutch guilders, to U.S. dollars. Phew! (The exchange is roughly 1.79 guilders to the dollar.) From the store we went back and quickly unloaded the groceries and then practically sprinted to the beach.  Dawn Beach is our favorite beach on SXM and is adjacent to the resort so we only had to walk across the parking area to get there.

Not a bad place to be.  After laying on the beach and floating in the water for a while (hey, look! I’m actually in this picture!):

…we headed back to the resort pool to laze and float and marvel at how lucky we were to be there.  I posted this shot on Instagram that night with the caption, “Today did not suck.” That was the truth.

On day 2 we had planned to take the girls to a new mall that was being constructed the last time we were on the island in 2010, followed by a trip to Mullet Beach.  But the we realized when we woke up that it was Sunday and the mall was closed.  A quick regroup and we instead headed for Happy Bay, a place I had been wanting to find.  I say “find” because you cannot drive to Happy Bay.  You have to hike through the woods, across a field, and along a cliff to get there.  It’s secluded and empty and sounded AMAZING.  I was psyched when everyone else was on board with the adventure.  We had to drive across the island, through the French side to get where we were going, and on the way we passed by Orient Beach and Boo Boo Jam, where we used to like to go.  Here’s what Boo Boo Jam looked like in 2009:

And here’s what it looked like last week, shortly after someone burned it to the ground:

Sad.  We paid our respects and headed back out to find adventure.  We spotted two interesting-looking locals on our way there.

This guy was chilling in a slightly inadequate tree on the side of the dirt road leading to Boo Boo Jam.  And this guy was ruling the world from atop a rock on the side of the road to Friar’s Bay:

To find Happy Bay, the directions I had were: park at Friar’s Bay and walk down the beach, past the last beach bar.  Start walking into the woods, the path may or may not be marked. ALRIGHTY! Let’s go!  The path was marked by a spray-painted rock with an arrow that pointed up into the jungle.  We hiked in the woods, along a ridge, through a field, and into Paradise.  Here’s a bit of what it looked like getting there:

Walking, walking, walking… a giant pig randomly tied up in the woods… walking, walking, walking… Megan blew out her flip-flop… walking, hopping, and BAM! Happy Bay:

Seriously. It hurts to look at, it’s so beautiful.

There were only a few other people there (and yes, a couple of nudies) and it was just Paradise.  I have a funny video to post later that shows me trying to get back into the water after being slammed on my tush on the rocks just a little earlier.  Happy Bay might be beautiful, but she is rough and I had the butt bruises and cuts to prove it.  It’s OK, I still love you, Happy Bay.

There aren’t any restaurants on Happy Bay, so we eventually hiked back to Friar’s Bay (not to shabby either) for some barbecue lunch before heading out:

Next, we made a stop at beautiful Baie Rouge.

I think it’s gorgeous there, but the waves are rough and after my bum rush at Happy Bay, I opted to hang out on the sand and watch the adorable little dogs up the beach from us.  They kept digging things up in the sand and bringing them to their sunbathing owners who couldn’t care less.

After Baie Rouge, we rounded out the evening at the resort pool, then a delicious Italian dinner at our favorite little place in Maho, followed by a quick stop for some singalongs at The Red Piano.

It was like a day special ordered just for me!  Wow, it’s only day 2 and I’ve already crossed most of the to-dos off my list!

It’s been four weeks since Molly died. I miss her every single day.

It’s the firsts that trip me up, and after a month, we’ve gone through most of them. The first time I left for work without kissing her head and saying “be a good girl.”  The first time alone in the house at night without her.  The first walk down to the river without her.  I’m adjusting, healing.  It’s good.

And then we went on vacation.

Don’t get me wrong, vacation was awesome. Our best trip to St. Martin so far (and I promise to post stories and pictures soon), but last Friday was the first time we came home from a trip and weren’t greeted by her.  That night, Luke unlocked the front door and I fully expected to hear her excited, dancing paws on the wood floor.  But she wasn’t there.  She’s not here anymore.  It hit me all over again.

The next morning, aching with grief, I couldn’t wake up.  I didn’t want to get out of bed.  Then I remembered that I had mail to pick up.  The day after we brought Molly home to bury her, I needed to find a way to commemorate her, to keep her with me always.  I went to Etsy and found the perfect thing: a ring with her name on it from Kathryn Reichert Jewelry. I had gotten an email in St. Martin saying that it had been shipped.

(I truly hope that the only people reading this are those who have been fortunate enough to have loved a pet with all of their heart, because otherwise I’m sure I’ll be taken for some pathetic, melodramatic sad-sack.)

Anyhow, my ring was there at the post office, waiting for me (with six other packages and a stack of mail, it was a good week for Christmas shopping).  I put it on right there in the parking lot and haven’t taken it off since.  I look at it now and I think of her.  She’s with me always.

This is the text message I sent to my family and some friends who knew what was going on last Tuesday. I couldn’t bear to say more.  My heart was broken, my best friend was gone.  She’s gone, my Molly.

I still think I see her in the house. Out of the corner of my eye, sitting on her spot on the couch, waiting by my feet in the kitchen, hoping for a dropped carrot or piece of cucumber.  The sound of the side door unlocking makes my chest hurt.  This was the sound of letting Molly out in the morning.  I had to choke back sobs last week when I dropped a bowl of chopped cauliflower on the floor.  No one would be there to to pick up my dropped messes in the kitchen again.

She’s gone.

I still can’t believe it.  In September I took her to the vet because she was showing signs of a bladder infection.  She did have one, a raging infection, as the vet told me, so antibiotics and anti-inflammatories were prescribed and it looked like things were getting back to normal.  And then they weren’t.  She was peeing in the house again, straining to pee outside.  Something wasn’t right.  The tests showed that she didn’t have another infection so she had more exams, another ultrasound.  Nothing looked out of place.  We got another round of anti-inflammatory drugs which seemed to help again for some reason, and then we were back to the beginning.  She was straining again, needing to go out constantly but not really peeing.

A week ago today I tried to get a urine sample from her first thing in the morning, but nothing came out.  The poor pup was not peeing.  I called the vet and got an emergency appointment that night.  The doctor wanted to keep her overnight to knock her out and attempt to insert a catheter to drain her bladder.  He thought that maybe if something, like a stone, was blocking her urethra, the catheter might knock it out.  The crying started that night.  Suddenly this was more serious than an infection.  I had to leave my pup overnight.  She had to sleep in a crate.  I cried into her curly head and tried to inhale as much of her as I could.  I left the vet and drove home in a worried fog.  He called me late that night to say that he couldn’t get the catheter in.  A mass was blocking her urethra.  They drained her bladder with a needle while she was under anesthesia and referred me to a specialist.

The next morning I spoke with the non-emergency vet who had been working with us since September and she made arrangements for us to go to a veterinary specialist in Middletown to either have a urethral scope or MRI to see what the mass was, and then hopefully surgery to remove it.  Before I picked her up, the vet took an X-ray of Molly’s chest to see, if this mysterious mass was cancer—which everyone suspected—was there cancer anywhere else?  The X-ray showed a mass in her lung.

Luke took the night off from work and we picked her up at the vet on Tuesday afternoon.  She looked defeated.  On top of generally feeling bad because she had to pee but couldn’t, she’d been squeezed and poked, had rectal exams, a vaginal exam, and she’d been put under anesthesia and not eaten a thing in almost 24 hours.  She climbed into my arms and fell asleep in the sunshine on the car ride to Middletown.  I never wanted to let go of her.

The vet in Middletown looked at her records, her X-rays, and her month-old ultrasound and said that they’d put her under anesthesia again and try to insert a scope and catheter into her urethra.  The scope would give them a better idea of what the mass was, and then they’d perform a biopsy.  She’d have to wait at least three days in the hospital while they confirmed that the mass was cancer, and then they’d try to insert a catheter, but that was only a temporary measure.  Removal was not an option based on the location.  She had a mass in her lung, which indicated that she had cancer that had spread.  We would need to take her to a specialist.  Wait, we thought we were at a specialist.

We went there with hope in our hearts, expecting she could have surgery to remove the mass and then come home and see what the future brought us.  We were hearing that there wasn’t much of a future to hope for.  Either way, we felt like we couldn’t give up.  We had to try something.  We can’t go from happy, pesky pup one day, to incurably broken, fatally ill pup the next.  But we did.

We left there there to wait for her catheterization and went home to rest.  I had been crying for a day and wanted to take a nap and wait for the vet to call.  We had barely been home 30 minutes when she called.  They decided to perform another ultrasound before they put her under anesthesia since her last one was 20 days old.  The new ultrasound clearly showed a mass at the point where her urethra and bladder meet.  20 days ago it didn’t show up at all.  Today it was clear as a bell.  My Molly had inoperable cancer that was preventing her from peeing.  One can’t live without peeing.

They suggested that we not perform the procedure.  They said that our only choices were taking her to Tuffts to have an experimental stent placed in her urethra, or to have a cystectomy, which essentially would bypass her urethra and drain her bladder externally. Potentially painful, prone to infection, and based on the aggressive growth of her tumor, a temporary, selfish means of bringing our pup home for a little more time with us.

Of course there was always that other choice.  The one that even the vet didn’t really talk about, she just hinted.  “We could end now.” “Let her go.” Various other phrases that all meant what I didn’t want to accept.

We had the choice of painful, life-altering surgery that could prolong Molly’s life for only a few months while the cancer grew, or we could choose to end the life of our pup who, other than the inability to pee, was otherwise outwardly healthy, lively, and fine.

I can accept the fact that she had cancer.  I can accept the fact that cancer would kill her, but I am mad as hell at the fact that we had to be involved.  When you have cancer, you try to fight it, sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t, but that isn’t your choice.  This time it had to be our choice.  We had to decide that Molly was not coming home that night curled up in my lap.  She was coming home in a puppy-sized cardboard casket in the back of my car while I sobbed and texted my family.

She’s gone.

Every time I tried to stand up I thought I might pass out.  I pulled my chair over close to the cold, metal exam table while we waited for them to bring her to us.  I wasn’t sure I could do it.  Luke told me that I was her world, I was her comfort, and I knew I had to be there.  We kissed her and told her how wonderful she was.  I said I was sorry and inhaled the warm smell of her soft curly head.  I kissed her some more and sobbed.  The vet came in, injections were given, someone beat my chest with an icy sledgehammer, or at least that’s what it felt like.

Luke took over from there.  I don’t know what I would have done without him.  He got me out to the car.  He collected Molly in her box.  He had our neighbor meet us at the house with his backhoe to dig a hole under the pine tree in the front yard.  He took her out of the vet’s sheet and wrapped her in the fleece blanket she liked to sleep on.  He put her yellow squeaky toy between her paws.  He kissed her good-bye for us and filled in the hole by hand.  I stood in the kitchen, still wearing my coat, unable function, not wanting to look outside at the spot they were burying her.  I sobbed.

She was a part of me.  She was like an extra limb, she followed me everywhere.  Only it doesn’t feel like someone amputated my extra limb.  It feels like they clawed open my chest and tore a giant, empty space around my heart.  I feel lost, out of sync.  Purposeless.

On Wednesday, we stayed in bed until 3pm.  We cried and slept and cried.  We finally convinced each other to get up.  We tried to eat, even though food felt like pebbles in my mouth.  It was such a beautiful day and we needed to get away from the house.  Away from the memories for a little while, so we went for a walk.  Molly would have loved it.  We walked the the Rails to Trails path in Bolton and cut through the woods to the Heritage Farm.  We talked about Molly, we talked about the horrors of the night before, we talked about getting another dog, if that was something we thought we could ever do.  It was good.  A man with two fat labs came by us on the path and I didn’t cry.  I was happy for him.  Progress.

Before we left on our walk, I was mindlessly watching a woman on a TV talk show speaking about a vicious attack she suffered many years ago and how afterward she learned what not to say to people who are grieving or healing from an attack.  “At least.”  She said that this phrase made her incredibly angry.  “At least you’re alive.”  People would tell her.  I get what she’s talking about now.

“At least she didn’t have to suffer.”  “At least she wasn’t in pain.”  Please don’t try to make this situation any better for me.  A week ago I signed a paper telling a stranger that she could give my Molly an injection that would stop her brain from functioning.  At least you could let me grieve.  I think that this is the anger step in the grieving process.  Is there one of those?  I almost told my neighbor to shut up when she told me she had such a bad week because she didn’t realize that she’d miss Molly so much.  This isn’t your loss to grieve, I wanted to shout.  She was MINE.

I just miss her so much.  But every day gets a little easier.  I can look at her picture now, briefly.  I had to the other day.  I missed her curly head so much, I just had to see her.  My jaw hurts from trying not to cry.  Friends and family have been so wonderful and supportive.  As much as I want this loss to be mine and Luke’s only, I know that so many people loved Molly, and she loved them back.  She was everyone’s dog and she will be missed by all.  A friend wrote  a tribute to her on Facebook that I haven’t been able to read yet.  Maybe I’ll try this week.  Baby steps.

Thank you all for your kindness and love. Now go kiss your pups on the head and give them all a hug for me.

Today is my sister’s birthday (Happy birthday, Andrea!), a week and a half ago it was Luke’s birthday, and eleven days before that was my birthday.  We’ve got a lot of birthdays happening around here.

So now that I’ve had about three weeks to think about it, how about we talk about my birthday?  It was awesome.  Luke’s birthday was on a Saturday, which should have been perfect, except that everyone we knew was either on vacation, or had other plans that night.  So sad.  My birthday was the opposite.  It started with my favorite monthly appointment which is breakfast with my favorite bunch of loud-talky girlfriends at Ruben’s in West Hartford.  The waitress heard that it was my birthday and brought me a cupcake on the house.  After breakfast I headed to Prossage on the 22nd floor of the Marriott in Downtown Hartford for an amazing birthday massage.   What a beautiful place, I highly recommend it.  Especially for the post-massage view.

After my appointment, I was welcomed and encouraged to bring my swimsuit and enjoy the pool and hot tub.  You don’t know how disappointed I was that I couldn’t spend the rest of my day here, but don’t feel bad for me.  I had to leave my rooftop paradise to head home to my honey who had presents waiting and then whisked me out for lunch and a margarita.  It was the perfect sunny day so after lunch we came home to lay on the hammock where I read the book I’m currently obsessed with and he took a little snooze.  After relaxing and doing a little mild gardening, we took off for a sushi dinner.  What more could a girl ask for?  It was a perfect day.

The following weekend we had another blissful day visiting our friends at their boat in Stonington.  The sun was out, the winds were calm, and I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day.  This picture, above, is Molly on the dock just moments before she mistook the algae in the water for a patch of grass that she could step onto and went for her first saltwater plunge.  This, below, would be the after.  Whoops!

Our sunny Stonington day kicked off a week off from work for both Luke and me.  The weather took a turn for the worse so we spent much of the time in the basement organizing the shop and other boring things.  We did manage to mess up the yard a whole lot by digging trenches so the chicken coop could have water and power and I can finally have water out at the vegetable garden.

We spent a good part of the day watching the chickens fall in and figure out how to get out of the trench.  Good times.  Just a side note here, Luke dug these trenches BY HAND.  With a pick axe.  Like an olde timey prisoner.  He’s crazy and I love him for that.  So to reward him for his back-breaking hard work, I made him take me out in the boat.  We had a gorgeous day of warm, sunny weather so we headed to quiet little Gardner Lake in Salem.  Man alive, was it beautiful.

We were practically alone on the lake.  I drove the boat around for bit while Luke fished, then he switched over to the trolling motor and I made myself a comfy spot to lay and continue reading my book.  It was heaven.  But that fishing was only practice for the next day when Luke went fluke fishing with our Stonington boat friends.  Now here is where I would include a photo of the beautiful day or the 68 pounds of fluke they caught and sold, but since that trip was boys-only and for some unknown reason no one thought to take any photos—FOR PROOF THAT THEY ACTUALLY CAUGHT ANYTHING—I present you with fishing boats at dusk, which I took that evening when I came to pick him up.

The four of us took the boat to the dockside restaurant around the corner—that was a fun, new experience of pretending to be a fancy boat-going person—and then we went back to our friends’ camp for a bonfire, some birthday cake…

…and some Sky Lanterns because the next day was Luke’s birthday!  (I’m still not sure how I feel about the Sky Lanterns.  They’re unquestionably beautiful and allegedly safe, but my painfully practical side keeps wondering about sending a paper bag with a lit candle loose in the wide open.)

We sent off two birthday lanterns and headed home after a wonderful day and a relaxing week of time off.  Luke’s birthday was mostly low-key because, as I mentioned, everyone and their grandma was out of town or busy, so there aren’t any photos, but a relaxing day was had by all.  So that’s it!  Birthday to birthday: it was a great couple of weeks!

I have become obsessed with this guy and his dog, Maddie.  They’re traveling the country, meeting new people, recording stories, and best of all (for me) taking photos of Maddie in strange places and positions.  She’s been balanced on a bike, laying atop a wall mounted TV, or tip-toe on top of the golden arches. This week she was on a pool float, enjoying Las Vegas.  You should hear the debates in my household over some of these pictures and whether or not they’re Photoshopped.  (THEY ARE NOT.)

The photos of Maddie are great on their own, but when you read the story of her owner, Theron Humphrey, and the “wild idea” that he’s working on, it’s just amazing.  I used to love Steve Hartman’s “Everybody Has a Story” and I listen to every one of NPRs Storycorps broadcasts.  This project has the heartwarming goodness of both of this programs, AND a dog.  Check it out at www.thiswildidea.com.

And don’t worry, if you’re not on Instagram, you still can enjoy Maddie’s photos at her website maddieonthings.com

Last Monday I got home after dark and closed up the ladies, as usual.  I counted them, made sure they were all there, and locked them in for the night.  The next morning when I let them out, they greeted me and hopped out of the coop like they do every morning, but I noticed that one black and white hen was missing some feathers by her tail.  No biggie.  That happens; they molt, they peck them out, it’s nothing to worry about.  Then as I turned to walk back to the house, I saw Molly sniffing a giant pile of black and white feathers.  Uh-oh.

I went over to the hen with the bald spot and pulled back her other feathers to reveal the nastiest giant slash across her back. Crap. As Luke described it, the gash looks like someone carved a slice across a roast chicken.  It was serious but she didn’t seem to care.  She was the first hen out of the house that morning (and every morning). She’s still chatty and busy, scratching and foraging around.  The other hens don’t bother her; nothing seems to have changed.  I decided to wait it out.  The local vet does treat chickens, but I wanted to see if nature would take care of itself.

A week later, the injured hen is still acting normal, laying eggs, taking dust baths, and squawking at me each morning when I let her out.  Her gash has started to heal and her feathers are growing back in frizzy little tufts.  I started to wonder what attacked her in the first place.  My thought is that it had to be a bird of some sort because if it was a fox, or something on foot, it would have just followed her back into the coop after the attack.  We do have an abundance of hawks and even saw an eagle here a few years back, so I figured it had to be an overconfident little hawk.

Well, I was half right.

Sunday evening I was in the kitchen when I heard a whole bunch of flapping and scrambling and squawking from the yard.   I looked out to see a gigantic hawk gliding through the yard about six feet off the ground.  It landed in a tree in the back yard (no chicken in its claws, thank goodness) and all of the hens frantically scattered.  I spent the next half hour trying to round everyone up.  A few ran to the coop, others ran to nearby bushes and trees, or under the deck.  I managed to coax the injured hen out from under the deck and lure a couple of others out of the bushes, but most everyone had to be carried back to the coop, they were so scared.  All ten were accounted for and no one was injured. Phew! Close call.

We’re starting to get back to normal again, except now the ladies prefer to take dust baths under the back deck, and they follow me around even closer than before. I must be their new sign of safety. They stick so close to me now, it’s hard to walk across the yard without tripping.  I’m also afraid that this hawk has now learned that our yard is the place for easy chicken pickings, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Have you seen this site?  F*** Your Noguchi Coffee Table  (Please do not click that link if you’re allergic to the f-word.)  It’s a hilarious site mocking all things in hipster homemaking.  Every decorating trend you’ve seen over and over and over, it’s been singled out on this site.  Garlands, Acapulco Chairs, Frame Clusters, Tree Stumps, Maps, you name it. I’ll admit it did get a little personal the day I saw the rainbow bookshelf there, but I have seen more than a few of them so I guess I can accept that.  But then I saw this: Terrarium Tuesday. Hold on. Terrariums?  I just started thinking of making one and they’re already overplayed and annoying?  WHAT?  I was so embarrassed by this fact that I completely shelved the terrarium idea.  Goal #1 for 2012 has officially been crossed off the list.

I’m afraid that goal #2 doesn’t look very promising either.  Although in the abstract, I love the thought of going to Canada, making actual plans to head north is just not happening.  Instead I’ve been making plans to head south.  We keep thinking here and there about heading to St. Martin again with our friends this January.  We’re trying to weigh our desperate craving for sun and sand against the highest of high seasons on the island and traveling with a family of five.  Decisions are still up in the air, but in the meantime, I downloaded a dangerous app on the iPad called iCruise.  Search by destination, date, departure port, whatever you like, and you get a wonderful list of cruises that match your parameters.

There’s a slim chance that Luke could get the week of his birthday in early June off, so a quick search of cruises to Bermuda in early June finds an awesome deal on the exact week for a cruise leaving out of reasonably nearby Boston. Luke’s always wanted to go to Bermuda and I’ve always wanted to go anywhere that isn’t Connecticut, so this would be perfect!  We’re just looking at this point and trying (unsuccessfully) not to get our my hopes up.

Do you see my problem? Show me Canada and show me Bermuda and I will always choose the destination where I can go barefoot and lay on the beach with a rum punch in hand.  Sorry Canada, 2012 might not be your year.