While it’s certainly important to be a man of action, a real man also takes the time to ponder the important questions of life.
Why am I here? What am I accomplishing? What’s important? How will I be remembered? How can we make the world a better place? Why is there suffering in the world? How is the world changing and how should we respond? Why is there a very distinct hierarchy (Taco Cabana, followed by Taco Bueno, followed by Taco Bell, followed by Taco Mayo) among fast food Mexican restaurants? What are the important ideas of my time?
It has happened more than once. A cold, wet, tweenage dog shivering on a stranger’s front porch. Who knows what goes through people’s minds as they toss the last of the litter out of their vehicle?
But what if it really isn’t that way? What if the puppy owner is deliberately placing a dog on the porch of a stranger to Pay It Forward?
Mae joined our team as a walk-on in May of 2008.
Early one morning, I noticed something odd through the satellite windows at the front door … a scary feeling out in the middle of the country at 6AM. I calmed my fears, smoothed my linen skirt, and opened the door. A muddy puppy. Hmmm.
Pay it Forward.
With three indoor cats already on the roster, we decided that Mae needed to be an outside dog. However, she quickly worked her way into our hearts and into our home.
Over the past three years my “free” dog has cost me countless holes in blankets, a door, the window trim (she broke out of a locked kennel) and most recently a car radio. But even as I sit here wearing shorts with part of the back pocket torn off, preparing to put on pajamas with one strap chewed in half, I can’t help but love this dog.
"Mom look at the SPIDER DOG!"
Mae went through a ten-week obedience class and barely passed…but she passed and she has the certificate to prove it. She proudly donned a tarantula costume during the March of Dogs to benefit the Hardeman County Humane Society. She performed flawlessly in the Christmas parade with eleven other rescued dogs.
A complete stranger gifted me the best dog anyone could ever hope to own. I hope that I prove to her daily that my life has been changed for the better since her arrival.
Pay it Forward.
Last Friday my husband brought home two three-week old kittens that had lost their mother. Within twenty-four hours they had a new mom…and it wasn’t me.
(Click photo below to see video of Mae mothering our baby kittens.)
In 1978, I evidently decorated a cake in honor of my Grandpa Yate’s 80th birthday. This was taken the summer after my 8th grade year, so I had not yet been through the cake decorating curriculum in my Home Economics classes! However, because I just love hay, (not convinced? look here… or here!...OR HERE!) and because it’s RDC’s Half-Birthday Week, and because my dad e-mailed me this photo yesterday afternoon and I thought it was funny, and because it’s clear that even in 8th grade I liked corny jokes scribed into history by icing-in-a-tube, and because who can ever get enough reminders of Charlie’s Angel’s hairstyles?, I just thought I’d use an entire post to say:
“Meet Joe Black (1998)” was a movie about the Angel of Death and his earthly dialogue with a wealthy media mogul during his last days. In the film, the wealthy man acts as a guide to Death who, in the form of a young man, falls in love with the man’s beautiful daughter. Called by some as a “minimalist masterpiece,” you need patience and focus to get all the movie has to offer.
Here’s one thing I got from the film, and a subsequent clip on T.V. sometime after it was released: During a particular scene, Joe Black and “Jamaican Woman” (as noted in the script) are having a conversation about life. She waxes deeply philosophical in her discourse. At one point she says to him in some sort of summary thesis,
…But the truth is, it bound to happen if you stay long enough. So take that nice picture you got in your head home with you, but don’t be fooled. We lonely here mostly too. If we lucky, maybe, we got some nice pictures to take with us.
Later in an interview, Brad Pitt who played the Joe Black character reflected on that line. He said, in paraphrased form, “She’s right, ya know…life goes by and every once in a while we get a few snapshots to take with us. Perfect pictures we hold on to.”
I remember the interview like it was yesterday because of the look on Pitt’s face when he was talking. I don’t know what he was thinking about at the time, or why he chose that particular quote to talk about, but I thought about it last week out of the blue. I wondered if our RDC team would get to capture a “perfect picture” somewhere along their Thanksgiving holiday time as they were together with family or friends.
It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of cooking. Just take a look in my pantry. You’ll find tablecloths, napkins…just about anything one would need for entertaining. But no food. I never really tried to carry on any kind of cooking tradition. I was complaining to my mom about the lack of chocolate meringue pie at my recent Thanksgivings, and she confided in me that Marie Callender made her pie this year. She also told me that my great-grandmother used to make an oyster dressing that she (my mom) despised. The oyster dressing never made an appearance at Thanksgiving after great-grandmother’s death.
I need to thank my mom for making this executive decision to discontinue that tradition. I’m sure I would not have liked it…but now – my lack of interest in cooking has landed me in a Thanksgiving predicament.
My husband can't wait until the "day after" pie slice, so he can eat it on a steaming hot bowl of oatmeal.
I married a Yankee with three kids. They were raised on lots of northern dishes like chicken and waffles and shoe fly pie. Since I’m the odd woman out, I have learned how to make a few dishes since I would like for them to keep me around. It was clear one Thanksgiving that it’s going to take them a little longer to warm up to some of my Oklahoma dishes. I can’t understand anyone not liking brisket for Thanksgiving, but…whatever.
