What a depressing entry this turned out to be…
September 15, 2006This began as a sweet reflection on how time flies, but apparently that’s a dangerous subject for me to write about, as it turns maudlin and entirely unfunny really quick. Better you just skip this one, readers.
This Saturday, I will have been married to the missus for six years; this Sunday at 8:06 AM our daughter will be exactly 9 months old. Next March I will have been at the same job for a decade, albeit with several different roles within the company (gadfly, saboteur, vice president, dictator in exile, receptionist). Ten years since I moved back to Los Angeles, 9 years since I met my future wife, two years since we bought our house together, nine months since the baby arrived.
Time seems to pass more quickly every year; I went on a hike in the Santa Anita mountains last weekend, a place I used to visit as a kid. I found an old tree that some friends & I had carved our initials into. The tree was still healthy & strong, taller than I remember, and our initials were clear. “Happy 21st birthday, Feb 1990″. Jesus, but I’m getting old.
It’s hardest, I feel, on the pugs, for their lifespans are so very brief. Oscar’s already 7 years old, and he’s starting to break down. His eyes have grown so large, like an old man’s earlobes, that he can’t quite close his eyelids when he sleeps. As a consequence, he needs artificial tears dropped onto his gianormous puggy eyeballs every morning & night or they dry up and then he won’t even be able to blink. I worry most for the Little Baby Cupcake’s relationship to the pugs. She’s going to be 5 or 6, completely in love with these little critters right as they’re shuffling off this mortal coil.
I have about eight months left while she’s still unaware enough that I could convincingly replace the current 7 year old pugs with new 1 year olds from a breeder, and as long as I called them Oscar & Lola, she’d probably not even realize. But that leaves the question of what to do with the real Oscar & Lola. As pugs, they don’t have a highly developed set of survival skills. If only they had some sort of talent, I’m sure they could fend for themselves on the 3rd St Promenade down in Santa Monica…
