I’m not sure if this will change any minds, but as of today The Man Who Crossed Whimsy Avenue will cost $19.99 plus the government’s haul. I made an error when I figured the original price of $23.99. It’s still a bargain for 96 short-short stories.
Meantime, I am close to locking in the lineup for my next reflection collection, See the World! which will arrive at your book seller later this spring. This will be the tenth anthology of my blog posts and the eighth since 2019.
I’m in the process of rebranding those collections as seen in today’s illustration — what do y’all think?
This is the 1,700th consecutive day that I have posted on this blog since first I decided to try posting daily for three months. That was the first 92 days, and I decided to keep going on Day 93, and the momentum continues to carry the streak along.
The past 100 days have brought significant development in my personal life, as I first said publicly in early January, shortly after Mary the Hugger became my regular companion. There’s something about meeting a soulmate after losing a soulmate that makes the experience that much more intense. People have started calling us “you lovebirds” because our affection for one another is that obvious.
I set the absurd goal to publish 12 books during 2025, and on March 22 I published the first of those, The Man Who Crossed Whimsy Avenue. One might say I’m behind schedule, but no one said I would have a monthly schedule. Before I say I failed to reach the goal, let’s see how many books I have published by Dec. 31.
My GarageBand app has been humming as New Dog, Old Tricks takes shape more than a year after I first announced it. During these last 100 days, I settled (I think) on the 10 songs that will comprise my next album, and I’ve got acceptable recordings of four of those songs as of Sunday night. Do I count a musical album as one of my 12 “books,” or would that be cheating?
I have not changed my mind about retiring from the news business after May 19, which is now 53 days away. I am not regretting my decision, which comes on the 50th anniversary of my first day in the news business, the day after I graduated from college. Am I anxious about the transition? Of course. Come on. Every major life change comes with at least a touch of anxiety. I’d call it “excited” before I’d call it “anxious,” though.
What an amazing 1,700 days it has been. When I started the streak on August. 1, 2020, we were living in Bizarro World, forced to stay at home, isolated from one another. The world got even stranger as I wrote and tried to make sense of it all. Some of my thoughts coalesced into a creed of sorts.
“Love your neighbor, and all of us are neighbors.” That’s not precisely a creed, it’s a command, one that comes from the real ruler, whom I love, also as commanded.
Politics is not the center of our lives, although it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it is. To the extent that a politician is pursuing liberty and peace among humanity, s/he has my attention. The vast majority of politicians are enemies of liberty and peace, alas.
“I don’t know how many gardens I have left,” my beloved Red would say as she worked the soil every spring and summer, and she had fewer gardens left than we realized or could have imagined. It makes no sense to sow seeds of discord and despair when we have an unknown amount of time left to sow seeds of peace and harmony and understanding. There is joy to be found and happiness to discover, and that is how I want my last gardens to grow.
I could have 24 more years to make gardens while I live to see my 96th birthday in 2049, should I live as long as my father did — or this could be my final entry before something unforeseen occurs later today. In either case, or in any case, let my efforts from here be in the name of love.
I have no quarrel with my neighbors. I mourn, but I am comforted. Let me be small and meek. Let me be a peacemaker, let me be merciful, let me seek to be pure in heart. That is the garden I want to sow; that is the garden we all need to sow.
Sixteen years ago today in Brussels, Wisconsin, a litter of golden retriever puppies was born. One of them was destined to be named Willow, and later, Willow The Best Dog There Is™ — we brought that special puppy home on May 16, 2009.
One of those song lyrics that has always made me cry is from “Mr. Bojangles,” when they sing about Mr. B traveling around the country with his beloved canine friend. “The dog up and died — he up and died — after 20 years he still grieves.”
I have 16 years to go before I know whether I really will still be grieving Willow after 20 years. I do know that I loved that dog more than any non-human I have ever known. She singlehandedly turned me into a dog lover — oh, I had bonded with a puppy or two over the years, but I was a self-described cat man in 2009. Then Willow arrived.
She was adorable. She was smart. She was mischievous. You see her above with her beloved orange Ting. I would throw it, cry, “Get the Ting!” and she would go get it, sometimes plucking it out of the air, and sometimes grabbing it off the ground running full-tilt and tumbling over from the effort. And early on she figured out how to fold it so that she could hold it in her mouth like a taco.
Everyone who bonds with a dog believes they have found the greatest dog that ever lived, and I am no exception. I called her Willow The Best Dog There Is™ with a bit of irony, because I knew many readers would think, “He only thinks she is because he never met MY dog.” Those of us who have felt that deep a bond with a dog are the lucky ones.
Red would chide me because starting about halfway through Willow’s lifetime, I started talking about her inevitable demise and wondering how empty life would be without you. “I’m going to have to euthanize Warren, too, when Willow goes, because he’ll be inconsolable,” she would say. But it was just my way of savoring the moments, knowing this was a once-in-a-lifetime dog, with all due respect to Dejah and Summer, whom I love dearly but they just ain’t my Will.
Willow and Red are looking down on us now from wherever it is that beautiful souls go when they shed their earthly bodies. I miss them more than anyone I have ever known, and I thank God for the privilege of being part of their lives.
I cherish the thought that Willow will be there to greet me when it’s my time to cross over there, and that she will be holding a heavenly orange Ting in her mouth, ready to chase it through the clouds for old time’s sake.
