Have dog, will travel

This is me, trying to write a text, three noses nosing my hands away from my phone. This small slathering of tongues really is the best part of my day: all that love at once, and insistent: pay attention to US.

Over the 4^th we drove six hours north to a cabin, and I spent the ride in the passenger seat with Chibi and George asleep on my lap, with Wren occasionally rotating through. Wren is like me as a kid, eye on the road, no matter how tired she is. Like she’s watching as a way to keep the driver alert and all of us safe.

When we got to the lake, the chihuas and Atticus followed me down the steep red rocks to the beach, even Tiny Dog traversing the vertical. I carried her over the larger rocks at the bottom until we got to the sand. And then she wanted to sit on my lap. Wren was nervous about the waves so pushed into my shoulder, and George ate whatever dead things she could find.

Up at the house, on the couch or on the porch, the three would go wherever I went. Book in my hand, dogs around my feet and looking up, as if asking: What next, mama, what next?

Naps, I say, naps.

Atticus is the king of fun, as well as the destroyer. Ate the badminton shuttlecocks, grabbed the 5 yr old girl’s kite, breaking the string, and played keep away, shaking the kite with happy vigor (insert Sue running after, insert swear words). The girls, on the other hand, mingled under the net or decided to go back inside and watch from the screened porch.

There were cocktails, there was BBQ. There were snacks to drop on the floor for eager canine mouths below.  Room to room, I had eyes on me, and often 2-3 warm small bodies, asleep on my torso and legs, after a jaunt outside.

In the car, on the couches, down the dirt road on foot—at home or at the cabin—the dogs are my home that goes with me. My own tiny house.  Made of pointy ears, exuberant kisses and I can almost not believe it. It feels almost too fantastic.