News Trend Luna Comes Home|Actual

Our beloved Luna is safe and sound and living, as usual, in the lap of luxury.

I was sitting at the kitchen counter, working on a to-do list, when I caught a glimpse of a dark smudge of movement at my back door.

The sleek little body

The orca's fin of a tail.

The reddish brown glint of the black sun-swept fur

I knew in an instant this was my Luna, and my heart nearly leaped out of my chest.

Calming myself so as not to frighten him, I cautiously opened the slider as I crooned to him.

Hi Tooney. I'm so happy to see you.

Soundlessly, fluidly, he flowed across the top step and wound his way around the house to the side yard. I followed, fighting back the urge to shout my joy from the rooftops.

Near the side door to the garage, Luna paused, still and alert, and posed under a pink rose bush.

I'm just going to pick you up, Toonus. Don't worry. Everything's okay.

My blood pulsed in my ears as I bent down and scooped him up. Surprisingly passive, he leaned into my shoulder and let me hold him tight. Then the tears which had been bottled up for the past four days finally flowed

* * * * *

Luna had been missing. For forty-eight miserable hours, we saw not a hint of him.

* * * * *

Our three cats, Luna, Sirius, and Cedric, are indoor/outdoor cats.

While we let them roam free outdoors whenever they so choose, the brothers are rarely far from home. Most of their outdoor adventures take place in our back yard, often with other cats from the neighborhood who come over to play or nap with them

They occasionally stray to our closest neighbors' yards to play with the neighbors' children and taunt the neighbors' dogs, but my three cats make a point to keep close to their food dishes. And barring the half-dozen summer nights that are so warm that they prefer to curl up in their garden nests and sleep in the starlight, my cats always come in at night when we call them, to sleep upon pillows, sheepskins, and the fluffiest of down comforters.

* * * * *

Sirius sleeps blissfully unaware in the bark while Cedric the chair hog hops down to investigate the photographer, and Luna is mesmerized by a bug crawling on the rocks.

I understand that some people find us to be irresponsible cat owners. The world is a dangerous place, they say, and cats are safer indoors. When left to run free, cats can get hit by cars, or lost, or worst of all, carried off by the wild things that roam suburban streets at night. Shame on you, they say, for not taking better care of your cats.

I can only shrug my shoulders and say, maybe some cats are happy to always live indoors.

But if you saw my cats

leaping at elusive butterflies,

sleeping in the shadows under the day lilies,

surveying their world from atop the fence posts,

curled up in the vines on top of the trellis,

dozing on their favorite wicker chair,

and

waiting on the front porch for me to come home,

then you would understand that my cats' souls come alive when they are out of doors, and to deny them this freedom would be to break their spirits and consign them to lives of misery.

We realize the risks we take every time we open the door to let our cats run free.

We accept that they would probably live longer if we kept them inside at all times.

But a miserable life is no life at all.

So we let our cats go out.

* * * * *

Despite our worst fears, Luna showed no sign of injury or attack.

But he was definitely skinny and uncharacteristically passive.

Relieved and certainly protective, we whisked our prodigal son back into the house when we hoped he would stay safe for hours if not days, while we all recovered from this stress berat. But as soon as we set him down in the family room, he circled round and round by the back door, pacing and yowling, clearly terrified to be indoors.

Luna must have been trapped, we surmised. Somehow, he must have gotten himself shut up in a garage or a shed, and that's why he didn't come home. And that is why he is so upset about being kept inside at home.

And we knew that as much as we wanted to keep him safe indoors, we could see that his little soul was in a panic.

Luna needed to go out.

And we needed to be brave enough to let him go.

So we all hugged him and kissed him and made him promise to come back very soon. Then we opened up the back door and let Luna go out into the night.

* * * * *

Epilogue: It's been three full days now since Luna came back. He is still a little jumpy and sensitive. He's eating often, though his meals are smaller than usual, and he's asking to go in and out of the house countless times a day.

We also notice that he is staying very close to the house.

And when we call, he always comes running back home.

News Trend A Royal Journey|Actual

"The world is full of a number of things. I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."

-Robert Louis Stevenson

We sailed away from Cabo to explore the ocean blue.

^ Make no mistake, the marina proves there is plenty of money ado.

^ Our outfits were rich and stylish  - orange vests are for sure the new black

^ This last bit of rock is the end of the land - sail south and never come back.

^ The arch at Land's End is a landmark carved by water in granite stone.

^ Like explorers, we sailed from the Sea of Cortez and into the Pacific zone.

^ This sea lion welcomed us back to the east and posed like a perfect king

^ And this regal fellow demanded a treat though, alas, he ate not a thing.

Our travels soon came to a happy end as we sailed back up to the pier

And we felt like queens for the rest of our trip, remembering what we'd seen here.

* * * * *

Read more about my trip to Cabo

Letting Go In Mexico

My Fish Taco Challenge

A Royal Journey

Missing Mexican Memories

The Sweet Little Bonito

News Trend True Prince|Actual

Came upstairs after dinner tonight to find this happening in my room.

It's not often that one of the cats choose to snooze in what until recently was known to all pets as Ranger's territory.

But Cedric not only elected to nap on my bed; he somehow managed to tuck himself under the comforter, serene and perfect in the warm evening sunshine.

Cedric is a true prince.

News Trend A Letter To The Children At The Pool|Actual

In June of 2017, my husband and I flew to Ohio, loaded up a U-Haul van full of

family treasures, and drove it 2500 miles back across the country.

These are our adventures along the way.

* * * * *

Dear children of O'Neil, Nebraska,

I heard you playing yesterday. While I ate a picnic lunch under the huge old cottonwood trees in the park, you were splashing and shouting and living it up in the town pool. Teenage girls with golden tans guarded your lives while at least some of your moms sat near us and chatted in the shady park. .

Music from summers gone by played over loudspeakers at the pool. I know these are old songs from at least ten years back. But you will remember them as the soundtrack of your childhood.

Thunderheads rolled in.

A lightning bolt flashed overhead.

Both lifeguards blow their whistles at the exact same moment and all of you obediently climbed out of the pool, wrapped up in your towels.

As I packed up my picnic, I watched you.

As I drove past the front of the pool entry, I saw you slowly streaming out.

As I stopped at the gas station mini mart down the block, I watched you there too.

Girls with girls. Boys with boys.

All of you ten or eleven or twelve years old.

Still children.

And like all children, you are most certainly full of dreams for your lives to come.

But as I continued to watch, I noticed something more.

I saw the teasing.

I heard the flirty laughter.

I could feel an irresistible tension springing up between you, as you watch each other begin to change from gangly tweens to beautiful young women and handsome young men.

And in my mind's eye, I knew what is most likely to come.

I could see you pairing off.

Having sex by age 14.

Having kids by age 16.

Having your dreams cut short.

Having dead end lives in this tiny little town with nothing more to look forward to than someday dropping your own kids off at this very same pool.

So I wish with all my heart this wish for you.

Stop.

Resist.

Please do not give in to the small town trap of thinking that sex is the only answer to your dreams.

Instead, I hope that you will:

Graduate high school

Go see the world

Educate yourself

Learn who you are

Give yourself time to grow up.

And then, if you are still dreaming about that little girl with the sunburned freckles on her nose, or the skinny-chested boy who made cannonballs off the diving board, back at this very pool, then by all means reach out and tell them so.

Maybe, in the end, you'll be dropping your kids off at this same pool after all.

But I hope with all my heart that you, adorable children of O'Neil, will have first made all your dreams come true.

XO me

* * * * *

Here are all of our adventures from this summer road trip across America:

Off Again

A Journey Through The Sky In Three Stages

Cute Cat Photos

Smiling Faces

An Afternoon In Iowa In Three Stages

A Letter To The Children At The Pool

Say Hello To The Byway

Three Landmarks And A Pass On The Oregon Trail

Road Trip Realities

News Trend Smiling Faces|Actual

In June of 2017, my husband and I flew to Ohio, loaded up a U-Haul van full of

family treasures, and drove it 2500 miles back across the country.

These are our adventures along the way.

* * * * *

The past few days have been spent sorting through the last remaining treasures of my mother- and father-in-law's comfortable Ohio home. Though this has been a work in progress for the past decade and a half, and we are winding down to the last few boxes and bins, we are still turning up the occasional hidden gem. My husband's younger sister struck gold three times in a row:

^ First she stumbled upon a handful of missing links in her big bro's proverbial school photo collection. Yep, that's my husband in third grade, sixth grade, tenth grade and senior year (from left to right). Though I'm looking forward to folding these into the incomplete K-12 series we have at home, I must say they make a fun little chronology all on their own.

^ If there is anything that can beat these shots of my husband climbing into his '71 Vega, it could only be that sassy red sweater vest he's sporting over his light blue button down.

^  These are slides. Have you  seen them before? Tucked inside the cardboard frames are tiny clear images that can be both projected onto a screen or reprinted as hard copy photos. My father-in-law generated hundreds of thousands of these pups in his lifetime, and while there are many that I have never seen before, these contain a special surprise. They are shots of me, taken in 1985 at a family picnic along the shores of Lake Erie. Unbeknownst to me, he loaded up his zoom lens and captured me wandering here and there around the water's edge. I can't to get them home to check them out in a bigger format, and see me through my father-in-law's eyes.

* * * * *

Certainly, there is still plenty of grief and loss to be experienced as we sort through our lost parents' possessions. But their endless love for us feels very real as we find these little traces of our smiling faces

* * * * *

Here are all of our adventures from this summer road trip across America:

Off Again

A Journey Through The Sky In Three Stages

Cute Cat Photos

Smiling Faces

An Afternoon In Iowa In Three Stages

A Letter To The Children At The Pool

Say Hello To The Byway

Three Landmarks And A Pass On The Oregon Trail

Road Trip Realities

News Trend What's In A Name?|Actual

Maeve

Clare

Cleona

Copper

Lucky

Hunter

Penny

Fallon

Flynn

Finan

Fawn

Moriah

Fern

Feather

Robin

* * * * *

My new dog came with an old name.

And while that name is a perfectly fine name, we want to give her a new name to honor her new family and her new life.

So far, we have generated a number of worthy candidates but no clear winner has yet emerged.

For now, I call her Baby or Sweetie. And as you can see, she doesn't seem to mind.

News Trend A Journey Through The Sky In Three Stages|Actual

In June of 2017, my husband and I flew to Ohio, loaded up a U-Haul van full of

family treasures, and drove it 2500 miles back across the country.

These are our adventures along the way.

* * * * *

^ At 2 a.M. Seattle time and 34,000 feet, the eastern skyline explodes into new day.

^ There was a day when she was called "the Mistake on the Lake," but seen while dropping down through the clouds over sparkling Lake Erie, Cleveland looks nearly perfect.

^ Touchdown on Buckeye soil. It's a perfect Midwestern summer's day - 75 degrees with a cooling breeze and a hint of fresh green in the air.

A good day to be in Ohio.

* * * * *

Here are all of our adventures from this summer road trip across America:

Off Again

A Journey Through The Sky In Three Stages

Cute Cat Photos

Smiling Faces

An Afternoon In Iowa In Three Stages

A Letter To The Children At The Pool

Say Hello To The Byway

Three Landmarks And A Pass On The Oregon Trail

Road Trip Realities