It's 4 a.m. ...

... Do you know where your dog is?

Actually, I did know where my dog was at 4 a.m. a couple of mornings ago. She was standing at the front door, barking her head off. When I heard her, I hopped out of bed and headed for the stairs, hoping I wasn't too late.

I was.

The living room carpet was dotted with, well, let's just say the dog had had diarrhea since the night before and had already given our carpet steamer a serious workout. Silly me, I thought she was over her intestinal distress. But no.

Two days earlier I had taken our 17-year-old cat to the vet for her annual checkup. As usual, she freaked out. This time was extra special, though: It took three adults to hold her down while the vet gave her her rabies shot. I was not one of them, by the way. Having already had my hand bloodied by this tyrannical old feline, twice, I was excused. In fact, the vet thought it best that I step out into the lobby and wait. Several loud screeches later (from the cat, that is), the deed was done and we were on our way.

Back to 4 a.m. ... As I was scrubbing the living room carpet by hand (because I didn't want to wake everyone else up), I thought about the dog. I thought about the cat. I doubt they were thinking about me.

So it goes.

I've brought animals into my life because I appreciate their companionship, because I don't know whether I would like my life as much if I didn't have pets in it. I would, no doubt, have cleaner carpets and fewer scratches on my hands if I didn't have pets. But it sure would be quiet around here.

Especially at 4 a.m.

Flexing my muscle

Somewhere between Monday morning and Monday night, a particularly nasty bug found an opening somewhere, a chink in my armor, and within a matter of hours I went from reasonably healthy to sick.

I can handle colds. They come and go in a pretty predictable fashion. But this, this was something along the line of bad-cold-meets-mono. At least, that's the way it left me feeling last week -- the first week of the semester at the university where I teach. Which is another way of saying it was a long week.

Aside from the cough, the congestion and the feeling of having recently been run over by a piece of heavy equipment, I'm fine and glad to be back to sharing this space with you. Writing, for me, is like a muscle: When I stop using that muscle it grows lazy, flabby. And "tomorrow" becomes too easy to say.

So here's a status report: This last day of January, with its deep blue sky and bitter cold, finds me happy to be getting back into some sort of routine -- at school, at home, with my family, with my writing.

Running out of Kleenex, but happy.

Not dead yet

I've just emerged from teaching an online course in which I attempted to cram a semester's work into three weeks. As you might imagine, I was pretty sick of writing, editing and thinking by the end of the day.

Fear not. I AM recovering.

More soon.

No, really.

Just January

We packed Christmas away today, much to the chagrin of the resident 3-year-old. He kept asking why he had to do this, why we couldn't just leave everything the way it was.

Well, we told him repeatedly, Christmas is all done. Then we reassured him -- repeatedly -- that it really will come back again one day.

The fact is, I hate to pack in Christmas, too. Keeping the tree up until the sixth of January is a long-time tradition in my family. This year we managed to stretch that tradition a few days longer, wrapping up the holidays with a family turkey dinner last night.

As I look around at my living room and dining room, now devoid of Christmas decorations, I ask myself: Now what?

January, that's what.

Time to burrow in for some serious weeding out, shaping up, catching up ... and then there are all those tax forms to contend with.

Oh, hell, I know why we keep our Christmas tree and lights and other decorations up so long: The longer the place looks festive, the less it feels as if it's just January.

'Twelfth Night' chills

Parts of the U.S. are said to be "in the deep freeze," struggling to cope with weather they seldom experience. Here in upstate New York, we don't have to worry about saving our citrus crops. We don't have any. We never WILL have any -- unless global warming happens in a big way.

What we do have is a certain resilience when it comes to winter weather. So, it seems, do Britons.

According to The Guardian newspaper, the people of Odiham in Hampshire, "southern England's snowiest village," are coping quite well with the unusually nasty winter weather they've been experiencing.

The Rev Gary Keith, vicar of a church in Odiham, told The Guardian: "It's absolutely beautiful here: there's snow in the trees, on the ground and on the church roof. There must be 30-40cm now (around 12-16 inches), and it's still snowing. ...

"It's been lovely being outside and seeing people out with their kids playing on sledges or walking their dogs. The reader from the church rang me on his way back home from a meeting at 10 o'clock last night and said that people in the village were building snowmen or just watching the snow fall."

The folks of Odiham are clearly making the most of a bad situation, and having some fun in the process.

We might as well follow their lead and try to enjoy the cold and snow -- 'cause I doubt they'll be going away any time soon.

Stay warm.

Fresh starts

Happy New Year.

Let's resolve to:

Laugh often.

Whistle in public.

Forgive quickly.

Dance when we can, even if we're not very good at it.

And to all a good night

It's after 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and it's all I can do to keep from nodding off as I sit down to write this. I haven't sat down for hours -- but for reasons I truly love: cooking and baking for my family, wrapping gifts, touching up the paint job on the little stool I'm giving my youngest grandchild tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

If all goes well, the small person in our home won't be up before the sun. And that means a pretty decent night's sleep if we can manage to finish setting up his gifts before midnight. We have learned our Christmas Eve lessons well: Do not, under any circumstances, wait until late that evening to set up a train set under the tree. Not if you want to get some sleep before the wee ones wake up.

And remember to stock up on batteries.

Oh, yes: Keep it simple. You'll all have more fun if you do.

Merry Christmas.