Recent romantic weekend away has surprising results

November 13, 2022

Last weekend I uttered three little words to Chad that I never thought I’d say to  a man. Or to anyone, honestly. We had just wrapped up our second day hiking with the dogs during our pets-included stay at Cacapon Resort State Park. The first afternoon and evening were spent exploring  the trails around the lodge, and the next checking out the historic town of Harpers Ferry. Given Moo’s attitude  around other animals, our excursion wasn’t exactly stress-free — every other dog owner in the universe seemed to have similar plans  — but it was an ...

Life with mice much different than I imagined

October 16, 2022

When I was a kid, I didn’t have a dollhouse. I had a mouse house. The concept was the same — a tiny replica of a home, filled with itty bitty furniture, occupied by a miniature family. But instead of little humans, the inhabitants of my model were murine. Good behavior on my part was often rewarded with a trip my favorite gift shop, called Patches, where I would pick out a new resident. The mice were made with real fur (a troublesome fact that did not register with me as a child) and clothed in cute costumes. My eclectic rodent commune boasted a painter, a ...

When your week away turns into ‘Freaky Friday’

October 9, 2022

As a woman, I always knew turning into my mother was inevitable. What I didn’t realize was that within 48 hours of occupying their house, Chad and I wouldco-morph into my parents as a whole. We had gone to Lewisburg so he could attend a falconry lesson at the Greenbrier and we could both get some time away in the process. My parents were heading to their vacation spot,so we had the place to ourselves. The transformation began almost immediately. “I’m chilly,” I said on our first full day there, turning on the gas fireplace and warming my hands by the instant ...

Who’s the real charmer here? Him, or my dogs?

September 25, 2022

Remember that Jack Nicholson-Helen Hunt-Greg Kinnear movie, where Jack plays an unhappy, obsessive-compulsive recluse whose whole existence is turned around by the love of a good woman and, more importantly, a cute dog? It keeps popping into my head as I watch Chad during this week away with my pups. For the record, he is not an unhappy, obsessive-compulsive recluse (though he is very neat and he does shower a lot). But like Nicholson in the film, he’s never really been a big dog person. I mean, he likes them — he’s not a psychopath, either — and he’ll pet one if ...

Welcome, home: Contemplating what that word means

September 4, 2022

I’ve been thinking about the concept of home a lot lately. Growing up an Army brat, moving was just a part of life — it’s not like you get a say in it, and since you don’t know anything different, it doesn’t seem all that odd to be told you’re picking up and leaving again after ...

When the brain fog hits, who do you blame?

August 28, 2022

I have about a half dozen half-finished columns sitting on my computer. No, not about. Exactly. I have started — and stopped — writing six times in the past week. I’ve got one about home and what that entails. One about the sneakers I wore to ruin (go, me). A nowhere-near-complete ode to my dog, Tulip. A medium-length ditty about Chad’s magical hat. The beginnings of something about walking on the beach, and a pretty good bit about skeet shooting. Maybe you’ll read them all, or at least a few of them, someday. But not today. Because no matter how hard I tried, ...