See that photo up top, the Flickr link with the picture of a sleeping puppy attached? That’s my mom’s new chihuahua, Daisy.

Sometimes I get so sad when I look at her. See, I used to have a toy chihuahua. I named him Tito. He had the same colorings as Daisy and everything, he just had longer, fluffier hair.

I got him on my eleventh birthday, when he was still a teeny tiny puppy. I LOVED that dog. He was given to me in a cute little basket, and he was shy and shaking, and I totally fell for him. And he was the first dog we’d ever had that was really mine.

He was by no means the best behaved dog. He always barked at strangers, was never fully housebroken (I swear, there must be something about dining tables that make dogs need to pee.), and he liked humping people’s arms while they were sitting. But he was still very loving, and didn’t mind me constantly cuddling with him. And man, did he love cleaning my ears for me. And licking off all my makeup.

After he was just a few years old, he started getting grey hairs on the top of his head. He looked like a little old gremlin. We got lucky that he lived so long, actually. My sister owned his brother, Paco, but she had to put him down after a few years because they found out there was a bone deformity in his neck that was causing him pain. I just held onto my shaking, whimpering Tito more.

Then I went to college. And I had to leave him behind. BELIEVE ME, if there was a dorm that allowed dogs, I SO TOTALLY would have brought him up here with me. But I couldn’t. Apparently, after I left, he became more and more withdrawn. He just spent all of his time in his kennel. I felt so bad that I couldn’t have him with me.

Then, the inevitable happened. Tito had lived to be quite old for a toy chihuahua, really. And last spring, during the second semester of my sophomore year, he died after a series of seizures. I was so broken up. Jennifer and Roger kept calling me to say he’d been having the seizures, but they were taking him to the vet. He was getting better. He was getting worse. Up and down, up and down. And then he just gave out, I guess. I cried pretty hard on that one. I think I took it especially hard because I wasn’t there with him when it happened.

It was so strange going home that summer and seeing Angel in the big kennel, all by herself. No Tito. And now, it seems like it’s been forever since it happened, but it was just a year and a half ago. I guess I’ve just been keeping busy, eh?

Mom’s new dog has been kind of a reminder of him. I think she fell in love with Daisy because she looked so much like Tito did when he was a puppy, and I don’t blame her. Josh and I will probably get one or two small dogs once we get settled into our own place, but I don’t know if it will be a chihuahua. I’ve had one, and he’s got one - Chico - still at his parents’ house. He likes min pins, and I do too, but I’m going to try and talk him into a pom pom. I love those little fluff balls!

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Okay. Josh and I are so close to buying this one house we can taste it. It’s right next to my mom, sure, but that just means free dinners all the time.

We almost bought it earlier this summer, but decided that since I still had a year of college and no steady job yet, that we should wait. Well, the price dropped $15,000. It’s been for sale for over a year. It’s a bank foreclosure, three acres of land, over 2000 square feet with attic space and a full unfinished basement. It is GORGEOUS. It does need work, including having windows replaced and putting a sink in the main bathroom. But we both kind of fell in love with it from the first day we broke into toured it.

Since they’ve already dropped the price so much, and it’s been for sale for so long, I have this weird feeling that the bank would accept a really low-ball offer. But I want to wait and see if they lower it themselves again first. If a lot of people start touring the house and we think we might lose it, we’ll probably go ahead and make an offer. But we’re crossing our fingers it’s still for sale when I graduate, and in that case, we will definitely be making an offer.

I think the reason it hasn’t sold is because we’re out in the middle of nowhere. No one wants to spend the gas to drive all the way out to where we live just to LOOK at a house nowadays. There aren’t any pictures on the online listing except the exterior, which is probably working in our favor. Yes, this house is a fixer-upper, but superficially we can see absolutely nothing majorly wrong with it. And there was a family living in it right up until it was foreclosed on, so the electric and plumbing can’t be total shit. More importantly - if they accepted what we’re prepared to offer - the monthly payments would be way less than what we’d have to spend on rent anywhere around here. Double win.

I am really excited about Josh and me having our own place. There are just a few habits I hope he hasn’t been hiding from me, or else I may have to give him the boot:

• Leaving cabinet doors and drawers OPEN. Why it is so difficult for some people to close these things when they’re done with them, I will never know.
• Cleaning up spills in the bathroom by moving the bath rug over it with his feet.
• Leaving HUGE. CHUNKS. OF FOOD. in the kitchen sink after rinsing out dishes.
• Pretending those giant dust bunnies next to the refrigerator aren’t really there. Or following you as you walk by.
• Cluttering up the end table within MINUTES of me cleaning it off.
• Peeing in the kitchen sink. Even if he removes the dishes. Bathroom sink I can deal with, because hey, our eating utensils don’t go in there. I just wouldn’t want to drop my contact or anything.

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Yesterday morning, I had the pleasure of taking pictures (pro bono) of the blessing of a baby girl on the Upper East Side. It was nothing too formal, but it was a very nice ceremony in the couple’s apartment building.

First of all, it was originally scheduled to be mostly outside. This is what I was wanting, as I’m still getting used to indoor photos, and feel I’m better at outdoor pictures. But the weather was not conducive to an outdoor ceremony, so I had to grit my teeth, get my bearings, and work my way through it.

To make things worse, the lighting in the “party” room was HORRIBLE. (Of course, this is no fault of the couple’s! It’s just how their building was designed.) Lots of tiny orange overhead spotlights, no lighting from the walls or floor. What does that mean? Lots of harsh shadows.

Fortunately, the baby was generally held in a way that let the light fall flatteringly on her. And since she was the focus of the event, I felt a bit better. Also, the shots I got of her up in her bedroom getting ready for the ceremony came out pretty well (thanks to tons of natural light coming in the windows).

One thing taking pictures for this event has made me realize is that I NEED wider lenses so I can still get good exposures in these settings without all that grain. I was kind of sad at how grainy some of the faces of people at the ceremony came out because of the harsh shadows and my need to use a fast film speed.

It was definitely a good experience, though. The baby was absolutely adorable and the couple was very, very nice.

See the rest of the photos in the Flickr set.

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Dear Josh,

Once again, my stupid desire for an education in a field we both know I have a slim chance of making money in has separated us for more than three-and-a-half months. We most certainly cherished our last month of the summer together, spending lots of hours next to each other on the living room love seat, and even more hours upstairs in bed. I got to celebrate my 21st birthday with you, drinking an amaretto sour and watching Enchanted for the first time. We’re wild ones, aren’t we?

I’m so glad you came up to New York with me. Mostly because I couldn’t have handled the car trip with Mom alone. But seriously, I’m not sure if you helping me move into my dorm and staying there for a few days made the goodbye harder or easier. As you know, I was crying long before we even went to get Mom’s car out of the parking garage. I can tell you hate it when I cry. Even though you hardly ever cry, too, I can see the pain in your heart. It shines in your eyes.

In a way, I really do think all these semesters apart are a good thing. See, we love being physical. We do it very well, I think. And we do it most frequently, whether it’s making love, hugging, smacking asses, or just laying our heads in each others’ laps while we watch TV. But when we’re apart like this, we’re forced to come up with something to talk about, or else we’re left with a lot of empty silences on the phone. (Not all of our silences are empty, though. Sometimes, I can hear you loving me.)

After a year of being together, I realized I still didn’t know a lot of the basics about you. So these conversations give me a chance to find them out. I now know your favorite colors (dark blue and dark green), foods (corn dogs, spaghetti, and burger macaroni), bands (anything metal, but not too heavy), holiday (4th of July), and times of year (spring and fall). Be prepared, because I’m coming up with more questions to ask.

We’re both so eager to live together, get married, and have kids, I know it’s going to be difficult for us to take our time with each of these steps. Even last night, we almost considered making an offer on a house that’s been for sale in Vine Grove for several months. But we decided it would be better to wait. I think secretly, we’re both hoping it still hasn’t been sold when I graduate.

I really do look forward to living with you. It will be different than us both being at my mom’s house all the time; it will be just us. And I think that’s when I’m really going to get to know you. To be honest, you’ve been the most difficult man to pry open I’ve ever met. But that’s okay, because I like challenges. I know that you know that if anybody in the world can get you to open up, it will be me.

We’ve made it through 26 days apart, now. I’ve been counting, and I know you have, too. 82 more days, and I’ll be pulling into E-town on a Greyhound bus, searching for you. I have never been so eager to purchase my transportation home for Christmas, to know exactly when I’ll be there and exactly how long I’ll have to stay. We’ll have 32 amazing days together, and I don’t intend to let a single one slip by where I don’t see your handsome face.

I love you so, so much. I think you should know that I cry all the time, lately, when I’m alone. But don’t feel bad, because I don’t. I’ve never had something I was so happy to cry about.

Sending you all my love with your birthday present today,

Michelle

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Last night on Josh’s lunch hour, we were having one of our conversations about children again. Sometimes we discuss how many we’re going to have; sometimes we discuss names, for whether we have boys or girls or both; and sometimes, it gets a little more serious.

Like last night, I asked him how he felt about termination in those situations where doctors are able to detect certain mental or physical deficits within the first trimester. Usually, he would ask me for my opinion on questions I ask before he answers. I suppose he then decides how he’s going to answer based on whether or not he thinks he’ll piss me off. But on this particular subject, he didn’t hesitate to answer, and was very clear.

“No. No matter what would be wrong with it, it’s my kid and I’m going to love it just the same.”

But then I asked him about those situations where it’s a disease or deficit that would be 99% likely to kill the child within a certain amount of time of being born - say one year or less. See, I’m still on the fence about this. First of all, in general, I don’t think it would be fair to the baby or us to see it to full term in this situation. We’d just be putting ourselves through a lot of pain, and a waiting game, to see when we’re going to lose our baby. And most likely, the baby would suffer, and wouldn’t even get to live long enough to appreciate its life. But at the same time, there’s always that 1% chance the baby COULD live to be much, much older. And, people die. It just happens. So if I had a baby with a deficit that caused it to die after one year, how would that be much different than if it (Bob forbid) got hit by a car or something? The difference is knowing… but again, everybody dies. So should we deny that baby the right to live for at least a short time, regardless of the psychological impact it would undoubtedly have on us?

Josh, again, didn’t hesitate.

“I’d still want to have it. Unless it was putting you at risk.”

I absolutely love how excited he is about having kids. And he keeps saying things like, “I can’t believe I found a woman that wants to have my babies.” Seriously. Who WOULDN’T want to have babies for someone that adorable?

We have not yet decided how many we want to have. We’ve already picked out two girls’ and two boys’ names, though. (Yeah, we’re that crazy.) (In case you were wondering: Joshua Andrew for first boy, Benjamin Ace for second; Layla Marie for first girl, Samara Michelle for second.) But supposedly, having twins runs on my mom’s side of the family, and that she had twin sisters. However, she was separated from them when she was really young, so she doesn’t remember if they were identical or fraternal. Only fraternal twins are hereditary; identical are purely accident. So if they were identical, then that has no bearing on whether or not I’m likely to have twins. But if they were fraternal, not only does that factor in, but it is my generation’s turn (as it also supposedly skips generations in her family). (Can you tell I don’t always trust my mother’s anecdotes? *cough*)

My sister had two pregnancies, neither were twins. Of course, she did have them very young. The older you are, the more likely you are to have fraternal twins. I want to wait until we’re closer to our 30s, so that Josh and I have a few years to ourselves to enjoy. This means I’ll be more likely to have twins, regardless of genetics.

Josh and I both think it would be cool to have twins. And we both agree that two kids is the max we’d want, so he’d get snipped up after that. The problem is, what if we have one the first time? Do we stop there? Because what if I ended up with twins in the second pregnancy? Then we’d have three. And while we would OF COURSE love them all, that’s just not what we want.

We might end up with just one in that situation. Then we can spoil it and I can spend all my time reading my Abnormal Child Psychology book trying to figure out how not to screw it up.

And if I do screw it up, then hey, maybe we’ll try for another one ten years later. I can start all over!

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