On July 12, 2008 I blogged about my brother-in-law. Yesterday he passed away. I invite you to return to that blog and celebrate his life with me. He was really special.

This week we said good bye to Benny Bunny. He had lived years past the two or three years that normal bunnies are promised. Five is old for a bunny.

He first came into our family when his 'mother' was graduating from 8th grade. She wanted a pet. Of all the children in this home, she was the one with the proper level of responsibility to care for another living thing. No one ever questioned whether her pet would have fresh water, a full food bowl or an occasional treat. Her mother and I had gone to the pet store where Benny stood out from the rest because he was by far the cutest with the most distinctive markings.

It was hilarious to watch him hop after the family cat, the cat looking at this creature as if to ask, "Why can't you walk right?" The cat was safe in the kitchen because of the slick floor which Benny would not transverse. The cat hunched his back and hissed when Benny came near. Over the years one phone cord fell victim to Benny's sharp teeth as did a favorite pair of flip-flops.
And one ten dollar bill that was inadvertently left on top of the cage.

Benny spent the weekend at my house one year. We had him in a guest bedroom of course and let him out to hop around the bed a couple times during the day. A few days after Benny's visit we were expecting guests and I went into the bedroom to freshen up the room. I knew the sheets had been changed on the bed so I didn't give it a second thought...until a little voice in my head told me to check under the pillows. Removing six pillows, four of them decorative, I was appalled to find little "Benny droppings." To this day I find humor when I think of what my guests would have thought if they had discovered these on their own.

Last spring Benny's mother graduated from high school and in the fall started her freshman year at a college seven hours away. The family promised to take good care of Benny and they did. But time and age have a way of creeping up on all living creatures, even pampered ones. On her last visit home from school, just a few weeks ago, she mentioned that when she would pet Benny she could feel every one of his vertebrae. She was sad that his ears no longer would stand up straight. She knew it was only a matter of a short time.

Still, death hurts. A person can share secrets with a bunny (or a cat or dog) that can't be shared with a person without ever thinking that perhaps confidentiality will be broken or judgment rendered.

"Grief is so painfully real, regardless of its origin. The love of, and attachment to, an animal friend can equal that of human relationships. Likewise, the loss of an animal can be just as devastating."
~Rev. Joel L. Morgan

And that's what I think about it.

Seven deadly sins....I think there should be eight. The eighth one would be Teasing. In other words Spring would be committing a deadly sin by giving us 70 degree weather one day and 40 degree weather the next.

If flowers were prone to shivering, our daffodils would be aquiver.

The furnace, which had begun to slow down dreaming of warmer temperatures, has now regularly warmed the house once again. The air conditioner, lying dormant since October, has a few additional days, hopefully not weeks, of vacation.

Spring Break has truly been an escape from the chill to the sun for students.

Robins seem to be gathering in caucuses around the yard, trying to figure out if they have flown north too early in the season and pointing beaks at the ones who were supposed to have read the Farmers' Almanac for travel advice.

Today the rain has started to turn to ice.

On a brighter note, the little shoots of onions, tomatoes and various wildflowers have begun to sprout on top of my husband's computer desk where he put them to keep them out of the reach of Kat Karson.

Today, that is the only brighter note. And that's what I think about it.

TV shows are designed to make us feel envious or inadequate. Surely this is the case with me and HGTV, the cable network that showcases, well, homes and gardens.

Today I have watched Get It Sold, Curb Appeal, International House Hunters and Designed to Sell.

I have seen homeowners in tears because a 'stager' dared make disparaging remarks about their choices of color and furniture. One was appalled that the Realtor wanted them to remove all dog beds and toys.

Couples from Spain want to move to Uruguay. Condo owners in San Francisco are moving to Aruba. All of them seem to have quite a bit of money to put into a new home. One couple was buying a vacation home with six bedrooms and baths...a second home. These folks do not seem to be feeling the pinch of the present economic situation.

There is a show titled Clean House where some of the messiest folks who have amassed stacks of both useless and useful (who would know which) stuff all over their homes, get help to organize and downsize. I have never watched this show because the premise disturbs me. People who have two of these and four of these, when people in need have none of either, irritate me. Of course, hoarding can also be a serious mental disturbance. In these cases, when the TV hosts return a few months later, more stuff has been found and hoarded, or if the homeowners know the TV folks are returning, they might rent a storage space for use during that visit.

One show makes over a home for sale within a two thousand dollar budget...and a lot of sweat equity. I have no desire to put any sweat into this kind of effort. I have no interest in learning how to rewire a light switch or build a pergola or lay a patio. When I see couples completing these projects it doesn't seem too difficult and of course can be completed in no longer than an hour but I am smart enough to know that what I am seeing on TV is not the whole story.

A few years ago I watched This Old House and was convinced that if given the proper tools I would be able to get water from a well into the house by digging and laying pipes and installing pumps and what-nots. I never have had the opportunity to put all that knowledge to use...yet.

But today I changed a light bulb. And I helped put together an 'upside down garden' (I'm sure you'll hear more about that as the growing season progresses). I straightened two rugs that the cat had wrinkled. I also made the bed. These are all small but visible home improvement events that make me grateful to have one house, and one cat, and no mortgage.

And that's what I think about it.

In the past two weeks two friends have had to have their dogs euthanized. One was a boxer/lab mix and had been with the couple all their married life of eleven years and with the wife before the marriage. The other was a newer member of a family of a couple years, dearly loved by three daughters and promised to the oldest when she married this summer. Moe was a Sits Zhou with a fluffy little face.

Tiffany, the boxer/lab just simply got old and feeble. In her prime she would show off the colorful neck scarves I would buy her for holidays, like July 4th and Halloween. A stuffed Nemo, the animated Disney fish, was her favorite toy. She was allergic to most things dogs love to eat and had she been a human she would have had suspicious thoughts when her owners drove through the drive-through Wendy's window on that last day. Allergic to wheat and beef, she was treated to three Wendy's hamburgers. A happy last meal.

Moe's primary owner was finishing up school in Chicago, set to return to the area for her wedding in August. Moe was diagnosed with cancer, incurable, with the treatments to prolong life worse than the disease. There was no alternative.

There is an empty place in the home and heart when a pet dies. Until then you never really realize how big a part of your life they have become. You miss the cold noses, the unconditional trust, the way they just don't have negative emotions, even when you have a rotten day at work, fight with a friend, get fired or a flat tire. Dogs are just always happy to see you and let you know that you truly are the most important person in the world to them. These two furry friends will be missed.

But so as not to leave my readers on a sad note, here are some reasons why men have dogs instead of wives:

1. Dogs are happy to see them, regardless of how long they've been away or how late they come home.
2. Dogs don't care if you call them by another dog's name.
3. Dogs are happy that you leave lots of stuff all over the floor.
4. A dog's parents never visit.
5. Dogs agree that you should raise your voice to get your point across.
6. Dogs like to go hunting and fishing.
7. Dogs never wake you up at night and ask, "If I died, would you get another dog?"
8. If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in the paper and sell them.
9. If a dog leaves, he won't take half your stuff.
10. If a dog smells another dog on your clothes, he is more interested than angry.

And that's what I think about it.

Last weekend the church had a book drive for three inner city schools in our area. These schools contained either all elementary or all middle school grades but for the next school year they are adding either elementary or middle school grades to each.

The dilemma, of course, is that the elementary schools have only lower grade resources in their media center and the middle schools have only upper grade resources.

A thinking person would make the assumption that tax money would be available to stock the libraries in these schools with appropriate level books. In fact, that statement makes so much sense that it boggles the mind to find out that this is not the case.

Even with our high-sounding "No Child Left Behind" policy and our value that 'reading is fundamental' we have completely abandoned the very educators that are on the front line of making this happen and tied their hands by leaving them out of the budget. I am appalled. And very disappointed. And will hasten to add that other schools within the district do have budgets for books.

Where is the hew and cry for a level playing field for our inner city kids? Where are those advocates who will stand up and shout, "Foul" to an unfair policy like this?

Okay, I'm done....

Except to say that through the efforts of my daughter, and the resource center director at the church, and the two media personnel in these inner-city schools, over the week end hundreds and hundreds of age-appropriate books were donated, new and gently used, fiction and non-fiction, to the schools.

It was delightful to watch the above mentioned four women sort through books, dividing them up between the schools, pausing often to muse over the story in one book or another. There is something very refreshingly honest about the kinds of people who love children and books. Listening to them read Shel Silverstein's poetry or exclaim over the newest series of Hardy Boys mysteries took me back to when my children were young. My favorite poem then and now is one of Shel's:

There's too many kids in this tub
There's too many elbows to scrub
I just washed a behind
that I'm sure wasn't mine
There's too many kids in this tub.

And that's what I think about it.

Started a diet tomorrow.

Or perhaps the next.

And that's what I think about it.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The local university was offering belly dancing classes through its Fine Arts department, open to the public and reasonable in cost. My neighbor and I signed up. We were looking for something to get us moving, something that would be fun and something that not every friend and acquaintance was participating in; something to talk about at social gatherings that would set us apart from the crowd.

Twelve of us enrolled. My friend and I were in our 50s, by far the oldest....by much far-ness. Ten belly dancer 'wanna bes' had matriculated along with us. Serious students who had dreams of being the next exotic dancer on the Cleveland night scene. Read between the lines that they had no sense of humor for the two of us, my neighbor and me who were there on a lark?

The instructor was a ballet professor at the university. Who knew you could earn a PhD. in ballet? She brought in jingles and jangles for us to drape around our bodies. Coins clinked like jelly beans being poured over and over again into a bowl every time we moved. Oh, we loved it.

We leaped and swiveled and thrust, finding body parts that were not meant to be moved on purpose all the while tinkling and jingling.

I can't remember but I think we finished the six weeks of classes without throwing our hips out of joint. I by far had the most natural resources to engage in the activity. The rest of the class never did warm up to us. Looking back it could have been jealousy; show business is such a competitive business. Yes, that's absolutely it, they were envious.

And that's what I think about it.

Sun is shining with not a cloud in the sky.

Robins are picking risk-taking worms from the lawn and forgoing the seeds in the feeder.

A lazy squirrel has learned to hang upside down from the feeder hanger in order to get the bird food without tripping the gravity doors which keep anything heavier than a small song bird from getting the food. It's a reach for him but he is determined...and hungry...and lazy. Perhaps he ran out of what he stored away last fall.

A friend told me this morning that she saw a rabbit on two legs peering up and over into the raised garden bed she has in her backyard. He looked back and forth to see if it were time for the tender lettuce shoots to be poking their leaves up through the soil.

The trees are getting 'fluffy' which means that the stark branches of winter are filling out with buds that will become leaves.

Temperatures are in the 50s. Winter coats are too much for comfort.

Easter dresses have appeared in all the stores, including Cracker Barrel. The candy aisle at the grocery store is sea of pastel colors.

Welcome Spring. We've been waiting for you. And that's what I think about it.