Charlotte

To say that our family is a little attached to our dogs would be putting it mildly. Ask our long-time friends and they'll confirm to you that we're all a little nuts in this regard. Oh, I could tell you all the sound reasons for our passionate affection toward our canine family members, but it doesn't have to be justified. It's just a fact. We simply enjoy their company. A lot.

All the sadder, then, that we should return from 2 weeks away to the news that Charlotte had run under the wheels of a friend's car just a few days after we left home. We were off-line and out of phone range so we heard about it as we were getting ready to drive down from Nairobi yesterday. Sweet Tammy cried when she called to let me know.

Well, Heather made a little list and presented it at the dinner table tonight. I thought you might like to hear what she thought was good to remember about that little dog that we reared from birth in Portugal, took with us to the States for 9 months and then moved with us to Tanzania.

Here are Heather's "Memories of Charlotte."

1. She would go crazy when she would see the leash. She would jump up and down and get so, so excited!
2. She would make this funny snoring sound when she was looking at your food and was hungry. (Which was always.)
3. She loved it when you would scratch really hard on her back and she would start shaking her back right leg.
4. She would always sneak into the house and go into Mom and Dad's room and go under the bed and get all tangled up in the mosquito net.
5. She was really good to take in the Land Rover to, like, the land. And once she even got to go to Maji Moto!
6. She was a really, really good dog.

I miss that little white dog. She certainly was a cheeky one.

Beautiful Curry

I was sad yesterday about several different things. It wasn't a debilitating depression or crushing heaviness. Just a sadness like a cloak over my shoulders.

I had special people that I love around me most of the day. Barbara's hugs and Nelly's smiles and little emails do wonders for me. But there are things that are sad and need grieving in life and yesterday some of those were keeping themselves in the forefront of my mind.

By the time evening rolled in, our three boys had dispersed to other locations for the night. Heather was busy playing and Byron was serving up the most fantastic curry that he had made for me. It was hot and tasty and had just enough coconut milk in it to sweeten it. It was amazing.

We sat outside in the lingering warmth and ate this good food. It was good to my taste and good to my heart. I sat there, spoiled rotten by this boy who makes a killer curry. Beautiful food! Beautiful boy!