Most people who used to drink and don’t drink anymore, have the anniversary of their sobriety imprinted on their memory like one of those glow-in-the dark club stamps an unsmiling bouncer puts on the back of your hand. Ever wake up and read the one word name, like LUSH or CRUSH on your person and have no recollection of having been there? It is especially distressing when coupled with a hospital bracelet…
Anyway, my sober anniversary is July 28, 2013 – but if you ask me about any other important date, I will look at you with a blank stare or perhaps leaf feebly through a day-planner… Because of this missing chromosome, I forget some important milestones without the proper celebration.
Yesterday Lauren sent me this, with a note that said, “Three years ago today!!!”:
It was of course, news to me. I bought Fiona online from a breeder in Tulsa, while drunk, after all… Show me a puppy and I think, “Replace the carpets…” Show me a photograph of Fiona as a puppy and I think about what she looks like now:
I took Fiona for a walk yesterday, she is staying with Lauren and frankly doesn’t seem that happy to see me when we reconnect. I was pulling her away from a catastrophically friendly shar-pei with a bit too much fervor, her collar slipped over her head and I jettisoned her down a hill like a boulder out of a sling shot (bulldogs do not bend in the middle).
The shar-pei owner looked at me like, “You monster…” Fiona was dizzy but unhurt and properly chagrinned. As we walked away I said to her, “Sorry, dude. That was pretty embarrassing…Happy anniversary?” Speaking of embarrassing, I was bored in Georgia and I took this photo for DRESS YOUR PET DAY:
You know what they say, “You can choose your friends, but you cannot choose your family…”
This is not a costume…
