my prince

Ah man, I am so crazy about this guy.So as I mentioned yesterday, he's been having some health problems lately related to his liver, his arthritis (we think) and most recently some seizures. And then I was telling someone about him yesterday, and they wanted to see a photo, and I realized how little I put him on the blog compared to Magda. Or Memphis.And that got me thinking.It's so interesting how we (I) tend to focus on stuff that is causing you stress or worry in your life and how easy it is to completely overlook the stuff that is easy and wonderful. This guy here? Always easy and wonderful.I was also thinking about how I tend to list out all the trouble Mags is in every week, and I would have nothing to list for Merlin. Then I realized, maybe I should list all the great things about Merlin. There are so, so many. But here are a few of my favorites:• When you come in the door, he always greets you with a huge smile and his tail wagging. Not jumping or biting, but just a huge smile and maybe a little happy barking. And if he's feeling good, a deep downward facing dog.• He's a leaner. If he's standing next to you and you're petting him or scratching him, he leans in hard to show you how happy he is. And man, is he warm. This is a wonderful feature in the winter.• When he wants something from you (to go outside, usually), he gently nudges your hand with his nose. If you are asleep in bed, he touches his nose to your cheek.• When he gets tired at night, he waits at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at them longingly and then glancing at you in the living room. When you notice this, and tell him that it's ok, he can go to bed, he glances back and forth several more times to make sure you mean it and that it really is ok if he leaves the rest of the pack for bed because he's tired.See what I mean? Total sweetheart.For today's internet share, I'm sending you to this site called WorkWankers. It's a place that names and describes the most annoying coworkers. And it's pretty funny (and right on). And in the spirit of today's blog, I'm going to tell you about a coworker of mine at the Strib who I miss dearly and was wonderful.Her name is Cindy and she sat next to me, patiently, for years. I would always ask her how to spell something, what movie studio film X was from, if she had photos for movie Y I could steal, etc etc etc. I must have been pretty annoying. But! We had so much fun dishing on red carpet fashion, Project Runway and Scandal. If I look back at my last six months of Strib work and how they were represented on this blog, it was mostly stress and anger. But this woman? She was an angel.Take a look around you today, and think about the good stuff. We let that slip away so often.