goodnight, seattle

I'm back home, and as I write this Emma is asleep in her little Emma-sized bed and James is working in his James-sized chair across from me. We had a lovely trip, with a play and a movie and a concert--a perfectly balanced triptych of entertainment!--plus some outlet shopping and fresh seafood and two art museums and some lovely books waiting for my at my parents' house. Still, I have found that I love coming home a lot more now that I have a giant bed to come home to. Not to mention a dog.

Emma is the weirdest dog I have ever met. She uses her front paws like hands, for grabbing things like toys. She scratches--not on purpose I think, but just as a way of getting attention, the way other dogs will stick their head under your hand when they want to be petted. James and I call her the lick ninja because she will sit quite quietly in your lap, and then suddenly lunge at your face with her long tongue extended. It's hard to avoid her--she has won more than one round of this game of make-out chicken. She is surprisingly good at certain things, like riding in the car (she sits quietly in the back seat) or getting her paws dried off (she stands quite complacently and doesn't fidget). Getting an adult dog is weird for this reason, I guess: they arrive in your life fully formed and inexplicable.

Weird phenomenon: I am kind of looking forward to returning to work tomorrow after 5 days off. Undoubtedly this is partly because of the cute purple coat I am going to wear tomorrow, and the cute purple arm warmers that go with it. But it's more than that. I am ready to start the next set of things.

More extended entry on MFK Fisher to come, as she is my new obsession--and it doesn't hurt that on the cover of the edition of How To Cook A Wolf that I have, she glows like an ingenue.