The Birth of the Coffee House Dog

We met, at the coffee shop. Each morning I would end my run hopping up the steps, two at a time, and order 1 chocolate croissant and a triple latte. There is nothing like the smooth heat sliding down your throat radiating heat through your body on a brisk hot morning.

I slipped outside onto the deck, shirt sleeves wrapped around the steaming cup and inhaled, ah.  Plunking my skinny butt down on the steps I unwrapped the croissant, took a bite, and held the rest out. Bouncer snatched it out of my fingers and sat, bun between her paws, nibbling it away.

Bouncer was my name for her as she bounded everywhere she went, a tail wag a second. I scratched behind her ears, sliding my fingers under her blue collar. Good, there was still room to grow. The bell on her neck jingled as she stretched and sat up. 'Not time yet, girl. I have to finish my coffee.' She pawed my foot, giving my arm a friendly kiss, and walked over to sniff the end of the deck. This also was a tradition.

I took another sip of my coffee and looked around. 'Morning,' a blue toque bobbed through the door. 'Morning, and what are you doing?' 'We got hot chocolate, say, is that your dog?' 'where?' blue toque pointed a blue mitt towards the parking lot. 'There, n - wait, yes! Bouncer, bouncer.' I got up and headed down the steps. Bouncer looked up, but kept following behind the red truck driving towards the  road. 'Bouncer!' coffee splashed down the trail in time with my thudding feet, 'Bouncer, come back.' The truck turned onto the road. The bumper catching her front as it peeled off, tumbling her into the ditch.

'Bouncer,' I ran up, panting. The deck of the coffee shop full of spectators waiting as I carried her back, her front leg limp where it had connected with the truck. I hoped it wasn't broken. 

Home (second edition)

Could that be your perfect writing retreat?

What is home can only be defined individually. 

And don't be surprised if it changes over time.

Ponderings of Home

My sons exploring the world through the windows of a fish-head.

I have started a new short story this week and the central focus, so far, explores the concept of home.

Is home a specific place? Is it a person? Is it family or is it being part of a community? How does one define home?

I stumbled on this story by accident when I saw my Grandmother's first name, Audrey, on a book. Memory evoked hearing my Grandfather tenderly referring to her as "Aud," made me wish I could stop by for a coffee.

Once I started writing my thoughts my brain skipped to them moment I first felt I'd come home, except this moment came as I sat in a Bar, in a strange city, surrounded by strangers. To my logical mind this place should have been the opposite of home, so what was this I felt? This is a concept which I've been pondering for years and my idea of home keeps growing and changing. And no, that Bar was definitely not home, but then, that's part of a bigger story.

Thus I have my current story project and I plan on working on it more during July's "National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) Camp".  For those who don't know, this is a smaller version of the National Novel Writing Month event which is held every November and participants get the experience of being put in a cabin with other writers for the month, making a virtual community.

What would you work on if you had a whole month to develop it and a virtual community of like minded writers in which to call home while you did this?

Another Spring...

Aww, here it's a hot summer day..., so it's hard to feel like spring again... But the other meaning of the word might suit our writing hopes quite as well! Look...

This is the second-largest well of my province. If you stand still for a while and look closer at the surface, you can see the sand and sulphur move in places, and how continuously the bubbles are rising from the ground... A curious feeling, actually. Let's find springs!

Writing Spring

Summer in the Yukon is here, although it's only June, come August it will start to cool off and the leaves will start to change. This Spring we tackled the lawn, which had turned mostly to moss and spent a whole week stripping off moss to replant, what a job.

I thought for the word of the day today I would post Spring. I realize I probably posted it before a long time ago, but it might be a good start as I hope to spring back into more writing this summer :)

This photo is from a tree on our lawn. I'm not sure what kind it is, but it gets beautiful small white flowers. I took it last week and they are already out in full bloom this week.