I have a few problems, and one of them is that I have three dogs. I don't think I've explained this reality, as I've hardly written anything here in the last few years. This is what happened:

We had one dog, Teddy, a perennial puppy whose vertical jump measures at least four feet, whom we welcomed into our family in 2015.

Next, it seemed like an excellent idea to get a pandemic pup in 2020. Though it was embarrassing to procure a cashier's check for "Cockapoo of Excellence" as the world shut down, I stand by that decision. Two dogs is great.

The third dog, we couldn't have predicted. Skip was my late brother Kevin's constant companion and loyal pal. When Kevin died suddenly in April 2021, the only right thing to do was to add Skip to what could loosely be called a pack. Skip is a weird little guy and behaves not a ton like a dog, so "pack" seems like a stretch. 

Anyway, Skip is one of us now, and I think is about 13 years old. His eyesight and hearing are going fast.

Ok, and also, all three dogs need regular haircuts. They're those kinds of dogs. Megan, the best groomer, books out months in advance, and I can never call on time. So, sometimes, I have to clip them. It's harder than it looks.

Here are some of the comments I've received before, during, or after trying to groom the dogs:

• "Oh, KC, please don't."
• "Mom, you did them dirty."
• "Let's leave it to the professionals."
• "It looks like they're diseased."

• "Do they have mange?"

I was catching up with a friend recently on a run. This friend--a lifelong friend named Molly who often asks the question that everyone else shies away from--asked me why my brother Kevin died last year.

Why was he an addict?, she wanted to know. Was it his genes (we're each adopted from separate birth families)? Was it his choices? How did it happen? How did he die alone on his couch and stay there by himself for five whole days before anyone knew?

And, I can't remember how or if she asked me this, but I felt the question in the conversation: Was there anything you could have done? 

I have to say, I hadn't really thought about it. Was there anything I could have done? Who would want to open that ancient unlabeled tin can and stick a tongue in?

Days later, I was brainstorming in a notebook about my new fictional character, Sophie Jones, the potential subject of my fourth novel

I wrote, "Did Sophie had a sibling who died on her watch?"

I wrote that, and then I looked up at a display about the history of aviation in the Chicago Midway Airport and wondered with a pain just over my sternum, "Did I have a sibling who died on my watch?" And, then I wrote that question down, too.

On our run, I told Molly about how each of Kevin's birth parents struggled with substance abuse, how he was depressed and had a hard time taking care of his mental health, how living with our dad was harder on him than it was on me (I do wonder how much of that fact was my fault), how he lived in a family of people with whom he had so little in common, how he never made good choices about taking care of himself.

I don't know why these things were true. 

I didn't try all that hard to help, is the truth, too. There were reasons for that, and some of them are good.

 The blog has once again been stagnant, but I think about it most every week,

Here's what's happening:

Writing Career: I have now had my third novel published. I can hardly believe it. Three books in three years, and I'm still standing upright most of the time, though I do need naps in the afternoons here and there. I pencil them in for myself religiously. 

I am writing a fourth book (the final one in my contract), but it won't be out next spring. I need to take my time and let the story gel. It's a different sort of story, and we can't rush these things.

Teaching Career: I am teaching English. It's fun and friendly, and I'm going to do it again next year. I know I'll be back at the same school, but I don't know exactly what my job will be. Maybe sixth grade, maybe ninth, maybe a section of eleventh like I'm doing now? Who knows. Whatever it is, I'm sure I can do it. This is the confidence that comes with age and experience.

Grief: I tried to pencil in some time for grieving around the one-year anniversary of Kevin's death, which was last week. But, it turns out, you can't really plan your feelings like you would a haircut or an eye exam. 

Last night at a book signing in Lake Forest, IL, a guy (a fan!) asked me about why I have three dogs, and I--

I found myself telling about how my brother died a year ago, and now I have his dog. And then, the bookseller told me that her sister died twenty years ago, and now she's lived half her life as someone with a dead sister. 

Someday, she said, that will be you, and I'm so sorry.

I cried a little as I rode the elevator up to the fifth floor of the Residence Inn in Mettawa, and then I was fine again. 

I'm fine again right now.

Frank Lloyd Wright: I visited his home in Oak Park, IL today. Turns out FLW was a bit of a cad and kind of an egomaniac. Geniuses can be like that, I suppose. But, wow, his studio space was rather breathtaking in its interlaced octagonalness.

That's it. It's fine. Everything's fine.

The other day, Mac had to miss track practice for a doctor's appointment, and so I supervised his workout. This is rather an unfortunate admission, but I consider myself something of a Dwight Schrute to the boys' running coach. 

The Assistant (to the) Regional Manager, or whatever. Basically, I have assigned myself a made-up title that doesn't mean anything except for an occasional pathetic ego-boost, and a pity back-slap from the coach that she doesn't even know she's delivering. It's a little like dance captain.

And it's sad when you think about it, I guess, but anyway. 

I supervised Mac's workout in my quasi-official capacity, and after he understood how the reps would proceed, he said, "Cute workout."

It made me laugh, and it occurred to me that it characterized my feelings about writing these days: "Cute effort." I've got my marching orders on Book 3. The novel needs significant, but not overwhelming, revisions. I'm easing my way back in. The blind commitment to productivity that has defined most of my life to this point has sort of evaporated in the wake of Kevin's death.

But anyway. I'm putting some adorable effort in. Little cute bursts of effort, broken up by pink Starbursts and those weird bite-sized Tootsie Rolls with the candy coating.

Onward? The revisions are due July 5.

 It's time to start writing my fourth novel.

I've been sitting with that single sentence hanging out by itself up there for quite a long time. I have an idea noodling around now. My agent likes the idea. Little branches of it--shoots, if you will, to borrow a tired metaphor--keep zipping out of my subconscious as I do other things like drop Mac at school, pet one of my three dogs, or think about my brother Kevin's languishing bank account.

I had this great plan about sitting at my desk for a couple of hours each day and making progress. That got torpedoed with Kevin's death, but now I'm supposed to be back.

Yesterday, though, I started the day by drafting an obituary, and to be honest, when I was finished with those 700 words, I felt depleted. I still worked a little, but I also just thought about my sore hip and a boundless future.

Random crap like that.

Anyway, it's time to start writing my fourth novel. I'm going to do it now.

 I lost a week of work because my brother died.

My brother died! 

Who can even believe that. Kevin was only 40 years old, younger than I am. 

He was a good person with many excellent qualities. He also struggled a lot with his health. There have been a series of shocks over the past week, each one rippling its way along through my muscles and capillaries and triggering headache and tightness of jaw and you know, devastating sadness. Basically, I've felt terrible, sometimes having that eerie feeling of watching myself from above. There's that meta voice, the one that's like, "Oh wow, she's currently coping with her grief by having a second M&M cookie!"

Other things have happened, too. Like now, I have Kevin's dog, Skip. Skip used to be our dog, and then when his anxiousness about other people's children became too much, he lived with Kevin. He's had a homecoming of sorts and seems to be settling in well with his canine brother and sister.

So, in addition to being someone whose brother has died, I'm also definitely a dog lady. Three dogs a dog lady makes.

And one brother dead at 40 makes me... a person in a sad and heartbreaking club. We'll be okay.

Ok, here we go. We're thinking of a story idea every day in January. It's not going to be easy. We won't write on and on about them. The posts will be wicked short.

Today, here's my idea:

A person loses their professional job. They were a hospital employee, a skilled one. Maybe they repair complex hospital equipment like my brother Kevin does. But during Covid, cuts hit the healthcare industry and this person is laid off. They start delivering pizza to pay the bills, and one night while delivering pizza (which they hate, especially when people don't tip), they see something mighty strange at a house to which they deliver. Maybe they're at the wrong house or maybe it's the right house and somebody ordered it for them... but, what's happening there is...

I don't know, is the problem.

Are kids having a massive party with no masks? Probably not. That's not that exciting. Maybe that happens in the lead up to the main event, which is...

A woman answers the door in a flimsy robe. She's clearly in the middle of something. Ahem. 

And then, the next morning, that woman's photo appears on social media. She's missing. Or dead!

That's that. Not too shabby! 

Good news: I read 53 books this year! Since I don't finish books I don't like, I can promise I enjoyed them all. You can see my whole list here.

I've been doing these favorites lists for a long time, and this year I've decided to do a 20 for 2020. I'm going to organize the twenty books into two balanced flights. So, there's a romance and at least one mystery on each list, for example. There's some nonfiction both here and there. Each offering is a mix of "commercial" and "literary." I like each flight equally as much. Away we go!

Here's the first flight in alphabetical order by author.

The Herd by Andrea Bartz.

I'll admit that sometimes during family movie night, I'll stay busy on my computer while the rest of them watch a movie. In my defense, I do generally stay in the same room with the family. Also, they generally choose some superhero film I have no interest in watching for the sixth or seventh time.

But tonight, because I'm so flipping open-hearted per my Sankalpa, I stayed right there in the fray for Pete's Dragon, the 2016 version starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Robert Redford.  As a bonus, this was our first time watching this fine film - Mac got it for Christmas from Uncle Kevin. This Pete turned out to be pretty much what I thought it would be: a predictable, heartwarming Disney story of motherless children, their heartbreak, and the families that heal their wounds.

And it was so sad and wonderful - and Robert Redford looked so scraggly, old-guy handsome - that I bawled my freaking eyes out.

The kids have been teasing Dan for months about his infamous tendency to cry during movies and television shows, and also to cry during some especially touching advertisements for laundry detergent and/or auto insurance. When anything remotely moving happens on screen, the kids are immediately studying their dad. "Are you crying?" they demand.  And then they laugh at him and sometimes hug him, too.

So, obviously, Dan was crying at the end of Pete's Dragon when Pete (Spoiler Alert for the most predictable movie ever!) lets his dragon go and decides to live with Bryce Dallas Howard's human family that can meet his basic needs, like for clothing. The kids were lasered on Dan's welling emotion, until Mac realized that I was also overcome.

"Dad!" Mac. "She's got DRIP TEARS!"

"It's sad," I blubbered.

And it was. See how open-hearted I am? I'm moved by fuzzy green CGI dragons. If Sankalpa were something to win, I'd be doing it.

A 9:30 bedtime keeps me from watching most TV.

When the brothers aren't making each other cry, they're conspirators.

We're in Vail, Colorado. This is Dan's dream, as we've been here many times in the winter, but never in the summer, and he's indeed dreamt of seeing it  in the summer.  I'm out-of-this-world happy because I was raised on out-west mountain vacations.  Of course, in my time, we got in the Dodge Ram Conversion and drove 12 hours at a time, my brother Kevin and I sprawling on the floor without seatbelts.

That's not the way Dan rolls.  We flew into Denver yesterday and rented a Ford Expedition, which is huge and requires safety.

We're in a fab VRBO with our bosom pals, Adam and Tracy and their three kids. Today we spent the whole day at a mountain-top adventure park with zip lines, ropes courses, and alpine slides. We're all tired and tan and ready for a chill evening of Netflix and hot-tubbing and of course, the card game that Adam and I generally lose but pretend to win.  Things could be so, so much worse.

Penguins of Madagascar Movie Review

The Benefits of Knowing the World's Best Librarian, JW

In theater... It's the middle school play today.  Shef takes the stage as Inspector Washington at Ellis Island in 1907.  I've seen some of the dance moves here at home, and it appears the kid is a natural.  I'll watch it twice - once with the middle schoolers and once in the evening - and then I have to take my star to the cast party at 10:30. PM. And wait for him there until 11:45. PM!  Will it be rude to retire to my car and listen to an audio book rather than socialize with the other play parents? I mean, probably.

In books... one of my advisees told me she'd spent weekend reading a book that is "a cross between The Hunger Games and The Bachelor."  I stared at her.  "Bring that book to me," I commanded.  She did. It's exactly what she says, and it's called The Selection by Kiera Cass.  I'm also reading Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, which I'm sure I'm going to fall in love with, and The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney.  I've never read a book about Darfur. This one has me attached to the characters from the first moments.  The line drawings are by Shane W. Evans, and I love them.

I actually have more Acts than three here because in addition to the five siblings I mention, I also have two step siblings, whom I adore, and four or five fabulous siblings in-law.  And, I hope there are a million more vignettes I can write in the future, memories upon memories of these incredible people.

Act One:

I grew up with Kevin.  Once he punched me in the face when I was driving him to tutoring.  It wasn't really his fault.  I said something really mean in the seconds preceding the punch.

If we were actually on This American Life right now, Ira Glass would ask me what I said.

I don't want to tell you because it was pretty mean.

Tell us, Ira would say.  So, okay, I would say, but first I want to add that to be fair, Kevin also said something mean to me.  Like, it was a two-sided fight.

Fine, Ira would agree.  So, what did you say?

And of course I would start with what Kevin said: He said I was fat.  And then I would pause for effect and really quickly tell the rest: And then I said he was stupid.  I also said that fat was better than stupid because I could always lose weight, but that he would always be stupid.

And then he punched me.  I think I deserved it, reading this back.  Last night, though, we went to a Twins' game.  The Twins beat the Orioles handily. So, I think we're all good.

Act Two:

When I was mostly or partially grown up, I met another set of siblings.  On the first day I met my sister, she and I were wearing the same outfit.  By accident.  It felt like total fate, and here we are 20 years later, still sisters.

Mary and I were both readers at our brother Devin's wedding.  I got to read 1st Corinthians.  Love is patient; love is kind.  Classic. Mary had to read the lyrics to "The Power of Love" by Huey Louis.  "Don't take money," she said slowly and deliberately. "Don't take fame."  Deep breath.  "Don't need no credit card to ride this train."

Oh my god, it's one of my favorite memories of all time, watching her do this and also watching Devin and Steph try not to laugh their heads off at her while they were up there getting married.

Act Three:

Still another set of siblings has recently come on the scene.  It's an odd thing to meet your siblings when you're all grown up.  You sit there staring into their faces, trying not to be too weird and intense, and yet finding odd little moments of familiarity.  You're immediate family, and yet you don't know each other.

In the most recent meeting - the final sibling frontier - I had to stop the conversation with Noah.  "Oh my god," I said, "you look just exactly like him."  Him, in this case, being the father we share.

"So do you!" he said.  "It's uncanny!"

The elation of saying hello - of watching my sister walk into a restaurant where I'm waiting, heart pounding - makes way for profound sadness to seep in.

Like, how could I have missed so much of this? You start to think that you've been missing them even though you never knew them in the first place.

Major Gratitude Here.  Goldendoodle. #4

You might know how much I've longed for a dog.  I thought I'd be really smart about it and adopt an adult dog that had already been trained by someone else.  In the process, I'd also be giving a worthy dog a home.  Win-win.  Except, no.

My first try at that was the craziest dog in the world, Pronto.  Pronto attacked the children and could not be left alone with them, even after about one thousand dollars worth of training.  It basically was a nightmare.  He went back to the rescue and got adopted by some other sucker kind-hearted individual.

A year later, we got Skip.  Skip is a dream - lap dog, snuggly, loves our children.  The issue with Skip is that he hates other people's children.  He bit three of them in the year that we had him.  It's not practical, as it turns out, to have a dog that bites other people's kids.  Skip went to live with Uncle Kevin, and they love each other a lot.

So, then, in my quest for a dog, I decided we needed to raise a puppy and socialize him from birth with children and other dogs.  And, I thought I'd pick a reputable breeder and have information about the dog's lineage.  And, I thought I'd pick a breed that's known for loving children, rather than terrier mixes that are known for biting them.  The trade-off here is that I'll have to train him, which is why I got him on June 14th.  I will be accessible for full-time training for many weeks.  So I got Teddy.  He's a medium-sized Goldendoodle.  He's ours.

Nothing could possibly go wrong, right?  I've got this.  Just wook at that face!

I was just writing a scene in #NovelSnip where Frank comes home and relieves a nanny called Marie.  So, it's a new time in the story, with Alice as a baby.  And while I was thinking about those awkward moments when the parents come home and the babysitter tries to leave quickly, I remembered something funny about my own dad.  Here it is:

He hated to call babysitters to ask them to watch us.  I can relate to this feeling because I also hate to call babysitters, or really anyone I'm not pals with. Lucky for me, we now have this thing called "text."  I just text the babysitters.  Before that, there was email.  So, I have the communication advantage here.  Anyway, my dad hated it so much, that as soon as I was old enough, he had me call them myself.

"Try to get a babysitter for Friday night," I remember him saying.  And then, I'd go down the list of names on the sheet on the side of the refrigerator.  I think I must have been about seven.  I'd say, "Hi, So-and-So, it's KC.  Can you babysit for me and Kevin on Friday night?"  And there'd be a little negotiation.  Sometimes, the sitters would say, "Do your parents know you're asking?"  How funny would it have been if they didn't, and then I'd just be like, "Surprise, Mom and Dad!  You're going out!" Even better if I could just hand them a gift certificate their car keys when the sitter came to the door.

This is it!  I'm going to recap my year of reading adult fiction, and it's my last list of 2014.  I read 28 books in this category.  Here are my favorites.  The best adult fiction books I read this year in alphabetical order by author.

• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• Sister by Rosamund Lupton
• Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
• The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
• The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

My favorite Middle Grade/YA of 2015

Lucky for me, Skip came home from his visit to Uncle Kevin today.  World's Best Dog, for realz.  I prepared for his return by unpacking, doing laundry, cleaning out the refrigerator, and doing my 7th grade lesson plans.  I feel great about the productivity and feel calm and prepared for what lies ahead.

Tonight, I'm watching television.  I really want to do that. #bachelornation #downtonabbey

For a small fee, or for nothing, Mac will draw you a portrait. Here's a sample. It's Uncle Kevin.

Some colleagues introduced me to my lastest televised obsession, Scandal. It's basically the dark side of The West Wing, except this time by Shonda Rhimes and not Aaron Sorkin. Although it's not Sorkin, it's still fabulous and even features Joshua Malina, who played Will Bailey on the older show.

What happened was I watched all of the existing episodes of Scandal without pause. I loved every minute, but I'm now experiencing the familiar void that comes from not enjoying a suspenseful television show with smart, snappy dialogue on daily basis.

In a moment that spurred optimism, my new pal Robin told me about a show called The Following that we can enjoy obsessively together. I mean, together remotely via Hulu and texts. I did a little research and found that critics' reviews of this Kevin Bacon show are generally positive; however, it's scary and gory. I generally don't like gore, so this show might not be a great match.

There's nothing to do but learn the truth through the experience of watching it.

For some reason, Mac has decided that we should say grace before dinner each night.  During grace, we should hold hands around the table.  I guess we managed to temper the heathenism at some point, for which I should be grateful.

Anyway, he's been choosing the grace-sayer here on our vacation in Arizona.  While my brother Kevin was with us, he was the prime choice.  Now that Kevin's back in Minnesota, Mac honored Chuck with his selection.

No one could have predicted this, but Chuck is extremely terrible at grace.  Here's an excerpt: "Dear Lord, Thank you for this food. We are grateful that the lawmakers managed to get their f&*king acts together and..." Here he was interrupted by utterances from the rest of us.  "I mean," he amended, "I'm glad they've gotten their shit together and..."

"THAT'S NOT BETTER!" Dan shouted, his eyes still shut and the hands still joined.

To be honest, I'm not sure the 24-hour news cycle is good for my mom and Chuck.  It might not be good for their states of mind.  It might be time to turn off the CNN.