Aselin

So the four of you that still check my blog with amazing dedication and regularity are to be commended. If there were a reward, you should totally get it, but I have no idea what kind of reward you should get because in all actuality you have a little streak of crazy in you.

Anyway, as you can tell, I have had a terrible case of writer's block. The writing process for me has traditionally been a conversation in my head I'm having with my imaginary reader. For years it has been a rather seamless endeavor, until this spring. Then, I had a deafening silence. Nothing to say. Certainly nothing interesting to say beyond a two-sentence Facebook post. This brevity has infused my life so deeply that this year I am not even writing the infamous Maloney Christmas letter. As Christmas letters go, I have to confess I have looked forward to it each year as I recap our average little family's foibles, mishaps and adventures. It is so irreverent, I have had people who don't even know us request to be on the list.

This year, I've got nothing. The absurd and interesting seemed to evade me all year.

Until today.

I looked out the window, through the pouring rain at my 9 month old puppy and she had shimmied like a monkey about 4 feet up a palm tree. It took me a second to wrap my brain around what I was seeing. Hugging the trunk of the tree with all fours, she clutched on, then slipped a little and fell backward into the surrounding bushes. She bounced back up onto her feet with such spring I could almost hear her say "I meant to do that!" as if she were looking around to see if anyone was watching.

My dog. Up a palm tree. In the rain. Of course.

Something inside me clicked and it was as if the Universe switched tracks, and all the uninteresting brushed aside and I had to tell you about the dog. Up a palm tree. In the rain.

I have no idea how to get her to do it again, but I think that is the fundamental component of the absurd. It doesn't repeat itself.

I do have confidence that the literal and metaphorical clouds have cleared and whether it's the dog, or the new teenage driver, or the myriad of eclectic that fills my life something interesting will happen tomorrow and I will need to tell you about it.