this week's photo memory!

(my dog is obviously smiling)

i COULD have combined this week's photo memory with my friend's birthday wish but since when is this blog about any sort of streamlining or any sort of unnecessary efficiency? exactly. so why start now?

so, this story has probably been told again and again. and will most definitely be told for many years to come.

it was a balmy summer day in Northwest Ohio and the sky was quickly turning that really ominous green/blue/gray color. Kat and i lived a very close 1.5 small-town blocks from work. when the weather got iffy enough that all of our co-workers were being asked to follow tornado drill procedures, it was time to think fast.

and my pug was the first thing on my mind (now refer back to the pug smile above. she had us so wrapped around her little paw).

to say that i had visions of my pug spinning in the air and landing on top of a land of munchkins would not be an exaggeration.

so, i called Kat and begged her to run (or was it drive?) home with me to save Marlie.

was this safe? no.

was it a bit dramatic? in hindsight, probably.

so, we packed a thing or two (i guess fleece blankets in a dingy basement in the summer sounded like a reasonable plan?) and down into the cobwebs we went. this was easily the second-scariest basement that i've ever lived above, by the way.

one major detail - our crazy upstairs neighbors came as well. and they brought...not blankets....but some gatorade, their cigarettes and their stash of cold, hard cash - in a plastic grocery bag, nonetheless. you see, they were moving out of our humble duplex abode to hit the road for a cross-country camping trip for good. why they had a bag of cash is so beyond me. what is even more beyond me, still to this day, was why they had the cash out in the open for their young neighbors to see? why was this shared knowledge amongst the basement dwellers? your guess is as good as mine.

there really is no place like home.