Sometimes A Puppy Is Not The Answer...

 Summer of 2025 came more difficult news. The kind you work through one appointment, one conversation, one breath at a time. And not long after that, Rocky suffered what we believe was a stroke. Within hours, we had to say goodbye to him too. Losing two dogs so close together felt like losing the exclamation points in our lives. We were now back to one dog again. Finn for the longest time wouldn’t jump into John’s truck. We believe it’s because he watched Rocky leave in it and never return. Finn kept us going. We had no choice. But life was a bit hollow and heavy. And uncertainty loomed everywhere. Hey, that’s life, right! No guarantees!

 It has been a while since I’ve posted anything personal, which is saying something, because I am famously incapable of not communicating. Silence is not my brand. But the last two years have had a way of rearranging things, including words.

In November of 2024, on 11/11, we said goodbye to Jack, our chocolate lab, who was thirteen. I was as prepared as a person can be when they know something inevitable is coming, which is to say, not prepared at all. Jack was the kind of dog who made life easier just by existing. He was gentle. He was chill. He never did anything wrong. He was, essentially, the emotional support human of our household, disguised as a dog.

John, my strong, steady husband, took it harder than I expected. Jack was his quiet companion, his constant. And men of a certain age, from a certain era, tend to keep their feelings folded neatly inside themselves, where they do not take up space or inconvenience anyone. Which, as it turns out, does not shorten grief. It only gives it better hiding places.

In March 2025 on a Sunday just before St. Patrick’s Day in the midst of gray cold days, still crying over missing Jack, I saw a yellow lab puppy up for adoption and thought, very reasonably, This will fix everything! And so we brought home Finn. He is adorable. Radiantly, undeniably adorable. Rocky (who had never been the lone dog in the house) was both happy to finally have another lab to boss around and probably frustrated to have to share space with yet another cute four legged creature. But…Rocky had John. The two of them would curl on the couch and read books (John, not Rocky!). Aside from working with John, Rocky was probably in the height of happiness during his lifetime. John will admit he loved Rocky more than anything (because of course he would, Rocky didn’t complain about the house being too cold, or driving in the dark, or menopause).

We have always had two dogs. Never just one. And when John saw a black lab puppy up for adoption, there was some back and forth. He decided yes. Then no. Then yes again. I was excited. Then sad. Then hopeful. I thought maybe a puppy is exactly what John needs to give him that pure joy back. Some hope to hold onto in this winter of our life (both seasonal and metaphorical). Eventually, that tiny black lab came home, and John called him Buddy, because that’s what he was going to be. His little Buddy.

Buddy is many things. Sometimes Buddy. Sometimes Buddha, because of how he sits. Sometimes Hank the Tank, because he barrels through life like a friendly freight train. And sometimes Aristotle, because he has wise eyes and an unsettling level of intelligence. He already follows Finn’s scent around the yard, carefully mapping the universe, even when Finn has already come back inside.

He is a wonderful dog. And he arrived at a time when we may have been more vulnerable than we realized.

There is a particular kind of heartbreak in admitting that love and timing are not always aligned. That maybe we should have waited. That maybe we asked more of ourselves than we could reasonably give while navigating medical uncertainty and exhaustion. It feels grievous to say out loud, especially when you love animals, that something you chose with your whole heart might not be right for this moment.

So here we are, trying to find Buddy a home through friends, where he will be deeply loved and properly adored. Because it isn’t fair to a puppy to live inside human overwhelm. And it isn’t fair to people who are still healing to pretend they are stronger than they are.

This is where we are on a very cold winter weekday. A little bruised. A little hopeful. Still believing that better weather, in every sense of the word, is ahead.

And that has to count for something.

My Dad: Grinches, Gaslighting, and Gifts

Christmas Eve was always a good day in my house growing up. Not a cinematic one, not the kind with twenty-seven relatives shouting over a ham, but a good one. We were a small family, geographically and numerically removed from a very large one, and I spent many Decembers thinking we were missing something important. I imagined long tables, extra chairs dragged in from garages, cousins everywhere, chaos and laughter and noise (like Elf or Christmas Vacation). But what we had instead was simpler and, looking back now, nearly perfect. 

December itself felt enchanted to me as a child. My birthday came first, on December 22nd, and then my father’s, on December 24th. It was as if the month were stitched together by celebration, each day leaning into the next. My father, Bob, however, was not what anyone would call a Christmas enthusiast. If there was a Grinch before the Grinch became a cultural shorthand, it might have been him.

He had reasons. He spent years in the Air Force, and because of that, we moved often. Later, when he got out, he worked in a steel mill, the kind of job that doesn’t care what day it is. Shift work ruled our lives. When he was new, when he was low man on the totem pole, he often wasn’t home for Christmas at all. Holidays, like sleep, were something you caught when you could.

The Christmas tree was another point of contention. We didn’t get it until the week of my birthday, sometimes even later, which struck me as nearly sacrilegious. Christmas, in my mind, deserved a long runway. But we always got a real tree, which meant time was limited. And getting that tree was an event. The whole family went. My dad always chose the biggest one. It was inevitably too big. Too tall. Too wide. Too something. He would shave far too much off the bottom, muttering, while we stood by in coats and impatience. It was chaotic and loud and absolutely perfect.

The house would be filled with plaid and silver, red, green, gold, and blue. The lights sparkled without restraint. There was no theme, no sense that less might be more.

Back in the 1970s, Christmas wasn’t a season of abundance the way it is now. You were lucky to get a few gifts you really wanted. One year I received The Gambler by Kenny Rogers and ABBA’s Greatest Hits on vinyl, along with a Trixie Belden book. I can see them still, even though the photographs are long gone. That kind of seeing - that kind of memory- never fades.

But my best Christmas memory has nothing to do with a gift meant for me.

One year my father bought my mother an Apple computer. You have to understand, money was tight, and splurges were rare. The fact my dad bought this for my mom was so exciting. And he let me in on the secret. That was possibly the best part (and I kept the secret!). The Apple computer back then was rare, futuristic, almost magical. My dad loved a practical joke (his literal nickname given to him when he was about 5 or 6 was "Joke.") so, of course, he had to make the surprise eventful and funny!

On Christmas Eve, we were allowed to open one present. My mother opened her large box and found, instead of a computer, a literal apple inside the box. My father thought this was hilarious. I found it hilarious. My mother? She played along, gracious as always. 

The real computer had been hidden at our neighbors’ house, Ken and Lola’s. We had to wait for them to return from visiting their family, which they didn’t do until late that night. By then, I had been sent to bed. I lay there buzzing with excitement, wishing more than anything that I could be there when my mother finally saw the truth of it. That she really was getting what she hoped for.

We went to church together that year. I remember the feeling more than the details. The sense that everything had aligned, briefly, and that we were all present in the same moment. It remains the Christmas I remember most vividly.

I’m proud of that, even now. That my favorite Christmas memory is rooted in my mother’s joy, not my own. I am not, by nature, a selfless person. So I take that as a small victory.

Christmas Eve meant food, too. Always food. Halupki. Pierogies. Pagach, with its potato and cheese filling spread between layers of dough. Stuffed cabbage with meat. My mother’s Christmas cookies, which began appearing sometime in mid-December and continued until they ran out or we did. Chocolate chip cookies. Peanut butter blossoms. Crinkles. Sugar cookies. Pecan tassies. Frozen doughs filled with lekvar (prune filling) their proper names escape my memory. There was also nut roll, of course, and bolbki. The table told our history even when no one did.

I never quite knew what my heritage was. Slovakian, maybe Hungarian- Austrian. When I asked, I was told simply that we were American. That was enough for my parents. They were proud of it. Back then, people didn’t seem to need to look backward so much. They were busy building forward.

As I grew older, my father finally told me why he disliked Christmas. It wasn’t the holiday itself. It was the way people behaved. How kind they were in December and how quickly it vanished in January. He noticed the performative nature of it, the temporary goodness. This was the 1970s and 1980s. He died in 1997, at fifty years old. I don’t think he would have enjoyed the world much as it is now.

And yet, I feel his spirit clearly at Christmas.

We didn’t have much. Socks and underwear waited for Christmas. Excess was not part of our vocabulary. But there was enough. Always enough. And I wouldn’t trade that upbringing for anything.

Christmas, to me, is not about what arrives wrapped in paper. It’s about memory. About those who are gone but not absent. If you sit very still, if you let the lights on the tree blink without asking them to perform, you can feel it. The nearness. The quiet proof that love doesn’t leave when people do.

Christmas isn’t something that happens to us—it’s something we practice. In thoughtfulness, in the lights we leave on a little longer than we need to, in the meals we cook even when there’s no one else coming. If the feeling fades, that’s okay. It only means we were lucky enough to feel it for a while.

So this year, I’ll end where it began—with him.

Happy birthday to my dad, who wasn’t a Grinch after all. He just had the biggest heart, the kind that wanted people to carry the spirit long after the wrapping paper was gone.

And I might have completely skipped the tree this year, but I decked the house in Christmas sparkle the day after Halloween—because some habits, and some hearts, never fade.

I like to think he’s up in heaven now, watching football with my mom and shaking his head, laughing, because even without the tree, he knows I got the spirit part right.

ps. I know your grandkids are hoping you will help pull off a Super Bowl win for the Eagles!

Redemption Without Consequence: What Luke and Laura Taught a Generation About Love

 When I heard Anthony Geary had passed away, I was instantly transported to the late 70’s. I was in the third grade, a latch key child (left alone at home while my parents worked, but don’t worry, we also very little distractions to get us into trouble while home alone!), and our TV only had three channels (and NO remote!  Imagine the horrors!). I hadn’t thought about General Hospital in years, but suddenly I was back in elementary school, home sick, curled under a quilt with ginger ale and crackers, watching beautiful adults on TV cry in perfect lighting.

Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura (Genie Francis) were the center of it all. America’s favorite love story. But beneath the soft focus and swelling music, something terrible had happened — something even my child’s mind could sense was wrong, though I didn’t yet know the word rape. On October 5, 1979, Luke assaulted Laura on the dance floor of a disco. Two years later, on November 17, 1981, they were married in an episode that drew 30 million viewers: the most watched soap opera moment in history.

Everyone celebrated, but what exactly were they celebrating?

Though I was young, I knew something was wrong. I had witnessed the violence against Laura and then, two years later a marriage? I just knew it wasn’t love. Years later, I understood the damage: society had turned a violent act into a wedding special. Television blurred crime and redemption into one continuous soundtrack, teaching an entire generation, especially girls, that love can fix what violence breaks.

And I, like so many others, learned the lesson a little too well.

I grew up dating men who treated me unkindly. Men who lied, manipulated, cheated, apologized, and then did it again. I believed, deep in my bones, that my love had healing powers. I thought if I just hung on, if I just understood them, maybe they’d transform like Luke did on TV. The idea wasn’t really mine. It was a cultural hand-me-down, broadcast through tubes and screens and songs.

Because in that era, the ideas were everywhere. “Saturday Night Fever” (1977) gave us Tony, a man forgiven despite sexual assault. “Urban Cowboy” (1980) romanticized Bud’s violence as youthful passion. “Grease” (1978) taught girls to change themselves to win love. And by 1981, America wasn’t just tolerating that narrative…we were dancing to it.

Pop culture was rewriting the oldest story there is: pain equals love. Reality check: pain doesn’t equal love. Love equals love. 

What General Hospital did wasn’t just lazy storytelling; it was moral engineering. By marrying Luke and Laura, the writers taught millions of viewers that redemption could arrive without consequence; that apologies could stand in for justice. It was advertised as romance, but it was toxic influence. Not only that, the reframing and gaslighting of the rape simply opened the door for acceptance of men being “men”, women being “weak”, and love being a cure all. 

I wish someone had told me back then that love is redemptive only if it’s paired with accountability and future, consistent, right action.  Redemption cannot start until punishment happens. And there was no punishment of Luke – in fact, the opposite happened. Luke was somehow painted as a victim and Laura was left with self doubt; how did she cause herself to be violated (hint, she didn't)?  

Anthony Geary was brilliant. He played Luke with a strange mix of darkness and depth. But his character became a mirror for how far we let charm excuse cruelty. His passing reminds me not only of the influence television had, but of the stories I allowed to frame my patience, my hope, my threshold.

What we consume becomes what we believe. And what we believe shapes the kind of people we love and the kind of pain we think we deserve.

Maybe that’s the truest lesson General Hospital ever taught me, though it never intended to.

I see now that General Hospital wasn’t just a soap opera; it was a classroom. The lesson came quietly, broadcast through the glow of the television and the hush of daytime living rooms across America. It taught millions of us not only what love looked like but what we were supposed to forgive.

Because that’s what culture does. Culture doesn’t live in museums or textbooks…it lives in our impulses. It’s the unspoken teacher, setting the temperature for how we think, how we react, how we excuse. Culture teaches people how to act when no one is watching. And whoever controls culture controls the message, which means they shape the conscience of an entire generation.

When culture becomes toxic, it doesn’t scream; it hums. It hides inside stories, songs, and commercials, telling us that devotion means endurance, that redemption comes without responsibility, that pain is the price of belonging. That’s not entertainment: that’s social engineering.

So when I think back to Luke and Laura now, it’s no longer with nostalgia. It’s with recognition. The culture I grew up in taught me to romanticize the unbearable…to believe love could fix what justice ignored. But culture can be rewritten, just like an old script.

And maybe that’s the real work of adulthood: to see the stories that raised us for what they were, to forgive ourselves for believing them, and then to write better ones.