Today’s thread is pretty light.

Which makes sense.

It’s heavy over there.

So I’m sending mini-novels
   from this side of the day.

Orca updates.

Ava notes.

Little pieces of Fort Worth noise
       folded small enough
       to fit in your pocket

       without asking too much of your hands.

This morning,
     Orca and I
     made a visit.

Minnie,
       nine pounds of ex-dog,
       which is a phrase
       the paperwork may understand…

       but the heart absolutely does not.

Bear,
     Kassidy’s nineteen-pound
   might-as-well-be-a-panther—

    who seems built of shadow,
                      opinion,
        and just enough mercy
               to let a puppy
       believe she is winning.

And Orca, of course,
          all 18 weeks
          and 7.2 pounds
          of giant miniature confidence,
                bounce and bright ideas…

          treating the morning like a new country
          she had personally been assigned to discover.

They played.

They chased.

They negotiated treaties under furniture…
           and immediately violated them.

All very diplomatic.

All very serious.

Then playtime ended.

Orca moved on.

The room changed speed.

And Minnie remembered something
         older than the morning.

That I’m still her dad.

Not officially, maybe.

Not cleanly.

Not in the way life writes down
    when it’s trying to be tidy.

But she knew—
    pushed the interloper aside,
    demanded her lap snuggle,
    wanted the old claim honored

    after the new puppy had taken up so much weather.

So I gave it to her.

Of course I did.

Because some loves
        don’t become past tense

        just because the house changed names.

Some dogs don’t care
     what anybody calls the arrangement.

They know who belonged to them first.

So that’s the mini-novel
            I have today.

Nothing huge.

Nothing dramatic.

Just a heavy day over there,
     a light thread between us,
     and one nine-pound dog making _sure_

     nobody forgets I’m still her dad.