When we got her she weighed maybe four pounds. She was a white furry ball with furry little feet, trying to scramble up the side of a cardboard box in the front floorboard of the car. She was wiggling and making squeaky puppy noises. She fit in my hands and I carried her into the house on my shoulder like she was a baby. It was how she liked us to carry her all her life.

What I remember today:
Three days after we got her, I brought my boyfriend home after track practice to see her. It's the only time I ever heard him squeal. Once for, oh how cute. And then for she's got poop all over her and now it's all over me.

When I came home from college for visits, she'd get in my suitcase when it was time for me to go back.

Her favorite thing when I came home to visit was to sleep in the bed with me. It was like a special treat for her, and she'd snuggle up with her warm doggie smell as close as she could get. It was sad for both of us when she got too old to do that anymore.

When she was a puppy she'd get off her leash sometimes and RUN through the backyards of all the neighbors while we'd try to catch her. She thought it was a game. When my folks moved to the Golf Course, she'd run and run down through the fairway out back. And at least once a month my mom would wake to an angry golfer out on the tee shouting about a dog that pooped out there. It may or may not have been ours.

She liked to sit quietly on the porch with ym grandparents and snuggle in her bed in the TV room.

For the past few months she couldn't see, couldn't hear and spent most of her days wandering in circles. She'd step in the water bowl and track water all over the house. She had seizures. Yesterday she couldn't walk, but was trying to drag herself around.

So the last thing she remembers is my mom holding her and telling her stories. She's under a rosebush on the hill, overlooking her fairway and the golf tee. She was a good dog. I miss her.

Time Suck

Right now, in this moment, I need to read a 138 page annual report on a local company for my research methods class. I also need to crunch a lot of data about standardized test scores and teacher attrition in Excel, or-- should I feel really brave-- Access. There's a sweater I finished that needs to be blocked before I try to assemble and wear it. I should get out the vacuum-- the Dyson DC15 ANIMAL!-- and wage war against the IsCat hair. Take out the trash. Swiffer the kitchen because the refrigerator is leaking Mystery Goo again.

But right now, in this moment, I believe it is more important to beat the Suz's high score in Zuma. I downloaded this game from PopCap last summer, and I'm not including the URL here for the same reason I won't drive people to Chinatown at 1 in the morning. I can't be held responsible for starting or feeding someone's addiction. I have my own problems.

So it's this game, see? All these multi-colored balls roll into a spiraling track on the screen and you have this frog, see? And you shoot colored balls out of the frog's mouth and try to get them into line next to other balls that are the same color, see? And when you get three or more balls together in a row, they disappear, see? And you have to get rid of all the balls before the train rolls into the skull's mouth, see?

And that's basically it. There are levels upon levels of this thing (and I've played them all-- once without "dying" at all) and there are bonus balls and different combinations to get more points.

I am a grown woman, and I am ashamed to say how many hours-- nay, weeks-- of my life I have wasted playing this game. And now I may say to myself, my God, what have I done?

And it's spread. The Suz plays it, even when she doesn't want to. Her New and Improved IsBoyfriend has a serious Zuma problem. His roommate.

It's so innocent. "I'll play one board while dinner heats up." Three hours later your contacts are welded to your corneas because you're not blinking as often as you should. Smoke is pouring out of the oven and the alarms are going off. Firemen are crashing through the door behind you and you're yelling, "But I'm just about to win level 13, 'Space'" as they drag you away from the monitor.

This is no way to go through life.