A birthday...

Well, she survived another year with us.  Sometimes she didn't think she would make it because of some of our antics - but she did.  And so my human is celebrating another birthday.  And she's well over 400 in dog years.  The photo you see is of her and her sister, with a neighbor's dog.  They wore kerchiefs when they were in style.  THAT'S how old she is.  I bet if you asked a millennial what a kerchief was, they might not even know.

My human is now at that age where, when you need to add your year of birth on a form on the internet, you need to scroll.  And scroll.  And SCROLL. She remembers when cell phones weighed 10 lbs.  And her family had something called a rotary phone with a party line.

She remembers  feeding chocolate kisses to her grandmother's dachshund and it was no big deal.  Cleo ate table scraps and chocolate kisses, and whatever the grandkids gave her and she lived to like 20 years old.  Dogs just seemed to live longer back in the day...

My human remembers something called record players with and 33's and 78's.  She entered into the techno age when she got her first Texas Instruments calculator.  It did things that she never, ever understood.

She hates to admit this one - but she remembers when a guy named Amstrong walked on the moon - and she has vague recollections of the day President Kennedy was assassinated.  She was super excited when she got her first transistor radio.

She entered her first dog show with their Irish Setter, Mickey at the Erie County Fair in Western New York.  They entered obedience.  She recalls they didn't do everything correctly, but somehow they still got a ribbon.  Maybe it was a consolation prize.

And as she gets older, she thinks of every dog she has been owned by in her "adulthood."  Elroy is number 9.  She is grateful for each and every one and each one holds a special place in her heart...

She is also grateful more and more each year, for family and friends.  Both are precious gifts, that one should never forget or take for granted.

And she is also amazed and grateful for her new circle of friends around the world, that the internet has provided.  Once upon a time, when my human was a girl, she would have a penpal in another land, and she would wait for weeks for a piece of mail from a gal she never met.  Today, she has "penpals" that answer her messages almost instantaneously.  And she has had the pleasure of actually meeting some of them!

And when my human was a girl, she had something called a diary.  She would write her thoughts and feelings and it would be a record of what she had done.  And no one really read it except her.  Today we call it a blog.  And it's out there for all the world to read.  My how times have changed... Now mind you, she doesn't write the blog - I do.  But occasionally I ask for her input.

So today, in honor of my human's birthday, I am going to ask each of you to give her a gift.  A perfect gift.  For her birthday, go out and do ONE random act of kindness.  Heaven knows the world could do with more kindness these days!  Hold a door open for someone.  Let someone ahead of you in line at the grocery store.  Play an extra game of fetch with your dog.  Give your dog an extra treat.  Call someone you haven't talked to in a long time.  Or send them a message.  Pay someone a compliment.  Do ONE thing that you hadn't planned to do today - and that would be a great gift.  And trust me - the gift will be good for you too!

Have a good one.  Peace and paws up.