This Reuben will go great with a side of love.

Yes, Reuben is a sandwich.

Reuben is also our new little puppy we’ve welcomed into our home. This one has plenty of meat, but a lot less Russian dressing.

Natalie wanted a dachshund or a small terrier, but I overrode her desires and chose a mutt rescue dog who (the rescuers think) has some golden retriever in him.  I made the decision without really consulting the kids, because I wanted to be more sure we got a friendly, non-yapping, sweet and trainable breed.  Because I did so, I let them name him.  Quid pro quo.

It took awhile.  They all liked “Felix,” but Guy said it reminded him of a cat.  Garrett liked “Axel” but Luke simply didn’t take to it. Luke liked “Amos” but Garrett said it sounded like “anus,” which, yes.  I see his point.

The moniker “Reuben” sounded soft to the kids, and kind somehow.  They thought a “Reuben” might be aristocratic.  “Dude, he’s so majestic, you don’t even know,” I overheard Garrett telling his friend Zack.

Majestic?  Well, you can see him – what do you think?  I think he looks more beer and pizza than duck rillettes and champagne.  More I think I might eat my own poop than pardon me, do you have any grey poupon?

But so far so good.  I mean, he’s a puppy. His cuteness goes a long way.  We’ve had him in our house for 14 hours.  He slept a solid 7.5 hours in his crate last night, so today I’m awake and willing able to be vigilant with housetraining.  We wore the poor little guy out this morning with our walking and playing and constant quick exits to the lawn ‘just in case.’  God, wouldn’t it be great to know what he’s thinking?  These people seem nice, and some of them smell very good, but they gotta give me a break, I’m ten weeks old for crying out loud.  Throw me a bone here you mega-humans!

I admit, he’s got a pretty energetic family to keep up with.  Tomorrow I’m taking him to Camden to meet a friend I haven’t seen in 6 years for lunch (HI CARRIE-ANNE, you sexy beast!), and on Sunday to a Babe Ruth game.  I want a dog I can trust to be around lots of people in lots of different situations.  They say the way to get that is to put him in those situations with those people.

Let the fun begin!

Zora Neale Hurston once wrote, “there are years that ask questions and years that  answer”; ten words that took my breath away.

As I pondered them, the cocoon that exists in my heart, the one that holds inside it the need for connection to meaning in this life in the midst of the daily chaos that is full-time work, marriage and motherhood, began to crack open, and stir.  I recognized in someone else a knowing that is also in me, and I felt a deep connection, so big and so encompassing, I started to cry.

It was just a moment. They say I’ll be having more of them as I close in on menopause.

But, as I reflected on my 41st year of life, and all of 2013, I thought, well, clearly, that was a year for questions.  And it was. I questioned every little and big decision I made for and about my children (usually between the hours of 1 and 3am).  I questioned whether I want to remain in teaching.  I questioned how to reconcile who I’ve been up to now with who I am becoming, and balancing the things I want to do and accomplish with the things my family needs.

It never felt like I had answers, but the questions, my god, they sometimes consumed me.

Do you remember the classic ‘Who’s On First’ skit?  I have always hated it.  One spring when I was a teenager, my dad drove us to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  The only thing I remember about it was a screen the size of a whole room playing the recording of Abbott and Costello performing it.  I stood there, arms folded, thinking idiots.

The line we all remember Costello asking was misinterpreted as a question – “Who’s on first?”  – while Abbott heard “Who’s on first.” So he answered “yes,” because Who was, in fact, playing first base.  Once the audience gets the miscommunication, we want everyone’s misery to end.  But no.  Who.  What.  I Don’t Know.  They’re all there, and they each get their long, drawn out turn.  Who’s on first:  is it a question or is it an answer?  Let’s go ahead and hash it out for 7 minutes 53 seconds and when we finish, let’s just go ahead and start again.  Until the end of time.

I spent 2013 in Costello’s role, frustratedly asking my questions every different way imaginable, trying to get at an answer that made sense.  In fury, I’m sure I even stomped around in a tantrum once or twice, red-faced and twitching.  If I’d’ve had a hat, I’d have thrown it.

2013 was about asking questions. That isn’t less true just because 2013 was also very busy answering questions I’d asked years ago, questions like should I have a family?  How many children?  Should I go to work full time?  Doing what?  Can we afford to buy a house?  If so, where?  My life has been answering those questions for quite some time now.

It’s silly to think that because our calendar slid from December into January that suddenly my life’s fraying loose ends are going to get neatly tied up in a pretty pink bow.  Because this little skit of questions that runs unceasingly in my head?  It’s going to keep on playing itself out.  It’s called life.

Abbott’s character seemed to get that.  Even tempered, he simply answered the questions he was asked, very matter of fact, very knowing.  It is his steadiness, his sureness, that moves the skit forward.

2013.   My questions included:  Is it time?  Is it time to apply to graduate school?  Is it time to begin to build a scaffold so that I won’t have to teach school for the next 25 years?

“It’s time?”  Is it a question?

It’s time.  Is it an answer?

Yes.

And yes again.