Romeo + Juliet

An actor came up the other day that inspired me to rewatch Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet from 1996. Can you imagine who it was? Cause it wasn't Leonardo DiCaprio.

Friggin John Leguizamo. I love that guy. He is amazing, and dare I say, underrated. We watched Encanto the other day and saw (this may be news to you) that Bruno (whom we don't talk about) is voiced by John Leguizamo, and I missed him. He is awesome. And I immediately thought of him in R+J and thought I need to rewatch that.

Also, this movie is insanely underrated. I haven't watched it in years (honestly maybe decades) and holy geez, it's like, a million times better than I ever remember it... and yet what I'm seeing on IMDb is a lot of disappointment and barely like 6.7/10 star rating?? Howwwww?? Baz Luhrmann just completely hit the nail on the head with this in his own crazy artistic creative way... why are people so salty?? And even though everyone remembers Leo and Claire Danes (and laughs fondly remembering Paul Rudd as Paris), the clear stars of this number were Harold Perrineau  as Mercutio and (duh) John Leguizamo as Tybalt. Look at thissssss...

I've just been typing to keep myself busy while I'm podcasting for work. Gotta keep my brain going a million ways at once all the time #millennial

Return to Ballet

I can't stand that the front page still shows the story of our sweet good girl Nannerz because it still hurts too much, so I need another something to push it down further for now. So, you get to hear about me taking ballet again.

I did a lot of dance when I was younger. My earliest memories of dancing are choreographing dances to Spice Girls and TLC, and my formally-instructed friends would teach me the basics and technical names of the moves. I didn't start taking studio lessons until middle school when I made the dance team. And being at the start of my free and rebellious years probably explains why I was never a fan of ballet - too strict and rigid, too much structure, not enough freedom or room for interpretation. I liked the more forgiving and open-ended genres (and especially enjoyed my foray into real modern dance when I took a few classes at Columbia University while I was there). 

I didn't hate ballet though, and I dipped in and out of adult classes in college and NYC; ballet is usually readily available wherever you go, and I was fine with that for something to do, it just usually wasn't my favorite.

Well, Sophie's music classes are at a nearby dance studio, and it's pretty small and I only ever see kids there so I was surprised when one day I saw them advertising their adult classes. I looked into it and it was a smashing deal, and with a little creativity on mine and AJ's part for scheduling and parenting, there were a few I'd be able to attend regularly.

These classes have become a real source of joy in my life right now. For one, I love getting out and doing something and being active. And I enjoy the community that I am becoming a part of there with all the people who regularly attend... it's adult classes but we get high schoolers doing make up classes through to working moms like myself, retired women and even a middle aged man taking up ballet for the first time in his life.

I guess it's because I'm at a different time in my life, but everything I found annoying about ballet is suddenly the reason why I love it now. I love the reliability, the dependability, the strictness that never changes, the universality of the moves and the names (and all en français too) and being able to expect different combinations of the same building blocks each time, and the grace of it all.

But, maybe this is tempered by the fact that this instructor is the first I've ever come across in my years, that does our barre exercises and warm ups to something other than piano barre music. Our barre exercises are set to some real bangerz... from Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" (so hard not to just bounce my knees like Sophie does to that number - it's seriously her favorite!) and "Royals" by Lorde, to my favorite 80s new wave hits like Yaz's "Only You" and The Cure's "Pictures of You". Most of our across-the-floor exercises are to more ballet-appropriate numbers, but it makes me feel so happy and warm to have my feet, arms, and brain all going while we do pas de chevals and enveloppés under the sounds of The Cure.

I hope to make this season of ballet the longest yet. I don't plan on leaving anytime soon.

(Separate) Sunday Fundays

Yesterday was a real Sunday Funday for me - I got to be Sophie-free for a few hours :P

I went to brunch with some friends (which, OMG I don't know what happened but the Sunday brunch crowd seems to have quadrupled in size from anywhere I ever knew of??) and I'd been excited about it all weekend. It was enough just to get away with friends for a brunch where I could sit in one place long enough to finish a cup of coffee while it was hot, but then AJ scored some tickets to the Angels game that day and said he would take Sophie, which meant I was going to have freedom for the entire afternoon.

And while brunch was refreshing and lovely, some of the best parts of the day came in the form of the photos from AJ's day. It was a real dad's day out, since AJ brought along his best friend and their daughter. 

Gotta have those blueberries

It's so cute how Sophie is getting old enough to interact with kids more. As a matter of fact, we got together with friends on Saturday to celebrate an engagement and there were seven kids present - ALL GIRLS!!! (We did not realize how girl-heavy our next generation was until they were all together! And we were even missing one!) and watching them all interact was sooo sweet! They ranged in ages from juuuuust under 5 years to 3 months, and there is a nice little cluster right around Sophie's age, with one 5 months older and another 4 months older than her.

Sometimes it's wild to me to look at her and see the baby is totally gone, and while it would be cute to spend a nice half hour cuddling little baby Sophie again, I'm enjoying these years much more and they seem to just be getting better.

♥

Sweet Anana, the Best Girl Ever

Broaching this topic is painful, and devastating, and talking about it still twists the knife, but I want to put this out here now and not draw it all out.

Last Friday, we said goodbye to our Anana. She was a month shy of 15, and she was, well, 15 years old. She had been slowing down for awhile, but a recent jump essentially disabled her and put her in too much pain to continue. Neither of us had ever had to put an animal down before and that process is excruciating and truly traumatizing. I think that entire building heard me wailing in tears.

We are not okay. She was a pillar of our relationship, and our baby, and a real member of this family. She was the flower girl in our wedding. She was more than a dog. She didn't want to be a dog, she wanted to be our baby. She didn't want to do dog things, she wanted to do things with us. Some of the hardest parts of traveling were having to leave her and be away from her, but seeing her happy reaction on the return was the best part of coming home. 

I am still wracked with guilt at Anana's last years. The truth is, she didn't relish being a big sister. By the time Sophie joined our family, Anana was too old and grumpy to tolerate the loud, screamy, pokey baby and to lose her place in our hierarchy. It still kills me that I didn't have the time, attention and patience for her in these past 17 months that I used to. I wish I could make her understand how much we loved her and that even though our priorities had to shift, she never lost her place in our hearts.

AJ got Anana as an 8-week-old puppy and had her for 15 years. As he tells it, he wanted a Malamute and found an ad in the Penny Saver for some out in the High Desert. When he got there, it was exceedingly clear these were not purebred Malamutes, (and he says the parents were there and one was VERY wild... pretty sure it was a wolf), but he still took the white girl puppy. 

She was with AJ all that time, and even lived with him in Canada when he went there for college. As a matter of fact, when we went to his college roommate's wedding in Canada a few years ago, they told us that one of their first dates was taking Anana out on a walk, which was such a cute story.

She was in my life for over 7 years since I started dating AJ in January 2015. Him having a dog that he loved and cared for was both a turn-on and very comforting to see his love for others, for animals, and ability to commit.

The water made Anana nervous. She didn't like people in the pool and spent the whole time worrying about them and running around trying to monitor them. When we took her to the dog beach, we had to take turns going in the water and have one of us up on the sand with her to distract her, otherwise she was too worried.

She could never settle in the car, she wouldn't just lay and relax. She would go side to side and always stick her face up on the side of the driver, breathing into your ear and fogging up the window. 

She loved the snow (understandably). It was her habitat, her real home. She pranced and rolled in it, ate it, licked the ice, and was so happy to be in it. The last time we were able to take her up to the snow was in January 2020, it was the day Kobe Bryant died. We were always meaning to take her back.

She was a perfect pup when we took her camping. When we were sitting at the campfire, she would plant herself on the outside of our circle, backs to us and keeping watch for anything that would approach us. One time, I took a nap and she laid down next to me and my friend told me she would growl at anyone who was getting too close to me.

I hate the nights, because her bed is empty in our room and I have to go to sleep in the quiet and can't stop myself from thinking about her and missing her presence. Last night I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I was squinting in the dark for her to step around her as usual. It took a moment to remember, and it hurt. I hate the mornings when I wake up and have to remember that she's not here and I don't have to feed her. And I hate the days, as I go through my usual routines without her following me around, going on walks on with me, hearing her lap up water from her bowl, come around the couch and lay on the living room floor at my feet... or when I walk into the bedroom and don't see her laying on her rug. There are so many firsts we're getting through and it's really painful, habits we need to break now that she's not with us anymore. It's still very hard to come home and not have her waiting at the door when we get in and it's just so quiet not hearing her nails clicking on the hardwood as she walks around, her loud breathing and her human-like sighs.

We miss her. We knew it was coming but you're just never ready for it. There's never enough time.

Sophie trying to put her harness on
to take her for a walk

Rubbing snow onto her back like the Snow Queen she was

This was when I was knocked down for THREE DAYS
with food poisoning (from sushi, so you know it was no
joke), and Anana kept me company the whole time

Her bark mitzvah in 2020

Always nearby

The last walk we ever took her on

Cuddling with us

I mean it was a pandemic

Caring for me after my laser eye surgery in Dec 2019

Our sweet flower girl coming down
the aisle at our wedding

She learned real quickly where the food
scraps came from LOL

Anana and her alpha

Anana
May 20, 2007 - April 15, 2022