Weiner Dogs

At what point did I decide that writing about the girls growing up wasn't worth my time? There aren't as many mishaps to report on these days. The girls have learned to speak English fairly well and their motor skills are somewhat developed. "U Nork" for New York and "Port Chucks" for pork chops have disappeared (although mispronouncing minestrone as "mine - strone" was a fairly recent thing).

Truth is, they're just not as cute as they used to be.

Nah. That's not it. They're cute enough. It just seems that I'm not in their faces quite as much. Julia is no longer interested in spending much time outside of her room these days and Allie's reply to just about anything is, "I have homework".

I'm not being maudlin. It's just that the girls are smart now. There's not a lot that they don't know how to do on their own. What's more, reporting conversations about politics or pop culture is dull. A post about someone eating crayons - now that's gold. The problem is, Allie and Julia don't eat crayons very often anymore.

It's almost 2:00 a.m. and I've been considering my digital footprint. I spent most of my time using Deb's Facebook account to look at people from high school. I even pulled my yearbook from the shelf and started typing in names. Most of the people from that time were little more than acquaintances who I may have shared one or two bonding experiences with. But those were formative years. Years when my lizard brain was developing and the proteins etched at that time are indelible.

Everyone I found on Facebook looks healthier and richer than me. I don't have an account anymore. If I did, I'm sure I'd try to make myself look healthy and rich. A lot people seem to pull that off by posing with their families and a cluster of palm trees behind them. I don't have any pictures of the four of us in front of palm trees. I have pictures of us in the living room holding cats in painful positions or recording the massive amounts of ketchup we consume at Five Guys.

That's who I am on the interwebs. Along with those oft-repeated images of cats and ketchup on Flickr, I have this blog. That's my digital footprint. I don't think anyone thinks that palm tree encrusted photos are his/her legacy. But it's clear that one of the first things we all do when someone dies is Google their names. We clamor for any information that tells us who they were. And, apparently, many of my high school classmates were people who spent a lot of time on beaches.

If someone can find me via Google, I suppose I'm willing to share more than a group shot near an ocean. It's almost an obligation - particularly when I consider how it makes me feel better when the information about a dead person's life is somewhat robust. I didn't care enough to make a call when these people were alive, but it's important to me, now that they are dead, I'm aware they bred dachshunds for many years.

I'm serious.

That's why at 2:00 a.m. I'm trying to record something about the family. You see, it won't be long before the girls will be disturbingly more than two flights of stairs away. I want them to be able to read about what life used to be like. Maybe remind them that I secretly bred dachshunds for many years.

Bottom line is, I'm thinking about death. These keystrokes are probably going to outlast me. When someone finds out that I died, probably pulling a huge number of babies out of a burning orphanage, I want them to know that I loved my family just like they continue to love theirs. After all, I'm the one who got caught in the orphanage, they're all still alive. . . breeding dachshunds.