Never wake a sleeping baby

shhhh

Korean cooking is still ON, but there were two developments in my life that required some adjustment over the last ten days and here they are:

First, I started a master’s program in English. Back in February when I took Owen to look at colleges it dawned on me that my future might also need attending to. In addition to writing, I thought I might want to be able to teach high school or maybe community college in my golden years. I applied to some programs. I got in. I started. I might actually get to write about cookbooks as part of this program, which is exciting.

I thought because I’m old and settled that it would be easier to do school than when I was young, but I got it backwards. It’s going to be harder. I'm still trying to figure out how I can make it all work.

The second development was so poorly timed it's funny. I mean, textbook idiocy. The geniuses among my readership will have guessed what that second development is, but for the rest of you: A few days after I started school, we fostered a puppy. 

Fostered. If we had adopted, I would be crying too hard to type.

She is the sweetest, squirmiest, most adorable little dog you would ever want to meet and, as puppies go, ridiculously easy. She was one of the animals evacuated from a shelter in Houston during the hurricane and I guess they don't like to keep puppies in the same facility with big dogs, hence the call for foster homes.

She follows me everywhere. She can be sleeping peacefully on the sofa next to me, as she is right now, but should I get up to refill my coffee cup in the kitchen, she will immediately spring to life and trot after me. When we return to the sofa forty-seven seconds later, she feels it’s necessary for us to have a joyful reunion that she initiates by climbing on my lap, squirming, wagging her tail, and licking my face until I acknowledge our deep bond and love for one another, at which point she will settle down at her end of the sofa to chew on Mark’s slipper (she is a slipper/shoe dog, not a ball dog) or go back to sleep. This routine makes me think really hard before going to get another cup of coffee or even walking across the room to retrieve my pen.

She’s wonderful. This was the wrong moment to foster a puppy.