one of my favorite parts of the day, weirdly enough, is the morning. shortly after i rise in the morning i head to the bathroom to take care of some showering and getting ready business. camus takes note and jumps of the bed and clickety clacks his too-long nails across the wood floor to investigate. he's forever the most curious dog and his little face always looks like its questioning you. "why are you going in that place where the water runs on your head? why are you sticking that black thing in your your eye? why aren't you playing with me and this purple ball i put right here right by your feet? do you not see this purple ball? why don't you pick it up and throw it? why do you hate me?" and so on. usually i squat down and and he jumps up and puts his little paws around my neck and gives me a nice hug while he does his morning stretches.



once i've showered and gotten semi-ready, it's time to wake up little cosette who only stirs if if prodded. otherwise, she's usually moved into the space i've vacated and her face is snuggled into aaron's back and she's curled up into a little ball, snoring sweetly. i don't turn on the light so as not to disturb aaron and i feel around for her in the darkness, following her little noises that start to get a little louder as if to say, "five more minutes.... just five more minutes, pleeease." which is what i say to aaron several times a morning when the alarm starts to go off, coincidentally.



when i find her, i pick her up and cradle her in my arms, trying to keep her little body in its little fetal position because i feel like i'm picking up a warm little furry baby and i don't want to wake her up, too much. i carry her down the stairs where camus follows closely by my side. i keep holding her, because she's so infinitely snuggly and malleable at this moment that i don't even want to let go. not to mention that she doesn't "do" the stairs because she's a princess and because i'm an enabler, i don't ever make her.



today, for some reason, i was thinking about how far she's come in the past few months and how she's like a brand new doggie since all of her surgeries. her fur has almost completly grown back in on her back leg that used to be shaved, and her little face looks so great with her new little nose. she's going to be nine years old in a few short weeks and i'm honestly just so grateful that she's been in my life this long, because she's given us quite a few scares, and it often scares me how much i love her face off...



i leash them up after they do their morning downward dog stretches, and i pause briefly before i open the door into the blinding light of the outside world, and then away we go on our morning walk.



in some ways, it's a pain to walk them them all the time. they have to go out several times a day (tiny bladders! gah) and we walk them around the block almost every time, which means we have to encounter various people, dogs, weirdos, film shoots, lakers fans, USC students, FIDM students etc etc. our neighborhood can be crazy busy sometimes.



but, i cherish the morning walk so much because they are so sweet and adorable first thing in the morning when they are still groggy and waking up and usually the walk is relatively uneventful and they take care of business pretty fast rather than lolly-gagging around, which is what they do during most of the other walks.



and so today, i am thankful for the instant joy i get from the simple act of walking my two little f*ckers every morning. it's f*cking awesome.