In Some Ways, Bean is Still With Us

I was comparing present-wrapping back-ache stories with my mom on Sunday. She stands at the table to wrap and a friend asked, "Why not sit down?" She was flummoxed. Why not sit down indeed? Well, because she is too short to sit down and wrap presents. She wouldn't be able to see over the present to the scissors and tape. I sit down to wrap, but I do my wrapping on the floor, which causes it's own problems. OK, it causes the same problems which is why my back was hurting too,

I have a touch of the shortness myself, so I can't imagine sitting at the table to wrap presents either. And really, it's that time of year when every surface in my house is covered with cookies, or cookie making ingredients, or cards, stamps and address lists, or let's be honest, dinner from two nights ago that hasn't been cleaned up all the way.

So this year, as always, I sat down on the floor of my bedroom and surrounded myself with presents, wrapping paper, tape, scissors and old cards that I cut up to use as gift tags.

And I was thinking about what a hassle it used to be at this time of year with Bean. You never knew if a present would be safe under the tree, because what if it was a food item? Did I want the present unwrapped and eaten by Bean? Not really. (The Christmas Poop Story is a story for another day. 13 years is not enough time for that to be funny yet.) And he liked to help wrap presents. And by help, I mean he liked to be in the middle of whatever I was doing. If I rolled out some wrapping paper, he liked to lay down on it. If I was about to wrap a sweater, he would lay down on it. And so on. So pretty much every present I wrapped had some amount of dog hair attached to the tape, if not all over the present itself.

So, as I was wrapping presents this year, I was missing Bean, my wrapping buddy. The way I missed him was to repeatedly say to myself, wow, it is so nice that there isn't dog hair everywhere. OK, I wasn't really missing Bean, but I was thinking about him a lot. Then I ran out of the new wrapping paper and had to scrounge around for some leftover from years passed. And when I rolled out the paper, what did I see? Dog hair.

And here is Bean helping us unwrap presents last year:

From New Album 1/10/08 2:53 PM

Miss you Bean!

Bonus picture (I can't tell you how many times Jack made that exact face today):



"Oh, don't mind me. I am just resting my head in the general vicinity of the candy that is coming out of your stocking. "

From New Album 1/10/08 2:53 PM