We thought "Mr. Biteyhead" was too long to yell at the park.

Let there be rejoicing in the land! The puppy has a name. Everybody, meet Helo. (Sounds like HEE-lo.) Helo, meet everybody. He seems on his way to the meeting of everyone, making friends all down the street. spook has already had the experience of a stranger coming up to say "Does he have a name yet?" Now we can finally say yes.

I knew that a puppy would mean going up and down the stairs of our building nine million times a day. What the hell. It's good for my asthma and good for my leg muscles. What I didn't know was that having a puppy would be good for my marriage. We've been a little snippy with each other for the last few days, what with the sleep deprivation and peeing incidents, but yesterday we played with Helo till he conked out and then went for a lunch date at one of the restaurants we used to visit a lot. It was a shiny afternoon, the kind you have at the beginnings of things when the air seems a little clearer and everything seems to be a little brighter than usual. Today has been a very long day of trading chores (laundry, cooking, watering plants, training the dog, walking the dog, shopping for food, cleaning out the fridge, a mountain of dishes, changing the cat litter) and I notice that we're both being careful to offer help where we can, to praise one another for our valour in the face of adulthood. Ah, yes, adulthood, that state of being where all the shit you have to do doesn't stop just because there's other shit you have to do. So overrated.

Anyway I'm happy.

p.s. thanks to my mom, who taught me this philosophy: if the dog pees on the floor and I have to keep wiping it up, that's one way to get the floor clean.