Today is Cubbie’s birthday. He would have turned nine. He would have gobbled up a celebratory gourmet dog cookie with a candle in the middle. He would have walked bowlegged through the neighborhood, greeting passing dogs and people with the kind of amiable superstar charm that is reserved for celebrity darlings like George Clooney and Tom Hanks. He would have nestled in bed beside me, keeping me company as I type this. He would have fallen asleep quickly, his barreled body warm and soft and all the things Cub was and isn’t anymore.

I wish I’d given him five celebratory gourmet cookies last year.

Joe told me I need to stop writing sad posts about the dog. He told me enough already, Heidi. You wrote your closure piece, now move on.

So today I moved on. I did what I thought was the best possible thing to do on Cub’s birthday. I loaded Henry into the kayak, tucked Cubbie’s ashes into a waterproof bag and pushed off into the bay at sunset.

The weather was perfect. The water was glass. The air was still and the park was quiet, save for my homeless friend Charlie, who wished us well as we paddled into the calm, orange distance.  My son was well-rested and contemplative as I explained to him the significance of today’s paddle.

“We’re going to scatter some of Cub’s ashes in the water.”

“Cubbie has ashes,” he repeated.

“Yes,” I replied.

“We see Cubbie again?” He asked confused, or so I thought.

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**LOOK FOR A GIVEAWAY AT THE END OF THIS Q&A.

The back story: Mifflin Lowe, the singer/songwriter I blogged about here, just released a kid’s Christmas album – Wilton Wilberry and the Magical Christmas Wishing Well. This 15-track collection of original songs and narration tells the story of a greedy kid, Wilton Wilberry, who every Christmas feels snubbed in the gift department.

Fed up with being under-gifted, he runs away from home and stumbles upon a magical wishing well that’s home to a rock ‘n roll Santa who makes all his wildest wishes come true. Soon he’s showered with more toys and candy than an overindulged celebrity child, which naturally leaves him feeling lousy and selfish. With the help of a Christmas princess, gluttonous Wilton comes to terms with his “gimmes” and finally sees value in the most overlooked gift of all: the love of family and friends.

Inspired by the sounds of Elvis, Roy Orbison, The Beatles and early hip-hop, Wilton Wilberry is a modern-day Dickens tale with a rock ‘n roll twist.

Please note: I’d never promote something on the Lance that I didn’t think was awesome. I have a huge soft spot for artists, especially artists whose visions and sensibilities align with mine. If I’m going to push products in this space, they’re going to have to be clever, meaningful and inherently funny. Miff hits all three with Wilton and his two previous albums, The King Who Forgot His Underpants and Beasts By The Bunches.

I love listening to music with Henry. It’s the feel-good, no-fuss, old-fashioned alternative to watching television. One of my favorite material possessions is the radio in my kitchen. It was a Christmas gift from Joe. I listen to more music in the kitchen than anywhere else, including the car. The kitchen is where I spend most of my rare indoor time with Hank. We dance. We sing. Sometimes I even line his stuffed animals on the bench seat at the table so we have an “audience” to entertain. Sometimes in the middle of these dance-offs I wonder who’s really the kid in our house.

Speaking of big kids, here’s Miff … looking more serious than usual …

HK: What kind of kid is Wilton Wilberry?

ML: Wilton is the archetypal little brother who always feels slighted, neglected, picked on and not so much under-appreciated as utterly unnoticed. This simmering resentment is brought to a quick boil during the holidays when Wilton ABSOLUTELY KNOWS his brother and sister will get the all good stuff like video games, skateboards and electric guitars and he will get nothing but the crummy stuff like socks, undershirts and cuff links. Cufflinks? What kid wants cufflinks? It’s even worse than cologne! When Wilton discovers the magical wishing well and the Rock ‘n Roll Santa, he’s able to turn the tables and get everything he wants. Sometimes he goes to the wishing well with catalogs and wishes for every single thing on every single page – and gets it all. Eventually his gifts fill the house, the front lawn, the street and the whole neighborhood while no one else gets a thing.

HK: It sounds like you have Santa issues.

ML: I suppose Wilton springs from the fact that my sisters were the princesses in our family. They were driven to grade school even though it was only three blocks away, while I was forced to rake leaves, shovel the walk, and refinish furniture.

HK: Why the name Wilton Wilberry?

ML: It arises from its alliteration with wishing well. I’m a sucker for word play and a particular fan of alliteration. Plus I thought the name implied a certain weeny-ness, which is part and parcel of Wilton’s character.

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I'll be honest, Christmas stresses me out. Consequently, I end up blogging less around this time because my head is crowded with the things that distract from the true meaning of the holidays. You all know what these things are so I'll refrain from ranting. (OK, one rant: The cavemen from Duck Dynasty just released a Christmas album – Duck the Halls. You can purchase it for $11.88 at Walmart, where the Duck Dynasty reigns supreme over every department in the store thanks to a MAJOR licensing agreement with America's favorite bearded buffoons. I can only imagine what the workers in Chinese labor camps must think of us as they pump out Duck apparel, home goods, antibacterial band-aids and now a Christmas album. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-lame. Rant over.)

As a child I loved Christmas. (Duh, right?) I was neither spoiled nor religious, which meant at Christmas time I fell somewhere between the girl in a department store dress who went skiing and got the Barbie Power Wheels Jeep and the girl in a homemade jumper who read about Jesus and served soup to homeless people. I loved Christmas for all the twinkly reasons that many of you love Christmas.

I loved decorating my bedroom with strings of white lights. I loved curling up with my dog under the Christmas tree. I loved how the house looked from under the glittering pine branches, all speckled with ruby lights and homemade Christmas ornaments; my family coming and going in sweaters and scarves.

I loved watching the snow fill our yard. I loved being the first one to walk in it. I loved stomping a path to the grape fields. Always an alpha female, I loved knowing my sisters would have to (literally) follow in my footsteps. I loved listening to Christmas music. In the days before CDs, I'd record tunes right off the radio. Each Christmas I'd create a mixed tape of holiday songs, many of which were half-songs since I was repeatedly late to pressing the record button on my purple radio. I loved helping my mother address Christmas cards. I loved baking cookies. I loved advent calendars, mostly because behind each window was a piece of chocolate. (Who wouldn't love that?)

I loved watching Charlie Brown make a statement with a sad, droopy tree.

I loved that my aunts, uncles and cousins would gather every Christmas Eve at my Nana and Papa's house. I loved that even though we didn't see each other all the time, we were guaranteed to see each other at Christmas time. I loved seeing us all shuffle around in big socks, my aunts huddled over serving trays, my cousins telling crude jokes, my uncles wondering how anyone will get home in the snow.

I loved Christmas because it stirred up a dreamy kind of feeling. Not because I knew I'd be showered with gifts or visited by Santa – though I'm sure these trappings played a small role in my excitement – but because everything seemed a little less ordinary in December.

As an adult this wonder starts to wane. Why? Because Christmas is a lot of work for adults. There's the cooking, the baking, the shopping, the Christmas card distributing, the house decorating, the house cleaning, the present wrapping and a steady stream of exhausting social obligations. Traffic gets ugly. People get irritable. Money disappears quickly. Kids get greedy. Retailers trick you into thinking you need to buy reindeer antlers for your car and the next thing you know the inflatable snowman in your neighbor's front yard is flipping you the middle finger.

Unless you're Charlie Brown this stuff doesn't bother you until you get old and crusty, but if you're anything like me, you're probably thinking I'm too young to be old and crusty! If during the other 11 months of the year I can be merry and bright, why then can't I be merry and bright during the merriest and brightest time of year?

This is where the Lance comes into play. In an effort to NOT BE A GRINCH, I plan to count down to December 25 with posts, contests and a few unusual giveaways that evoke the warm and fuzzies, starting with a Q&A tomorrow with children's singer/songwriter Mifflin Lowe, whose new album Wilton Wilberry and the Magical Christmas Wishing Well is so much more worthy of your attention than Duck the Halls.

About a year and half ago I interviewed a quirky Sarasota snowbird who had just won an award from the Sarasota County Film & Entertainment Office for an 82-page screenplay he wrote about a city kid who imagines he’s a cowboy in the wild west. The fella’s name: Mifflin Lowe. The title of his story: The Adventures of Cowboy Kareem. His objective: to get a studio to turn the script into an animated short; a big dream, but not impossible for someone with ambition, heart and talent.

As Lowe described scenes from the story – Kareem envisioning skyscrapers as mountains, bike handlebars as ox horns and women’s fur coats as grizzly bears –  I immediately saw the project’s potential. I could picture it almost as vividly as Lowe could; this beautiful and lively animated short about a boy with an overactive imagination.

In a perfect world, the script would fall into the hands of the geniuses at Moonbot Studios. (Note: Moonbot won the Academy Award in 2012 for Best Animated Short for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. In September the studio grabbed headlines again when its Scarecrow ad for Chipotle went viral. Dear Moonbot, Lowe is on to something with Cowboy Kareem. You read it here first.)

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On 11/11 I got up at 7 a.m., roused by Henry whose new favorite way to wake me up is to throw the sheets off my body and tug at my legs until I fall out of bed.

“Breakfast Mama. Cook eggs Mama. Get up Mama.”

I was in the middle of a reoccurring dream about Ben Affleck and wife Jennifer Garner, which recently replaced my a reoccurring dream about Brad Pitt and former wife Jennifer Aniston.

I pleaded with Henry for another 10 minutes. He granted me 30 seconds before yanking me to my feet.

I sluggishly made my way to the stove. Cooked pancakes, topped them with syrup. Sliced an apple, topped it with peanut butter. I opened the window by my kitchen table to survey the never-changing weather. It was as it always is this time of year: sunny, warm and perfect; a ripe morning for a paddle on the bay.

I slid a plate of pancakes in front of Henry and asked him if he wanted to go kayaking. I might as well have asked him if he wanted to eat birthday cake while flying a rocket ship with a robot as his copilot. YES OF COURSE HE WANTED TO GO KAYAKING.

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Holy sad sack! Have I been a downer lately, or what?

On the Lance yes, I suppose I have been. This is where I go to sort out my feelings because I feel it’s socially unacceptable to weep publicly. Online I can mope in my slippers and caftan, listen to Bon Iver and wear my homely glasses while surfing YouTube for videos of pugs being adorable.

In person however, I’m quick to laugh at jokes, RSVP yes to parties, dress semi-attractively (hello trendy black glasses!) and carry on intelligent conversations with a fair amount of sophistication and crude humor.

What I’m getting at is this: blogging is my Haagen-Dazs and Sleepless in Seattle. It’s where I go when I’m feeling vulnerable, PMS-y and tolerant of Meg Ryan’s dopey acting.

Pug woes aside, I’ve had a lot of good laughs over the last couple months. You wouldn’t know it if you only read my blog. So in the spirit of reminding you that I’m still a good time, I’ve decided to share with you some of the things that went right in September and October – in photos of course.

Joe was in charge of getting our son ready for preschool one morning. This was the note he wrote for himself the night before so he’d remember what to pack in Hank’s bag. Let me translate for you: water, cheese, applesauce, sandwich and George (as in Curious) backpack. I found this to be almost as amusing as pug videos on YouTube.

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It’s been 10 whole days since Cubbie left this world. Sometimes it feels like 10 whole seconds. Other times it feels like 10 whole years. I’m not sure I want it to feel like either.

Grief is weird. Sometimes it crushes you. Sometimes it numbs you. I knew with Cubbie it would crush me. I’ve logged far too many hours with this wide-eyed rotund creature to not feel heartbroken by his death. I was as they say, obsessed.

I’d have it no other way. He was my best friend on four legs, my office manager, my confidante, my softest spot before Henry and my most loyal companion before Joe.

In the end, he loved Joe as much as he loved me and I will forever remember my husband kissing his warm, still face in those heavy moments after he was euthanized. I will forever remember Joe’s grief, because there was no other person on the face of this planet who loved Cub as much as I loved Cub. The first half of Cub’s life was spent on my lap. The second half was spent on Joe’s.

Our sidekick is gone, robbed of time. In December he would have turned nine – 63 in dog years.

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Some days I feel like I’ve got it all together.

As a mom that is.

Some days I really feel like I’ve got my head in the game.

I stuff my kid with a hearty breakfast – spinach and sausage in scrambled eggs, organic fruit slices arranged into a smiley face, almond milk sprinkled with fairy dust, a napkin made from Egyptian cotton.

Instead of letting him watch Woody Woodpecker on YouTube, I read him a library book that espouses the kind of morals I bend every day.

I remember to wash his face.

I insist he do his business on the toilet. And when he does, I give MYSELF a sticker because let’s be honest, potty training is a bigger pain in the ass for parents than it is for children.

I do not turn on the TV. I refrain from answering emails. I refrain from Facebooking. I earmark nap time for doing laundry, dirty dishes and sewing torn clothes, the way I imagine my foremothers did in the Time Before Internet.

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I never thought I’d have to make this decision. I thought nature would run its course as nature is apt to do. When you get a puppy at 22, you don’t think about how it will die. Or at least I didn’t.

Eight years ago, I drove to a breeder’s house in Bradenton. I giggled under my breath when I stepped into her living room and saw that every nook and cranny of this crammed spaced was occupied by pug decor – pug figurines, pug Beanie Babies, pug signs, pug needlepoint pillows, pug illustrations, pug calendars …

She wore pug earrings and a pug T-shirt. Even her husband looked like a pug.

Her name was Paula and I saved her phone number in my cell as Paula the Crazy Pug Lady. The grunting coming from her kitchen would later become the soundtrack to my life.

I would become a crazy pug lady too.

She unlatched a baby gate and six puppies rolled into the living room in joyful pursuit of whatever it is puppies desire. Food? Play time? Endless affection?

I knew immediately which puppy I wanted. He was the biggest and shiest of the litter. Even at six weeks old, his chest was wide and his face was full. He looked like a bear cub, I said.

I scooped him up. He snorted like a newborn pig.

“That one loves to be held,” Paula said. “He’s my mellow boy.”

He licked my face. In his dark round eyes I knew I’d found the one thing all people look for when they pick a dog: a kind and loyal friend.

Two of the puppies had been spoken for. The bear cub had not.

“I’ll take this one,” I said, as if I were picking out a sweater at the Gap.

“Come back in a few weeks,” she said. “And he’s all yours.”

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Last week my Oma left Buffalo with a group of senior citizens on a trip to Mount Rushmore.

She has been more excited about this adventure than for anything in the last umpteen years. It was her first big getaway since my Opa died in January. She had to fight to secure a seat on the bus because the trip sold out within weeks of being announced.

One of her friends fell ill and turned her spot over to Oma. It was a bittersweet turn of events, but Oma was grateful for her friend’s ticket. (This woman had also recently lost her husband,  so she knew how important the trip was to Oma, who for the last seven years cared for my grandfather 24 HOURS A DAY.)

This Mount Rushmore journey was a BIG DEAL.

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