more from THE CHLOE CHRONICLES: Part IX "The Marrow Bone Incident"

Hello Dear Ones --

I came down with Covid this week (again!) so I've had to set aside my aspirations to write something new for you this weekend. For me, Covid slows my thought processes down, and also unleashes a lot of old grief (because grief and sadness, according to Eastern medicine, is held in the lungs). So each time I get Covid, I try to treat the whole experience as a sort of shamanic journey, and allow the grief to rise and release and ultimately leave my body for good. There is so much sorrow in this world these days; it's as if this collective Covid is forcing us to really release and let go.

Anyway, for this week's newsletter I am going to share another piece from the late, great Bark magazine--yet another installment from my series "The Chloe Chronicles." Curiously enough, this particular installment--from Bark Volume was published ten years ago in the Spring 2013 issue, and speaks cursorily of New Year's resolutions.  (When I was writing for Bark, each issue had a theme, so I was required to tailor each piece according to some requested theme, which was usually seasonal.) So this piece is not about resolutions (I actually think setting those can backfire)  This is a very light piece about a divorced woman (me) in an unfamiliar state (South Carolina) with a newly adopted dog (Chloe) trying to figure out how to dislodge a marrow bone from Chloe's jaws late one winter night. 

And please note that I have since learned that the trick to dislodging a stuck marrow bone is to tickle your dog on the roof of the mouth. That will cause the tongue and jaw to contract (or something like that) and you can slip the ring right off.

Please also note that, while I usually remove the original ads from the Bark pdfs I share here, I decided to leave them in this time, because both ads show funny-faced Boxer dogs with underbites, which is kind of what Chloe looked like when she had that bone lodged onto her lower jaw.  (I'm not sure if it was intentional or coincidental to put two similar ads side by side, but how CUTE!). 

Enjoy, and stay well.  Happy 2023!

PS—I’d appreciate it if someone could leave a comment, or even a test comment. (Not a testy one, though :) ) I am still trying to determine whether subscribers are able to do this. Thanks.

xxoo

Lee