Cute!

The puppies at 3 weeks old. They wobble on all four and currently are teething but not weaned. Poor mama.

What are you when you’re approaching 40, not a drinker (or smoker), and hanging out with 20 somethings?

You are a Designated Driver.

I vividly recall from childhood memory a time piggyback riding on my father’s shoulders with a raggedy doll tucked under my arm one dusky evening. Strapped on to him was also a bag of rice and what little family belonging we had. As my parents and paternal grandmother descended down a dirt path on foot, incognizant to the life changing events unfolding before me, I rotated back to catch a familiar but hazy glimpse of our small remote village with thatched-roof houses that lined the incline of a mountain. I saw our home engulfed by the night as distance slowly separated us.

Traveling by night and hiding by day, we quietly unwound along mountains and weaved through bamboo forests stopping only to feed on bamboo shoots and cores from banana stalks. On occasional, we would meet up with other families resting under an overgrown banana grove. There I witnessed small bellowing children opiated by their own mother for their god given sake. Days turned into weeks and with much bribery costing my family everything we had, we finally made our way to the banks of a great yellow river.