My granddaughter Dyllie is nearly nine months old. I visit her once or twice a month. We almost always have our yellow Lab, River with us. River is a fairly mellow 11 year old dog. She's aware of the baby and a little bit interested, but also recognizes that the baby is very wary of her and happy to give the baby her space.

Whenever the dog is in the house Dyllie watches the dog constantly, sometimes looking up at the adults to check if we're as disturbed by the monster in the house as she is. She seems calmed by our lack of panic, but still not interested in getting too close.

This morning I was playing on the floor with the baby. She was on my left and the dog was lying on the floor on my right, with my outstretched legs separating them.

Dyllie observed this closely, then decided to crawl over to my legs. I helped her get between them, sitting on one facing the other. She watched the dog from up close like that for a few minutes, then carefully reached out her hand and petted a soft ear.

Then she left.

Later this afternoon we had a similar situation. I was playing with her and the dog was lying under a nearby table. I saw Dyllie thinking about the dog, so I scooted into position between her and the dog. She came over to my legs again. I thought she was going to pet her again. River thought the same thing and started wagging her tail. The tail made a big thumping sound as she was lying down.

Dyllie was fascinated by the tail. I saw her decide something, though I couldn't figure out what she decided. Well, she climbed over my leg and went RIGHT OVER the dog's tail, little knees pinning it down, and continued crawling all the way over to her father as if she hadn't just conquered a monster in her dining room.

Bless River, she was absolutely good as gold for this treatment.

After that, Dyllie stopped worrying about the dog. As far as I can tell, they're pals now.

I'm developing my identity as someone who has terrible things happen and just lets it roll right off of her. I am enamored of this idea. Sort of the opposite of a Drama Queen. A chill person.

I tried this with the cancer diagnosis and it has worked pretty well for me. Serious cancer not caught early? Shrug, okay, I'll just walk this path and do what needs doing. I'm just going to have to triage my life, no biggie. I'll just have weird hair for a while.

Wiped out by chemo and radiation? I started training for a triathlon again last month. I am calling it my ChemoTo5k program. I cobbled together a program, hired a trainer, and started a support group for other women like me. (I found exactly two.) We're badasses.

My retina detached for the second time last January and I had a hellish recovery. My vision was still seriously impaired six months later. Okay, fine, I will go into Boston to get treated by the best. But, oops, that didn't work. I've just been declared as cured as they can make me, which is pretty damn blind in my left eye. (My right eye has its own issues, having been set to distance vision after cataract surgery years ago. This is NOT the news I wanted.) But it gets worse: they think I'm likely to lose vision in the right eye, too. Okay, then: looming blindness. Well, I'll just have to learn to navigate that world then, won't I?

I was out running this afternoon when I caught some unseen thing with my foot and went violently sprawling. I hit my head, scraped up my left hand so I was bleeding in six places, hit my shoulder and hip and knee hard, and got the wind knocked out of me. I lay on the ground saying "fuck fuck fuck" until I felt stable enough to get up. I was about a mile from home so just turned around and started back limping and bleeding. Along the way I decided that I am just going to trip and fall sometimes if I persist in running as a blind person. That's just the way it's going to have to be. I'd be less harmed by road rash than by staying safely inside, overall. I'm just going to have to be a badass. I pick up the pace and ran the final distance back home where B patched me up from my prodigious first aid kit. Like a badass.

The heat is out in our house. The repair person was here for an hour this morning and got it going, but it stopped working within the hour without ever heating the house up. I pulled out electric space heaters and a heavy quilt and will ask a neighbor if I can shower there. I'm just going to have to be a badass.

I caught COVID while traveling this summer. I revised my itinerary to only do outside activities and gutted through it being happy to be in a Munich penthouse apartment with a veranda because I am a badass.

These stories could all be told in a variety of ways. I'm liking this version. I think it's going to give me the best possible version of this life.