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Seeing Eye Day 12: New York City!

Last Friday, we did the big trip, the trip I’ve been waiting for since my first route with Frolic. We went into New York City!

Normally, we wouldn’t do New York City until our final week, since it’s like a culmination to all our training. But looking ahead at the weather for our last week, it was supposed to be frigid (and it is frigid, can confirm from the future when I am actually writing this). So we went to New York on Friday.

It was awesome! So much fun!

I was partnered with the same classmate I did the Elm Street route. We took a trip through the city that would more closely resemble C.C., so unlike training in New York I’ve done with past dogs, we didn’t go into Time square itself.

So we started at Port Authority. We walked about nine blocks, from 40th down to 33rd Streets, walking along 9th Avenue. The sidewalks were full of poles and cafe tables and planters and pop up stands. We had to navigate through crowds of pedestrians, some with suitcases, others with dogs. Basement doors jutted out into the sidewalks.

Frolic was amazing! She moved confidently and fast through all of it, while still being super careful. Whe had her tail straight up in the air, waving back and forth, and her ears were waggling the whole time. (My instructor was taking pictures, so I’ll update this post once I have them).

We turned on 33rd Street and made our way to Hudson Yards. There, we practiced escalators and also working through crowds in a large indoor space. We also found a great little place to have lunch.

On escalators, apparently I’ve been doing that wrong for years. Oops. I’ve been working my dog onto the escalator, but I should be having her just follow me onto the escalator on her leash. It worked way better, and I finally seem to have mastered the move of stepping off the escalator with her following behind me and picking up the harness handle in one smooth motion.

After we had lunch and walked around Hudson Yards some more and did some more escalators, we walked a couple blocks to the metro. This metro stop had a long long escalator down, reminiscent of some of the metro stops in D.C.. We even had a commuter rush past us, and Frolic wasn’t even phased.

We took the metro to the Time Square stop and then navigated through the pedestrian tunnels, which were full of people, luggage, and dogs, back to Port Authority.

It was a really amazing day. I felt like I was flying, safely and confidently, through a really busy intense environment. I can’t wait to be back in D.C. doing this kind of work with Frolic all the time!

Seeing Eye Days 10-11: Freelance Begins

My adventures continue with Frolic!

Wednesday afternoon, after our successful solos on the Elm Street route, we began freelance work. Basically, this is when we go off the planned routes and instead work in other situations we might encounter with our dogs in our daily lives. This training is tailored to our daily lives and is a little different for everyone, but there are some standard things we do and that I’ve done in every class.

It was good timing for a change, because our dogs were getting a bit bored with all the planned standard routes that are basically loops. These dogs are destination oriented, so loops, however many challenges we put in front of them, are going to get boring.

Also, while we had a few days where the weather was reasonable for January, the temperature is supposed to drop dramatically, and so yes we were all chanting “Indoor work! Indoor work! Indoor work!”

Wednesday afternoon, my group went to a Wegmans grocery store. We sat in the cafe area and practiced settling our dogs in public while we worked our dogs through the store one at a time.We practiced using a cart a little bit, but we only did it for a couple aisles, because I usually don’t use a grocery cart to shop because I’m often walking and so use a basket to make sure I’m not buying more than I can carry. So we switched from a cart to a basket (actually my instructor’s reusable grocery bag because we couldn’t find the baskets for some reason). We practiced going up and down the aisles and settling Frolic safely between me and the shelves so she’s out of the way of grocery carts and everything while I was looking at items on the shelves. It was a relatively chill trip while I still learned, or relearned, a bunch of tricks. It was also fun to be back with our small group. They switched up our lunch tables last Saturday, which felt like eons ago, so this trip all together felt like we were getting the old gang back together.

On Wednsday night, we had a lecture about dog food, treats, and toys, along with things that are very very bad for our dogs: chocolate, alcohol, garlic and onions, grapes and raisins, macadamia nuts, rqwhide, animal bones, antlers, chews from butchered animals, and toys that are too small or that they can destroy are all big no-nos.

On Thursday morning, we traveled by bus to a neighboring town, then walked to the train station, and took the train back to Morristown. Something about commuter trains, with the really steep steps to get on and off and me being irrationally worried that I’m going to get somehow stuck on the train made me a bit stressed about this one, but Frolic was a champion.

On Thursday afternoon, we did country work, which is work in neighborhoods without sidewalks. We walk on the left, facing oncoming trafic. We check frequently to make sure our dog is hugging the curb or grass line. We didn’t do a long trip for this work, because I really don’t have a lot of areas without sidewalks in D.C. But it was really good to get a refresher, and I learned a few new good tricks. Actually, Frolic was so good at this I almost felt bad that we don’t have much of this kind of work. But I didn’t feel too bad about that after what we did on Friday, which I’ll talk about tomorrow.

On Thursday night, we had another lecture on odds and ends. Basically, how to stsart giving our dogs some time off leash in our rooms, how to start allowing free access to water, and how to leave our dogs in their crates for small amounts of time. So far, we have kept our dogs on leash, attached to us basically all the time unless we’re sleeping or showering. This has helped with bonding and and also helped us make sure they weren’t getting into anything because they are still puppies. We’ve also been restricting their water as we basically re-potty train them, because they’ve been living in kennels during training for the last several months. And we need to enforce in general that we are their people and we are in charge now in all things, so they have to have good recall and also go to their crates on command in order to have small amounts of freedom. W also start practicing leaving them alone in the room because there are places we might want to go where it would not be appropriate to bring our dogs. Like I’mnot going to bring Frolic tandem biking, so she will need to be comfy hanging out without me. We started small, just five minutes at a time on everything. But as with all things, Frolic is awesome!

In the odds and ends lecture, we also talked about the importance of always having our dog on leash outside. Fenced in areas aren’t always secure, and dog parks can be dangerous because you don’t know anything about the other dogs who might be there, and since our dogs are working dogs they really don’t need that outlet. The instructors read us a letter they read every class, from a man who took his dog outside off leash, she saw a deer and took off after it and was hit by a car. It’s a letter that makes me cry every time and has successfully instilled a strong need to have my dog constantly on leash while outside, but unfortunately our instructors told us this is a situation that still happens.

I’ll be back tomorrow to talk about the great adventure of Friday! New York City! Spoiler alert, we crushed it! It was awesome!

Goodnight friends! 5:30 comes early.

Seeing Eye Days 8-10: The Elm Street Route

I recognize that I’m a bit behind on posting from where I wanted to be. Please understand that I’m starting my days at 5:30 AM and not finishing up training and other activities until 9:00 or 10:00 at night. So please bear with me as I try to capture everything.

So on Monday morning we started our second planned route, called the Elm Street route. This is a route that I’ve had a little trouble understanding the shape of the last two times I was here. Well, third time’s the charm. Also my instructor is an orientation and mobility specialist, so she explained it in a way that just clicked for me.

So this route is basically the shape of a pizza slice or pie slice. We start at the Seeing Eye’s downtown training center, walk down to South Street, where we cross and turn right on South. We walk two blocks on South Street, crossing Pine Street and coming out on Elm. Pine is kind of a tricky intersection, because cars have to creep up into the crosswalk in order to see around the corner. Then on the block between Pine and Elm, the school set up a planned dog distraction, where an instructor holding a safe pet would approach and be a bit obnoxious about trying to get her dog to play with our dogs, even circling us as we try to navigate around them. I never successfully made it through that obstacle on the first try, but more because Frolic was familiar with the instructor holding the dog. She was really good when it was an unfamiliar person and dog, which we encountered frequently. But once we get through the dog distraction, we finish the block and turn left on Elm.

Elm Street is a steep hill down. About halfway along the block, they set up a fake construction barricade for us to work around, including going into the street to get around it. Frolic rocked that every single time!

At the bottom of Elm Street, we turn left on Morris and climb back up to South, curving around and crossing five intersections—some with stop signs, some with traffic lights, and some with no control at all. Morris is like the crust of the pizza or pie slice connecting the edges of South and Elm. The hardest part of this stretch is all the pedestrians and other things on the sidewalk we have to weave around, and of course keeping track of all the intersections and how to cross them. Once we get all the way back up to South Street, we turn left and find the audible pedestrian signal for the mid block crossing, and then it’s just a slight jog around a building and one block back to the training center.

And of course throughout this whole route, we’re following our dogs and responding to their guiding, because our class manager was out to get us with the van to make sure we understand how it feels when our dogs stop or pull back when cars cut us off.

The cool thing about this solo is that I was working in a pair. I did a lot of this when I was training with Neutron, but I haven’t done it so far during this class. Basically, one of us would take the lead on each block, and then that same person would decide when to cross the street, and then we would alternate who leads on the next block. It was nice to have a partner to work with to talk through some of the trickier intersections and keep ourselves oriented on this route. My partner also lives in D.C., and we’ve already started planning some city adventures together, because we work so well together as a team. Actually, our instructor told us if we don’t she might kill us.

It turns out that Frolic has a little competitive streak in her. This little dog wants to be in front all the time, and is constantly trying to make moves to pass my partner when she’s in the lead. Passing is allowed when we work in teams, but only if our dogs can do it safely. I did have to correct Frolic a few times because there were places where there really wasn’t room to pass and she was just tailgating my teammate. But mostly Frolic was great at the maneuvers, and I would just narrate her actions as we passed so my teammate would know I was there and passing: “Frolic is getting close, she’s easing left, she’s pulling ahead, she’s merging back into traffic! FROLIC TAKES THE LEAD!”

Of course, Frolic has also decided that no one is allowed to pass her, and whenever my teammate’s dog tried, Frolic would move me over to block her. Again, this is allowed as long as the dogs are maneuvering safely, which for the most part they were. It was a lot of fun. This girl has some spunk!

We did the Elm Street route four times. Monday morning we got oriented to it, and encountered six buses full of elementary school kids while we were at it. Monday afternoon, our instructor stepped back but was close to coach us through it. Tuesday morning she was farther back. We rocked the Tuesday afternoon trip so much that our instructor actually counted it as our solo. We still had to do the trip on Wednesday morning, but it was more of an encore performance, no pressure. And it’s a good thing too, because Frolic was definitely bored with the route by then and extra distracted. Even then, by this point my partner and I were basically playing Marco Polo to make sure we were relatively close and heading in the same direction, and we were having a blast.

I’ve heard this time in class referred to as hell week. Our dogs are comfortable with us now and are starting to test the boundaries, and it’s right when we’re all starting to get really tired from the constant go! go! go! of class.But even with all the little testing of the boundaries, Frolic is a very good girl, and I can tell we’re going to have so much fun together.

Also during this time we had lectures on…I forget what exactly at this point. We’ve covered so much. Dog care, dog food/treats/toys, vets, how to give doggy massages, probably some other things I’m forgetting. They’ve been throwing a lot of information at us in a short amount of time and what we learned when is a bit of a muddle. But I have it all to look over later if I need to. The lectures are starting to slow down now.

After our solo for Elm Street, we began freelance work Wednesday afternoon, which is basically where we train on all the fun smaller things we might need to navigate with our dogs. I’ll talk about that more later, hopefully tomorrow. But I have to save it for now because 5:30 comes early.

The Big Reveal

This is it!

The big one!

The moment you’ve all been waiting for!

The introduction of my new little buddy!

This is Frolic!

Close up of Frolic’s face as she lies on a the floor of my bedroom with her paws stretched out of her

Frolic is majesty in stillness and mayhem in motion! We are going to take D.C. by storm at a slightly alarming 4.3 miles per hour.

Frolic in profile!

Frolic is a lab golden mix. Unlike Neutron, she is 50-50 lab and golden (Neutron only has one eighth golden).

Frolic is 22 inches tall and weighs 54 pounds, and she was bron on May 13, 2023. This makes her the tallest, smallest, and youngest dog I have ever worked with.

Frolic flopped on her side, with her head lifted staring at the camera.

Frolic is all black. She is tall and skinny, with a tiny head and ears that are a little too big for her head. I love her ears! They waggle! She also has a tail that’s like a mix of lab angolden. It’s not a big floof like a golden’s tail, but her tail is much thicker than the lab tails I’m used to, and when we’re working, she holds it straight up in the air.

Frolic is a little speed demon, and an absolute goofball. She loves to fling herself bodily at me or climb me like a jungle gym. She also likes to try to shove her toys into my mouth. Her latest favorite game is when she throws her ball under the bed and goes berserk until I retrieve it with my cane, then gets very excited and chucks it under the bed again.

Frolic does not like her booties, but they are very cute!

Frolic sitting up and staring with a pleading expression, wearing neon yellow and teal booties meant for icy or too hot conditions

I’m told that Frolic has some excellent eyebrows, and she looks very statuesque and regal.

I’m also told that she is a velcro dog, like Neutron, and once she fully bonds to me I will be her one and onluy person. I’ve only had her for one week—I can’t believe it’s only been one week!—she’s already started to open up to me. She’s started to roll over to get belly rubs and to give me the classic golden paw thwap. She’s also stopped crying whenever I disappear to take a shower or something.

I’ve only had my Frolly girl for a week, as I said, so there’s so much for me to still learn about her. But I’m definitely loving the Frollypop I’ve gotten to know so far.

Seeing Eye Days 4-7: The South Street Route

Hello friends! Sorry it’s taken me so long to post more about my Seeing Eye adventure. I meant to post on Saturday, then Sunday, but as you’ll soon read, they have kept us very very busy, and when I’m not fully on with my new Little Buddy, I have desperately needed to decompress by myself or with friends in person or on the phone, but definitely not on social media.

I’m not going to share specific details about Little Buddy in this post, not because I’m not confident that it’s a good match or anything like that, just that I think she deserves a post all her own to fully capture her majesty.

*Gasp!* Spoiler alert: Little Buddy is a girl!

So stay tuned for a post all about her and only her, complete with pictures, tomorrow. I hope.

I have to say, this has been such a roller coaster of a class so far. The high points have been incredible. But I was also crying in the laundry room on Saturday so yeah there have been some low points too.

This is going to be a long post, and it’s a bit of a roller coaster too, but bear with me. There’s a happy ending.

I’m sure my previous classes here at the Seeing Eye had their bumps in the road, but I don’t remember them at all. When I look back, both for Mopsy and Neutron, they were both perfect matches and it was smooth sailing from start to finish.

But Jameyanne, you say, don’t you constantly joke about how you and Neutron failed revolving door training last time you were here?

Shhh! It was perfect nothing went wrong ever! Neutron and I even managed a revolving door perfectly on our last working trip together!

I say all this not to say this has been unusually difficult, but to comfort myself that in a few years, I’ll probably look back at this time in class and think that nothing went wrong at all, no problems whatsoever. Because I do think it’s a great match! Little Buddy and I are going to have a bunch of adventures together! And while crying in the laundry room was definitely not something that happened during either of my last two classes, I also wasn’t coming to either of those classes after two years full of so many huge life changes like I am this time. So I have to remember to be nice to myself.

To backtrack a bit and try to take this is some kind of order, from Thursday to Saturday, we focused on working with our dogs to safely navigate a route called the South Street route. We did the route twice each day, with our instructor at first staying right at our shoulder both helping to orient us to the route and coaching us on working with our new dogs. On Sunday morning, we worked the route completely on our own, with our instructors really far back to observe.

The South Street route is basically a big rectangle, but the trick is we don’t start at one of the corners, but just shy of a quarter of the way down one of the long sides of the rectangle. We start at the Seeing Eye’s downtown training center, then walk three and a half blocks down Maple Street to Madison. At that corner we turn left and walk along Madison to South Street (hence the name). We walk a full four blocks up South Street to market, take a left and follow Market back to Maple, then take a left on Maple and go that last half block back to the training center. All the while we are navigating through pedestrians and sidewalk clutter like poles and sandwich boards, tree routes and icy patches, and of course handling all the street crossings and navigating around some planned obstacles our instructors set up along the way, including some trainers with pet dogs designed to distract our dogs and fake construction barricades that take us out into the street. Our second time through the route, our class manager also started driving around the route, deliberately cutting us off so we would know what it feels like to follow our dog through what we call a traffic check, when our dog stops us to avoid a car that has cut across our paths.

So I’m doing all of this with Little Buddy, who you have to remember that as of Thursday I’d only had for 24 hours. At first, our biggest problem is that she was very very attached to my instructor, who trained her. She would listen to me, but she was constantly looking back. I wasn’t concerned though because she did listen when I verbally corrected this behavior. She handled the navigation around the barricade, the dog distractions that were both planned and unplanned, and the traffic checks beautifully. And there were parts of the route where we were just flying along. This dog is also just so smart and sweet, and I felt like we were bonding really well.

On Friday, we started to struggle though. She slowed way down on some blocks for no reason and wouldn’t speed up whatever we tried. Then suddenly I couldn’t get her to turn to the left, and then we started having trouble going up and down stairs—she was going so slowly I was really starting to struggle with my knee, because after my knee surgery two years ago, I really need some momentum on the stairs.

We practiced turns on this harness handle on wheels that they have on the main campus, and my instructor thought the problem was my arm position. My elbow was popping out to the side, when it should really be tucked into my ribs. I stuck a piece of paper between my arm and my side and practiced turns with the wheely thing holding the paper there until I thought I had it, while Little Buddy watched in deep confusion.

But then it seemed I was pushing the harness too far forward, so we switched me to a shorter harness handle. For a hot second it felt like that solved all my problems, until we started struggling again. This time it was my wrist bent wrong. It should be extended in front of me, if not a little concave, but I was bending it and pushing the harness forward. When I pushed the harness handle forward, Little Buddy would lose the feeling of tension in the harness and slow down, which would cause me to lose the feeling of the pull, which is how she is guiding me, and we’d basically come to a stop. And me trying to correct myself seemed to be confusing her even more. I felt absolutely terrible, because I’d experienced what it was like to be flying along with her, but I’d picked up these bad habits from the last few years of working Neutron, and Little Buddy didn’t understand my language and I didn’t understand hers, and it felt like whatever we tried we weren’t communicating.

Saturday morning was a bit icy, and since they’d salted the roads we had to put booties on the dogs, which of course they hated, and that just made all my issues worse. Little Buddy was being extra persnickety about everything, and even parts of the route that we’d previously done great at were a real struggle.

By Saturday afternoon I felt absolutely terrible. My instructor had said she wanted to zip tie my harness to stop me from pushing the handle forward, something I didn’t know they could even do. My instructor reassured me that none of this was a big deal and I shouldn’t worry. She wasn’t worried. Well I wasn’t worried until she said that. Now I was definitely worried. By Saturday afternoon, I had worried myself into a mess, and my instructor had the afternoon off so I was just stewing (don’t recommend BTW). I felt like actually even though I loved Little Buddy already, maybe it wasn’t going to be a good match after all, and it would be all my fault, because I was doing everything wrong. It didn’t help that the person I most wanted to talk to about my week, all the joys of meeting Little Buddy and those first amazing routes together and then how things got hard and all my feelings now, of course, was my mom. And I couldn’t call her. And then of course my clothes came out of the dryer soaking wet, which is when the tears started.

Huge thanks go to the classmates who gave me hugs down in the laundry room and continued to check in throughout the rest of the day, gave me pep talks, or else provided helpful advice, like how I should think of working a guide as water skiing—if I don’t have tension in the harness, I can’t go because that’s what’s pulling me along (or in this case guiding me). I especially appreciate that this classmate also told me that for both her first and second dogs, she had to have her harness zip tied because she was doing the same thing, and both times she got through it had many years of adventures with her dogs. Our class manager also assured me that no, it was not actually possible to fail our solo route on Sunday morning, because it was not a test, more a chance for us to work our dogs on our own while our instructors observed from a distance so they could see what else we needed to work on (as of Saturday night I was pretty sure for me that was everything, and we wouldn’t stop at just zip tying my harness, we would need to duct tape my arm into the correct position).

Even though she said the solo wasn’t a test, I didn’t sleep well Saturday night, and our 5:30 AM wakeup call was not super welcome. I felt super groggy and stressed and just generally not with it, even though I knew that probably wouldn’t help anything because our dogs are so attuned to our emotions.

My instructor was at my door before breakfast with the new harness with the zip ties. She helped me work Little Buddy down to breakfast, and things went much better than they had been going, particularly on the stairs. But I was still pretty nervous about the solo. I wanted this to work so badly.

I don’t know if it was the absence of the evil snow booties on Sunday morning, or all the practice with the wheely thing was finally paying off, or if the third harness was the charm, or maybe if Little Buddy and I were finally just talking on the same wavelength, but whatever it was, it worked. From that first step out of the training center, it finally clicked. We were in perfect sync. Moving together, listening to each other, avoiding obstacles, making great street crossings, just flying down the block. When we successfully made the left turn ad Maple and Madison, I actually shouted “Victory is ours!” loud enough that my instructor heard half a block away and cracked up. Even on that last block on Market Street, where the sidewalk narrowed and Little Buddy had the hardest time keeping up her pace on previous trips, I kept her going steadily forward.

We cruised back into the training center, and Little Buddy and I mutually threw ourselves at each other while my instructor squealed in delight.

There are still things to work on, of course. There’s a reason training isn’t just four days and one four-block by one-block rectangle. But we did it! We did it! We did it!

And here’s another spoiler alert for a future post about the route we’re working on this week: the solo wasn’t a fluke.

Whatever finally worked seems to have solved all the problems, and Little Buddy and I are cooking! I’m now looking forward to our trip into New York next week, where we’ll really put her through her paces. And even more-so, I’m picturing us cruising around D.C. at 4 miles per hour, taking the city by storm.

This post is already way longer than I meant it to be, but a few other thoughts I want to memorialize. First, the food is delicious. I haven’t kept track of every meal, and I’m on a special diet so it’s not the same as the rest of the class. I’m sorry to all the Seeing Eye regulars who are following this adventure who were hoping for loving descriptions of food (you’ll have to check out some of my fiction for that). Unrelated, I have to say I do love existing in a place that is designed to be entirely accessible to the blind, from Braille labels on the coffee machines and vending machines to strategically placed carpeting to help us oriented, and of course the tables and chairs with no bars or rungs underneath, perfect for settling our dogs under. And finally, there is at least one case of confirmed covid in the class. Precautions have been taken, and most if not all of us are continuing to mask full time, but please cross your fingers that it doesn’t spread further. Finally, I am tired of wearing long underwear 24/7. I love this dog and I’m so glad I’m here, but January classes are not my favorite.

Oh and one more thing: I can’t believe that all of this happened in just four days! As of Sunday, we’d had our dogs for five days. And we made so much progress and have done so much together already!

I’m planning to post again tomorrow and give you all the specifics about Little Buddy and all her amazing majestic speedy glory. Why can’t I tell you now, you ask? Because now that things are going well, I’m enjoying torturing you just a little bit. Also I want to go to bed. So stay tuned!

Seeing Eye Day 3: Dog Day

Today was the day!

Today I met Little Buddy!

I am exhausted but happy right now, writing this from bed with Little Buddy in their crate beside me, wagging their tail whenever I look their way. But let’s back up.

First of all, as I mentioned in my post yesterday, I’m not going to be sharing any specific details about my new pup just yet. There are a couple reasons for this. First, while I don’t think this will happen, and we certainly hope it won’t happen, there is a chance that this match doesn’t work out in the next few days and we have to start again. It’s not fair to you, me, the school, or my dog for the whole world to get excited about the new pup and then have to go through it all again. It’s too much scrutiny on everybody, and there are so many reasons why a match might not work out that are no one’s fault. Again, I don’t think this is what will happen, but it is always a possibility. More importantly at this point, I need to be focusing on my new pupper, not on social media. So I’m going to keep specific details about the pup to a minimum for a few days, and I appreciate your patience through this process.

So let’s talk about dog day!

I didn’t get a ton of sleep last night. Too much anticipation and excitement! I did get more sleep than I thought I would though, mostly because I played rain sounds on my phone to block out the sporadically rattling radiator in my room.

We were up at 5:45 today. They wake us up, and call us to different activities, with loudspeakers in all the rooms. The wake up calls come with music. I’ve kept track of the songs for each of my dog days. For Mopsy, it was “Haven’t Met You Yet.” For Neutron, it was “Happy.” For this pup, it was the match theme from the Dating Game, I’m told. I’ll have to look it up to find it and be sure.

We had breakfast at 6:45, then a lecture on dog fears and then handling a new dog.

Our instructors had finalized our matches yesterday afternoon, and while we were attending these lectures, our pups were getting baths over at the kennels.

After the lectures, we went back to our rooms, and we waited. And waited. And waited.

At least that’s what it felt like.

Our instructors were getting the dogs and bringing them to their students’ rooms one by one. There are four different wings of students, and we aren’t grouped together by instructor, so it could be a bit of a process, and you couldn’t guess that they were getting close to you by eavesdropping on when your neighbors were getting their dogs, though occasionally I would hear a knock and a squeal of excitement from one of my hallmates.

It felt like the scenes in a YA dystopian novel, waiting to take some kind of aptitude test or go through some kind of ceremony where you get your career chosen for you or something, except not evil. Excellent, in fact, because puppies! But here I was, sitting on the edge of my bed, so excited and nervous I was seriously wondering if I was going to be sick.

Finally, my instructor knocked on my door, and she brought in my new pup, who I’m going to call Little Buddy.

While I’m not sharing their name yet, I will say that it is a very good name, and it suits them perfectly. They are their name, in the same way my family dog Rocket is in fact a rocket.

Little Buddy was very enthusiastic. They jumped straight up on the bed, the better to lick my ears. I got them settled enough that I could attach my leash to their collar, and my instructor could take her leash off the collar. And then my instructor left us to get acquainted.

I spent the next hour sitting on the floor getting thoroughly inspected by Little Buddy. They sniffed me top to toe, gave me a complete facial, nibbled on my ears and my hair, and even stuck their tongue up my nose, which I admit was a first. I gave them a tour of my dorm room, letting them explore everything, especially their new crate. I held their bone for them while they chewed on it. Finally, they lay down and leaned against my leg while they chewed.

And then my instructor was back. We practiced walking our dogs on leash down to the dining room. It didn’t go that well, honestly. My instructor trained my dog, and Little Buddy is very very attached to my instructor. Little Buddy kept twisting around me to try to get back to her, and I felt like I was twirling my way down the hall. But I stayed patient, and we got to the dining room. We practiced settling Little Buddy at my seat under the table, while my instructor went to get the next student in our group. LIttle Buddy was doing great until our instructor was back, but then Little Buddy was up and at ‘em again.

Once our whole small group was in the dining room, we talked for a bit about the rest of the day and what to expect, then one by one we walked our dogs on leash back to our rooms. We had our mid-morning outside time, we call it “park time.” We’re basically teaching these dogs to relieve themselves on command, and also reminding them of their potty training expertise, given that they’ve spent the past several months in the kennels. Little Buddy circled me for a long time, getting very interested in other dogs and of course my instructor. They even barked at my instructor once, like “hey what are you doing over there! Who is this strange Jameyanne you left me with!” But eventually they did their business and we got out of the cold.

I’m not gonna lie, at this point I was feeling a bit worried. While both my previous dogs were and are very affectionate, especially Neutron who is definitely a velcro boy, I’ve never had a dog be so attached to a trainer that they would twist me around or bark at them. At least not that I remember. But after our mid-morning park time, I actually felt like Little Buddy and I turned a bit of a corner. Something about me giving them water and taking them out and giving them lots of praise when we got back inside, and they were climbing all over me, and also finally let me give them a belly rub.

After lunch, we went downtown, and we did our first trip with our new dogs guiding us in harness. It wasn’t the smoothest first trip I’ve ever had by any means, but after the morning it was way better than I’d been expecting. I wasn’t pirouetting down the sidewalk. In fact, my instructor unclipped her leash and let us go on our own fairly quickly, and there were several blocks where it felt like we were flying. Yes, Little Buddy was still distracted by our instructor, but when I called their focus back to me, they listened. My instructor was very happy at the end of this short trip and assured me that this was perfectly normal, even if it was new to me. And after our first working trip together, when my instructor offered me an arm to guide me back into the training center, for the first time Little Buddy stuck by my side and didn’t charge around me to get to her first. It felt like a real great step.

And things only improved from there. Little Buddy became even more affectionate after I fed them for the first time. They did their business right away at both our evening park times, and they didn’t even try to eat the grooming tools during our grooming lecture. By the end of the day, I was feeling really confident that they were listening to me as we walked around the house on leash. And while it certainly isn’t something I want to encourage, the persistent crying when I disappeared into my bathroom to take a quick shower before bed was a little gratifying. The enthusiastic tail wags that moved the whole crate when I reappeared even more-so. I think we’re well on our way from “who is this Jameyanne?” to “ok this Jameyanne might be okay” to “Jameyanne is a friend.” Hopefully soon we’ll be at “Jameyanne is my person.” My instructor says it will come, and once Little Buddy decides I’m their person, they’ll do anything I want.

It was a big day, with lots of ups and downs, but on the whole I’m feeling good about how it went and where we’re going. I can picture myself back in D.C. just flying down 1st Street on the way to work with this pup at my side. And I can tell they’re going to get along swimmingly with Neutron Star.

Because I want to focus most on the Little Buddy and building our bond, I’m not going to post for a couple days. We’ll be working a fairly straightforward route for a few days, and then on Sunday morning we’ll be doing that route on our own, our first solo. I think I’ll check in on Saturday afternoon, before the solo.

In the meantime, happy dog day friends!

Seeing Eye Day 1 and 2: Settling In and Juno Walks

Yesterday was a big day!

We got our leashes, but don’t get too excited—there’s no one on the other end of that leash yet. I’m sure I said the same thing when I was handed Neutron’s leash seven years ago, but I can’t believe the leash was originally this color! It’s so light and new and stiff! It will darken and lengthen and loosen up with use as it breaks in, but it was definitely a bit of a shock to be playing with it last night. The picture on the left shows a light-colored leash on a desk. There’s also a Braille book and a thermos visible on either side of the leash.

So yesterday, we arrived and got oriented to the building. I mostly remember where everything is from when I was here in 2017, but my dorm room is on the opposite side this time from where I am was then, and I did get a little turned around and attempt to get into some guy’s room my first try. Oops!

Once we got settled and unpacked, I did a Juno walk with my instructor out in the driveway—it had stopped snowing by then. A Juno walk is basically like a test drive, with the instructor playing the part of the dog. It’s a little awkward, because you’re holding the harness handle and your instructor is holding the other end, and also you’re praising another human being as if they’re a dog, and also practicing corrections with them, but it’s all part of your instructor learning how you operate as a handler so they can find the best match. Yes, you come into class and they have a few options for you on paper, but the instructors still need to get to know you, and learn your pace and how much pull you like on the harness and everything for themselves. They also have to break us folks coming back for successor dogs—or retrains as they call us—from all the bad habits we’ve picked up with our prior guides. Yes, I have a few from my time with Neutron, like pushing forward a little on the harness when I say “forward.”

So yesterday afternoon we did our first Juno walk. I should say I’m not sure exactly where Juno comes from or what it means, but they use it for a generic dog name. After the short Juno walk, I was free to finish unpacking, get settled, and explore the building a little more. I finished unpacking, unfortunately discovering that I couldn’t find my air pods. I was afraid I left them at the hotel, and Find My confirmed it. Our instructor team had someone stop by the hotel but they said they couldn’t find my air pods. I was a bit sad, but these are old and it’s probably time for me to get new ones, so I accept it as a consequence of the mad scramble to get here.

I then went down to the library in the basement, where they have a bunch of Braille books. You all know my weakness for hardcopy Braille books. And true to form, I found an astronomy book and a WWII history book to borrow. I spent a little time reading the astronomy book in the common lounge with some hot chocolate before dinner. After dinner was a welcome lecture, where we went over the basic house rules and everyone introduced themselves. After that, I hung out for about an hour with a few of my classmates, then went back to my room, did a little writing, and went to bed.

Back in D.C., I’m told Neutron is having a blast in the snow!

The picture shows Neutron whith his face covered in snow and his ears waggling. Did he stick his whole face in a snow bank? Seems like it!

I was really tired from all the traveling, particularly all the chaos of my early departure, but I didn’t sleep well. The radiator in my room would rattle at irregular intervals, seemingly just when I was about to drift off, as if it was trying to keep me up. I did some sleep some, but I woke up at 4:30 and never did get back to sleep. Wake up call came at 6:00, at which point I threw on clothes and stumbled into the common lounge for as much espresso as I could fit into the cup.

This morning we went downtown and did a second Juno walk, this time on the busy sidewalks. We navigated street crossings, icy patches, pedestrians, the works, all while trying out different paces, practicing keeping tension in the harness, and not moving before my dog—in this case my instructor—moves. I also talked a lot with my instructor about what I’m looking for in a dog in terms of their personality—a happy little go getter who likes to zoom through the city but is also okay if we’re chilling for a bit.

After everyone did their Juno walks we returned to the Seeing Eye’s main campus and met to go over how to put on and take off the collars, harnesses, and gentle leaders, practicing on the stuffed doggos in the common lounge. This would normally be old hat for the retrains, but they actually have a new kind of harness with a magnetic closure now. It took me a minute to get the hang of it, but I think it will be way easier and faster to take the harness on and off.

Next was lunch, then another trip downtown for our third and final Juno walk, this time following the route we’ll do tomorrow with our new dogs. We had another welcome lecture, this one including some historical facts about the Seeing Eye. I’ve heard this a couple times but it’s always nice to get a refresher, and there were definitely a few factoids that I didn’t remember. We had dinner, a fire drill, a rundown of how dog day is going to go tomorrow, and then a wine and cheese reception where we got to socialize and say hello to our class manager’s dogs, which was great because some of us are very dog deprived at this point. I also made a point to introduce my classmates to The Cheese Tax. Very important cultural knowledge.

My instructor tells me that she thinks she knows who she wants to give me and says they are a good little buddy. I’m not supposed to share with everyone the details about my new dog for a few days. I need to give both of us time to bond and get used to each other and make sure the match is working well. So since I can’t share for a bit, I’m going to refer to them on here as Little Buddy, because I think that’s the perfect code name.

Today, it’s finally starting to sink in and feel real that I’m getting a new Seeing Eye dog. It’s finally starting to feel exciting! I’m super tired already, so I hope I sleep tonight, but of course, it’s the night before dog day, so probably not.

Seeing Eye Day 0: the Storm and the Scramble

Let me set the scene:

It is early afternoon on Saturday. I am in the middle of my biweekly writing group. We are getting into deep discussion of the metaphors in one of our author’s pieces. I’m at my writing desk in my space library, and my Neutron Star is snoring on his bed beside me. Tomorrow, one of my writing group friends is going to come pick him up to take care of him for the next two and a half weeks while I’m at Seeing Eye. Once he’s out of the house, I’m going to pack—I don’t want him to see the suitcase and get nervous. But in the meantime, I need to clean up my whole house so I’m leaving it in a reasonable state. I have just the right amount of food left in the fridge for two days, though I do have a pile of dishes to do because it was one of those weeks. And laundry. Oh, the laundry! But I have plenty of time, and I have a plan. And yes I’m sad that Neutron isn’t going to be with me constantly for the next couple weeks, but it’s okay, I’ve planned for this, and he’s going to have a great time and be well-taken care of at my friend’s place. For right now, I’m in the middle of writing group, and it’s my turn to comment and I need to say something coherent about this excellent short story that I don’t think I understood in the least.

I get a phone call.

I don’t recognize the number, so I send it to voicemail.

About half an hour later, we take a quick break from writing group to use the bathroom, get more tea, and so on.

I’m in the bathroom when I get another call. This one says its from The Seeing Eye.

What? On a Saturday?

Uh oh.

I answer.

My train on Monday morning has been canceled because of the coming snowstorm. They are going to get me on a train tomorrow, Sunday, so I can get to New Jersey ahead of the storm. I’ll spend Sunday night in a hotel, and they’ll pick me up on Monday morning to go to the Seeing Eye’s campus.

They needed to talk to the other students coming from the D.C.-Baltimore area—there are three of us, apparently—and they would get back to me with the exact time of my train.

So here I am, standing in the bathroom feeling a bit like I’ve been hit by a snowball from behind. All my carefully laid plans are in ruins around me. I now have to get Neutron to my friend’s place, pack, do my dishes, do my laundry, and clean up my house all tonight, because I don’t know what time train I’m taking tomorrow. It could be really early (my original train was 7:00 AM on Monday morning, after all). It feels like so much I don’t know where to get started, but I need to get back to writing group anyway.

You’d think, after two years of life being uncertain and full of big changes, that I’d be able to cope with this very small change in plans, leaving just one day earlier to avoid a big snowstorm. But the thing about such a long period of uncertainty, and all the major life changes that have come with it, is that it actually depletes your reserves and your ability to cope. So on Saturday, this small change seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. I didn’t know how I could possibly do it all. And I was not prepared to say goodbye to Neutron today.

I returned to writing group. My friend who is taking Neutron was on the call, so I took a couple minutes to let her know the change and ask if she could take Neutron this evening. She could.

I finished up writing group in a swirl of emotions (very sorry to the two people who got comments from me in this state). Then I started my laundry, put my clean dishes away so I could load the dishwasher, and frantically started gathering up Neutron’s things to send with him to my friend. All the while still calculating everything I had to do and trying to figure out what I could cross off the list.

I heard from Seeing Eye that I would be on a noon train on Sunday, which was not as bad as I’d feared. I could push a few things to the morning.

My friend arrived. We packed up her car, and then I hugged my Neutron boy and got him settled in her car, and she took him home. And I cried like a baby about it for a bit.

I know I know, I’m getting him back in a couple weeks! But this dog has been with me through so much: law school, my move to D.C. and my first real job, the pandemic, my knee surgery, my mom’s illness and death. The idea that he wasn’t in my house with me right now, wagging his tail whenever I looked his way or else filling the room with his big snores and big dreams, was pretty awful.

And to be clear, I know I don’t have it as bad as the people on my train who had to say goodbye to their retired dogs a day early and who aren’t going to be keeping their dogs for whatever reason. I can’t imagine how hard that was.

So once I felt my feelings for a bit, I wrangled myself into getting everything done. Transferred the laundry, did the dishes, gathered up my toiletries and chargers and everything, got the suitcase down, started packing the suitcase, got the clothes out of the dryer and put some of them in the pile to be packed and the rest up in my room to deal with later, put everything into my suitcase, realized I wouldn’t have enough room for all the extra dog stuff I was sure to accumulate, got a bigger suitcase, put everything into that suitcase, ran up and down the stairs a million times in search of those last few things I needed, laid out my clothes for the morning, and fianllly went to bed.

I woke up early Sunday morning and used the time to stop my mail (which I forgot to do on Saturday) and order a new toothbrush and retainer cleaner from Instacart, because I could have sworn I already got those but couldn’t find them anywhere. I was still grabbing random stuff and shoving it into my suitcase. I scrubbed down the kitchen and cleaned the bathrooms and even had a minute to vacuum. Finally, I took out my trash, watered my one and only plant, which will probably thrive in my absence, and off I went.

I chose to brave the metro on a Sunday morning with my heavy suitcase and white cane. A choice to be sure, but I got to Union Station with plenty of time. I even met up with the other student from D.C. so we were able to sit together on the train.

And we were off!

A couple Seeing Eye instructors met us at the train and brought us to our hotel. I’ve been relaxing and catching up on blogging since, with a break to order dinner and talk to my college friends in our weekly Sunday night call. I hear D.C. is basically shut down already. But I haven’t checked to see what the weather is doing here. In about an hour, someone will be back from Seeing Eye to take us to the actual campus, and our training will begin! It still hasn’t really sunk in that I’m here and that I’m going to have a new guide dog in two days.

While I wait for that to sink in, please enjoy this picture, courtesy of my friend who’s watching him, of Neutron happily licking all specks of a celery stick off his nose.

2024: the Good, the Bad, and the Books

Hello friends! It’s been a while since I posted here, but once again I’m trying to rectify that in the new year. Starting with a quick roundup of my 2024. Or not so quick, as it turns out.

2024 was a rough year for me. I spent most of it at home in New Hampshire, spending time with and helping to care for my mother as she battled brain cancer. She passed away at the end of July, and while it has been such a terrible loss, I will always treasure all the time I got to have with her in her last year.

I returned to the D.C. area in August, and since then I feel like I’ve been trying to rebuild my life around all my grief. I’m working in the office two days a week again, and I’ve been getting back into tandem biking. I’ve most enjoyed being able to see my D.C. friends more regularly, and I have been so grateful for all their support over the past months.

But even after losing my mom and moving back to my apartment in the D.C. suburbs, 2024 wasn’t done serving up big life changes.

In October, I stumbled upon a perfect house in D.C. proper, and I put in an offer. They accepted, we closed in two weeks, I got out of my lease before it renewed, and my dad and uncle helped me move. Friends I have a house now! And I have loved making it my own. I finally have a place for all my hardcopy Braille books and my big writing desk from my room in New Hampshire. I’ve turned one of the bedrooms into a library, which I’ve decorated with an outer space theme. I call it my space library and I love it!

I also love the neighborhood—I’m just a few blocks from the metro, but it’s still residential, and there’s a great little independent bookstore near me and an actual Italian restaurant and everything—and also all my new neighbors, who have been so kind and welcoming! It’s a huge change to go from an apartment building where people just said hi or maybe ventured a comment about the weather in the elevator to a neighborhood with regular block parties and an active group chat where everyone is always helping each other out. Seriously, one of my neighbors just texted to tell me he’d salted my steps for me, with pet friendly salt, ahead of the snowstorm that’s coming through tonight.

But wait! There’s more!

Somewhere between my knee surgery at the beginning of 2023, the year at home with my mom, and the move back to D.C., Neutron let me know that he didn’t want to work as much anymore. I applied for a new dog at Seeing Eye and once we were back in D.C., I’ve been slowly phasing him out of working and into retirement. We took our last trip together with him guiding me home to New Hampshire for the holidays. He was his usual flawless pro through the airport. We even managed a revolving door—perfectly I might add!—for the first time since we trained together in 2017. I am going to keep Neutron as a pet, and hopefully he will have many years ahead full of snuggles and sunbeams and long walks and frantic tail wags.

At the end of November, I got the call from Seeing Eye that they have a new dog that’s a match for me, and they invited me to come back to their campus to train with that dog in the January class. I am actually writing this post in a hotel in New Jersey, because I had to come up a day early because of that big snow storm. So while 2024 was packed full of big life changes, they’re still coming in 2025. I’ll be starting the year with a new partner by my side. One of my writing group friends is watching Neutron for the next couple weeks, and she reports that he is enjoying himself immensely.

As you might imagine, with one thing and another, reading and writing both took a bit of a backseat this past year.

I had a hard time working on many of my ongoing writing projects, as suddenly so many of them seemed to be about grief—past, present, or future. But I still needed to write. That’s the thing about writers. If we don’t write, we go a little crazy inside. And so I returned to my roots and started writing poetry. I kept a journal of sourts in poems this past year. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, if anything, but it will always be special to me. Those poems helped me to express all my feelings and also helped me rediscover my love of writing poetry, something I’d long convinced myself I was bad at.

It’s only been in the last few weeks that I’ve turned back to writing fiction, and I have at least one project that has grabbed me by the heart and won’t let go. I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to write a story that feels like it’s writing itself and I’m just transcribing it, that feels like it is the only thing in the universe that matters right now, even though of course there are other things, like your job and your dog and the dishes that matter too. I’ve really built up some momentum and made progress in the last few weeks, and I have some bbig plans for finishing up some of my many unfinished projects in 2025.

But while I wasn’t writing much, I did continue to submit short stories to magazines, and I’m excited to share that I have two short stories that have been accepted for publication in 2024. “Éclairs for Elodie” is about grief and baking and memory, and it will be published by Abyss and Apex. and “Born in Flame and Song” is about destiny and sacrifice and family and belonging and music and, you guessed it, grief (I have a theme going I know), and it will be published by Cast of Wonders. I wrote “Éclairs for Elodie” in 2022, and “born in Flame and Song” in 2021, despite the theme that has unfortunately become all too relevant to my life this year. But I’m so excited for you all to read them soon, hopefully this year!

As for reading in 2024, I had a hard time focusing much to read a lot. I kept starting books and struggling with them and then putting them down. 2024 was the year where I embraced putting books down if I wasn’t enjoying reading them. Too much else was hard to struggle with something that should be bringing me joy.

I reread a lot of old favorites this year. Of those, revisiting Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland books was I think the best comfort read I could have asked for.

Of the new books I read this year, only a few stood out to me as really extraordinary in one way or another.

  • Glowrushes/Lo Stralisco by Roberto Piomini: beautiful, moving, haunting, I read it both in English and Italian early in 2024 and it has clung to me ever since
  • The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: do I understand it? Not at all. Do I love it? Yes!
  • The Swifts series by Beth Lincoln: the back cover describes it as Knives Out meets Lemony Snicket. Need I say more? These were delightful mysteries full of heart, humor, and a healthy amount of wordplay. I really hope the series continues.
  • The Redhead of Auschwitz by Nechama Birnbaum: a true story that was incredibly poignant and powerful and has stayed with me
  • The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner: Another WWII/Holocaust book, this one about a part of the war I didn’t know much about
  • This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: I can’t even describe this one, but if you haven’t read it, go read it! Go read it now!
  • Plotting the Stars trilogy by Michelle A. Barry: magical school in space! Magical school in space! Magical school in space!
  • The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy by Anne Ursu: found family, mysterious boarding school, conspiracies, beautiful writing, what more could I want?
  • The Midnight Orchestra and the Dark Refrain by Jessica Khoury: the second and third books in the Mystwick School of Musicraft series. Don’t get me started, or I’ll never shut up about these books.
  • Castles in Their Bones trilogy by Laura Sebastian: Laura Sebastian does political intrigue in a really comprehensible and also human way. In this series we have three sisters raised to conquer the kingdoms their mother is marrying them off to, battling their love for their mother and their homeland with their love for each other and also their betrothed (oops that wasn’t part of the plan) and a long ago prophecy that could ruin everything. This was another series that pulled me in and wouldn’t let go, which was just what I needed.

I’ve added these titles to my book recs page, where you can also see my other favorites from years past.

And that’s it for 2024. I think it’s enough, don’t you?

As for what’s ahead in 2025, I’m starting training with my third Seeing Eye dog tomorrow, and I’m going to try to post daily updates on this blog. We’ll see how long I keep it up, given how busy the training schedule is, but I’m going to try.

Once I’m back from Seeing Eye, I do hope to return to posting about what I’ve read each month, and I’m also planning to do a monthly post on some kind of writing topic.

For writing, I’m aiming to make significant progress on, and hopefully finish, at least two of my unfinished projects this year.

And I’m aiming to read 50 books in 2025, with one of those books a month being in Braille.

I’m also going to try to cook at least one new recipe a week, because cooking is something I really love that I haven’t done as much of as I would like in the last year, what with one thing and another. Maybe I’ll post about that too.

On the whole, I’m crossing my fingers for the next year to be relatively more settled than the last couple. I could use a few months of nothing but exploring the city, meeting up with friends, and snuggling my dogs in my new space library.

Happy 2025 friends!

Goodbye 2023!

2023 was a really terrible year. On the list of terrible things we have major knee surgery, another novel failing to get a book deal, a really upsetting reading slump, Neutron making it clear he’s about ready to retire, my mom being diagnosed with brain cancer, and more. It’s been a rough time, and I can’t wait for 2024 to start and hopefully move in a more positive direction.

But there were some good things that happened in 2023, and I’d like to focus on those right now.

I have a wonderful, supportive group of friends and writing buddies who I honestly could not have gotten through this year without. And this year I really strengthened and developed my friendships with some of my coworkers. I feel like I have an army around me holding me up, and I couldn’t be more happy to have all of them in my life.

I also successfully branded myself as the person in the office with all the space clothes, and I’ve got even more coming for 2024! A silly thing but a good thing. Everyone should have galaxy dresses.

My job has been fabulous about letting me telework from home, so I’ve been able to spend so much more time with my mom than I would have otherwise. We have had so many small adventures in the last few months and built so many precious memories.

I wrote a new book this year. It was a deeply personal book about the first time a friendship ends, but it’s also about prejudice and inclusivity, and I’ve thrown in some vampires, selkies, weerebears, and dragons for fun. The draft needs a lot of work, and I’m currently revising to add more actual plot to balance out all the feelings, but I’ve grown a lot as a writer because of this project, and I think I’ll be really proud of this book in the end. If I ever finish it.

I also started writing another book this fall, which I’m calling my destress project and which has done wonders for my mental health and my love of writing. I’ll have a lot more to say about this in 2024.

And I had two short stories published in 2023, which I completely forgot about in my first draft of this post! “Duet for a Soloist” was published in Electric Spec, and “Where No One Sleeps” was published in Andromeda Spaceways. I’m really proud of both of these stories and so glad I got to share them with you this year!

Despite the reading slump, I also read a total of forty-five books this year. Twenty of them were new books, and twenty-five were rereads. Here are my favorites:

  • The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
  • Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn
  • Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum
  • Save the Cat! Writes a Young Adult Novel: The Ultimate Guide to Writing a YA Bestseller by Jessica Brody
  • Don’t Want to be Your Monster by Deke Moulton
  • The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin
  • Chewing the Fat: An Oral History of Italian Foodways From Fascism to Dolce Vita by Karima Moyer-Nocchi
  • The Chalice of the Gods by Rick Riordan

I have added these books to my book recs page, and I will have more detailed thoughts about them soon, I hope!

As for what’s coming next in 2024? I don’t know, and I’m not going to set any goals for myself right now. I have plans for my blog and books and short stories I want to write, but I’m just going to keep doing my best with everything.

So happy New Year! Here’s to a 2024 full of light and love and words!