Splagnon

I think for the past three days, this is the first time I've ever seen Splagnon working out in my life. Ever. At all. I've never cared this much that another human being was okay. No, not just okay. Amazing. Happy. Loved. Perfectly swell and wonderful and just at peace.

Michael's little Piñony died Sunday night. And I baked him cornbread and wrote him a mushy gushy "you have no idea how much I love you" save it for his yearbook kind of letter. And then I called him to make sure he was okay and offered to take his family food and pretty much gave him giant bear hugs whenever I saw him. I checked up on him and helped him with silly Link Crew issues. Because I want to make sure he's okay.

Well, as we sat watching Piñon on Sunday afternoon, he kind of mumbled/remembered that he had bought a "my dog" picture frame, but never got a picture to put in it. And I remembered, aha, God of "coincidences" putting me here at the exact moment when Michael needed someone most and putting it on my heart to visit him, I also have the most perfect picture for said picture frame!

But the frame is landscape and my picture is portrait.

And it bothered me.
And bothered me.
And bothered me.

Because I felt like that picture was just destined to go in that frame. I'd taken it two days prior when we were sitting in my car waiting for his mom to get home. She should have already been home and we waited 45 minutes. And his dog got out and his neighbor returned him. And his dog did awkward things (like, you know, got a boner in my car. Thanks, Piñon, at least I have funny memories of you). And it was all too coincidental that a day in the park turned into perhaps the last picture of Michael's puppy ever.

So today, impulsively, after the Senior picnic at school, I remembered that Michael was at his grandma's eating tacos and wasn't home. And I thought about how I'd talked with my photo-editing-savvy friends and got some ideas. And I drove to his house and stealthily parked in front (as in, I wore sunglasses with my purple hood up), in the same spot we waited on Friday. And I took pictures of the empty passenger seat and my car and everything to the right of the driver.

And I came home and instead of writing the conclusion paragraph to my 6-8 page open prompt research paper on Shakespeare (on which I chose to write about mercy> punishment for justice), I spent two hours editing together the original Michael and puppy shot with anywhere between 3 and 7 other pictures (I kept changing my mind). I blended colors and eventually changed to black and white and still had colors to blend. I had to rotate pictures and line up the lines of my window and dash.

I'm pretty proud of myself.

But now, onto that conclusion paragraph...