I thought I'd forever be the single crazy cat lady....I was wrong. So wrong.

So this happened while I've been away.  

And because that happened....this happened...and nine makes our perfect furry family.



And this poem sums it all up....

THIS LIGHT ACROSS THE RIVER

for Tom and Michelle’s wedding...

He wondered if that someday would ever come.

And it did on a magical Music Monday in Tom’s backyard.

It arrived with friends and rock n roll and very large serving of Hawaiian pulled pork.

Oh, he wasn’t looking, but he found a gift of a sudden smile,

vanishing and then returning in the house of his imagination by the minute.

It began when she sent him a message—

first with her eyes from behind a glass of Cabernet

and he fell into the light of those jewels

so much so that his daughter Kelsey had to poke him in the ribs

to keep from staring too hard.

But that’s okay, that’s Tom

and Tom brings his love strong.

She was there as a volunteer for PAWS, the animal shelter,

and soon this animal couldn’t keep his paws off her.

But before that, there’s got to be hello.

But Tom’s a host with more than the most, with a boyish wonder

for friendship and laughs, a man with a golden heart

and an impeccably green lawn.

He couldn’t sit still until everyone had a healthy plate of food,

a good drink and smiles beaming like light

through those backyard Doug firs.

But he did settle into a feeling for Michelle,

her kindness, volunteering for the same animal shelter

as he did for a decade.

And yet, somehow they’d never met.

So during his daily meditations of friendships and high fives,

Tom’s feelings grew stronger, a surround sound love in stereo.

And he cranked it to eleven.

And her, an osprey’s glide across the river to West Linn

would find Michelle throwing wine parties, painting parties,

making drinks and making dreams parties, hair parties--

two separate social butterflies now unknowingly

dancing toward each other.

Sometimes, she wondered, would she forever be a single crazy cat lady?

And he wondered, would he forever be a single crazy cat lady?

After a decade of soloing in his castle of rescued cats

like a suburban Jimmy Page wielding barbecue tongs as his air guitar,

Tom kept playing that music, that language of love he spoke daily,

if not on the phone, or in email messages,

then in his love for his garden, his daughters and, those cats,

all of it dialed in for the woman who would make his house their home,

her cats their cats—Fisher, Gizmo, Ichiro, Sylvester, Quincy,

Emma, Kismet, Lily and Perseus. That’s right.

As she poured over his book, The Department of Zenitation,

he was pouring an open hearted joy to friends

like those frozen shots of a Russian vodka no one could pronounce.

But Tom was fluent in the language of love blooming for Michelle.

The more she read Tom’s book,

the more Michelle started to write her own story of their love.

And Tom fell hard—there was no half-baked heart from Mr. Tommy Z.

And so if he did come on a little too strong,

it was in those measured months when they stepped back,

they found a new rhythm, a path to a deeper love,

true and now the stories they string together

like those mini-Eiffel Tower lights framing their living room.

And so love is a music they play together—through doubt,

through the generosity of time and faith and just letting it happen,

from that 4 th of July first date to the right here, right now,

alight with colors like that stone path framed with flowers

leading to the house of his heart.

That distance, this light across the river, across decades

—she in her cozy cottage, he in his castle of rescued cats,

now come together.

It’s a patience painted with a passion that’s say, “let’s do this.

Let’s make this love a light that shines brighter as one.”


~Poem by our wonderful friend and published poet Tim Sproul~

I never imagined love could be like this.
More to come...I've missed blogging.