Harley, Then & Now

What I've learned in the past seven months:
I have a high tolerance for the dog I love. Even though she recently completed her mission to eat every last wooden spoon in my kitchen, it took forever (it seemed) to potty train her, she has learned to open the gate so she can escape to the neighbor's house, she comes to give kisses every single time she gets a drink of water, and she farts like a rotting corpse. What I love about her is that she likes to watch tv, especially the nature shows. The other day we were watching "life" and she tried to climb through the tv to get at the polar bear. Her type was breed for bear hunting, coincidence? Any time I move to a new room, she will inevidably be found nearby within moments, to include laying down between my legs and the stove while I'm cooking, and on her too-small doggie bed by the computer or the bead table, or sometimes, even waiting outside the bathroom door for me (she has also learned how to open that door, yikes!) She sleeps perfectly quietly in her crate, even letting us sleep in on the weekends, and anytime someone walks into my bedroom in the middle of the night, she loudly sounds the alarm.

A Happy Marriage: A Novel




My husband heard a radio interview of the author one morning and had a very strong reaction to the description of the book. I purchase the title on my Kindle and spent the next couple of days wishing I hadn't. The story is well written, but starts off a little slow. Once you get into the meat of the story, you realize that this book isn't going to end well at all. The main character's wife is dying of cancer, and this is his rehashing of thirty years of life with the same woman. At one point you hate him, the next crying because of the pain he is enduring to ensure that his wife leaves her life the best way possible. I read the book in it's entirety simply because I had paid for it, but had I known how drained and sad I would feel at the conclusion of the last page, I would have saved myself the grief.
This is a great book to read if you need an excuse to purge feelings and gush tears. Don't get me wrong, the reason I had such an issue with the content of the book is that it really makes you stop and think about your own marriage. All of the ups and downs, and how you would be looking at the experience after thirty years, and at the end. Who wants to think about the end? Certainly not me! The book will make you cry, it will make you hurt, and it will make you want to get to the end just to get the hurt over with!