Saying "I love you"...

How do you say, "I love you"?

Myrtle, she tells me that she loves me in all sorts of ways.  Here's one: She lets me sleep on her lap when she would rather be typing away on the computer or playing her Monopoly app.  As you can see, I am starting to take up more and more and more of her lap.  Would you believe that I now out-weigh my birth mom's and dad's combined weight by more than 5 lbs?  That's why my beloved Aunt Bettina started calling me The Beast.  I know she loves me though.

So, what are other ways that Myrtle says "I love you"?

Wait.  Maybe you should know why a fellow like me has been thinking about this.  Well, you see, Myrtle got up when she was plumb exhausted to watch a movie with Bettina.  Bettina offering to watch the movie together was an I-love-you.  When I protested leaving the bed, Myrtle explained this to me.  Also, when I found Myrtle weeping over an email Aunt Bettina sent, Myrtle explained that her beloved friend had re-written a terrible dream so it had a happy ending for Myrtle.  The dream scared my puppy momma so much that she could barely even think about it and was shaking for days.  Aunt Bettina spent time writing out a better dream for Myrtle to have.

My puppy momma's explaination got me to thinking about the way she tells me that she loves me, since...you know...I hear a lot of "bad dog" due to my improper placement of bodily waste.  [Did I mention the stairs?]

I mean, Myrtle tells me that she loves me all the time.  She tells me that she loves me and she repeatedly (oh, so repeatedly) forgives me my errors and faults and foibles.  So, I know that my puppy momma loves me.  However, I think that she says it even more than she actually speaks the words.  Do you have anyone like that in your life?

I know Myrtle has Bettina.  My aunt says "I love you" to my puppy momma in so very many ways, most of them small moments that near overwhelm Myrtle in the magnitude of their meaning, of how often Bettina will take a mere moment to let Myrtle know that she is thinking of her (like texting a photo while she's out with her children) or to let Myrtle know that she knows and remembers her fears and struggles and worries (like sending a new ending to the dream).

Anyway, with regard to my puppy momma, I think I have already mentioned one way: Myrtle will bring some of the down pillows from the bed to the couch so that we can snuggle with them.  Oh, my, a fellow simply cannot have enough time on a mound of down pillows!

Hmm...what are some other ways?  Let's see:

Myrtle will sometimes bring up my most favorite chew toy so I can chow down in bed for a while, even though she's explained that she does not like it when I chomp in the bed...the noise, the slight jiggle....  Still, some evenings, she will swoop down and pick it up as we head to bed.

Myrtle puts milk in my food, breakfast and dinner.  She says a fellow shouldn't have to eat dry food all the days of his life.  Sometimes she saves bits and pieces from her meals and crumbles them into mine.  For example, she burned her pizza, so she cut off the still-edible-yet-too-crispy-for-her parts and added them to my meals over a few days until they were all gone.

Myrtle will let me run up and down before the fence with my girlfriend even when it has been raining.  By doing so, I turn my white feet and belly quite black and Myrtle has to spend quite a bit of effort to clean me up.  She lets me do this even when she is exhausted and always managed a laugh of joy with me as I wag my tail in tandem with Pepper.

Myrtle will let me be the first one up the stairs even though she is still nervous (and rightly so, I must admit) about my being on the brown grass alone.  If she starts up before me and I notice where she is headed and come bounding up behind her, she will step to the side so that I can be first.  She knows I love, love, love racing up and down the hallway on the brown grass whilst waiting for her to finish climbing the stairs. So, even though she worries about my darting into one of the bedrooms to do my business (yeah...I got to admit that I have done that, too), she still lets me be first.

This thinking is hard stuff. I am sure I am missing many things, may ways Myrtle tells me that she loves me.  But at least this is a start.  How about you? How do you say "I love you"?  How does a beloved one say it to you?


This is my life with Myrtle.  Amos Adams signing off!