Relaxed Dog Quotes

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

One thing is certain: Yelling at someone who is already out of control can only lead to further dysregulation. Just as your dog cowers if you shout and wags his tail when you speak in a high singsong, we humans respond to harsh voices with fear, anger, or shutdown and to playful tones by opening up and relaxing. We simply cannot help but respond to these indicators of safety or danger.

And Siobhan says people go on holidays to see new things and relax, but it wouldn’t make me relaxed and you can see new things by looking at earth under a microscope or drawing the shape of the solid made when 3 circular rods of equal thickness intersect at right angles. And I think that there are so many things just in one house that it would take years to think about all of them properly. And also, a thing is interesting because of thinking about it and not because of it being new.

Siobhan also says that if you close your mouth and breathe out loudly through your nose it can mean that you are relaxed, or that you are bored, or that you are angry and it all depends on how much air comes out of your nose and how fast and what shape your mouth is when you do it and how you are sitting and what you just said before and hundreds of other things which are too complicated to work out in a few seconds.

Nothing is so lovely as a quietly snoring dog and some evening Brahms, as you sit in a comfortably overstuffed chair with your feet on the footstool.

The dog did not move as the needle was inserted, and, as the barbiturate began to flow into the vein, the anxious expression left his face and the muscles began to relax. By the time the injection was finished, the breathing had stopped.

Well, I'm glad you're so amused," I said, running my fingers across the railing. Maxon hopped up to sit on the railing, looking very relaxed. "You're always amusing. Get used to it." Hmm. He was almost being funny. "So...about what you said...," he started tentatively. "Which part? The part about me calling you names or fighting with my mom or saying food was my motivation?" I rolled my eyes. He laughed once. "The part about me being good..." "Oh. What about it?" Those few sentences suddenly seemed more embarrassing than anything else I'd said. I ducked my head down and twisted a piece of my dress. "I appreciate you making things look authentic, but you didn't need to go that far." My head snapped up. How could he think that? "Maxon, that wasn't for the sake of the show. If you had asked me a month ago what my honest opinion of you was, it would have been very different. But now I know you, and I know the truth, and you are everything I said you were. And more." He was quiet, but there was a small smile on his face. "Thank you," he finally said. "Anytime." Maxon cleared his throat. "He'll be lucky, too." He got down from his makeshift seat and walked to my side of the balcony. "Huh?" "Your boyfriend. When he comes to his senses and begs you to take him back," Maxon said matter-of-factly. I had to laugh. No such thing would happen in y world. "he's not my boyfriend anymore. And he made it pretty clear he was gone with me." Even I could hear the tiny bit of hope in my voice. "Not possible. He'll have seen you on TV by now and fallen for you all over again. Though, in my opinion, you're still much too good for the dog." Maxon spoke almost as if he was bored, like he'd seen this happen a million times. "Speaking of which!" he said a bit louder. "If you don't want me to be in love with you, you're going to have to stop looking so lovely. First thing tomorrow I'm having your maids sew some potato sacks together for you." I hit his arm. "Shut up, Maxon." "I'm not kidding. You're too beautiful for your own good. Once you leave, we'll have to send some of the guards with you. You'll never survive on your own, poor thing." He said all this with mock pity. "I can't help it." I sighed. "One can never help being born into perfection." I fanned my face as if being so pretty was exhausting. "No, I don't suppose you can help it.

Gran, for the gods' love, it's talk like yours that starts riots!" I said keeping my voice down. "Will you just put a stopper in it?" She looked at me and sighed. "Girl, do you ever take a breath and wonder if folk don't put out bait for you? To see if you'll bite? You'll never get a man if you don't relax." My dear old Gran. It's a wonder her children aren't every one of them as mad as priests, if she mangles their wits as she mangles mine. "Granny, "I told her, "this is dead serious. I can't relax, no more than any Dog. I'm not shopping for a man. That's the last thing I need.

Of the not very many ways known of shedding one's body, falling, falling, falling is the supreme method, but you have to select your sill or ledge very carefully so as not to hurt yourself or others. Jumping from a high bridge is not recommended even if you cannot swim, for wind and water abound in weird contingencies, and tragedy ought not to culminate in a record dive or a policeman's promotion. If you rent a cell in the luminous waffle, room 1915 or 1959, in a tall business centre hotel browing the star dust, and pull up the window, and gently - not fall, not jump - but roll out as you should for air comfort, there is always the chance of knocking clean through into your own hell a pacific noctambulator walking his dog; in this respect a back room might be safer, especially if giving on the roof of an old tenacious normal house far below where a cat may be trusted to flash out of the way. Another popular take-off is a mountaintop with a sheer drop of say 500 meters but you must find it, because you will be surprised how easy it is to miscalculate your deflection offset, and have some hidden projection, some fool of a crag, rush forth to catch you, causing you to bounce off it into the brush, thwarted, mangled and unnecessarily alive. The ideal drop is from an aircraft, your muscles relaxed, your pilot puzzled, your packed parachute shuffled off, cast off, shrugged off - farewell, shootka (little chute)! Down you go, but all the while you feel suspended and buoyed as you somersault in slow motion like a somnolent tumbler pigeon, and sprawl supine on the eiderdown of the air, or lazily turn to embrace your pillow, enjoying every last instant of soft, deep, death-padded life, with the earth's green seesaw now above, now below, and the voluptuous crucifixion, as you stretch yourself in the growing rush, in the nearing swish, and then your loved body's obliteration in the Lap of the Lord.

According to research, people who live with animals have decreased anxiety and lower blood pressure. They have lower cholesterol. They are more relaxed and less stressed and are, overall, in better health. Unless of course you have a dog who pees uncontrollably wherever it wishes or eats your furniture to shreds.

Recruit your pet as a study partner. Cats are usually more than happy to do this - in fact, you may have trouble keeping them off keyboards and books - and dogs will often serve as well. Few things are more relaxing than having a warm, furry creature next to you as you study.

My God,” complained Arthur, “you’re talking about a positive mental attitude and you haven’t even had your planet demolished today. I woke up this morning and thought I’d have a nice relaxed day, do a bit of reading, brush the dog.… It’s now just after four in the afternoon and I’m already being thrown out of an alien spaceship six light-years from the smoking remains of the Earth!” He spluttered and gurgled as the Vogon tightened his grip.

By simply relaxing, being quiet, breathing and having a heartfelt intention to help another being, you create a sacred space. In this space, all things are possible.

Either peace or happiness, let it enfold you. When I was a young man I felt these things were dumb, unsophisticated. I had bad blood, a twisted mind, a precarious upbringing. I was hard as granite, I leered at the sun. I trusted no man and especially no woman... I challenged everything, was continually being evicted, jailed, in and out of fights, in and out of my mind... Peace and happiness to me were signs of inferiority, tenants of the weak, an addled mind. But as I went on...it gradually began to occur to me that I wasn't different from the others, I was the same... Everybody was nudging, inching, cheating for some insignificant advantage, the lie was the weapon and the plot was empty... Cautiously, I allowed myself to feel good at times. I found moments of peace in cheap rooms just staring at the knobs of some dresser or listening to the rain in the dark. The less I needed the better I felt... I re-formulated. I don't know when, date, time, all that but the change occured. Something in me relaxed, smoothed out. I no longer had to prove that I was a man, I didn’t have to prove anything. I began to see things: coffee cups lined up behind a counter in a cafe. Or a dog walking along a sidewalk. Or the way the mouse on my dresser top stopped there with its body, its ears, its nose, it was fixed, a bit of life caught within itself and its eyes looked at me and they were beautiful. Then...it was gone. I began to feel good, I began to feel good in the worst situations and there were plenty of those... I welcomed shots of peace, tattered shards of happiness... And finally I discovered real feelings of others, unheralded, like lately, like this morning, as I was leaving for the track, I saw my wife in bed, just the shape of her head there...so still, I ached for her life, just being there under the covers. I kissed her in the forehead, got down the stairway, got outside, got into my marvelous car, fixed the seatbelt, backed out the drive. Feeling warm to the fingertips, down to my foot on the gas pedal, I entered the world once more, drove down the hill past the houses full and empty of people, I saw the mailman, honked, he waved back at me.

Releasing her wrist, he raised his shaking hand and brushed disheveled auburn hair back from her face. Her features were relaxed in sleep. Dirt-smudged. Damp with the tears she had shed for him. At his touch, she made a sound somewhere in the back of her throat and snuggled closer with a sigh. He didn't know who she was. He didn't know who he was. But in that moment, he loved her for freeing him. The dog voiced a plaintive whine. Speech still eluding him, he sent feelings of calm to the loyal animal. Then, taking the woman's small, pale hand in his, he tucked it against his chest, pressed his forehead to hers, and succumbed to a deep healing sleep.

The pony preserved his character for independence and principle down to the last moment of his life; which was an unusually long one, and caused him to be looked upon, indeed, as the very Old Parr of ponies. He often went to and fro with the little phaeton between Mr. Garland's and his son's, and, as the old people and the young were frequently together, had a stable of his own at the new establishment, into which he would walk of himself with surprising dignity. He condescended to play with the children, as they grew old enough to cultivate his friendship, and would run up and down the little paddock with them like a dog; but though he relaxed so far, and allowed them such freedoms as caresses, or even to look at his shoes or hang on by his tail, he never permitted anyone among them to mount his back or drive him; thus showing that even their familiarity must have its limits, and that there were points between them far too serious for trifling. He was not unsusceptible of warm attachments in his later life, for when the good Bachelor came to live with Mr. Garland upon the clergyman's decease, he conceived a great friendship for him, and amiably submitted to be driven by his hands without the least resistance. He did no work for two or three years before he died, but lived on clover; and his last act (like a choleric old gentleman) was to kick his doctor.

When we learn to relax and simply be present for the animal without judgment, we will find it much easier to connect with animals, and in turn, we will begin to see better responses from them.

Believe me, a highly strung brain such as yours demands occasional relaxation from the strain of domestic surroundings. Forget for a little while that children want music lessons, and boots, and bicycles, with tincture of rhubarb three times a day; forget there are such things in life as cooks, and house decorators, and next-door dogs, and butchers’ bills. Go away to some green corner of the earth, where all is new and strange to you, where your over-wrought mind will gather peace and fresh ideas. Go away for a space and give me time to miss you, and to reflect upon your goodness and virtue, which, continually present with me, I may, human-like, be apt to forget, as one, through use, grows indifferent to the blessing of the sun and the beauty of the moon. Go away, and come back refreshed in mind and body, a brighter, better man—if that be possible—than when you went away.

In 1487 alone, two hundred heretics had-in one of the greatest euphemisms in the history of language-"relaxed," that is, burned at the stake. Dogs of God, Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read to the end just to find out who killed the cook. Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark, in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication. Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot, the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones that crimped your toes, don’t regret those. Not the nights you called god names and cursed your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,b chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness. You were meant to inhale those smoky nights over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches. You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still you end up here. Regret none of it, not one of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing, when the lights from the carnival rides were the only stars you believed in, loving them for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved. You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake, ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering any of it. Let’s stop here, under the lit sign on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

For a moment, I was perfectly relaxed, and I began enjoying the sight of this beautifully candlelit room full of well-dressed people. Then Mr. Merchant made a grab for my décolletage from behind, and I almost spilled the punch. “One of those dear, pretty little roses slipped out of place,” he claimed, with an insinuating grin. I stared at him, baffled. Giordano hadn’t prepared me for a situation like this, so I didn’t know the proper etiquette for dealing with Rococo gropers. I looked at Gideon for help, but he was so deep in conversation with the young widow that he didn’t even notice. If we’d been in my own century, I’d have told Mr. Merchant to keep his dirty paws to himself or I’d hit back, whether or not any little roses had really slipped. But in the circumstances, I felt that his reaction was rather—discourteous. So I smiled at him and said, “Oh, thank you, how kind. I never noticed.” Mr. Merchant bowed. “Always glad to be of service, ma’am.” The barefaced cheek of it! But in times when woman had no vote, I suppose it wasn’t surprising if they didn’t get any other kind of respect either. The talking and laughter gradually died away as Miss Fairfax, a thin-nosed lady wearing a reed-green dress, went over to the pianoforte, arranged her skirts, and placed her hands on the keys. In fact, she didn’t play badly. It was her singing that was rather disturbing. It was incredibly . . . well, high-pitched. A tiny bit higher, and you’d have thought she was a dog whistle.

Roman candles and Saturn missiles spark and whistle. Bigger fireworks light up the night with flares while smoke and the scent of black powder blows with the breeze. Dogs bark and locusts buzz while kids ride their bikes up and down the streets. As other families relax together, sipping lemonade and cold Coronas, I’m sitting on the roof, listening to mine tear itself apart.

The novel should tell the truth, as I see the truth, or as the novelist persuades me to see it. And one more demand: I expect the novelist to aspire to improve the world. ... As a novelist, I want to be more than one more dog barking at the other dogs barking at me. Not out of any foolish hope that one novelist, or all virtuous novelists in chorus, can make much of a difference for good, except in the long run, but out of the need to prevent the human world from relaxing into something worse. To maintain the tension between truth and falsity, beauty and ugliness, good and evil. ... I believe the highest duty of the serious novelist is, whatever the means or technique, to be a critic of his society, to hold society to its own ideals, or if these ideals are unworthy, to suggest better ideals.

Night. The beach and the sea are in darkness. A dog passes, going toward the sea wall. No one walks on the boardwalk, but, on the benches lining it, people sit. They relax. Are silent. Separated from one another. They do not speak. The traveler passes. He walks slowly, he goes in the same direction as the dog. He stops. Returns. He seems to be out for a walk. He starts off again. His face is no longer visible. The sea is calm. No wind. The traveler returns. The dog does not return. The sea begins to rise, it seems. Its sounds getting closer. Muffled thudding coming from the river’s many mouths. Somber sky.

Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.” “Snap ending.” Mildred nodded. “Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet (you know the title certainly, Montag; it is probably only a faint rumor of a title to you, Mrs. Montag), whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at last you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbors. Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.” Mildred arose and began to move around the room, picking things up and putting them down. Beatty ignored her and continued: “Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!” Mildred smoothed the bedclothes. Montag felt his heart jump and jump again as she patted his pillow. Right now she was pulling at his shoulder to try to get him to move so she could take the pillow out and fix it nicely and put it back. And perhaps cry out and stare or simply reach down her hand and say, “What’s this?” and hold up the hidden book with touching innocence. “School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?

The big problem was the typing. When you run up against a policeman at a typewriter, you might as well get a Coke and relax.

Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. – Robert Heinlein

cats.” “A fellow named Robert Heinlein said, ‘Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.

I find people confusing. This is for two main reasons. The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words. Siobhan says that if you raise one eyebrow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean "I want to do sex with you" and it can also mean "I think that what you just said was very stupid." Siobhan also says that if you close your mouth and breathe out loudly through your nose, it can mean that you are relaxed, or that you are bored, or that you are angry, and it all depends on how much air comes out of your nose and how fast and what shape your mouth is when you do it and how you are sitting and what you said just before and hundreds of other things which are too complicated to work out in a few seconds. The second main reason is that people often talk using metaphors. These are examples of metaphors I laughed my socks off. He was the apple of her eye. They had a skeleton in the cupboard. We had a real pig of a day. The dog was stone dead. The word metaphor means carrying something from one place to another, and it comes from the Greek words meta (which means from one place to another) and ferein (which means to carry), and it is when you describe something by using a word for something that it isn't. This means that the word metaphor is a metaphor. I think it should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards. And when I try and make a picture of the phrase in my head it just confuses me because imagining an apple in someone's eye doesn't have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person was talking about.

A NEW CONQUEST always had a wonderful effect on Charlie. He became overnight generous, understanding, inexhaustibly good-humored, relaxed, kind to cats, dogs, and strangers, expansive, and compassionate.

Now I know why I don’t bother with yoga—it’s too hard, that’s why. When I did “dog pose” I thought I’d never be able to get up again. I’ll just have a lie down and relax with an uplifting book for a few minutes.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's blanket and the tea-cosy. I can't say that I am really comfortable, and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring - I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn't a very good poem. I have decided my best poetry is so bad that I mustn't write any more of it. Drips from the roof are plopping into the water-butt by the back door. The view through the windows above the sink is excessively drear. Beyond the dank garden in the courtyard are the ruined walls on the edge of the moat. Beyond the moat, the boggy ploughed fields stretch to the leaden sky. I tell myself that all the rain we have had lately is good for nature, and that at any moment spring will surge on us. I try to see leaves on the trees and the courtyard filled with sunlight. Unfortunately, the more my mind's eye sees green and gold, the more drained of all colour does the twilight seem. It is comforting to look away from the windows and towards the kitchen fire, near which my sister Rose is ironing - though she obviously can't see properly, and it will be a pity if she scorches her only nightgown. (I have two, but one is minus its behind.) Rose looks particularly fetching by firelight because she is a pinkish person; her skin has a pink glow and her hair is pinkish gold, very light and feathery. Although I am rather used to her I know she is a beauty. She is nearly twenty-one and very bitter with life. I am seventeen, look younger, feel older. I am no beauty but I have a neatish face. I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic - two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an unreasonable place to live in. Yet I love it. The house itself was built in the time of Charles II, but it was grafted on to a fourteenth-century castle that had been damaged by Cromwell. The whole of our east wall was part of the castle; there are two round towers in it. The gatehouse is intact and a stretch of the old walls at their full height joins it to the house. And Belmotte Tower, all that remains of an even older castle, still stands on its mound close by. But I won't attempt to describe our peculiar home fully until I can see more time ahead of me than I do now. I am writing this journal partly to practise my newly acquired speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel - I intend to capture all our characters and put in conversations. It ought to be good for my style to dash along without much thought, as up to now my stories have been very stiff and self-conscious. The only time father obliged me by reading one of them, he said I combined stateliness with a desperate effort to be funny. He told me to relax and let the words flow out of me.

Why do you think I am like this?” It didn’t really sound like a question; there was no regret, or sorrow, or genuine tinge of curiosity. I didn’t think he expected a complex answer in any case, as I’m pretty sure we both knew that a team of neuroscientists and psychologists could work on Mad Dog for a decade and still not have all of the answers. Instead, I removed a sheet of paper from my legal folder and wrote one quatrain from a poem by W.H. Auden:             I and the public know             What all schoolchildren learn,             Those to whom evil is done             Do evil in return. He received this carefully and spent a moment looking it over. For the tiniest fraction of a second his face relaxed and his eyes softened and he seemed to shrink into himself as he breathed in. Then it was over, and he turned away from me, a dismissal if I ever saw one. He crumpled up my note angrily and tossed it away onto the floor. It was the last time we ever spoke.

My God,’ complained Arthur, ‘you’re talking about a positive mental attitude and you haven’t even had your planet demolished today. I woke up this morning and thought I’d have a nice relaxed day, do a bit of reading, brush the dog…It’s now just after four in the afternoon and I’m already being thrown out of an alien spaceship six light-years from the smoking remains of the Earth!’ He spluttered and gurgled as the Vogon tightened his grip. ‘All right,’ said Ford, ‘just stop panicking!

Give up all the wild ideas that buzz round you like wasps. Or like bluebottles. […] Find a nice, ordinary girl, not too attractive or you’ll be jealous all the time, not too bright or you’ll be anxious all the time, not too rich or you’ll have nothing to strive for, not too original or she’ll upset people. There are plenty of them, and all of them are available to a young postman like you. Those are the terms offered.” The terrier had come to a sudden standstill, as if he had been a white gun dog on one of the estates. “You don’t live like that,” said Robin from the bed. “I don’t live at all,” replied Rosetta. “Haven’t you realized?” “Perhaps I have.” Now Robin was staring at her: momentarily still that muggy evening; for seconds rigid as the dog. Rosetta smiled. “I am the person every postman meets in the end.” “I’m a provisional postman only. I told you that clearly,” remarked Robin, starting once more to relax. “Do what I tell you. What else is there for you? Only wasps and bluebottles.

forcing someone to do something only resulted in grudging compliance at best; whereas getting them to participate and enjoy the process turned them into eager and fast learners. This applied equally to the dogs, the goats - and the children! The sheep and the cats not so much

To be granite and to doubt! To be the statue of Chastisement cast in one piece in the mould of the law, and suddenly to become aware of the fact that one cherishes beneath one's breast of bronze something absurd and disobedient which almost resembles a heart! To come to the pass of returning good for good, although one has said to oneself up to that day that that good is evil! To be the watch-dog, and to lick the intruder's hand! To be ice and melt! To be the pincers and to turn into a hand! To suddenly feel one's fingers opening! To relax one's grip,—what a terrible thing!

Cool.” Mai gathered her things and bolted out the door. “Last one to the car is a rotten egg.” Diode looked alarmed. “What?” “Relax.” I chuckled. “It’s just something people say.” He licked a front paw and smoothed the fur on his face. “People are, quite frankly, ridiculous.” “No argument here.

Most churches do not grow beyond the spiritual health of their leadership. Many churches have a pastor who is trying to lead people to a Savior he has yet to personally encounter. If spiritual gifting is no proof of authentic faith, then certainly a job title isn't either. You must have a clear sense of calling before you enter ministry. Being a called man is a lonely job, and many times you feel like God has abandoned you in your ministry. Ministry is more than hard. Ministry is impossible. And unless we have a fire inside our bones compelling us, we simply will not survive. Pastoral ministry is a calling, not a career. It is not a job you pursue. If you don’t think demons are real, try planting a church! You won’t get very far in advancing God’s kingdom without feeling resistance from the enemy. If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day. Once a month I get away for the day, once a quarter I try to get out for two days, and once a year I try to get away for a week. The purpose of these times is rest, relaxation, and solitude with God. A pastor must always be fearless before his critics and fearful before his God. Let us tremble at the thought of neglecting the sheep. Remember that when Christ judges us, he will judge us with a special degree of strictness. The only way you will endure in ministry is if you determine to do so through the prevailing power of the Holy Spirit. The unsexy reality of the pastorate is that it involves hard work—the heavy-lifting, curse-ridden, unyielding employment of your whole person for the sake of the church. Pastoral ministry requires dogged, unyielding determination, and determination can only come from one source—God himself. Passive staff members must be motivated. Erring elders and deacons must be confronted. Divisive church members must be rebuked. Nobody enjoys doing such things (if you do, you should be not be a pastor!), but they are necessary in order to have a healthy church over the long haul. If you allow passivity, laziness, and sin to fester, you will soon despise the church you pastor. From the beginning of sacred Scripture (Gen. 2:17) to the end (Rev. 21:8), the penalty for sin is death. Therefore, if we sin, we should die. But it is Jesus, the sinless one, who dies in our place for our sins. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus died to take to himself the penalty of our sin. The Bible is not Christ-centered because it is generally about Jesus. It is Christ-centered because the Bible’s primary purpose, from beginning to end, is to point us toward the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for the salvation and sanctification of sinners. Christ-centered preaching goes much further than merely providing suggestions for how to live; it points us to the very source of life and wisdom and explains how and why we have access to him. Felt needs are set into the context of the gospel, so that the Christian message is not reduced to making us feel better about ourselves. If you do not know how sinful you are, you feel no need of salvation. Sin-exposing preaching helps people come face-to-face with their sin and their great need for a Savior. We can worship in heaven, and we can talk to God in heaven, and we can read our Bibles in heaven, but we can’t share the gospel with our lost friends in heaven. “Would your city weep if your church did not exist?” It was crystal-clear for me. Somehow, through fear or insecurity, I had let my dreams for our church shrink. I had stopped thinking about the limitless things God could do and had been distracted by my own limitations. I prayed right there that God would forgive me of my small-mindedness. I asked God to forgive my lack of faith that God could use a man like me to bring the message of the gospel through our missionary church to our lost city. I begged God to renew my heart and mind with a vision for our city that was more like Christ's.

There’s a rumor going around that the artist gets the dogs as puppies, raises them, then kills them when they’re the size he wants. He locks them in an industrial freezer because that’s the most humane way to euthanize them without compromising the look of the animal. When they thaw, he can get them into whatever position he wants.

Don’t feel like a failure if you can’t make a social butterfly out of the dog you rescued from a nightmarish beginning. Giving him a kind, loving home and helping him to relax enough to nap in your lap are achievements in their own right. If you can manage them, you deserve much more than a blue ribbon and a silver chalice. However,

One morning, when she was in bed with Harry in his hotel room, he tapped Faith lightly on the nose and said, “You’ve got a big honker, don’t you. But you’re so sexy, you can carry it.” She said nothing. It h rut her, not because it was untrue—she did have a strong nose, and it did look pretty good on her. It hurt her because she had been lying relaxed with him, similar to the way her childhood dog Lucky would sometimes lie in deep sleep on her back, paws up and dipped at the wrist. Her dog, lying like that, was happy in her dogfish openness. Which, Faith thought, was all she herself really wanted when she went to bed with someone. To lie exposed and free and unself-conscious.

There's no way on God's green earth that I'm dressing up like Mr. Darcy." Brooks stretched out on Caroline's bed, hanging his suede wing tips off the edge and crossing his ankles. He laced his fingers behind his head and looked infuriatingly cool and relaxed. "Not Mr. Darcy. That's the guy from Pride and Prejudice. You're supposed to come as Mr. Knightley.

The world was cruel and sudden. This he knew for sure. Relax for a moment, breathe in the scent of a rose, rest in the shade, pet a dog, take a sip of lemonade, fall in love with a dreamy-eyed girl or a haunted faced man, and you are just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Buzzing around the lemonade, you'll find flies. Follow the flies and you'll find death.

Hana?" Lena says softly. "Are you okay?" That single stupid question breaks me. All the metal fingers relax me at once, and the tears they've been holding back come surging up at once. Suddenly I am sobbing and telling her everything: about the raid, and the dogs, and the sounds of skulls cracking underneath regulator's nightsticks. Thinking about it again makes me feel like I might puke. At a certain point, Lena puts her arms around me and starts murmuring things into my hair. I don't even know what she's saying, and I don't care. JUst having her here—solid, real, on my side—makes me feel better than I have in weeks. Slowly I manage to stop crying, swallowing back the hiccups and sobs that are still running through me. I try to tell her that I've missed her, and that I've been stupid and wrong, but my voice is muffled and thick

When Alice was young, she had no idea what a jag even was. In those early days of their love affair, Alice found Ted’s rogue demeanor attractive. He was a Snow. But he was a rebel. He stood up to his stern father, and no one in the Snow family did that. The Snows were all too afraid of losing their entitlements. Ted had a relaxed swagger in his walk. Alice loved his confidence, the fashion of his easy laughter. She had no idea, not even a suspicion, that it was drink that fueled his swagger as well as his gumption. He was almost always drunk. But she was a teenager and a dreamer, and she loved his seeming fearlessness. He was handsome as well, with soft eyes that had a happy mischief to them. His thick, curly hair bounced as he swaggered. He was a picture. She thought he was hardy and strong, but it was the heat of the alcohol that made his cheeks flush apple red. He appeared to be the picture of health, but indeed, he wasn’t. He never was.

You worry too much. You think you have to do too much. Like you think you’re always just about to make some terrible mistake. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn to dump the tanks. There’s nothing wrong with making coffee for me or walking the dog. It’s nice. But I get a feeling you’re doing it because you always feel like you need to do more. To be more. Like if you don’t make yourself useful, you’re not entitled to the air you breathe. Why not just relax and be a kid on vacation?” Seth’s

Therefore they spent such time as I was housekeeping, eating or sleeping, alone in the greenhouse, and I had to manage as best I could when, after these intervals, I went back to them, not to be knocked over by their joyful welcome. Gradually, however, things settled down. The secret of peace with puppies, I discovered—up to then I had had only ready-made dogs (except Bijou, who doesn’t count), and had everything to learn,—is to give them a great deal of exercise, and a great deal of food. They should be gorged; regularly. Then they will sleep for hours—quite long enough, I found, in Ingo and Ivo’s case, for me to deal justly with Mr. Anstruther, against whom I had been feeling rather a grudge. This, then, was the line I took; and presently a new rug was able safely to be put in the greenhouse, and while they lay on it, stupefied by well-being, lost to the world, a relaxed heap of paws and ears and tails, with two tightly-filled bellies to point the moral, I got on, once again, with Fräulein Schmidt.

A flash of lightning ghosts into the room, and when it leaves again, my eyes follow it back out to sea. In the window's reflection, I glimpse a figure standing behind me. I don't need to turn around to see who creates such a big outline-or who makes my whole body turn into a goose-bump farm. "How do you feel?" he says. "Better," I say to his reflection. He hops over the back of the couch and grabs my chin, turning my head side to side, up and down, all around, watching for my reaction. "I just did that," I tell him. "Nothing." He nods and unhands me. "Rach-Uh, my mom called your mom and told her what happened. I guess your mom called your doctor, and he said it's pretty common, but that you should rest a few more days. My mom insisted you stay the night since no one needs to be driving in this weather." "And my mother agreed to that?" Even in the dark, I don't miss his little grin. "My mom can be pretty persuasive," he says. "By the end of the conversation, your mom even suggested we both stay home from school tomorrow and hang out here so you can relax-since my mom will be home supervising, of course. Your mom said you wouldn't stay home if I went to school." A flash from the storm illuminates my blush. "Because we told her we're dating." He nods. "She said you should have stayed home today, but you threw a fit to go anyway. Honestly, I didn't realize you were so obsessed-ouch!" I try to pinch him again, but he catches my wrist and pulls me over his lap like a child getting a spanking. "I was going to say, 'with history.'" He laughs. "No you weren't. Let me up." "I will." He laughs. "Galen, you let me up right now-" "Sorry, not ready yet." I gasp. "Oh, no! The room is spinning again." I hold still, tense up. Then the room does spin when he snatches me up and grabs my chin again. The look of concern etched on his face makes me feel a little guilty, but not guilty enough to keep my mouth shut. "Works every time," I tell him, giving my best ha-ha-you're-a-sucker smirk. A snicker from the entryway cuts off what I can tell is about to be a good scolding. I've never heard Galen curse, but his glower just looks like a four-letter word waiting to come out. We both turn to see Toraf watching us with crossed arms. He is also wearing a ha-ha-you're-a-sucker smirk. "Dinner's ready, children," he says. Yep, I definitely like Toraf. Galen rolls his eyes and extracts me from his lap. He hops up and leaves me there, and in the reflection, I see him ram his fist into Toraf's gut as he passes. Toraf grunts, but the smirk never leaves his face. He nods his head for me to follow them. As we pass through the rooms, I try to remember the rich, sophisticated atmosphere, the marble floors, the hideous paintings, but my stomach makes sounds better suited to a dog kennel at feeding time. "I think your stomach is making mating calls," Toraf whispers to me as we enter the kitchen. My blush debuts the same time we enter the kitchen, and it's enough to make Toraf laugh out loud.

Gregori stepped away from the huddled mass of tourists, putting distance between himself and the guide. He walked completely erect,his head high, his long hair flowing around him. His hands were loose at his sides, and his body was relaxed, rippling with power. "Hear me now, ancient one." His voice was soft and musical, filling the silence with beauty and purity. "You have lived long in this world, and you weary of the emptiness. I have come in anwer to your call." "Gregori.The Dark One." The evil voice hissed and growled the words in answer. The ugliness tore at sensitive nerve endings like nails on a chalkboard. Some of the tourists actually covered their ears. "How dare you enter my city and interfere where you have no right?" "I am justice,evil one. I have come to set your free from the bounaries holding you to this place." Gregori's voice was so soft and hypnotic that those listening edged out from their sanctuaries.It beckoned and pulled, so that none could resist his every desire. The black shape above their head roiled like a witch's cauldron. A jagged bolt of lightning slammed to earth straight toward the huddled group. Gregori raised a hand and redirected the force of energy away from the tourists and Savannah. A smile edged the cruel set of his mouth. "You think to mock me with display,ancient one? Do not attempt to anger what you do not understand.You came to me.I did not hunt you.You seek to threaten my lifemate and those I count as my friends.I can do no other than carry the justice of our people to you." Gregori's voice was so reasonable, so perfect and pure,drawing obedience from the most recalcitrant of criminals. The guide made a sound,somewhere between disbelief and fear.Gregori silenced him with a wave of his hand, needing no distractions. But the noise had been enough for the ancient one to break the spell Gregori's voice was weaving around him. The dark stain above their heads thrashed wildly, as if ridding itself ot ever-tightening bonds before slamming a series of lightning strikes at the helpless mortals on the ground. Screams and moans accompanied the whispered prayers, but Gregori stood his ground, unflinching. He merely redirected the whips of energy and light, sent them streaking back into the black mass above their heads.A hideous snarl,a screech of defiance and hatred,was the only warning before it hailed. Hufe golfball-sized blocks of bright-red ice rained down toward them. It was thick and horrible to see, the shower of frozen blood from the skies. But it stopped abruptly, as if an unseen force held it hovering inches from their heads. Gregori remained unchanged, impassive, his face a blank mask as he shielded the tourists and sent the hail hurtling back at their attacker.From out of the cemetery a few blocks from them, an army of the dead rose up. Wolves howled and raced along beside the skeletons as they moved to intercept the Carpathian hunter. Savannah. He said her name once, a soft brush in her mind. I've got it, she sent back instantly.Gregori had his hands full dealing with the abominations the vampire was throwing at him; he did't need to waste his energy protecting the general public from the apparition. She moved out into the open, a small, fragile figure, concentrating on the incoming threat. To those dwelling in the houses along the block and those driving in their cars, she masked the pack of wolves as dogs racing down the street.The stick=like skeletons, grotesque and bizarre, were merely a fast-moving group of people. She held the illusion until they were within a few feet of Gregori.Dropping the illusion, she fed every ounce of her energy and power to Gregori so he could meet the attack.

I didn’t tell her that Anton Kirschler, the artist I wrote about, was a character of my own invention. I wrote that his work was instructive for how to maintain “a humanistic approach to art facing the rise of technology.” I described various made-up pieces: Dog Urinating on Computer, Stock Market Hamburger Lunch. I wrote that his work spoke to me personally because I was interested in how “art created the future.” It was a mediocre essay. My mother seemed unperturbed by it, which shocked me, and handed it back with the suggestion that I look up a few words in the thesaurus because I’d repeated them too often. I didn’t take her advice. I applied to Columbia early decision and got in.

That explains what I’m doing here.” He put his chin down on the edge of the gurney, watching me like a big friendly dog. “What are you doing here?” He was so dreamily handsome, looking at me with concern in his eyes, and his tone was so gentle, that I almost answered him. “You followed me,” he said. I shifted on the gurney, trying in vain to find a more comfortable position. My hip sure did hurt. “You wanted to know where I was going so late at night,” he said. “I’ve seen you watching me through your window.” Note to self: when boys look back at you watching them in the darkness outside your well-lit window, but their expressions do not change, you relax, assuming they can’t really see you watching them, when they can totally see you. There was no way around it now.

Attitudeiseverythingifthedayistogowell. If we require others to have patience with us and give us u we to li s di, the Cherokee word for pity or sympathy, then our minds are going to be on whether or not we get it, instead of on living well. We forget that we project to others how we want to be treated. Arrogance invites resistance. Hang dog attitudes invite other sour and sullen looks and behavior. Good-natured people are always welcome and give peace to our minds. Whatever we are about, it is to our advantage to know the world is reflecting back to us the mirror-image of pleasant manners-or the stern appearance of touch-me-not. It takes so little to relax and enjoy, so that others can do the same. I am old it is true; but not old enough to fail to see things as they are. WHrrE SHIELD

Natasha started to take notice. My sleepiness was good for rudeness to visitors to the gallery, but not for signing for packages or noticing if someone had come in with a dog and tracked paw prints all over the floor, which happened a few times. There were a few spilled lattes. MFA students touching paintings, once even rearranging an installation of shattered CD jewel cases in a Jarrod Harvey installation to spell out the word “HACK.” When I noticed it, I just shuffled the shards of plastic around, no one the wiser. But when a homeless woman set herself up in the back room one afternoon, Natasha found out. I’d had no idea how long the woman had been there. Maybe people thought she was part of the artwork. I ended up paying her fifty bucks out of petty cash to leave. Natasha couldn’t hide her irritation.

Even the submissive grin is misunderstood. Sadly, it can be mistaken for a snarl, and a dog may be labeled as aggressive who is actually anything but. It’s also often perceived as a doggy version of a happy smile—a less damaging interpretation, but still a misperception of a clearly subordinate display. Interestingly, the submissive grin is believed to be an imitation of the human smile, since dogs don’t normally display this behavior to each other, only to humans. While some behaviorists consider the grin to be an attention-seeking appeasement gesture, others consider it more of a threat-averting deference signal. In any case, it’s important to understand that the dog who grins is making a status statement—your rank is higher than hers—exhibiting neither an aggressive threat nor a relaxed, contented smile.

The dogs skittered across the wet blacktop as silently as cockroaches, each so small it amazes me that they hadn’t been squashed underfoot. Easy to love. Easy to kill. I thought again of Ping Xi’s stuffed dogs, the preposterous myth of his industrial dog-killing freezer. A tight sheet of wind slapped me in the face. I pulled the collar of my fur coat up around my throat, and I pictured myself as a white fox curling up in the corner of Ping Xi’s freezer, the room whirling with smoky air, swinging sides of cow creaking through the the hum of cold, my mind slowing down until single syllables of thought abstracted from their meanings and I heard them stretched out as long-held notes, like foghorns or sirens for a blackout curfew or an air raid. “This has been a test.” I felt my teeth chatter but my face was numb. Soon. The freezer sounded really good.

Hard to imagine, but Dakotah herself was 99.98 percent wolf, including, you might suppose, the part of her that loved pursuing and catching things over and over at breakneck speed and delivering them back to her pack, in a faint echo of the chase. I’ve wondered if some dogs may feel a higher level of drive for such games, since it’s their only outlet for genetically programmed catch-and-kill hunting behavior. A wolf in the same situation seems more relaxed, more purely at play—certainly the case with the black wolf just then, and with other wild wolves I’ve seen. After all, wolves hunt to live, on a daily basis; fooling around with a toy is more of a break, quite separate from the serious business of living—having fun for the sheer sake of it. To high-drive Labs and border collies, fetch is often more than just a game; it’s their job, a dead serious business.

Remove this quote from your collection “The dogs skittered across the wet blacktop as silently as cockroaches, each so small it amazes me that they hadn’t been squashed underfoot. Easy to love. Easy to kill. I thought again of Ping Xi’s stuffed dogs, the preposterous myth of his industrial dog-killing freezer. A tight sheet of wind slapped me in the face. I pulled the collar of my fur coat up around my throat, and I pictured myself as a white fox curling up in the corner of Ping Xi’s freezer, the room whirling with smoky air, swinging sides of cow creaking through the the hum of cold, my mind slowing down until single syllables of thought abstracted from their meanings and I heard them stretched out as long-held notes, like foghorns or sirens for a blackout curfew or an air raid. “This has been a test.” I felt my teeth chatter but my face was numb. Soon. The freezer sounded really good.

Most of the time this is something people say when their houses are immaculate, and the idea is you say, ‘Oh, you should see mine,’ or something similar. In this case it really was a mess, and Nina found it enormously relaxing. She counted two more dogs, older and less enthusiastic, who nonetheless waved their tails at her from their sleeping stations on the sofa and floor. Several cats were watching her cautiously, or sarcastically—it’s always hard to tell with cats—and the whole place was covered with a fine patina of fur. There was a vague smell of woodsmoke and the inside of dogs’ ears. Nina and Peter followed Becky through the living room into what turned out to be the kitchen, which was marginally cleaner, at least in places. An older man was sitting at the table, deseeding an acorn squash. “Hi there,” he said. “I’m John. I’m Peter’s stepdad.” He waved his sticky hands at her. “Welcome to chaos central.

The few remaining men can exist out their puny days dropped out on drugs or strutting around in drag or passively watching the high-powered female in action, fulfilling themselves as spectators, vicarious liver*, or breeding in the cow pasture with the toadies, or they can go off to the nearest friendly suicide center where they will be quietly, quickly, and painlessly gassed to death. Prior to the institution of automation, to the replacement of males by machines, the male should be of use to the female, wait on her, cater to her slightest whim, obey her every command, be totally subservient to her, exist in perfect obedience to her will, as opposed to the completely warped, degenerate situation we have now of men, not only not only not existing at all, cluttering up the world with their ignominious presence, but being pandered to and groveled before by the mass of females, millions of women piously worshiping the Golden Calf, the dog leading the master on a leash, when in fact the male, short of being a drag queen, is least miserable when his dogginess is recognized – no unrealistic emotional demands are made of him and the completely together female is calling the shots. Rational men want to be squashed, stepped on, crushed and crunched, treated as the curs, the filth that they are, have their repulsiveness confirmed. The sick, irrational men, those who attempt to defend themselves against their disgustingness, when they see SCUM barreling down on them, will cling in terror to Big Mama with her Big Bouncy Boobies, but Boobies won’t protect them against SCUM; Big Mama will be clinging to Big Daddy, who will be in the corner shitting in his forceful, dynamic pants. Men who are rational, however, won’t kick or struggle or raise a distressing fuss, but will just sit back, relax, enjoy the show and ride the waves to their demise.

Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books levelled down to a sort of paste pudding norm [...]. [...] Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations, Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending. [...] Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet [...] was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: "now at least you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbors". Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there's your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more. [...] Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click? Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man's mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought! [...] School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts? [...] The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour. [...] Life becomes one big pratfall, Montag; everything bang, boff, and wow!

Christ. Study the roster. Study everybody’s photos,” she said. “Where’s the packing list for Earl?” Et cetera, et cetera . . . That spring, the gallery was putting up Ping Xi’s first solo show—“Bowwowwow”—and Natasha was up in arms about every little detail. She probably would have fired me sooner had she not been so busy. I tried to feign interest and mask my horror whenever Natasha talked about Ping Xi’s “dog pieces.” He had taxidermied a variety of pure breeds: a poodle, a Pomeranian, a Scottish terrier. Black Lab, Dachshund. Even a little Siberian husky pup. He’d been working on them for a long time. He and Natasha had grown close since his cum paintings had sold so well. During the installation, I overheard one of the interns whispering to the electrician. “There’s a rumor going around that the artist gets the dogs as puppies, raises them, then kills them when they’re the size he wants. He locks them in an industrial freezer because that’s the most humane way to euthanize them without compromising the look of the animal. When they thaw, he can get them into whatever position he wants.

Why can't we sit together? What's the point of seat reservations,anyway? The bored woman calls my section next,and I think terrible thoughts about her as she slides my ticket through her machine. At least I have a window seat. The middle and aisle are occupied with more businessmen. I'm reaching for my book again-it's going to be a long flight-when a polite English accent speaks to the man beside me. "Pardon me,but I wonder if you wouldn't mind switching seats.You see,that's my girlfriend there,and she's pregnant. And since she gets a bit ill on airplanes,I thought she might need someone to hold back her hair when...well..." St. Clair holds up the courtesy barf bag and shakes it around. The paper crinkles dramatically. The man sprints off the seat as my face flames. His pregnant girlfriend? "Thank you.I was in forty-five G." He slides into the vacated chair and waits for the man to disappear before speaking again. The guy onhis other side stares at us in horror,but St. Clair doesn't care. "They had me next to some horrible couple in matching Hawaiian shirts. There's no reason to suffer this flight alone when we can suffer it together." "That's flattering,thanks." But I laugh,and he looks pleased-until takeoff, when he claws the armrest and turns a color disturbingy similar to key lime pie. I distract him with a story about the time I broke my arm playing Peter Pan. It turned out there was more to flying than thinking happy thoughts and jumping out a window. St. Clair relaxes once we're above the clouds. Time passes quickly for an eight-hour flight. We don't talk about what waits on the other side of the ocean. Not his mother. Not Toph.Instead,we browse Skymall. We play the if-you-had-to-buy-one-thing-off-each-page game. He laughs when I choose the hot-dog toaster, and I tease him about the fogless shower mirror and the world's largest crossword puzzle. "At least they're practical," he says. "What are you gonna do with a giant crossword poster? 'Oh,I'm sorry Anna. I can't go to the movies tonight. I'm working on two thousand across, Norwegian Birdcall." "At least I'm not buying a Large Plastic Rock for hiding "unsightly utility posts.' You realize you have no lawn?" "I could hide other stuff.Like...failed French tests.Or illegal moonshining equipment." He doubles over with that wonderful boyish laughter, and I grin. "But what will you do with a motorized swimming-pool snack float?" "Use it in the bathtub." He wipes a tear from his cheek. "Ooo,look! A Mount Rushmore garden statue. Just what you need,Anna.And only forty dollars! A bargain!" We get stumped on the page of golfing accessories, so we switch to drawing rude pictures of the other people on the plane,followed by rude pictures of Euro Disney Guy. St. Clair's eyes glint as he sketches the man falling down the Pantheon's spiral staircase. There's a lot of blood. And Mickey Mouse ears. After a few hours,he grows sleepy.His head sinks against my shoulder. I don't dare move.The sun is coming up,and the sky is pink and orange and makes me think of sherbet.I siff his hair. Not out of weirdness.It's just...there. He must have woken earlier than I thought,because it smells shower-fresh. Clean. Healthy.Mmm.I doze in and out of a peaceful dream,and the next thing I know,the captain's voice is crackling over the airplane.We're here. I'm home.

On the eve of my move to New York, my parents sat me down to talk. “Your mother and I understand that we have a certain responsibility to prepare you for life at a coed institution,” said my father. “Have you ever heard of oxytocin?” I shook my head. “It’s the thing that’s going to make you crazy,” my mother said, swirling the ice in her glass. “You’ll lose all the good sense I’ve worked so hard to build up in you since the day you were born.” She was kidding. “Oxytocin is a hormone released during copulation,” my father went on, staring at the blank wall behind me. “Orgasm,” my mother whispered. “Biologically, oxytocin serves a purpose,” my father said. “That warm fuzzy feeling.” “It’s what bonds a couple together. Without it, the human species would have gone extinct a long time ago. Women experience its effects more powerfully than men do. It’s good to be aware of that.” “For when you’re thrown out with yesterday’s trash,” my mother said. “Men are dogs. Even professors, so don’t be fooled.” “Men don’t attach as easily. They’re more rational,” my father corrected her. After a long pause, he said, “We just want you to be careful.” “He means use a rubber.” “And take these.” My father gave me a small, pink, shell-shaped compact of birth control pills. “Gross,” was all I could say. “And your father has cancer,” my mother said. I said nothing. “Prostate isn’t like breast,” my father said, turning away. “They do surgery, and you move on.” “The man always dies first,” my mother whispered.

There were stars here and there, dotting the sky among thin clouds, but no moon. Annemarie shivered, standing at the foot of the steps. “Come,” Mama murmured, and she moved away from the house. One by one the Rosens turned and hugged Annemarie silently. Ellen came to her last; the two girls held each other. “I’ll come back someday,” Ellen whispered fiercely. “I promise.” “I know you will,” Annemarie whispered back, holding her friend tightly. Then they were gone, Mama and the Rosens. Annemarie was alone. She went into the house, crying suddenly, and closed the door against the night. The lid of the casket was closed again. Now the room was empty; there was no sign of the people who had sat there for those hours. Annemarie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She opened the dark curtains and the windows; she curled once more in the rocker, trying to relax; she traced their route in her mind. She knew the old path, too—not as well as her mother, who had followed it almost every day of her childhood with her dog scampering behind. But Annemarie had often walked to town and back that way, and she remembered the turns, the twisted trees whose gnarled roots pushed the earth now and then into knotted clumps, and the thick bushes that often flowered in early summer. She walked with them in her mind, feeling the way through the darkness. It would take them, she thought, half an hour to reach the place where Uncle Henrik was waiting with his boat. Mama would leave them there—pausing a minute, no more, for a final hug—and then she would turn and come home. It would be faster for Mama alone, with no need to wait as the Rosens, unfamiliar with the path, slowly felt their way along. Mama would hurry, sure-footed now, back to her children.

You can talk to me, Clay,” I said with a little hope.  I really began to wonder if he could speak.  When he didn’t respond, I spoke again.  “Okay, do you want to go out or stay in?” He moved to the couch and sat in the middle, his choice clear.  Stay in tonight. I hesitated.  The chair, set at an odd angle to the TV, gave you a sore neck if you tried to watch a movie from there.  That meant I’d need to sit next to him to watch a movie.  But I felt so exposed in a skirt and sleeveless shirt. I wasn’t sure if I could sit next to him for a full movie. While I debated my options, he watched me closely. “I’m going to go change,” I stammered. “I’ll be right back.” I turned and made it one step before the back of my shirt snagged on something.  Surprised, I looked over my shoulder and found Clay standing right behind me.  He held a fold of my shirt between his thumb and forefinger.  I could see the glint of his brown eyes behind the still damp strands of his hair.  He tilted his head back toward the couch and gave a slight tug on my shirt.  My stomach dropped, and I couldn’t tell if it was in a good way or a bad one. When I hesitated, he gave another tug.  I surrendered, turned back, and sat on the couch. He padded over to the movies, made a selection I couldn’t see, and crouched to start it.  It amazed me that he knew how to do that.  Then again, he watched everything Rachel and I did.  I wondered if anything escaped his notice. He pressed play, stood, and walked toward me with fluid strides.  I felt graceless in comparison.  He settled next to me and watched the previews.  I tried to focus on them, too, but couldn’t.  Instead, I noticed our bare feet, the scratch on the wall next to the TV, his leg lightly pressed against mine, the sound of the water as it slowly dripped from the showerhead in the bathroom, his hands loosely resting on his lap.  The long list of unimportant details would not let my mind settle. It was midway through the movie when my mind calmed enough to notice we watched an action-comedy I’d wanted to see.  I’d just mentioned it to Rachel this past week.  She must have gotten it after that. Slowly, I began to relax and enjoy the movie.  I even laughed aloud at one point.  Clay’s echoing chuckle startled me, but in a good way.  So, he could do more than growl as a dog.  His deep laugh sounded pleasant. When

Shrugging, I glanced at Judd who was watching someone in the corner. When I looked back at Cooper, he was studying the hair in my eyes. “You look tired,” he said, reaching out to brush away the hair. Cooper’s hand never reached my face before Judd grabbed his wrist and yanked it away. In that instant, everything shifted. The men stepped closer, eyeballing each other as the heat of their anger became palatable. I thought to step between them and calm things before violence broke out. Then, I remembered when I tried to break up a fight between my uncle’s dogs. If Farah hadn’t pulled me out of the way, I’d have been mauled. That day, I learned if predators wanted to fight, you let them while staying as far back as possible. “I’ll let this go because it’s your woman,” Cooper muttered, dark eyes still angry. “If you pull this shit again and it’s not your woman, you and I will have a problem.” Once Cooper walked away, Judd finally relaxed. I just stared at him as he led me to a booth because a group of old timers were at his table. Sitting next to him, I caressed his face, soothing him. He finally gave me a little grin. Suddenly, Vaughn appeared and took the spot across from us. “Why do you look so pissed off?” “He almost went feral on Cooper for trying to touch me.” Vaughn gave us a lazy grin. “So losing his balls makes a man stupid, eh? Good to know. Just another reason to keep mine attached.” Judd exhaled hard. “You wouldn’t want anyone touching your woman. One day, you’ll know that despite your love affair with your balls.” “A man should love his balls,” Vaughn said, still grinning. “What if I touch her?” he asked, his hand moving slowly towards my face. “I’ll stab you in the fucking eye.” Grinning, Vaughn put down his hand. “You’re pretty damn sexy when you go drama queen, O’Keefe.” “He is, isn’t he?” I said, sliding closer to Judd. “I wish we were naked right now.” Both men frowned at me, but I only smiled and Judd adjusted in the booth as his jeans grew too tight. “Stop,” he warned. “I’m not afraid of you.” “I could make a liar of you.” “You won’t though because you wish you were inside me.” Judd exhaled hard like a pissed bull and adjusted in the booth again. I just laughed and rested my head against his shoulder. “I so own you.” Vaughn nodded. “He’s a keeper. I remember how poetic he was when I asked him if he could imagine himself as an old man. He turned to me and grunted. Real profound grunt too. Oh, and once I asked if he ever imagined himself as a father. I kid you not, he burped. The man is fucking Shakespeare.

Are you all right?” he asked, pushing away from the wall and coming towards her. “I’m fine.” Lucien frowned and cupped her chin in one hand, turning her to face him. “I can always tell when you lie,” he said, as if the knowledge of this surprised him. “Yes. I hate that.” She needed to get away from him. She needed room to breathe. He dogged her steps as she left and picked a room at random to try and hide from him. She shut the door and slid the lock into place, relaxing when he tried the knob and couldn’t get inside. Leaning back against the door, she listened to him walk away. Her heartbeat slowed in her chest. Suddenly one of the study bookshelves swung open. Lucien emerged and eased the bookshelf back into its place, grinning. Horatia gaped. Rochester Hall had secret passageways? How had she not known about them? She truly ought to have been nosier as a child. “Why do you hate that I can read you so easily?” he asked. Horatia studied the room with a slight frown. This was Lucien’s study. His scent filled the air and a messy pile of letters littered his large desk. She couldn’t have picked a worse room to try and escape from him. He was everywhere. And she would not be able to hide from him anywhere on the estate. There were likely passageways all through the house connecting all the rooms. “Lucien, could you please just leave me alone? You’ve made your peace with me, and I with you. Can we not leave it at that?” She turned her back to him but he chuckled, coming closer. “My dear Horatia, I fear you and I are England and France. We quarrel and battle and therein lies the pleasure of our relationship.” -Lucien & Horatia

There’s still time to change your mind.” Shaw’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. I told him the truth. “I’ve changed it at least six times since we left the airport.” His white-knuckled grip relaxed a fraction. “And?” “I can’t let you go alone.” A slow nod left his head hanging as though he expected a guillotine blade to fall.

Even when behaviors are clearly stress-related, they can be difficult to interpret. Mel Richardson was once asked to examine a tree kangaroo at the San Antonio Zoo that the keepers said was acting bizarrely. With the ears of a teddy bear, the rounded chub of a koala, and the tail of a fuzzy monkey, tree kangaroos are very cute. But this female was acting vicious. She was attacking her babies, and the keepers had no idea why. Mel went to check on her. Sure enough, as soon as he approached, the kangaroo ran to her babies and started hitting and clawing at them with her paws. He stepped back, and she stopped. He walked forward, and she ran at the babies again. “I realized,” said Mel, “that she wasn’t viciously attacking her babies at all. She was trying to pick them up off the floor, but her little paws weren’t meant for that. In her native Australia and Papua New Guinea her babies never would have been on the ground. Her whole family would have been up in the trees.” The mother kangaroo wanted to move the babies away from the humans. What looked like abnormal attacks on her young were actually her way of trying to protect them. Her behavior wasn’t mental illness at all but a response to the stress of being a mother in an unnatural environment. After the keepers redesigned the kangaroos’ cage so that more of it was elevated and farther from the door, she relaxed and stopped hitting her babies. Mel explained, “As flippant as it might sound, the truth is that in order to know what’s abnormal, you must first know what’s normal. In this case in order to determine pathology, I had to understand the animal’s psychology. It’s pretty easy for people to get this wrong.

4 tablespoons (2 ounces) olive, grape seed, or sesame oil 12 drops peppermint or lavender essential oil Mix together and put in a dark colored bottle. Magical Magnesium: A Natural Laxative With all the focus on calcium, this amazing mineral has been sadly overlooked. Magnesium helps to increase insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control, maintain a normal heart rhythm and blood pressure, and prevent migraine headaches and is actively involved in the contraction/relaxation of muscles. In addition to all the health benefits

The world was cruel and sudden. This he knew for sure. Relax for a moment, breathe in the scent of a rose, rest in the shade, pet a dog, take a sip of lemonade, fall in love with a dreamy-eyed girl or a haunted-faced man, and you are just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Buzzing around the lemonade, you’ll find flies. Follow the flies and you’ll find death.

We already touched upon one way to optimize sleep: turning off all the screens at least an hour before going to bed. Cell phones, computers, televisions—the constant flow of information doesn't allow our minds to feel any space and interferes with our sleep patterns. Instead of hooking up your brain to technology in the evening, try reading a book. Take a short, relaxed walk around the neighborhood at night. Spend some time with your partner or spouse, or your dog or cat, if you have one. Skeptical? Prove me wrong. Try disconnecting from all devices for an hour in the evening every day for a week, and see for yourself how you feel afterwards.

Cesar’s Rules FOR MASTERING THE WALK Leave and enter your house in front of your dog. Position in the pack is important. Don’t let your dog leave the house in an overexcited condition—make sure she is calm-submissive and in waiting mode before you open the door. Make sure you are the one to invite her outside and to trigger the activity. Walk with your dog behind you or next to you, not in front of you (though there is a time and a place for that), and definitely not pulling you or creating any tension on the leash. Make your walk a minimum of thirty minutes for older, lower-energy, or smaller dogs and forty-five minutes for larger or higher-energy dogs. Walk like a pack leader—head up, shoulders back. Your posture is part of the body language that your dog reads when assessing your energy. Keep your arm relaxed and the leash loose, as if you were holding a briefcase or pocketbook. Alternate between the formal, structured walk and short breaks for your dog to pee, sniff, and explore, which may even include short bursts of walking ahead of you. The key is for you to be the one to start and stop the behavior.

I walked to the Tube station and got on the train. I was meeting a man for dinner, someone I barely knew. He had got my number from a mutual friend. When I arrived at the restaurant he was already there, waiting. He was reading a book, which he relaxed in his bag before I could see the title. He asked me how I was and I found myself saying that I was very tired, to the extent that I might not have all that much to say for myself. He looked a little disappointed at this news, and asked if I wanted to hang up my coat. I said I would keep it on: I felt cold. There were builders in my house, I added. The doors and windows were constantly open and the heating had been turned off. The house had become like a tomb, a place of dust and chill. It was impossible to eat or sleep or work – there wasn’t even anywhere to sit down. Everywhere I looked I saw skeletons, the skeletons of walls and floors, so that the house felt unshielded, permeable, as though all the things those walls and floors ought normally to keep out were free to enter. I had to go into debt to finance the work – a debt I had no immediate prospect of being able to repay – and so even when it was done I wasn’t sure I would feel entirely comfortable there. My children, I added, were away. I told him the story of the Saluki dogs following the hawk: my current awareness of my children, I said, was similarly acute and gruelling, except that I was trying to keep sight of them on my own. On top of that, I said, there was something in the basement, something that took the form of two people, though I would hesitate to give their names to it. It was more of a force, a power of elemental negativity that seemed somehow related to the power to create. Their hatred of me was so pure, I said, that it almost passed back into love again.

Mary and Anne wore traditional women’s clothing around the sailors, but, when prepared for battle, they always dressed in men’s fashion. When called upon to fight, the two women would stand back-to-back, each holding a pistol in one hand and a machete in the other. They literally had each other’s back. For two months in 1720, Jack, Anne, and Mary ruled the seas, and their fame spread far and wide. (You may not realize it, but they are all recalled in modern culture; for instance, Jack flew a black flag with a skull and two criss-crossing sabers imprinted in white on it, and that is the stereotyped pirate flag used in movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean.) A bounty was on Calico Jack’s head, so both other pirates and government officials sailed the seas hoping to capture him. One evening after Calico Jack had captured a large Spanish ship, his crew was celebrating with alcohol and were so intoxicated that the crew of a British government ship was able to come aboard his ship unannounced. Most of Jack’s men were in the ship’s galley and immediately surrendered. Anne and Mary, who were upstairs relaxing with Jack in the captain’s quarters, fought until they were clearly overwhelmed. All the pirates were taken to prison and most sentenced to death.  Anne snarled in frustration as the men were led past her, “If you had just fought like men, you wouldn’t be hanging like dogs.” Anne and Mary, though, both escaped the death penalty – but not prison - because they were pregnant. Anne was found to be carrying Jack’s baby and Mary was carrying a crew member’s child. Mary got a fever and died in prison, but no one knows what happened to Anne.

However, remember that a fundamental criterion of emotional and behavioral health—not to mention enrichment—is agency. Forcing a dog to receive petting or massage against their will is the opposite of giving them control over their environment and outcomes. To the educated eye, the body language and behaviors being exhibited by those dogs are not bad or defective; they are communicating discomfort and stress in healthy, appropriate ways, and those signals are being ignored by the humans. Eventually the dogs learn that nothing they do changes their outcome, so they give up and lie still. That is the very definition of learned helplessness, not counterconditioning and desensitization, much less relaxation.

His honest feeling was that he wanted to lean against Varian’s legs, like a dog needing the comfort of its master’s hand. Rather than perform a series of social manoeuvers, he simply obeyed the instinct and sat down. The fact that he felt relaxed doing this surprised him greatly.

But I also thought of all the games I’d seen through the years—football, basketball, baseball—when one team had a big lead in the final seconds, or innings, and relaxed. Or tightened. And therefore lost. I told myself to stop looking back, keep my gaze forward.

Everyone is winning at the game of life, and I’m always left holding the crappiest hand. It’s not fair . . . I’m so sick of hearing about everybody else’s fast metabolism, relaxing vacations, fancy home renovations, and amazing dogs who don’t chew the couch . . . I wanted ALL that. Oh! Here she is again with her “I’ve lost the weight and I’ve got it all” posts . . . If I had a trainer, I’d look like that too . . . If he says “It’s so easy for me” one more time . . . I had the idea to start Uber 10 YEARS ago. I was getting around to it . . . It’s so much easier when you don’t have kids . . . If only my husband understood me . . . I’ve had a much harder life, and I don’t go flaunting it . . . Anyone can use a social media filter, try showing up IRL looking that good . . . Everyone is outdoing me and there’s no room for me to shine. It’s all over for me. I realize, now, that I wanted their success to be MY success. But they’ve grabbed

It’s how I relax. Meditate. Rejuvenate. Being with my dogs is putting spirituality into practice. I am fully ‘Present’ with them. And will never have a life without one or two or five or seven roaming ‘INSIDE this house’.” - Oprah Winfrey in the essay A Dog Like Lassie

As we slipped along over the hard-crusted snow, I watched my little gang of eight. Their furry ears turned backward to help keep the wind out. Their thick, bushy tails hung loosely, and their tough little padded feet moved lightly along. Even at twenty below, their coats keep them comfortably warm. Their tongues hung out just a tad to help them cool off. They where relaxed and happy, and watching them work was a beautiful sight.

She felt her whole body relax when the puppy turned crescent-shaped with glee and wiggled into her palm. She wished she could inject the furry oxytocin hit into her veins like a junkie. Thank God for puppies.

Morgan noticed that the dog was off leash and way ahead of the guy, and she instinctively tensed up as it ran toward where they were standing. Bernadette kept her eye on the dog as well, but Palmer was oblivious, sniffing something invisible in the sand. As the dog got closer, Morgan saw that he was carrying a piece of driftwood like it was a trophy, head up at an awkward angle to compensate for the weight of it. It was a beautiful black Lab, its coat wet with salt water. She relaxed when she realized that the dog hadn’t even noticed they were there, so focused on the joy of kicking up sand that nothing else mattered. It was the essence of dog happiness distilled to a moment, and Morgan’s heart pinched when she realized it was a pleasure that Hudson couldn’t experience. Yet. Someday he’s going to be able to race down the beach with wet fur and a smile on his face, carrying a piece of driftwood with a buddy like they’re running a relay race.

No animal has the same stripes. No human has the same fingerprint. So why try to be someone else? That's like slapping God in the face!

Scheduled Breaks I stick to my scheduled breaks each work day: 10:00-11:30am Dog-walk, breakfast, nap 1-2pm Light lunch and nap 4:30-6pm Snack, nap, and dog-walk My naps are about 20 minutes, where I simply lie down, relax, and breathe with good thoughts. Occasionally I fall asleep, but even if I don't, it feels good to just lie down for awhile.

You were history here when you were here,” said Jeff. “No offense, El. You’re a hungry puppy, always were a hungry puppy, and the world don’t like you hungry puppies. People are afraid you’re going to bite them.” “Why are you talking like a cracker radio commentator?” I said. “See, Bri, Ellen never relaxes. New York is her kind of place. An entire city of people who never relax, who were antsy in their own hometowns. So long, hungry puppy. Go where the dogs eat the dogs.

Lily is a rescue dog for two reasons,” Maggie Rose continued. I wagged again. “The first reason is that she was taken in by the shelter where my mom works, so she was rescued. And the second reason is that most days she goes back to the shelter to take care of all the animals there.” Maggie Rose started smiling and speaking a little more quickly. “Lily plays with the other dogs and helps them relax and not feel scared. She plays with the cats, too. She loves cats! Sometimes she curls up with the kittens and they sleep together. It helps because then the kittens don’t grow up to be scared of dogs, and they can get adopted into families with dogs.

If your barking dog is trying to control things, recognize it as a failed attempt to make your life better, then take a deep breath or two, squeeze your buttocks really hard for five seconds, and relax your entire body with a loud, audible, “Ahhhh.

Crate training is a must for any dog and will help with housetraining. I crate train all of my dogs. Crate training teaches your dog patience, and it becomes their den and safe space. It reduces stress, and keeps your dog out of trouble when you cannot supervise them. Crating a dog prevents and relieves Separation Anxiety issues, as they learn to relax when being alone.

If you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills, If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains, If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles, If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it, If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time, If you can overlook when people take things out on you when, through no fault of yours, something goes wrong, If you can take criticism and blame without resentment, If you can face the world without lies and deceit, If you can conquer tension without medical help, If you can relax without liquor, If you can sleep without the aid of drugs, Then you are probably a dog or a cat.

Creating physical balance is about getting our dog in an area where he can truly relax, explore, run, play, and be satisfied at the end.

We are also often tempted or advised by some trainers to use a ball or toy for recall and control, which in the right circumstances is great, but it should be limited or it too will lead to obsessive behaviour and pouncing and bouncing rather than sniffing and relaxing.

In 1974, Lyudmila decided to raise the experiment’s stakes by living with the foxes in the same house. To start, she chose a friendly fox called Pushinka. One evening, Lyudmila was sitting on a bench outside her home with Pushinka relaxing next to her as usual. Suddenly, Pushinka got up as if she had heard something and started barking. It turned out to be the night guard, and Pushinka stopped her aggressive posturing and barking when she realized that the guard posed no imminent danger to Lyudmila. This guard-dog-like behavior—rushing to protect a human from a potential threat—had never been observed before by Lyudmila.

On her back in the wet sand, winded and dazed, Harper stared at the animal. It stared back, watching with a soulful gaze before nudging its wet nose at her cheek. Something unknown possessed her right then, or fear left her. Rationalising was irrelevant. She wrapped the giant dog in a tight hug, astounded at his size but undeterred; he was so big that her hands couldn't meet. Blissfully warm and soothed, she naturally found his ears to scratch, and he relaxed against her hold, sighing in a way that begged the question: had he actually wanted her to hug him like a huge teddy bear?

But I’m still a bit edgy, so on the way to court, I stop at the Tara Foundation. Petting the dogs, throwing a tennis ball for them to fetch, things like that tend to relax me. The fact that their lives are so simple, their needs and their joys so obvious and uncomplicated, somehow helps clear my mind.

Coorie believes in looking out for ways to make the most of what's around us, creating coorie on the cheap is easy. An added bonus of many of these coorie activities is that they force us to slow down and ask deeper questions about where we are going and where we have been. They also encourage collaboration, whether that's spending time with our nieces and nephews baking cakes, taking our dogs for a walk, combing the beach for shells or chatting to older generations about the history of our country. There are countless ways to embody coorie into your days at work, days off, nights in the city and nights out in the wild.

common situation of visual miscommunication between people and dogs is when owners let their leashed dogs meet each other for the first time. The humans are often anxious about how the dogs will get along, and if you watch them instead of the dogs, you’ll often notice that the humans will hold their breath and round their eyes and mouths in an “on alert” expression. Since these behaviors are expressions of offensive aggression in canine culture, I suspect that the humans are unwittingly signaling tension. If you exaggerate this by tightening the leash, as many owners do, you can actually cause the dogs to attack each other. Think of it: the dogs are in a tense social encounter, surrounded by support from their own pack, with the humans forming a tense, staring, breathless circle around them. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen dogs shift their eyes toward their owners’ frozen faces and then launch growling at the other dog. You can avoid a lot of dogfights by relaxing the muscles in your face, smiling with your eyes, breathing slowly, and turning away from the dogs rather than leaning forward and adding more tension.

First, make sure your dog is in a calm and safe environment, their dog bed would do nicely. Gently stroke your dog on their head, back, and belly. Then repeat a soothing phrase to keep them relaxed, try 'good dog' or just the word 'relax'. It could take 10 minutes or 10 seconds, but your dog could already be hypnotised (or just super chilled out).

Look here, boy: I feel your pain. They ain’t never enough blueberries in them waffles. Damn near drive a man crazy. But you a grown man, dog, remember that. Fact is, you a well-grown man. And sometimes a man gotta bear up in the face of adversity. They’s a truckload of waffles not fifty feet from here, and they’re all you can eat. You’ll get your fill of blueberries. You just relax now, boy.