MY BEST FRIEND WILLOW: A CHARACTER REFERENCE ~*~ misa.beauty

MY BEST FRIEND WILLOW: A CHARACTER REFERENCE

posted by MISA ✿ 8:26 PM ✿ mood: exhausted (the good kind) ✿ best friends: one (1)

Misa lying flat with her chin on a brown quilted couch cover while Willow, a large white labrador, sits upright beside her facing the camera, a kitchen with a pale yellow fridge behind them — Willow, right, sitting up for the camera as though the camera has ever once led to anything. Me, left, conserving energy. One of us has done this before.

I have been asked to provide a character reference, and I am going to, and I want it noted that I am doing so voluntarily, which is not a word that gets used about me very often.

This is Willow. She is a labrador, like me, except white, which I understand was not her decision. She belongs to a friend of daddy's — daddy has a friend; I have checked; it's confirmed — and every so often she comes over, and when she comes over the day is cancelled and replaced with Willow.

She is my best friend. I don't say that lightly. I own one stick, one hedgehog, one couch, two people and now one (1) best friend, and I would like the inventory updated.

Willow, a large white labrador, with her tongue hanging out and one front paw in a round stone water bowl on a sunny flagstone patio beside a white wall — Willow, drinking. She drinks water by standing in it. I have questions about this. I have not asked them.

Here is what we do. We play. That's it. That's the whole agenda. We play in the yard and we play on the deck and sometimes we go to the beach together, and I want to address the beach, because regular readers will know my position on the sun and may be confused.

The beach is different. The beach has the ocean in it, and the ocean, as far as I can tell, is a cold air machine that somebody left on and forgot to put a door on. You can walk straight into it. Nobody says "later." Nobody says "off." It is the only cold air I have ever been allowed to enter without filing anything first, and I would like whoever is in charge of it to know that I have noticed and I approve.

We play until one of us falls over. Then the other one falls over, out of solidarity. Then we drink an enormous amount of water — Willow does this by putting her whole foot in it, see above — and then we go back to playing, because neither of us has ever once learned anything, and I think that is what friendship is.

Misa and Willow, a large white labrador, standing on their hind legs with their front paws up on the open side doorway of a brown UPS truck parked on a gravel lane under olive trees — Joint inspection. Note the door: open. Note the boxes: unsupervised until we arrived. Note the snack: absent.

She also assists with my work. This is a photograph of the brown truck being inspected by two dogs, which is one more dog than it has ever been inspected by, and which I think sends a message. The door was open. I have never seen the door open. There were boxes in there and there were shelves, and there was — I checked thoroughly, I had my whole head in — no snack. Not one. Zero snacks, now divided between two dogs. I asked the cat whether zero divided by two is still zero, and she said nothing, which I took as a yes.

The poodle was invited to assist. The poodle opened one eye, from the blanket, and closed it again. I love her. She was not helpful.

Overhead view of Willow, a large white labrador, stretched on her side across a couch draped in a brown quilted cover, with Misa lying curled below her — The crash, from above. She is on the couch under licence. The licence is mine to grant and I have granted it, and I want that understood.

Misa curled asleep at one end of a couch under a brown quilted cover and Willow, a large white labrador, asleep with her chin down at the other, a kitchen with a pale yellow fridge behind — Approximately four minutes later. Nobody in this picture is available for comment.

And then, every time, it ends the same way. We come inside. We get on the couch. And we are asleep before anyone can say "off the couch, Misa," which is a sentence that now has to be said twice, and is, and doesn't work either time.

I want to be clear about the couch, because I have taken a public legal position on the couch and I stand by it. The couch is mine. Willow is on it under licence. The licence is revocable, non-transferable, and has never once been revoked, and it won't be, because she is my best friend and she is asleep and she is warm.

✎ Willow, if somebody reads this to you in a voice: come back soon. Bring nothing. You have never brought anything and it has been perfect.