Everyone knows that I am attached to my desk. I would argue I have good reason. My desk is an extension of myself. Whereas other people are attached to their phones, I frequently lose track of mine. (Just writing this made me wonder where it was. Don't worry; I found it.) My desk is my home inside my home.

I hear about people working from their couch or from their kitchen table or even from their bed and I cannot imagine it. My desk is always tidy. I always have fresh flowers sitting on it -- even if it's just a rose from the garden or a bouquet from the grocery store.

My desk came from a junk shop that my parents and I visited a few years ago. It's a child's desk and was painted fire engine red. It did not look promising.

But my dad knocked on the wood beneath the red paint. "It's solid maple," he declared. I bought it for $15. We took it to my dad's wood shop, refinished it, and I have used it ever since. One hot summer night, a fan came flying off the windowsill, making a deep gouge in the top. I sanded out the gouge, but then put water-soluble polyurethane on the surface. That was a mistake. The surface has begun to dissolve beneath my hands, peeling like a snake losing its skin.

So now my desk is getting refinished before it gets loaded into a big truck and taken to our new home. In the meantime, my husband, Peter, said I could use his reject computer desk, which is being left behind.

Peter's old desk had a storage tower on top, which he knew would get in my way, so he removed it. It also had a slide-out thingy the keyboard was supposed to sit on, and that was never going to work, so I yanked it out. Below that was a shelf, which bumped my knees, so I threw that away as well. There was one last brace I had to straddle, and Peter smashed it out with the back side of an ax.

I was still unsatisfied. The little desk rolled around every time I moved. I felt as if I was typing on a boat. "This isn't going to work!" I told Peter, who was doing his best to get his old desk to meet what seemed to me like minimal requirements: a stationary typing surface that my knees fit beneath.

Peter looked at me like I was the resident prima donna, then removed the wheels. Now all that remains is a small, gray box. I think it will work.

Meanwhile, I pulled out the drawers in my old maple desk and I noticed where the wood had warped and the construction was not the best. I wondered if I shouldn't just replace the old desk and start with something new in a new place.

But I remember all the time I've spent at the little desk, looking out one window or another, and I feel as if the old desk and I have too much invested in one another to part ways now. I wiped it down and was astonished how much coffee had managed to splash all over. I lined the drawers with cedar shelf paper and refinished the peeling top.

I'm imagining it in a new place, working on new projects, with fresh flowers sitting on it, and I know it will be fine.

I don't need the fanciest desk in the world. I just need a desk that's all mine.

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon’s memoir is called, “Blue Yarn.” Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

Tanner and Dakota are waiting for me.

They’re standing at the corner of their chain-link fence, watching the sidewalk. They know I’m coming, even if they don’t know exactly when, even if they can’t see the sidewalk very well and can’t hear at all.

Tanner and Dakota are my two oldest dog customers, dogs I give treats to nearly every day. My husband, Peter, has decided against paying the big bucks for high-priced dog treats full of questionable ingredients. He bought himself a dog-bone-shaped cookie cutter, did some research on the internet, and now he bakes healthy dog treats for me to take on my daily hike. As you might imagine, as the Treat Lady, I have a lot of loyal customers.

Some of the dogs have even tracked me to my home. Matilda, a pudgy corgi, knows where I live and pauses every time she walks by with her owners, licking her lips. One day, Snoopy, the giant Bernese mountain dog I meet on the trail, was walking by the house. Snoopy is now almost a year and a half old and weighs more than 170 pounds.

I told Peter, “That’s Snoopy!” and (probably unadvisedly) called out the front door, “Hey, Snoopy!” Snoopy stopped in his tracks and stared.

Darron and Monica, Snoopy’s owners, came and chatted on the stoop, and I thought no more about it. Snoopy, however, has a very good memory.

A few days later, we saw Darron and Monica and Snoopy passing (probably intentionally) on the other side of the street. Not wanting to be pests, we didn’t holler out the door. But we were watching Snoopy staring at our house and walking more slowly. Finally, he came to a dead stop on the sidewalk, still staring at our front door. We could see Darron tugging on his leash, and that’s when Snoopy decided to lie down. Snoopy went on strike.

There isn’t much you can do when a 170-pound dog has decided he is going to lie down on the sidewalk. We saw Darron and Monica’s growing frustration, and that’s when Peter yelled from the door, “Hey, Snoopy!”

Snoopy leapt to his feet and bolted straight to our door, dragging Darron down the steep hill in front of our house. Snoopy landed in a happy, panting pile on the stoop.

“You see?” he seemed to be saying to Monica and Darron. “We had to visit!” Snoopy is a very sweet dog.

All the dogs are sweet. Fergus, a cattle dog of some type, leaps into the air whenever he sees me on the trail and gives me a kiss on the face. His owner no longer says, “Stop, Fergus!” because there is no stopping Fergus from kissing me. Fergus loves the Treat Lady. And I really don’t mind at all.

As we prepare to leave this place, I think of all the dogs I am going to miss and I wonder if they will miss me. But I know there are dogs in every state, in every country, and every dog needs a treat. I don’t think I’ll stop being the Treat Lady, living somewhere else.

Tanner and Dakota are still waiting at the fence. I give them each a treat, and Tanner barks in excitement. His bark is loud and strange because he is deaf, but I can tell he is happy -- even if he can’t see me, even if he’s not entirely sure where this treat is coming from.

“You’re such a good dog,” I tell him, scratching his gray muzzle. “You deserve a treat.”

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon’s memoir is called, “Blue Yarn.” Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

It is a well-known fact that we are allowed to chew out the people we care about. Most recently, this came to mind when I gave my old friend, Andrew, a serious tongue-lashing.

Andrew is a lifelong bachelor, and a committed curmudgeon. He is better than most curmudgeons at being curmudgeonly because he started young. Andrew showed signs of being a grumpy old man when he was still in his 30s. But Andrew is no longer in his 30s, and this is what brought us to our recent conflict.

Andrew is not taking care of himself. He would argue this is not true, of course. He would say that he lives a healthy life and even eats vegetables on occasion. He rides his stationary bicycle on a nearly daily basis, and he has no bad habits -- which is probably true, except for the bad habit of ignoring the advice of his dearest and most concerned friend.

My problem with Andrew is that, like a lot of men, he does not go to the doctor. I’m betting every woman reading this right now is clucking her tongue in unison. I rarely make sexist generalizations, but I have observed that women seem to take the whole “going to the doctor before there’s anything wrong” thing a lot more seriously than men do unless there’s a woman nudging the man in the ribs. This brings us back to Andrew.

Andrew knows he’s supposed to see a doctor. He also knows he’s overdue for a colonoscopy, which he is not looking forward to, and so he dawdles and, eventually, he puts it out of mind completely -- until I remind him.

“You haven’t had a doctor’s appointment yet?” I ask, accusingly.

“I’ve been busy,” he says.

This is true. He has been busy lately, as he is a tax preparer and tax preparers are madly busy for about three months of the year. The rest of the year, however, he has been dawdling.

“So, have you had your annual exam yet?” I asked again, after he had a chance to rest up for at least two-and-a-half days. He did not answer.

I told Andrew if he died early of something preventable, I was going to give his eulogy and say, “He was an idiot and he got what he deserved!” and sit down.

I wouldn’t really do this. But I feel like it every time I hear he still hasn’t gone to the doctor.

Andrew will tell that you he is extraordinarily healthy. Logically, he knows this is no reason not to have a medical exam, but he will cite the fact that he has never had a cavity as evidence of his better-than-average health. There are no reputable studies linking an absence of cavities to immortality, that I am aware of, but Andrew clings to the conviction that he is not like the rest of us cavity-riddled mortals.

I checked my email to see if Andrew had written this morning. He has not. This means one of three things: He is still mad at me, he has not yet scheduled an appointment, or he is mad at me and has not scheduled an appointment.

But I am still nagging him.

I don’t care if he is angry with me because I don’t think he has anyone else nagging him to take care of himself, and I care about Andrew very much.

A person doesn’t get more than one friend like Andrew in their life. I’ve got to do everything I can to keep him around, complaining as long as possible.

Till next time,

Carrie

Carrie Classon’s memoir is called, “Blue Yarn.” Learn more at CarrieClasson.com.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION