I dog ear my books like no other. Not to hold my spot like my mom does, but to hold something personal about the book that has captured me in such a way it makes since of life.

Roland Merullo has the talent to make pages dog ear like a dog waiting for his owner to take him for a walk or for his owner to come home. I thought I would share some of his work with you. Take it as you see fit.

Brian was a tall and wide-shouldered, handsome as a shirt model. He blinked twice and started to try to get us to buy drinks before we ate. I could see in his face and hear in his voice that he was the type of person who was nervous around people and pretended not to be. He'd built an elaborate personality over his nervousness. He'd developed an armor, an act, a defensive out-goingness. It was the kind of thing that made me dislike someone right away.

Isn't that the truth. We develop an act over our fears and our uneasiness, putting a coat of armor on daily.

"It's not a question of money, Ellory. Money just represents something else, n agreement to value one thing over another. Only children don't have this value put on them because children have one foot in the ocean and pay no attention. It terrifies us, this ocean. But the fear of drowning is absurd. We already are drowned."

Here a mother with Alzheimer's who once was a great doctor explains a thought in her mind. And though her mind really isn't here, I think it's one of the most brilliant statements one could make. She describes the truth of no longer being a child. At a certain time in life (it's a different age/time for each) we become a true adult. Responsibilities and money consumes us taking our feet and plugging into the ocean she describes with no preserver. It is very hard to find youth and that passion again, but I find some people with children or professions with children have the luckiest jobs ever, one I could not do (apparently I'm too grown up for my own good). They get to remember what it's like.

... His name was Peter. There was something wounded and friendly about him. We got onto the subject of children, and he told me he had three of them, two almost-grown boys and a girl. They had lived with their mother for a long time now, but everyone still got along pretty well. I asked him what he liked best about having children, and he thought for a few seconds and said, "It's the closest you can come to being the other person." And the, after another couple of seconds, "A lot of times, if you try, you can be who you really should be with them, who you want to be".

This was my favorite paragraph in this book. It made since. It explained the heart of why people have children. I always get a "don't you want a mini-me?" or "you'd be a great mom, why wouldn't you want to have kids?" But the more and more I hear it, it doesn't explain the passion the reason why. This "It's the closest you can come to being the other person." This make sense. When like at Herbie and I, I think of the wonderful quality my Herbie has inside and out. Then I think of some of my pluses and I think of all the possibilities for a child with those qualities... and I smile, shake my head, and say not to bad.

Merullo, may have just explained the key that I needed to decide if parenting is something we should do. Thank you Mr. Merullo you are gifted!

I get sentimental when I go to vote. ... I think: There's no country on earth anywhere near this good. And then, later, that it is a great country, and we have welcomed people from everywhere on earth, but that we somehow never really live up to our own grand rhetoric; that if we were half what we claimed to be, we'd long ago have cured every illness on the planet, and wouldn't have hungry kids in Kansas or the Bronx, and a million or two million people in prison. And so On. I think about the whole mad, spiritless rush we call the working week. I sink and sink.

I love voting. If I can vote, I'm there. It's my American right and I am blessed to have it. I think the America is the greatest country you can live in and if you don't think so visit our neighbors. Yes the have maybe different health care, lower prices, etc. But do they have the ability to slam their government and not get penalized? - God Bless America!

Amelia Rossi, it turned out, was one of those people that get their satisfaction in life from having guest in their house, cooking for them and watching them eat, making a fuss over them, making them happy. I remember reading that in some places, in ages past, opening your house to strangers had been considered an essential part of being human, an acknowledgment of some kind of invisible link. I like that kind of thing. I like warmth and uncalled-for kindness, the small unnoticed generosities that speckle the meanness of the world.

Amelia, is the person I hope one day I will become. (I already know a person very very similar to her). The person that says stay for dinner, even if there isn't enough. The person that calls a friend or family member when they know times are tough and ask to fill their belly's full of love. And finally the person that makes my home a familiar and friendly place to enjoy and be loved by food.

May your day be filled full of Ameilla lunches, and a foot in the sea

~ Margarit