My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman Read Online Free PDF

stellar accessories.
    If they had constellations in the shape of shoes and handbags, I’d be an astronomer.
    In fact, it makes you wonder if there are enough women astronomers. I have a feeling that if there were, we’d see fewer dippers and bears in the sky and more eyelash curlers and mascara wands.
    I would never be outside on a freezing night if it weren’t for these doggies, and believe it or not, that’s fun, too. The air is pure and clean, and it’s easy to forget how cold it is if you’re bundled up. The sky in winter is the color of frozen blueberries, and last night was almost starless except for a full moon, so bright that when it shone through the bare tree limbs, it cast jagged moonshadows on the frozen ground, like lightning.
    I like to look up at the sky because my only other choice is looking down, at what the dogs are doing. And it doesn’t get more earthbound.
    When they’re finished, we go in, lock up, and trundle upstairs, where everybody falls into position. Penny and Ruby take opposite corners, anchoring the bed, and Peach and Little Tony take their places on my left and right, anchoring me.
    Peach cuddles like crazy, curling in the crook of my elbow or against my neck. They say Cavaliers are lap dogs, but that’s not true. They’re really neck dogs. Face dogs. Cheek dogs. They want to breathe the same air as you, at the exact same moment, like the stalkers of the dog world.
    And you know what?
    It’s kinda great.
    And Peach, especially, is so calm. She never yaps or growls, and is somehow the one who keeps her head when all the dogs around her are losing theirs.
    Which has been known to happen at night.
    Anybody who sleeps with dogs knows that they bark at squirrels, deer, and whatever else is out there. Or they start scratching and shake the bed. Or they shift positions and squirm around. Or they have doggie dreams that make them yelp. Or they decide to clean themselves, and the sound of their licking will wake you up, then gross you out.
    If you sleep with dogs, it won’t be the best night’s sleep.
    But somehow, it won’t matter.

Bizarro Birthdays
    I just got off the phone with Mother Mary, who’s lost her mind. Or maybe it’s Scottoline birthday madness.
    Let me explain.
    She told me a story that happened to her that day, when she was going outside to do the laundry.
    Yes, you read that right.
    She lives in Miami with brother Frank and she goes outside to do the laundry because they keep their washer and dryer in the backyard.
    This makes no sense to me, but she swears that it’s common in Florida to keep major appliances in the backyard, like shrubs with twenty-year warranties.
    Still, it’s hard for me to believe. I suspect that my mother and brother are redneck Italians.
    But never mind, that’s not the point of the story.
    So Mother Mary is going outside to put in a load of laundry and she sees one of her neighbors, a nice young woman, walking her two-year-old son by the hand. My mother stops to say hello, and the little boy looks up at her with big blue eyes and says:
    “I love you, Mary.”
    So of course my mother melts, because she loves kids, and she even gets choked up telling me on the phone. The whole story is sounding really sweet until she gets to the next part, which is when she asks the mother of the toddler when is his birthday, and the woman answers:
    November 23.
    Okay, means nothing to you, but that’s brother Frank’s birthday.
    And on the phone, my mother tells me: “I looked at that little boy, and I thought he was like Frank. Like he has your brother’s soul.”
    I thought I heard her wrong. “Pardon?”
    “When he said he loved me, I looked into his eyes and I could see his soul, and it was Frank’s soul.”
    “You mean they’re alike?”
    “No, I mean they’re the same.”
    I tried to deal. “You’re kidding, right?”
    “No. I’m telling you, he has the same exact blue eyes as Frank and he was born on the same day. He has Frank’s