When you adopt a dog, you have a lot of very good days and one very bad day.

When you have a half slice of chocolate pie, it's as if you owe yourself the other half - what's known in medical circles as a 'caloric deficit.'

I've always thought that I'd make a pretty good police officer, except maybe for the danger part. I have a rare medical condition that makes it difficult for me to risk getting shot, so probably I'd have to be one of those officers who work in 'do not shoot' areas.

I don't think my father considered allowing a teenager to follow his dreams was necessarily good parenting, or even parenting. I think he thought I was a teenager with teenage impulses. I'm pretty sure he knew that if he just let me follow those impulses, it would wind up being very expensive and perhaps even life-endangering.

Parenting is difficult under any circumstances, and in my father's view, to raise a morally upright and honest child, you sometimes have to lie to him.

When we adopt a dog or any pet, we know it is going to end with us having to say goodbye, but we still do it. And we do it for a very good reason: They bring so much joy and optimism and happiness. They attack every moment of every day with that attitude.