LMNOP

Dear Dog-a-Day Calendar,

 I'm writing this letter to thank you for the excellent work you've done while sitting on my office desk for the past few months.  I have not been this happy with a calendar since those Far Side ones I used throughout every year of high school, until I got to college and stopped caring about lame things like what day of the week it was.

Your method is not complicated: every day, I get a new dog picture from you, along with some kind of caption about the dog, or a whimsical quote about dogs and dog ownership.  Plus--and this is the thing that also makes you a calendar--the upper left corner of each calendar page also tells me that day's date.  The pictures are always adorable, and the quotes are usually spot-on.  Last month, for example, I couldn't help but nod in agreement that the April 9 Irish Setter did indeed look like "the picture of leisure" on that white sofa he was sitting on.  And I chuckled when, on January 15, you showed me a picture of a terrier carrying a suitcase and conjectured that it must have contained "everything he needs for a fabulous trip."  I bet you're right!

Sometimes, you give me interesting facts about dog breeds, like on February 18, when you told me that Salukis are an ancient breed once known as the Persian Greyhound.  Other times, you just state the truth, plan and simple--like on February 26, when you presented me with a sleeping Labrador puppy and reminded me that "Being cute is hard work!"  I appreciate these bits of wisdom almost as much as that miniature dachshund on April 13 must have appreciated his miniature rocking chair.

One thing you may not know, dear calendar, is how hard I had to work to get you in the first place.  I saw you on a coworker's desk, proudly displaying that day's picture of a bulldog puppy in a swing (January 5 was the date, as I'm sure you recall); I knew at that moment that I had to have my very own Dog-a-Day calendar.  But it was already mid-January, and you were sold out everywhere I looked!  Finally, I found one remaining copy available for purchase from a dubious online retailer whose site was done entirely in Comic Sans.  I was slightly afraid of giving my credit card information to this merchant, but I'm glad I did--because nine days later, you arrived at my door.  I immediately brought you to my office and set you on my desk, where you remain to this very day.

You are often the first thing people comment on upon entering my office, unless I happen to have my sweater on backwards.  I love that I am often able to avoid work conversations entirely by instead distracting coworkers with conversations about dog pictures.  I owe this to you.  But that is not all you've given me.

Dear calendar, I love you because you make me dream big.  I now aspire to live in a world where we discard our lame system of remembering important dates by calling them stupid things like "Monday," "April 11," and other predictable crap.  Instead, I look forward to a world in which we standardize the dog calendar as our method of tracking time, and I can proudly describe my birthday not as "Tuesday, May 18," but as "Airedale Terrier Carrying a Stick in His Mouth Day."  Wouldn't it be nice if I could order people to bring me their status reports "by the time the tiny Pomeranian in a pink bicycle basket appears?"  Think of how much more pleasant the world would be.

Dog calendar, I realize that we will not be together forever; when 2010 runs out, so does our time together.  But we still have more than half of the year to go, and I continue to look forward to seeing you every morning.

Yours till 2011,

Lauren