Thomas:

Occasionally, life works as it should.

On Thursday, I brought home a puppy. For the past year and a half, I'd been saving for one. I knew that when the last of the bunnies died, I'd grieve and save and a year or so after, I'd get a small dog. Of course, I didn't anticipate what happened in October and the horror of adjusting to it.

The puppy is a five and a half month-old blue Pomeranian and, as I've written elsewhere, he's smarter than most drummers and sweeter than cupcakes. The morning I picked him up, I was running pre-puppy errands and accidentally dropped my wallet, laden with cash, my ATM card and credit cards. A stranger named Sarah found it, turned it in and refused the $100 reward I insisted upon. She could have ruined me. Instead, she made a meaningful day that much more so.

She found my wallet on Thomas Street. So I named the puppy "Thomas" in honor of kindness, small miracles and fresh starts.