Veronica is an old friend and former housemate of mine, and a former coworker too. She’s kind, generous, easygoing, and very resourceful. Once, when my sister was looking for a cat to adopt, Veronica conveniently found a cat who had just had kittens (in a tree, as it happens), and thus the cat need was fulfilled by a candidate with a real sense of adventure.

She (Veronica, not the cat) is a person I’ve always held in the highest regard, so I was very pleased when she reported that she’d met her true love, and would I like to be their wedding photographer? Of course I would! They’re married now, and you will find out about that later, but first things first: the engagement session.

At the Emeryville IKEA, the Red Bats ate Swedish meatballs and stared at shoppers like we were on safari. Maybe we need to get out of town more often? Then it was down to the parking garage to meet Veronica and Omar, and off to the harbor. The sun was setting, making a painterly backdrop for our shoot, and Veronica and Omar were looking quite spiffy. I’d had way too much coffee, and I was excited by seeing my friend happy with a sweet and funny guy, so I’m afraid I babbled like a fool. Nobody seemed to mind.

I really love the last photo in this post, by Patrick. It looks like it belongs on a motivational calendar, and I mean that in the best possible way. Anybody want to come up with a self-helpy caption for it?

When Gladys and Ed asked if they could include their dog in their engagement photo session, we said, “of course you can!” You may remember the lovely Alicia and Lawrence and Petey. This time the dog, who I think is named Chola, was much bigger. Too big to pick up, too big to squeeeeze! between their faces in mid-air, too big to anchor in one spot with anything as lightweight as a purse (all of which Alicia and Lawrence did with Petey). But not too big for smooches and loving cooing and the like.

After looking at these photos again, I got to thinking about the kind of love between humans that can expand to include a third, four-pawed party. This led me to read poetry about dogs, and I found the poem below, which I thought was wonderful. Especially the part about spiders breathing. I never thought about that before.

What The Dog Perhaps Hears

by Lisel Mueller

If an inaudible whistle
blown between our lips
can send him home to us,
then silence is perhaps
the sound of spiders breathing
and roots mining the earth;
it may be asparagus heaving,
headfirst, into the light
and the long brown sound
of cracked cups, when it happens.
We would like to ask the dog
if there is a continuous whir
because the child in the house
keeps growing, if the snake
really stretches full length
without a click and the sun
breaks through clouds without
a decibel of effort,
whether in autumn, when the trees
dry up their wells, there isn’t a shudder
too high for us to hear.

What is it like up there
above the shut-off level
of our simple ears?
For us there was no birth cry,
the newborn bird is suddenly here,
the egg broken, the nest alive,
and we heard nothing when the world changed.