Buffy, A Little Fuzz-Ball Of Home

 There are many things that make a place a home, like the inanimate objects that fill the space and the familiar smells and sound. However all of these things are made meaningful by the people who inhabit a home and in this way home lies not with objects or a building but rather with the people.

During the first tow weeks of August I took a class at Boston University. This was a nice opportunity to enrich my teaching as well as spend some time in another great city. Diana decided to come along and we also brought Buffy.

We had taken Buffy to stay with us with my mom in Seattle but this was a different situation. Diana and I subletted an apartment in Brookline, a suburb of Boston. While this one bedroom apartment was a great deal and more than functional, it lacked the many of the comforts of home that my condo and my parents house possessed.

For example, there wasn’t an in-unit laundry machine and the kitchen had much older appliances. While these things aren’t that big a deal, after 7 hours of class these little things begin to wear on you a little bit. There’s also the added stress of living in a new city and figuring out the mass-transportation, which while exciting is draining.

Buffy in general did really well staying in a new place, but she did act a little differently. At home when I leave in the morning Buffy barely seems to notice but when I left from the apartment she would whine to Diana concerned about where I had gone. There were a couple nights when Buffy had trouble settling down and we would have to bring Buffy up to the bed and cuddle with her to help her fall asleep.

While Buffy needed us to feel comfortable her presence and her spirit really helped us get through our day. When Diana was doing work in the apartment Buffy kept a watchful eye on her and Buffy greeted me more eagerly than usual whenever I came back to the apartment after class.

When Diana and I got married we became a family outside of our previous immediate family. The thing is that it wasn’t until we got Buffy that we really felt like a family.  In the same way it wasn't until Buffy came into our lives our condo felt like a home. This may be hard for people to understand who have never had a dog, but it’s like, well, it’s not like anything else and I guess that’s what makes it so special.

Buffy needed us to feel safe and comfortable in that environment and we really needed Buffy to well, do the exactly same thing for us. In this way by bringing Buffy with us to Boston we brought our home.