Story for the Week
I wonder all the time what our dogs think about me. Every day brings a new face, a new demand, a new tantrum. And I can’t help but wonder what goes through their minds when they look at me.
Don’t get me wrong. I know I’m the favorite. Corinne and Rodolfo might argue otherwise, but I’m the one who’s home with them all day. I’m the one they bug to go out…even when other people are sitting directly next to the patio door. 🙄
We have three dogs. Our 5½-year-old shih-poo Oreo was supposed to be for Corinne after her dad died. But I was home on leave when Corinne went back to school. She didn’t want to get up with him during the night. So now he still sleeps with me and is sitting at my feet as I write this.
Oreo has a million different personalities depending on what he wants. If I ignore him when he wants to go outside during the night, he crawls up onto my chest and bats at my chin with his paw. If I ignore him, he bats a little harder. If I continue to ignore him, he will put his paw on my mouth and leave it there until I get up. He growls if I am working on my laptop on the recliner because he seems to think there isn’t enough room for him between my feet.
He will regularly just plop down somewhere and seems like he’s pouting. And sometimes…when everyone is doing their own thing…he just puts himself to bed. I can’t count the number of times I walked through the house looking for him only to find him curled up asleep next to my pillow. I mean…it’s just so freakin’ cute.
Kikyo, our Samoyed who technically belongs to my brother-in-law, just turned four. Rodolfo can be sitting in the kitchen…literally right next to the patio door. Kikyo still comes to me to let her out, no matter where I am in the house. When I get up to let her out, Rodolfo says, “she didn’t tell me.” I know she didn’t because, as far as she is concerned, I am the door master. Kikyo sleeps in a variety of places around the house at night, and Rodolfo must leave his door open or she will whine. But if I leave my door open, she sleeps in my room. As I write this, she is sleeping on the couch in the living room where I am. Rodolfo is in his room. 🤷🏼♀️
Finally there’s Isadora, our Havapoo who will be three in May. When we brought her home, Corinne told me that she was stealing my dog because I stole hers. So she did the overnight treks outside and the night-time cuddles. But then she went to Liverpool for a semester, and Isadora slept in my room every night…much to Oreo’s dismay. Isadora sleeps in Corinne’s room most nights now, and she’s fine once she gets there. But when Corinne comes to get her, Isadora jumps away from her or resists…because she would prefer to sleep in my room. 😉 And right now, as I write this, she is literally on my laptop while Corinne is in her bedroom.
And yet…there is still a part of me that wonders what each of the dogs think of me when they look at me. Isadora likes to give the side-eye. Kikyo just loves getting special attention…unless it’s from Isadora, which is when we get a look that seems to say, “Can’t you do something about this?”
In the book reviewed below, one of the characters owns a Whippet and has a dog sitter who insists on dressing him up in clothes that she has knitted. “Noy looks perplexed and it may be Kate’s imagination, but he seems to be looking at them, brows drawn together and a ‘why me?’ expression in his eyes.”
And there are people in the world who think pets are just pets without emotion. That really couldn’t be further from reality, because if mine could talk…. Well, let’s just not go there, shall we? 🤫
Book Review
⭐⭐
2 Stars for Six Little Words by Sally Page
386 pages
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Publication Date: February 24, 2026
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing.
Publisher’s Description
Can one small note give her the courage to find a new path?
Kate gave up her dreams of being a painter years ago. But six little words pinned to the bulletin board of her local café could change her path forever.
“To be, or not to be”—printed on an orange card with no explanation—appears one morning.
Each day, a new line from a different Shakespeare play is added, sparking curiosity throughout the café. Among the regulars is Bardy, a retired English teacher grappling with writer’s block.
As Kate and Bardy follow this breadcrumb trail, they discover a local community group encouraging people to rediscover their own creative spark—and the long-lost courage to chase it.
For Kate, their new group might just offer a second chance at happiness, if only Bardy can find the strength to share his story too….
************
Main Characters:
- Kate – mid-50s, divorced from Doug who moved to California 12 years before, has three daughters, finished treatment for breast cancer four years ago, lost her older sister Alice to the same breast cancer, had been a well-known painter for a while after her mother died, has struggled to paint recently
- Bardy (Jon) – early 60s, retired English teacher, has the surname Shakespeare which is how he earned the nickname Bardy, taught all three of Kate’s daughters, divorced from Hana five years ago after 30 years of marriage, has two grown sons who recently moved to New Zealand and Hana wants to move there as well
- Pia – an attorney who has started working from home more so she relocated from London
- Luigi (Lou) – owns a local cafe, Bardy’s best friend since they were eight years old and the only person who calls him Jon, his wife Tina passed away four years ago from leukemia
- Tay – 17 years old, works part-time at the cafe and at a call center while studying at university, her mother was fostered by Bardy and Hana on and off until she was 14 so they feel like foster grandparents to her
- Leonard and Linda – late 70s, Leonard is a birdwatcher, Linda is a retired palliative care nurse
- Satya and Jack – late 30s, Satya is a photographer and runs an online beauty and wellness company, married to Jack who was one of Bardy’s son’s best friends, they have three sons
Trigger warning: grief, cancer, divorce
I expected something completely different from this book based on the description. It’s true that Kate and Bardy discover the line from Shakespeare on the bulletin board in the cafe one day…and again the next day. And they join a group of people inspired to explore their creativity. But there seems to be very little exploration of Kate painting or Bardy writing.
Don’t get me wrong. The focus on the group as a whole makes for some deep conversations, people coming together to confide in one another, to talk about how they got to where they are. But this was a long, drawn-out story, and everyone had a sob story. It was actually kind of depressing.
The chapters alternate between Kate and Bardy’s points of view. The Prologue introduces us to the time 39 years prior when Bardy met Hana (which is pretty irrelevant to the story 39 years later), and we learn that Bardy experiences certain people as colors. I imagine it’s supposed to seem something like an aura. Hana is a golden yellow. Tay is red ochre. Kate is silver when he sees her in the cafe. And Lou’s wife Tina was citrus orange. This is Bardy’s secret. The only person who knows is Lou.
While it is an interesting character trait for Bardy, I don’t feel like it really adds anything to the story. He is, after all, a writer, not a painter. Hana taught art and color, and Kate is an artist, but Bardy’s talent is the written word. It just didn’t make sense to me that this was such a big part of his story, and the further I got into the book, the less I liked this part of him.
As far as Kate goes, she seems to be a bit of a busy body…and a judgmental one at that. She was always wanting to know everyone else’s business, always pushing people in a direction she felt was right—all the while keeping a secret from everyone she claimed was a friend. I just didn’t find her very likable…and that made me feel bad because she’s grieving the loss of her sister as well as still really embroiled in a post-cancer treatment life. It feels wrong somehow to not like someone who’s going through that, but I really didn’t like her much.
In terms of structure, the author divides the book into nine weeks. Each week begins with a snippet about a type of bird. For the story, the group gathers each week to inspire one another in their preparation for a creative contest. We know that Leonard is a birdwatcher, and during one week, he takes everyone on a bird-watching adventure. But the tie-in to the birds opening for each section of the book and the Shakespeare quotes at the beginning of each chapter really didn’t work for me.
And as much as I’m a Shakespeare fan, I would have appreciated an annotation for each quote in terms of which piece it came from. Shakespeare wrote nearly 40 plays, and most of the quotes were not that familiar. The author started with “to be or not to be” (the six little words), but the vast majority were unfamiliar to me. The references would have been helpful.
At the end of the day, this took me a long time to get through because I didn’t enjoy it. The story drags out and feels like one big trauma dump between the characters as they get together each week. This one is a pass.
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