Orca on Bougyman's Ramblings

Ready, If

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:31:22 -0500

The dogs are here.
I’m here.
The patio is doing its best impression
of an oven with bar service.
The sun,
respectfully,
can GTFO
any minute now.
No big plan.
No pressure
on the night
to become anything
it ain’t got the umphf for.
Just me.
The dogs.
A free answer
tucked in my pocket,
thanks to your good eye
catching the trivia troupe
slipping one on Instagram.
Which feels
like exactly
the kind of advantage
we should _absolutely_
pretend not to have.
Meanwhile,
Rusty the Rooster
got Karened out of Oscar’s
after two months…
working the parking lot like he paid rent.
Apparently,
Rusty gotta go.
Which feels dramatic,
even for a rooster.
So, here we are.
A little hope
panting beside
the water bowl.
Ready,
if you are.
Still here,
if you’re not.

Overtime Hug

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 21:28:22 -0500

You’re sad tonight.
Not movie sad.
Not pretty sad.
The real kind.
Your aunt is gone,
and that sentence doesn’t get easier
no matter how plainly it says itself.
The kind that sits down
beside a person
and makes the air
heavier…
than it was
a minute ago.
I don’t know
what a rambling
is supposed to do
with a night like that.
I know better
than to try to explain grief
back to the person carrying it.
So I offered
the only medicine
I had in stock:
puppy therapy.
The pups are on the patio,
doing their terrible best
to be licensed professionals.
Noses.
Leashes.
Water bowls.
The occasional suspicious crumb.
Irby’s around me,
Patrick “Overtime”
grinning from the photo
like he already knows
the bit is gonna write itself.
The NHL game above us
tied three-three
late enough
for everybody
to start feeling
the word overtime
sitting there with its hand up.
And me,
phone near,
laptop open,
trying to build
the closest thing I can make
to arms
out of patio noise
and ordinary words.
This isn’t the hug
I want to give you.
Not the full one.
Not the one
where your shoulders
finally get permission
to stop doing work they didn’t ask for.
Not the one
where the world
has to wait outside
until I’m done holding you steady.
But it’s tonight’s version.
A little dog warmth.
A little bar light.
A little hockey clock
trying to decide
how dramatic it wanted to be.
A little Patrick
taking the edge off
by existing exactly
…as Patrick.
A little King Ron
in the Canada GP chat
inviting us to F1 Arcade on Thursday,
because apparently grief doesn’t get the whole calendar.
And maybe that’s mercy.
Not enough.
Never enough
for a loss like this.
But something.
A corner of the night
that still knows how to be ridiculous.
A group chat
throwing a small rope across the dark.
A puppy
putting her whole body
into the job of reminding us
warm is still a thing the world can be.
Then Carolina found the fourth.
No overtime.
Canes, four-three.
Series even, two-two.
Sometimes the clock
lets a thing end in regulation
even when the room
was already bracing for extra.
We know a little something
about extra time.
About nights
that refuse to end
while the heart
still has work
on the ice.
About staying
a little longer
because somebody
needs somebody
to stay.
Tomorrow,
maybe the Spurs
can do the same thing.
Even the series, pull one back.
Make the whole thing
feel possible again.
And maybe,
if the day behaves
and the sad is willing
to sit beside us
without taking
_every_ inch
of the couch,
we’ll watch that one together.
You.
Me.
Pups in the room.
The game pretending
it’s the main event.
Mari,
I can’t make this lighter by naming it right.
I can’t put enough clever
around the sadness
to sneak it
out the side door.
I can only sit here,
with the pups,
with Overtime,
with the game,
with this dumb blessed patio,
and keep a place open
for you
in the middle of it.
Not fixed.
Not solved.
Just held.
This is the patio version of a hug.
For as long
as tonight needs.
And if you
need extra,
okay.
I’ve got extra.

Cuddle Quarter

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 07:49:52 -0500

Monday did
what Mondays do.
First grooming for Orca.
Goodbye,
puppy eye crusties.
Then back to 325 Paces,
where Lily rolled in,
Orca's pal for the week,
while her momma chased beach time
down Panama City way.
By evening,
you were the question mark.
Not feeling so hot.
All day.
The kind of text
that makes a whole plan
wobble on its little legs.
I thought maybe
the night was done
before it got to be a night.
Then tip-off got close.
Knicks and Spurs.
Game three.
New York up two
after stealing both
in San Antonio.
And there you were,
somehow,
still you.
“Should I bring Coal?”
Absolutely.
Bring Coal.
Bring yourself.
Bring whatever version of Monday
can still make it
through this rain.
Because the patio was perfect.
Light crowd.
Wet air.
All-day rain
doing that soft little miracle
other people call weather
but I call: magic sky water.
Mojave kid.
Vallarta years.
I still can’t get enough
of the thing
I spent so long
wishing the sky would do.
We watched the first half
from Irby’s patio
with all the pups
tucked into the edges
of the game.
Then Taco Bell to the door.
The walk across to 325,
food,
couch,
dogs.
Then apparently
basketball happened
somewhere in the room.
I know this
because you stayed awake
like a professional
and woke me
one minute from the final whistle.
Spurs pulled it off.
Clawed one back.
Made it look
like a competition again.
Good.
And after all that,
after the rain,
after the pups,
after the Taco Bell,
after the quarter I absolutely didn’t witness…
you left the way you always do.
Clean.
Easy.
One quick hug
that somehow
doesn’t make a production
of being exactly what I needed.
Perfect Monday.
Even the part I slept through.
Maybe… especially the part I slept through.

The Smile Doubleheader

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 06:32:14 -0500

You made it.
After the Braves game,
after Atlanta handled business
six to three,
after the day had already
given me enough reasons to call it good,
you made it to Irby’s 8th anniversary party.
You on the patio.
Beautiful Saturday night.
The kind that gets loose
around the edges
until nobody remembers
exactly when
the clock stopped mattering.
We hung out
until I can’t remember when.
Which is probably
the right official timestamp
for a night like that.
Braves win.
Irby’s turns eight.
Orca holds court
on her new little couch,
tiny monarch in a harness,
surrounded by patio legs,
chair noise,
and people
pretending not to melt.
I sent the picture
to the Canada GP group chat,
because some things
are obviously international news.
There she was:
Orca,
couch-secured,
patio-approved,
cute enough to interrupt multiple time zones.
And there you were too.
That smile.
That voice.
That you.
Not the cuddle kind of visit.
Not the close-the-door
and disappear
kind of visit.
But still—
Saturday Mari.
And today,
if the plan behaves,
Sunday Mari.
The smile doubleheader.
First pitch:
Irby’s patio,
Braves already in the win column,
Saturday night
doing Saturday night things.
Second game:
Yeppa in Buckhead
for the Monaco GP.
Apex might show.
Probably not.
Still,
Monaco on,
Buckhead awake,
coffee or whatever
passes for race fuel at brunch.
Then the handoff.
You’ll take Orca
while I pick up King Ron
for Braves versus Pirates.
Go Braves.
Another game.
Another little relay
where the day keeps moving
through people I’m lucky to have in it.
And yes, I know.
These ain’t
the visits
I want most.
No slow collapse
into the couch.
No long hug
that makes the week surrender.
No full quiet
where the rest of the world
can go be wrong
somewhere else.
But sometimes
the smile is enough
to keep my own
stuck there
all day.
Sometimes
the voice is enough
to make the whole day
stand up straighter.
Sometimes
just seeing you
across the moving parts
of a busy weekend
still counts in big bright numbers.
Saturday Mari.
Sunday Mari.
Not the cuddle kind.
Still the kind
that keeps me grinning
like my team
just won both games.

The Good Daydreams

Sat, 06 Jun 2026 07:46:58 -0500

Monday through Wednesday
gave us the patio version
of exactly enough.
Orca tumbling around
with all sixteen weeks
of her giant miniature confidence.
Coal holding court
with eleven years
of black-lab wisdom
and the kind of sigh
that says:
I have seen puppies before.
NBA on.
NHL on.
The evenings doing
that easy little thing
where nothing dramatic happens
and somehow
everything feels placed
exactly where it belongs.
You.
Me.
The dogs.
The patio.
Games filling the edges
while the middle
stayed soft.
Wednesday night, (damn, girl)
you put Mr. “For Dog’s Sake” on notice.
Really put him there.
Held the line
with the kind of clarity
I wish the water bowls had gotten sooner.
And maybe it landed.
Thursday,
he came back clean.
Thoroughly apologetic.
Not just to me,
but to some others
he’d wronged along the way.
I hope it matters.
I hope it becomes a real turn,
not just a scared apology after impact.
For his sake.
For everybody’s.
It’s gonna be a while
before trust
knows where to sit
in that room again.
But a start
is a start.
Meanwhile,
your Thursday got tangled
in one of those time crunches
that eats the good part
right off the calendar.
So you didn’t make it
to Irby’s patio
for that one.
Friday came,
another day
swallowed by the schedule.
Orca and I held it down.
Not the same.
Still sweet.
’Cause we met Riley and Bear
for the first time
that won’t be the last time.
Eight-pound Orca.
Eighty-pound Riley.
Best friends
from the jump.
Bear standing back,
trying to figure out
how to be a dog that big.
And still,
the phone kept doing
its tiny mercy:
*ding*.
A little thread-light.
A little Friday-you
arriving in pieces,
enough to make the patio
not empty,
not exactly full.
Still…
missing the obvious ingredient.
And now—
Saturday morning is here,
doing that rude little thing
where the sun comes up…
like it didn’t notice
I miss you like crazy.
Two days apart
is nothing for us.
We’ve done distance.
We’ve done flights.
We’ve done time zones,
delays,
whole cities,
whole states,
whole _countries_,
getting in the way.
But two days
is still two days
when it’s the two days
between me and your smile,
your voice,
your hug,
your you.
That’s the part
the calendar
keeps failing to understand.
Tomorrow,
you’ll watch Orca
while I do the Braves game
with King Ron and the Northside boys.
Which is kind.
Which helps.
Which is also
just enough of you
to be a tease.
Monday,
if the universe can manage
not to trip over itself,
should be cuddle time.
Finally.
Until then,
I’ll take what I can get.
The memory
of patio nights.
The sound
of both dogs settling.
The way you make
a normal week
feel like it has
somewhere better to go.
And if I can’t have
the smile,
the voice,
the hug,
the you…
then fine.
I’ll hope
for a _lot_
of the good daydreams.