Suzanne Schaffer

 Zoey - August 10, 2020 When we found her I didn't realize I needed her. Sure, she needed us, she was living in woods, alone, surviving on whatever she could find. She was nine months old, the vet later told me when I took her in for a check-up, still unsure I wanted to keep this undernourished mutt. We'd been on vacation in southwest Missouri, near the Arkansas border, in the middle of the woods. I was on the porch when I saw her trotting down the dirt road. A little brown dog. I whistled and she stopped to look at me from across the lawn. Then she continued on her way. Later that night, the family was watching a movie we'd brought (no cable service out there!) and suddenly this furry face popped up in the window, scaring my husband out of his seat. We fed her some people food and went to bed.  She was still there in the morning. We asked around and no one knew where she came from. We fed her some more and she stayed. The next day we went and bought some dog food, f...

As a young child I went through the dreaded allergy testing where they pricked my arms and back with different known allergens and waited for a reaction. My biggest reaction was to citrus foods, which crushed my mother as she'd always nursed every cold or sniffle with orange juice. I was okay knowing this was bad since I didn't like orange juice anyway.  So life went on. I could walk right by Orange Julius in the mall without any sorrow since orange wasn't my fave. But along came summer. And fresh-squeezed lemonade, served in big sizes at the county fair. I looked forward to that lemonade every summer and that one large cup never seemed to bother me. Hmmmm. Maybe I'm not allergic anymore , I thought, as I got older. I'd have a lemonade or two every summer, without reaction. Then I got brave and started making my own at home. I perfected it and a few years ago started buying lemons every year, late August, when I just ached for lemonade. I'd use one lemon a day a...