In 2004 ,when my daughter Becky was ten , she and my husband ,Joe, were united in their desire for a dog . As for me , I shared none of their canine lust.

But why , they pleaded. “Because I don't have time to take care of a dog.” But we'll do it. ” Really? You're going to walk the dog? Feed the dog? Bathe the dog?” Yes, yes , and yes .”I don't believe you .” We will . We promise.

They didn't . From day two (everyone wanted to walk the cute puppy that first day ) , neither thought to walk the dog . While I was slow to accept that I would be the one to keep track of her shots , to schedule her vet appointments , to feed and clean her , Misty knew this on day one . As she looked up at the three new humans in her life (small, medium, and large) , she calculated ,”The medium one is the sucker in the pack .”

Quickly, she and I developed something very similar to a Vulcan mind meld (心灵融合) . She'd look at me with those sad brown eyes of hers , beam her need , and then wait , trusting I would understand — which , strangely , I almost always did . In no time , she became my feet as I read , and splaying across my stomach as I watched television .

Even so , part of me continued to resent walking duty .Joe and Becky had promised. Not fair , I'd balk (不心甘情愿地做) silently as she and I walked . “Not fair , ” I' d loudly remind anyone within earshot upon our return home .

       Then one day — January 1, 2007 , to be exact — my husband ‘ s doctor uttered an unthinkable word : leukemia ( 白血病) .With that , I spent eight to ten hours a day with Joe in the hospital , doing anything and everything I could to ease his discomfort. During those six months of hospitalizations, Becky, 12 at the time, adjusted to other adults being in the house when she returned from school. My work colleagues adjusted to my taking off at a moment's notice for medical emergencies. Every part of my life changed; no part of my old routine remained.

      Save one: Misty still needed walking. At the beginning, when friends offered to take her

through her paces, I declined because I knew they had their own households to deal with.

      As the months went by，I began to realize that I actually wanted to walk Misty. The walk in the morning before I headed to the hospital was a quiet, peaceful time to gather my thoughts or to just be before the day's medical drama unfolded. The evening walk was a time to shake off the day's upsets and let the worry tracks in my head go to white noise.

      When serious illness visits your household, it's , not just your daily routine and your assumptions about the future that are no longer familiar. Pretty much everyone you acts differently.

Not Misty. Take her for a walk, and she had no interest in Joe's blood counts or 'one marrow test results. On the street or in the park, she had only one thing on her mind: squirrels! She Was so joyous that even on the worst days, she could make me smile. On a daily basis she reminded me that life goes on.

      After Joe died in 2009，Misty slept on his pillow.

I'm grateful一to a point. The truth is, after years of balking, I've come to enjoy m' walks with Misty. As I watch her chase after a squirrel, throwing her whole being into the here-and-now of an exercise that has never once ended in victory, she reminds me, too, that no matter how harsh the present or unpredictable the future , there's almost always some measure of joy to be extracted from the moment.

    As I begin to tell my friends about the seven days you treated my wife, Laura, in what turned out to be the last days of her young life, they stop me at about the 15th name that I recall. The list includes the doctors, nurses, social workers, and even cleaning staff members who cared for her.

     “How do you remember any of their names?” they ask.

     “How could I not?” I respond.

    Every single one of you treated Laura with such professionalism and kindness and dignity as she lay unconscious. When she needed shots, you apologized that it was going to hurt a little, whether or not she could hear. When you listened to her heart and lungs through your stethoscopes(听诊器)and her gown (长衫)began to slip, you pulled it up to respectfully cover her. You spread a blanket when the room was just a little cold and you thought she'd sleep more comfortably that way.

    You cared so greatly for her parents, helping them climb into the room's awkward recliner(躺椅), fetching them fresh water almost by the hour, and answering every one of their medical questions with patience.

    Then there was how you treated me. How many times did you walk into the room to find me sobbing, my head down and resting on her hand, and quietly go about your task, as if willing yourselves invisible? How many times did you help me set up the recliner as close as possible to her bedside? How many times did you check on me to see whether I needed anything, from food to drink, from fresh clothes to a hot shower.

    Really, I have all of you to thank for it with my eternal gratitude and love.

    The weather is very important to farmers. The calendar might say “August”， but the weather's more like October. For some farmers the cool weather is a good thing. For others, it's a cause for concern.

    At Apple Hill, the cooler weather was giving the Boeger Winery a chance to concentrate on bottling instead of picking. “Things were really maturing, it has just been a welcome relief to have more time to prepare.” said Greg Boeger of Boeger Winery.

    But down in the Delta, the earlier hot weather has them two weeks ahead of schedule. Their harvest actually started on Tuesday, and this cooling trend is a worry. There have been no problems yet, but for each of the last two years heavy rain right after Labor Day was a problem, one that Don Pylman would not like to see repeated.

    “If it doesn't start raining, we're in good shape，” said Pylman. “If the sun comes out and clears up we can get right back to work, but if we do get rain, the rots will start.”

    The kind of grape makes a difference as well. Thin­skinned grapes like the chardonnay variety are much more sensitive to rain than some of the others. They're also more difficult to dry off.

    You may be familiar with the following famous people, but have you heard of their graduation speeches, in which they either share their unforgotten experiences or give you some great inspiration.

    Michael Dell, University of Texas at Austin

    And now you've accomplished something great and important here, and it's time for you to move on to what's next. And you must not let anything prevent you from taking those first steps. … You must also commit to the adventure. Just have faith in the skills and the knowledge you've been blessed（赐予）with and go.

    J.K. Rowling, Harvard University

    Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between my ambition and the expectation from my parents who were not rich…But what I feared most of myself at your age was not poverty, but failure. The fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you know little about failure, you might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success.

Steve Jobs, Stanford University

    Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith…Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle.

    Bill Gates, Harvard University

    We need as many people as possible to have access to the advanced technology to lead to a revolution in what human beings can do for one another. They are making it possible not just for national governments, but for universities, smaller organizations, and even individuals to see problems, see approaches and deal with the world's inequities（不公平）like hunger, poverty, and so on.

The Youngest Skier To The South Pole

    On Friday December 9th, a 16-year-old skier, Ameba Hempleman-Adams reached the South Pole with her father after skiing 97 miles and spending 17 nights on the ice. On the final day they skied 14 miles and afterwards Ameba said she felt “elated and tired" on reaching the South Pole.

    “The biggest challenges were the freezing cold and eating only dried food. The best bit has been experiencing what Dad does on expeditions(探险).It's the first time I've been on a difficult long journey with him and now I know what it's like. The trip brought me closer to Dad, but I also had to put up with his snoring(鼾声)which was terrible.', She added, “Would I do it again? I'm not sure. I'll have to think about that after a few nights' sleep! At times it's been really hard: I've got aching shoulders, and my back's been sore from pulling my sledge(雪橇), I've got blisters(水泡)on my feet from the boots and I've got a cold burn on my nose from my sunglasses. ______”.

    She said the most extraordinary part of the trip had been the breathtaking scenery and the sense of isolation in the Antarctic landscape.“ I've really missed my friends while I've been away and want to thank them for all their messages of support.”

    Friends and relatives who posted comments on Ameba's expedition website paid tribute(致敬)to her positive attitude which , they said ,would be an inspiration to others.

    Her father, David, said “Ameba has done amazing well. I'm proud of her. She showed real determination. She was tough and she pulled her sledge the whole way. It was a special experience to share those 97 miles with her.”

    Five thousand square meters of old damaged cars, motorcycles and boats fill this junkyard. For a casual onlooker, this might be a very sad sight. But for Andy, it's a real treasure. “I've been a junk hoarder(囤积者)for my whole life and I like fixing up what shouldn't be thrown away. Around 200 old cars end up in this junkyard every week. Some of them are sold for parts, others get repaired, and still others are beyond repair.”

    His father Bobby started the business some 50 years ago and still spends every morning there. The father and son have very different approaches to their work. They got a Dean cab that was getting thrown away and that was the father's project, which Andy did not want him to do.“ He did basically the opposite of everything I told him and I think he did it just to make me mad. He dumped a ton of money into this car, but in the end it wouldn't run.” Andy said jokingly.

    The unusual family business attracted the attention of a TV crew. That's how the show Janka Empire came to be featured on a network of the Discovery Channel. This show, five years of shooting, five seasons and 60 episodes(集), is popular. “There are hundreds of junkyards throughout the United States. I think what's interesting is that it is a family business. My father and I started the business and we joke very well back and forth and I think that's what people like. The cars that end up at the junkyard come out with endless surprises. See, this was a junk car and we restored it with a blown motor. Yet I don't get a chance to ride around it too often. Because despite its shining appearance, the noise of the engine is truly deafening and I worry my neighbors will not put up with it.”