Many years ago, I decided to travel to Scotland with a  friend. We had never even traveled to the big city of Seattle by ourselves, let alone a foreign country. But away we blithely went, with $500 in our pockets, for six weeks. The best advice I got prior to the trip was the reminder that everything that goes wrong just makes for a good story later.

That advice has come in handy many times over the years. When I’m in the middle of some drama, whether it’s traveling or simply broke down on the side of the highway, those words allow me to take a deep breath and find some humor in the situation. Granted, most times the humor isn’t found until days later when I’m retelling the story. Then the writer in me comes out.

But really, this time, my brother and his wife are testing that advice to its fullest. His boss gave them a cruise trip. All they had to do was pay the taxes. On a limited budget like all of us, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. They left last week. And now they are going to come home with a whopping story.

While on a walking tour in Italy, my sister-in-law fell and broke her hip. She’s healthy so this was quite a fall. And it appears the cruise ship then sailed away without them, without noticing that they had not come back with the tour. Today my sister-in-law had surgery for a full hip replacement, in Italy. They have another week to stay there (neither speak Italian), and then will be sent home. The cruise ship, thankfully, has agreed to pay for everything.

I think this tops any traveling tale I could come up with. These are the kinds of stories people tell all around us, from daily irritations to huge problems like having to stay behind in Italy for an extra week. And I have to admit, these are the things I take notes on. Bits and pieces that may show up in a story somewhere down the road. I’m going to have to thank my sister-in-law for giving me story fodder. Wonder what she’ll say.

This has nothing to do with writing other than it’s a story so hopefully you won’t mind.

Five days ago a resident of the tiny town I live near was out hiking with his dog. Some people from ‘down below’ showed up to target shoot in an area locals hike. The shooting terrified the dog, who bolted for the woods.

He’s been missing through four nights of freezing temperatures, with some snow still on the ground, and we live in an area with a lot of predators. You can imagine, if you are a dog owner, the sleepless nights these people have had. But being in a small town, everyone got involved. Locals decided it was a good time of year to go hiking. People not only hiked, they bushwhacked off trail. One group thought it was a great time for a full-moon hike in the woods. Many of us were calling out day and night. Where I live is mid-point between where the dog disappeared and town, so I spent a lot of time seeking. Of course signs were posted, animal shelters called, etc. But really, this is the story of community.

A few years ago my son’s dog ended up stranded on ‘the Wall’ which is a sheer granite wall famous for rock climbing. She was stuck on a boulder and my son couldn’t get to her and by the time he got home for help, it was dark and pouring rain. Again, locals jumped to the rescue and at five in the morning rock climbers and friends found her still waiting patiently for rescue on her rock. If you go to the ‘About’ tab you’ll see some photos of the area these dogs were lost in.

Two years ago we were startled one day when hiking to find an injured, terrified dog in the woods. She was too scared to come near us, and locals named her ‘Cedar’ since she was hiding in cedar trees. For a few weeks that hot summer, several of us hiked food and water to the dog twice a day (she was too canny for a live trap) until she grew brave enough to limp out one day and follow me down the logging road. She had been neglected before this adventure, and had a broken leg when she finally was rescued. She ended up in a good home, by the way.

So, back to the first dog. This morning, he found his way out of the woods. Very sorry for himself, very exhausted, beautiful fur dirty. And smelling a bit fishy, which none of us will complain about because it was probably the dead salmon in the creek that helped him survive. There was a happy ending here, with the dog managing to rescue himself. (By the way, I know some of you will be thinking about the dangers of dogs eating dead salmon. But in this case, I believe it was a matter of survival so yes, I’m sure he’ll be watched for parasites from the fish.)

But, what really warms my heart is that I think it’s unusual to find people who pull together like this to help not just animals, but each other. I’ve just mentioned animal stories, but there are many more where people here have jumped in to help others, too.

Sure there are disadvantages to little towns (gossip comes quickly to mind) but in the end, I think this is a community rare and fine.

I don’t have one of those Christmas trees where all the decorations are color coordinated and matching. I have a living tree that I haul in the week before, and drape with a lot of old decorations. Including one very ugly angel made out of pink pipe cleaners and pink netting with this really weird gold curly hair. For me, though, decorating the tree is one of the biggest parts of the solstice. Because of course, each decoration has a story.

The last time I decorated the tree I realized that when I am gone, the stories will be, too. My son might some day pull out that angel and think his mother was insane for keeping it. I want him to know its story, how I made it in kindergarten and thought it so beautiful that I pitched a red-headed hissy fit if it wasn’t the first thing on the tree. Every year. So I started writing the story for each decoration, so that some day my son will know why I get teary when hanging things like a small elderly porcelain Santa that used to be part of a string of lights belonging to my grandmother. Until the string caught on fire one Christmas Eve.

Today I worked on baking, in order to make plates of goodies for friends. One of the things I made is a very heavy, dark, winter cake, full of spices, nuts, and raisins. Not a fruit cake. Auntie (the grandmother who owned the string of lights) always baked it, and on Christmas Eve the house would smell of allspice and cloves as it came out of the oven.

But today I was alone.

And so I told the story of the cake, of the memories associated with it, to our two dogs.

And they listened attentively, salivating.