Foster was adopted from a local humane society. While there are no promises that there are any dogs nearly as cute as she is, there is a guarantee that there are amazing animals who need a good home and someone to greet at the door every day for the rest of their lives.

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Dave Foong is terrible with the English language, not that he knows many other languages well either. He takes funny pictures and has terrible addictions to steep and cheap, the outdoors, wine, coffee and people. He tries to relive his glorious Little 500 cycling days whenever he can.

Dave is a guest photographer for This Ordinary Day’s Sunday Specials. If you would like to participate in Sunday Specials, please click here.

I think I’ve figured out why people do drugs.

When you’re using, it feels great. It’s so much fun that the repercussions don’t matter. The memory outweighs the pain and suffering it causes later, and that’s why you use again.

My drug is basketball.

Playing basketball has its repercussions for me, especially in the last few months. After I play, I get a headache. I’ve been dealing with this my whole life, but not at the frequency that they’ve occurred lately. After I play, I’m useless the rest of the day. I get sharp pains all over my head and in my neck. I struggle getting to sleep, and only when I’ve gone to sleep and wake up the next day, has the headache gone away.

I could give the game up— find a new form of exercise that doesn’t cause pain afterward — and find a new hobby, but the memory keeps bringing me back.

The basketball court is my getaway. I forget about my deadlines, my stresses and my ever-decreasing social life. It’s always been that for me. If I was sad, I went and played basketball. If I was pissed, I went and played basketball. If the pressure of school or work or family issues were piling too high for me to handle, I went and played basketball.

A college girl who’s a part-time photographer at my newspaper was riding back from two basketball games in Manhattan with me last night, and she was transcribing quotes for me on my computer. She kept asking for me to explain what it was I was talking about with the coaches and players because it might as well have been in Spanish to her.

At one point, she said, “I never knew basketball was such a complex game.”

I told her it is in a way. There are so many intricacies that make it a thinking-man’s game and make it so beautiful to watch.

At that point, she told me that’s why I don’t have a girlfriend.

Maybe so, because basketball is my love.

I love the way the ball feels against my fingertips. I love hearing sneakers squeak on the court. I love the sound of the ball swishing through the net. It’s like listening to the ocean. It’s such a peaceful noise — if I was technologically savvy enough I would make the swish my ringtone.

Mostly, I love feeling in complete control.

That’s how I feel when I play, like the basketball court is my blank canvas, waiting for me to make my first stroke — or stroke my first jumper.

I love running the ball down the court and watching the players move like chess pieces, and then making my move or pass according to what all the pieces are doing. I love having a counter for every move the defense makes. Feeling invincible is why some people do drugs, and it’s why I play basketball.

But eventually, extensive drug use wears on your body, and the post-basketball headaches were starting to make me hesitant to head to the gym.

Then my dad told my mom something he had learned when he went to a headache and pain center a few years back*.

*This could be the perfect infomercial: “Then my dad told me about …. Side effects include dizziness, blurred vision, lost of limbs, bladder problems, cancer and possible death (cue music and a happy couple running through a field). To learn more about basketball, please consult your physician.

They told him that every time before he exercised, he should take two aspirin an hour before and drink a lot of water.

So this past week, I tried it out. The first time after I played, my body still hurt, but my head was fine. Second time, again, no headache. And third time, only body aches, and I think that just means I’m becoming an old man. I’ve cured my drug problem with, who’d a thunk it, drugs!

I tell people if they’re the praying type, they should turn towards Lawrence, Kan., and face the Mecca (Allen Fieldhouse) when they pray.

Well, without my headaches, I feel like the basketball court is heaven. And I don’t feel like I’m on drugs anymore, which is a good thing, because I doubt they allow such things past the pearly gates, and I’m looking forward to balling with Moses (Malone) and Jesus (Shuttlesworth).

We were sitting in a cozy café right around the corner: Three girls who had met on the first day of university, over 12 years ago, and have been friends ever since. We had sat through dreary lectures and wrote assignments together, we applauded each other’s performances on various stages, and spent lots and lots of time at the English lit student café, serving and drinking coffee. We’ve been there for each other in good and bad times.

Now in our early thirties, we had become a PR-agent, a teacher and a PhD student and mum, talking about our plans for the holidays, childcare, work choices and losing family members.

When (somewhat inevitably, considering the state of the German economy and, well, our age) the topic of our respective private pension plans came up, one sentence was spoken that sums up what it’s like when we are all together: Why should I care about this when I’ve just turned 18 and don’t have anything to worry about? Exactly. With these girls, it doesn’t feel at all like I am so responsible, I pay € _____ (fill in suitable amount) a month so that I can buy my family food when I’m old. It’s more like we’ve never left that somewhat dingy student café, like anything is possible, nothing holding us back. Like here we are, world. We’ll show you. That feeling kindles a spark of light and warmth in my heart even on the darkest of days.

The thing is, with these girls, I am sure it will be like this forever. It will be like my parents and their friends, now well into their 60s and 70s, gathering regularly to eat fine food, drink good wine and share stories about children and grandchildren. To make fun of each other and comfort each other. To celebrate and mourn together. To just be there and let each other be, to see each other without judging.

I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to my very own version of that.

A friend of my family isn’t doing so well. She’s 80 years old and recently moved home to Michigan to live with her granddaughter. She’s had health issues for a few years now, and this last bout of pneumonia may turn out to be too much for her. She’s tired of fighting, and I think I can understand that.

It saddens me deeply, and I wish I had been able to see her one last time before she left for Michigan and possibly beyond. I was thinking about her last week when I got an e-mail from her granddaughter. It had been sent to my mother, my sister and me to update us on the situation and to share a bit of consolation. She said things didn’t look good, that the doctors weren’t optimistic and that she was at least happy that her grandmother, the friend of my family, had made it home to say goodbye.

“Family,” she concluded the e-mail, “is all we really have, when it comes right down to it.”

Disregard the irony that she was e-mailing us, friends of the family, and reconsider that statement. The gist of what she was saying has stuck with me for a few days as I’ve contemplated loss and grief, families and friends(and the difference between the two). The thing is, I was raised in a strong family at the heart of a strong extended family. I was brought up in an environment where an emphasis was put on being together for the good times and sticking together through the bad. I was raised in one of those “normal” families with a loving mother and father, a sister a few years older than me and both sets of grandparents in my life. I had teems of aunt/uncle combos and a dozen cousins within a few years of my own age. It was with my family, nuclear and extended, that I spent a childhood worth of summer vacations and holiday celebrations. I learned about family and what it means.

On the other hand, something strange happens when you hit the late years of junior high and the early days of high school: you gain independence. You gain lateral movement and you gain the ability and urge to live outside that bubble of “family.” In some instances, that bubble becomes a constraint from the fun and freedom offered by your new family: your friends.

I was lucky to be blessed with a handful of good friends that my family trusted. There were six of us through most of it. Some others came and went, but at the root of the organization were the six. We made it through those mysterious and trying days of high school together, saw a parade of girlfriends enter the scene and exit stage left, experienced odd phases and moved on to even odder ones. Together, we became teenagers, became high schoolers, became college students and became adults.

We grew up, and we did it together. It was almost directly contradictory to the relationships I had with my cousins.

I feel like I have less and less in common with the cousins I spent my childhood with as the years go by and our lives split further apart. They have their own kids, and while I hope that’s me someday, it’s also in the distant future. They’ve stayed in the towns we grew up in; I moved to the city (which I realize may be more of a metaphor than I’ve previously considered). Many times since I left for college, I’ve felt like they stayed close to the family and continued to develop that relationship, while I’ve let it slip some. I’m not as emotionally and physically available to them as they are to one another. Part of me regrets that, and another part accepts that it’s part of the process. I know that if I needed them, I could count on my family to show up.

Meanwhile, I’ve only become closer to my circle of friends in the same time period, even if we’re more scattered now than we’ve ever been before. My friends and I started hugging and telling each other that we loved one another during our freshman year of college. It started partly as a joke, but caught on as something none of us dared vocalize — a true sentiment between the people we knew best. In times of difficulty, knowing that there’s a support group of people who genuinely care about my well being (and not out of any sense of duty) is one of the most reassuring sentiments in my life. I’ve always known that my family would be there for me and hoped that my friends would do the same, but as we’ve become adults, I count on them the same way I do my blood relatives.

What I hope my family understands about the closeness I have with the circle of friends I’ve built around me (even beyond the guys I grew up with) is that I’ve never tried to replace my own relatives. I know there’s more to life than a support group of family members, and I know there are some things you just can’t change about people, no matter how much you care. My friends aren’t perfect, and maybe there are some spaces they’ll never be able to fill in my life, but maybe the beauty is that we don’t try to. I just know that if I should ever find myself in a dire situation, my family would let my friends know, but it wouldn’t be considered an e-mail to friends of the family. We’ve become much more than that.

My home state of Kansas often reminds me of an old boyfriend. He would drive me crazy for weeks until I would decide that I had enough. Just when I had worked up the courage to break up with him, he would do something so wonderful and unexpected I would fall in love with him all over again.

A few weeks ago I was fed up with Kansas. It was a combination of the state government’s cuts on education, Fred Phelps staging anti-gay protests at local high schools and the fact that the weather in Kansas was depressing and boring. For what seemed like weeks it had been cold and gray. We hadn’t even had a good snowstorm, which meant that my school hadn’t used a snow day. Snow days are usually the only reason I look forward to winter. The lack of sun made it difficult to get out of bed in the morning and even my dog didn’t want to go outside in the cold. I felt that if I had to stay in Kansas a moment longer, I would lose my mind. When Punxsutawney Phil announced that there would be six more weeks of winter, I finally felt I had the courage to leave Kansas forever.

Then I awoke one morning to news that it was going to be 70 degrees and sunny. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I took my winter coat and hat just in case. All day at work I kept my phone in my pocket so I could check the current temperature. I did a secret cheer when it reached 50. I danced a little when I noticed the sun peeking out around lunchtime. Around 2 p.m. I checked my phone again: 68 degrees. I still didn’t believe it. A 70-degree day in February? It was too good to be true.

But when I stepped out into the parking lot after work, I discovered that such a thing was possible. It was warm, sunny and the sky was a shade of blue I figured was only imaginable with the help of Photoshop. The streets of downtown were packed with people in T-shirts and sunglasses. I drove the entire way home with the window down.

For three days the weather held. My winter coat stayed on the coat rack. We turned off the heat completely. My roommate and I took our dogs to the dog park and let them run free with the dozens of other dogs. Our students got extra-long recesses. The sidewalks and parks of Lawrence were filled with people. Each of us was trying to soak in all the sunshine and heat we could. And like that I was reminded of what I like about Kansas and what I would miss should I ever find the courage to move to one of the coasts. Because even in the midst of a long winter, Kansas finds a way to remind me that spring is just around the corner.

I spent President’s Day weekend in D.C., more for the fact that I had an extra day off work than patriotic reasons. And to get there, I took a bus. The only other time I’ve been on a bus for non-school purposes was an overnight ride from New York to Toronto. That was pretty miserable and uncomfortable, and at one point everyone around me was getting sick or just being crazy annoying. I was keeping my fingers crossed that this route — and the particular bus company, which was a luxury deluxe bus! — would have a higher caliber of passengers.

The ride there was uneventful. The seats didn’t have armrests and the man next to me kept encroaching in my personal space. I just cozied up against the window as much as I could, trying to get my iPod to drone out the sound of his Blackberry typing. I considered it a success that I didn’t need to use the on-board bathroom.

The ride back to New York was a bit more colorful. Our driver got into a fight with a passenger at the second boarding stop. There was a discrepancy about whether this bus made a third stop in New York (driver said no; passenger said yes; tension and phone calls ensued). At our last stop in D.C. before heading out of town, we were delayed for what seemed like an excessive amount of time, but I wasn’t about to dig in my purse to check the time on my phone, so I’m not sure how long it actually lasted. I was getting annoyed. I just wanted to get home.

The man collecting bus fare was nearly finished when a young woman rushed on to the bus. She searched for a seat, finally finding one in the back. After storing her bags, she hurried back outside, telling the collector that she left her bag on board and would be right back. I huffed. The driver and collector mumbled, wondering where she was going. I peered out the window to see what was going on. A man gave her a bag. The collector and driver were verbalizing a play-by-play of what the girl was doing and one said, “Aw, she’s giving the boy a kiss.” This made me laugh.

The girl pranced back to the bus, where the collector told her she was lucky the driver waited because not all of them would have stayed. Next time she needed to be on time. The girl, not at all annoyed by the comment, said “Yes, sir,” then thanked the driver for waiting for her and — I couldn’t believe this — apologized to the bus for holding us up.

While I was completely caught off guard by what she did, it also made me a little sad because of how uncommon it is. We all occasionally run late. And often we’ll mumble a quick apology under our breath, saying it automatically as a courtesy more than actually meaning it. Pausing to apologize to the bus, looking up at us and acknowledging her fault was something I’m not sure I would’ve had the courage to do. After that, I wasn’t so annoyed that the driver waited for her after all.