Hot

Western Kentucky is hot.

We set an all-time record yesterday. I don't complain about the heat. I complain about cold weather. (Just ask Bill.) Cold weather physically hurts. I have this ethical thing; it rules me from deep in my center and probably explains much of who I am if I took the time to examine it. It is this: if I complain about the cold, I can't complain about the heat. That's my rule.

So I don't.

Bill is home visiting family and friends and getting an award from his college. When Bill is away, I'm surprised at how well I get along. Get by. Of course that is because Lee and Dee come and let the dogs out and feed them when I am at my 13 hour shifts. I'll have to ask some other neighbors to help this next weekend, because it's the Paducah Kennel Club show, and we'll all be out at the club. (As president, I must be there.) It is way too hot to bring the old dogs.

This morning I woke up at 5:30. We got up - the dogs and I - had our breakfasts, and walked. First Mama Pajama, Fat Charlie, and Sam I Am. It was 6:00 AM and steamy. Mama Pajama was panting before we got out of our yard. We dawdled. We stayed in the shade and walked through the neighbors' automatic sprinklers instead of around them. Mama Pajama dragged. Fat Charlie is feeling spunky since his vet appointment on Thursday. We upped his doses of heart and thyroid medicines and he is sleeping soundly at night, and feeling pretty darn peppy. Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie will be 14 in a couple of weeks.

The next walk was the eleven year olds, litter mates Luciano and Delia.

Delia and I are special buddies when Bill is gone. Normally she is all about Bill. When he drives away with a suitcase, she wags at me and grins, "Us girlfriends have to make the best of this, huh." And she's my dog again, until the second she hears Bill's car pull up.

This walk with Looch and Delia starts at 6:20 and it is astoundingly hot. And steamy. Good lord. And there are stooopid city squirrels everywhere. It's like it's "Bring A Friend For Free Day" at the Stoopid City Squirrel Sauna. I tempt, or I attempt to tempt, Looch and Delia with the treats in my pocket. I really do not want them sounding the Stoopid City Squirrel Sirens at 6:30 Sunday morning in my sleepy southern town. Other than the squirrels, we are alone. It is one of the things I love about this town. Quiet empty Sunday mornings. It is almost like our old walks in the back fields at our farm. Almost.

As I put Looch and Delia in their crates and get out the last three - Swede William, Jabber, and Lindy Loo - I feel sweat drip between my breasts and run down my belly.

I have a denim jumper on with a sleeveless polo and no bra. No people, no worries. I didn't sweat like this when I was younger. But then, I didn't live in Western Kentucky.

We set out and I catch a salty drop of sweat on my tongue as it dives off the tip of my nose. This instantly produces the image of Bill's dad working in the garden, cursing in Italian because the sweat has evaded his sweatband and runs into his eyes. (We thought he was cursing. Years later we found out that he was saying, "Ah! Go to Naples!" And the Italian equivalent of "Oops!")

The young 'uns and I go all the way down Broadway to the river. My glasses fog up in the humidity. I wonder if Bill is up, back in Maryland, and what he's thinking. I'm dazzled by the amount of sweat that is rolling down my chest and belly.

I see a downtown restaurant owner and ask how last night was. One of the boards I'm on is responsible for "Live on Broadway" - a weekly summer Saturday night party in the streets of Downtown. Started years ago, it was meant to bring folks to the historic district to support the retailers. It had become the opposite. People came for free entertainment. They didn't shop and they certainly didn't eat. Instead of supporting the district's stakeholders, the event was ruining their Saturday business. We're trying lots of new and exciting things this year, including hiring some kickass creative organizers.

The restaurant owner smiles widely. "It was fantastic," she shouts!

Good. That is good.

Swede William, Lindy Loo, Jabber, and I get back to our street. Our neighbor catty-corner from us is a flower gardener. There must be a word for her art. She creates beautiful 'paintings' from plants. I feel like I live across from a miniature Longwood Gardens. Anita gardens with the passion that I 'do' dogs.

I miss Bill. I am fine. The way toast is perfectly fine without fresh strawberry jam. I am diminished. The dogs gulp down water, back at the house. I water my potted plants on the porch and my little herb bed. I'm proud of how much I'm sweating. I want to share this with Bill: feel my back, honey, it's soaked clear through! Pasta without sauce.

I want to hear what he thinks is interesting as he peruses the Sunday New York Times and Washington Post. I'm pancakes without syrup.

I'm hungry!!!

hug your hounds

Paint by Number Whippets

Giacomino

I missed the actual opening because I was working.

But we remedied that. Bill and Deb and I went for a private showing night before last.

Okay, I'm ahead of myself. A dear friend, and fellow Lowertown artist, Deb Lyons, had a fun idea in early 2009. She wanted to do abstract paintings of my dogs, and I was all for that, of course. She brought a bright lamp and a blank canvas. I held Giacomino between the light and the canvas and Deb traced line after line of the shadows created, turning the canvas and moving the dog and the light. The result was a patchwork of lines. Deb then asked me what colors Giacomino gave - his aura.
She repeated this process for the other dogs. And here are the magical results:

Artist Deb Lyons and her painting Delia

Mama Pajama

Swede William

Lindy Loo

Luciano

Sam I Am

Giacomino's painting will be hanging in our bedroom as soon as the show comes down.

Thanks, Deb! What a treasure!

hug your hounds

Friday My Town Shoot Out - Premier Attraction

Kent in Montana (http://tresoaks.blogspot.com/) chose My Town's Premier Attraction for this week's topic. He tells us, "Since we all live in such different places, I thought a good theme might be to show what your hometown is most noted for." You can see the other places featured by clicking on the camera in the sidebar on your right.

Well, Paducah is Quilt City. First, foremost and famously.


It is home to the Museum of the American Quilters Society. And if you think of quilts as grammy's old mothballed fuddy duddy stuff, think again. Click on that link and take a gander on what is housed here, right here in Paducah, Kentucky.

The annual Quilt Show attracts around 37,000 visitors to Paducah in April. Retailers do better during Quilt Week than Christmas. Our UPS man always takes his vacation during that week. It is wild. The Quilt Museum is right downtown. Traffic is clogged. There are routinely cars heading the wrong way on any number of one way streets! But we love quilters, yes we do!

I would be remiss if I didn't mention The Paducah Bank and Trust.

It is still un-conglomerated, and it won some huge award and honor for being chosen as one of the best places to work in the entire United States of America! I think that is really something.

There is so much more, but if we're talking PREMIER attraction, the Quilt Museum is it.

Now, I don't know about y'all, but after a week's worth of training for a new job, I am going to put on my red flannel jammies with the paw prints and bones design, I am going to lie down, and I am going to hug my sweet hounds!

Friday My Town Shoot Out - Skylines

This week's assignment is given to us by Kate of Kansas City, Kansas.

"My topic is up to bat this week and I picked Skylines. One of my favorite things to see when I go to a new city is the look of their skyline - and for me, skylines can be the look of a small-town Main Street or the giant buildings of a huge city's downtown or a field full of corn. What is the "skyline" that you think of when someone mentions your town?"

Paducah is a small city in way Western Kentucky (and the W in Western is capitallized like the N is in North Carolina - like it's the destination, not an incedental direction). We're between Nashville and St. Louis; closer to each of those cities than to Lexington or Louisville. That far west. We sit on the spot where the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers join forces, about twenty minutes upstream from where they sacrifice their spirit and identities and their very souls to the Mighty Mississippi.


Because of all that, Paducah has always been a center. It is a town, my husband likes to point out, that lives larger than its size. River commerce thrives. (One barge can carry the load of 75 eighteen-wheelers.) Cultural activities are incredible here. We have a $44,000,000 Performing Arts Center, The Luther F. Carson Four Rivers Center, where I saw the stage production of To Kill A Mockingbird last night. (As a great part of The Big Read; Paducah is one of 269 communitites across the nation participating in this inspired program of the National Endowment for the Arts.)





The Carson Center for the Performing Arts


In addition to the TKaM performance last night Tom, Dick, and Harry was playing at Market House, the community theater, The River's Edge Film Festival began its fifth year at the fantastic independant movie theater, Maiden Alley Cinema, the actual Second City comedy troupe (you know, the one that spawned Alan Arkin, Belushi, Radnor, Murray, Aykroyd, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey and a bazillion more) played at the college after an important art show by Michael Crouse. And that is just last night!


What does all this have to do with skylines, you rightly ask?


Paducah has had to survive the invasion of the Mall. Right out by the Interstate. It opened in 1982 and with the addition of two area Walmarts (gag, choke, spew, BOYCOT) historic downtown Paducah suffered the inevitable blight. Thanks to dedicated citizens, city leaders, and civic minded businesses this lovely old city thrives. Not with skyscrapers, but with charm and history and culture and spirit, with independant specialty stores and antiques shops and fine dining and friendships. I hope I've captured a little of that for you in these 'skyline' photos.

My attempt at an artsy photo: looking out of the Carson Center at downtown.

Besides being all that it is, Paducah is a wonderful place to walk the dogs.

hug your hounds and support your historic districts!

Service Above Self

I was asked in a last-minute-we-can't-get-anyone-else-the-guy-who-was-supposed-to-come-welched-on-us kind of way to join two perfectly wonderful and qualified speakers who were doing a presentation about Social Networking to the Rotary Club of Paducah.

half of the tables before things got started

When I arrived, I thought, my, my this is a big room with a lot of seating! I had imagined the Rotarians were a small group of (mostly boring, self serving NO I DID NOT SAY THAT) business people. Three of us were to speak.

Mary Thorsby IS social networking in Paducah. She started iListPaducah dot com, for which I write the iPet of the Week feature. She is a dynamo and a treasure and a precious gem, and all of us in this region -most of all the charities - have benefited from her creative spirit and energy and ask me how I really feel!!! Mary spoke first.

Laura Thornton is Laura K of Laura K Style. She's only a model, a PR guru, a marketing genius, and a graphic designer all in one. She was the second speaker.

And then there was ... me.

I looked out the windows at the same river where the dogs and I walk every morning. It calmed me some. Some.

Mary and Laura had prepared wonderful talks about how to use Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, LinkedIn and a bunch of other stuff I'd never heard of.

I walked to the podium and held up my digital camera and said, "SMILE! ...Y'all are going to be on my blog tomorrow!"

and they did! Only I couldn't fit everyone in one shot.

And then I said, "I'm here as proof that if I can do this stuff, anyone can do this stuff. I have a little blog, and I have found great friends on Facebook, but I don't get Twitter. I keep telling folks for heaven's sake don't follow me on Twitter, because I have no Earthly idea where I'm going, and there you go I have five new followers."

I certain I didn't teach those Rotarians much of anything. But I sure did learn. I really thought the Rotary Club was about people pushing their businesses. Kind of like the recorded messages about consolidating your debt phone calls you get at dinner time. HA! This was absolutely wrong, wrong, wrong! Their motto is Service Above Self. I looked around the room and saw the friendly faces of the people I most respect in Paducah. They recited:

The 4-Way Test

Of the things we think, say, or do...

1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Huh? That doesn't sound like a bunch of self serving business sharks! (Not that I have anything against Sharks, Janet Reid, Literary Agent. I loved being your chum*.) That sounds like my very own personal mantra. How did they... ? This sounds like something Little Miss Goody Two Shoes could dig right into.

As I listened to the meeting progress, and to new members being sworn in, I was more and more impressed with the whole philosophy behind the Rotary Clubs. Today I've searched around the web and I'm even more delighted with what I found.

L to R: Laura Thorton, Rotary President L V McGinty, Mary Thorsby and Goody Two Shoes

So. What do you know? Life is good!

hug your hounds and your Rotarians

*query #112, if you were curious

Friday My Town Shoot Out - Park Landscapes

The topic for October 30 is Park landscapes - by JarieLyn .

Paducah has lovely parks, but alas, with the four day Agility Trial over the weekend, and my book signing and reading yesterday, my plate was overfull. I'll rely on photos hiding in my computer.

We have a clever and oh so creative Parks and Rec department. They took a notion to put a skating rink in the downtown parking lot of this southern town in way Western Kentucky. I mean smack downtown, right on the River. In the photo above, granddaughter Abigail, who is on a hockey team in her city of Chicago, shows the locals a thing or two.

The majority of the locals had never worn ice skates in their lives. It was fun to watch them go from hanging on to the edge of the rink for dear life to proficient, if wobbly, independent skaters by the end of the season.

Schultz park is 55 acres of riverfront in downtown Paducah. It is at the foot of Broadway, behind our beautiful flood wall. Barges often wait here for their turns through the locks.

Sam I Am, Swede William, and Lindy Loo wait patiently for me to take the photo.

oh no let's go let's go CRAZY!!!

We worried for the park during the ice storm.

There is good reason for our flood wall.

No discussion of area parks would be complete without mention of the federal Land Between the Lakes. These were for a long time the largest man made lakes in the country. The writer's retreat I attended was held at Kenlake Park, pictured below.

Under these hauntingly beautiful waters lie towns, homesteads, graveyards.

Neighbor Allan Rhoades paints the path on the labyrinth.

And I have to brag about my neighborhood. My neighbors bought an empty lot and put a labyrinth on it. Themselves. For everyone to enjoy.

It is that magical here.

hug your hounds

Friday My Town Shoot Out - Sunrise, Sunset

I first learned of the Friday My Town Shoot Out from my blog friend Barry. That lead me to the delightful blog of the Shoot Out's co-creator, a talented professional photographer named Patty, who happens to hail from my home state of Maryland. Well, it's a great fun way to visit places all over the world in a very intimate sense. You can get the whole list of folks who participate HERE, and go to New Zealand, the Caribbean, Oklahoma, Ontario, Great Britain, Idaho, and here, Paducah, Kentucky.

Today's assignment is from Sherri (http://sherripatterson.blogspot.com/) "What's not to love about sunrises and sunsets?" she asks.

I have failed you terribly, Dear Readers. I live on a gorgeous river and the sun, being an orb of fabled vanity, lingers over its reflection every morning. Or so I hear. By the time I have let the eight whippets out, fed them, given Easy and Mama Pajama their meds, and downed enough coffee to be marginally functional, Mr. Sun is up. (Okay, so there's a game or two of Lexulous I play on Facebook while I warm up my mental engines.)

I did get this photo of the river when there should have been a sunrise during Ike-

I took this out of our guest bedroom window during the ice storm this winter:

We stayed in the guest bedroom, because it had a gas fireplace and we were guiltily toasty warm. The entire region was without power, some for weeks.

This is where you will find a dedicated group of dog lovers every Monday evening:

Out at the Paducah Kennel Club property, practicing our dogs in Agility. Wednesday nights we socialize puppies and practice our conformation (show) dogs. Thursday night is obedience class.

The Kennel Club property is my sanity and my fun. I've been a country dweller nearly my entire life until moving to this magical town.

I can load the dogs up and go to the kennel club and see a sunset over a horizon of trees again. I can enjoy my dogs and my friends and my friends' dogs - a trifecta! It's good for the dogs, and it's good for my soul.

Mama Pajama on a late spring evening at the Kennel Club. It's not exactly a sunrise/sunset shot, well... except the sun does rise AND set on this little dog!

hug your hounds

Friday My Town Shoot Out - Silhouettes

I first learned of the Friday My Town Shoot Out from my blog friend Barry. That lead me to the delightful blog of the Shoot Out's co-creator, a talented professional photographer named Patty, who happens to hail from my home state of Maryland.

Well, it's a great fun way to visit places all over the world in a very intimate sense. You can get the whole list of folks who participate HERE, and go to New Zealand, the Caribbean, Oklahoma, Ontario, Great Britain, Idaho, and as of today, Paducah, Kentucky.

Thank you for letting me join! I'm no great shakes as a photographer, but I live in a magical little city. Paducah Kentucky is about 255 miles west of Lexington. It's a city of around 27,000, which lives a lot larger than it is.

This week's assignment is given by Carrie: Silhouettes.

Carrie says, "I chose silhouettes because I think they make such striking photos. It's like getting the best of both worlds in one shot: black/white and color."

Okay, here goes!

I set off on my last walk of the morning on Wednesday. This is the house catty corner from ours. It used to be a speakeasy and a brothel! Upstairs, there is still a metal door with a slidey peekaboo window, just like in the old movies.

Here are my favorite silhouettes of all those pictured: my walkmates, Sam I Am and Lindy Loo.
This is at the steps of the Presbyterian Church, which was founded in 1844, and moved to this location in 1888. In the background you see a bell tower of the Catholic Church and the outline of the Hotel Irvin Cobb, named for our famous local humorist, who authored more than 60 books.

I bet you didn't know that silhouettes could be LOUD?

This is the Columbia Theater. Its marble facade bespeaks of grand days. Those days are marred, simply because this is a Matron of the South. People my age who grew up here remember that there was a separate entrance for 'coloreds' and there was a section of seating in the balcony reserved for people of color.

Isn't that amazing?

The city is seeking a buyer for this gorgeous building. There was a rumor a couple of years ago that Quentin Terrintino was going to purchase her, but that's all it was, a rumor.

Downtown in the morning.

This is the old market house. The sides used to be open for carts to back into. Now the front of the building houses the Yeiser Art Center and the back of the building houses our wonderful community theater, The Market House Theater.

Lewis and Clark and little Sacajawea, with their trusty Newfoundland were a big part of Paducah's history. Paducah sits at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, just upstream from where they empty into the Mighty Mississippi. Looks like these good folks are trying to figure out where to go from here.

If only they had a trusty whippet guide!

The downtown roof tops now sport fancy gathering places for the fancy folks who can afford to live there. They have a lovely view of the river.

And we're home. This tree, which umbrellas Bill's gallery, was twice this size before we were hit with an historic ice storm last winter.

This was so much fun. I walked the same route that I do every day. That I've done every day for the last seven years, in one form or another. And yet I saw new things! Fresh delights opened up to me because I was looking through different eyes.

Thank you for letting me join in. I can't wait to share more of this unique place with you.

hug your hounds