Smiles as big as a big butt!

I downloaded a video program for my phone. This was my first try. For the Swede William fan club - he was sleeping by my chair in my computer/sewing room, sorry!

Yesterday I loaded up the whole waggle (except Delia who was out for a long walk with her Bill) and we headed to the kennel club property. I didn't take a single photo; I was that selfish. It was sunny.

Did a little agility practice with Sammy, Lindy Loo and Swede William. They were wildly happy, and everyone threw in a zoomie or eight. Let Fat Charlie and Easy run around in the fenced area. In the sun. I couldn't tell you who wore the biggest smiles.

Tossed a squeakie for Luciano by himself in the fenced area. Special time for the special boy. In the sun.

Took Sam, Lindy and William out for a second round of agility practice. Heavy on the treats and squeakie rat rewards. In the sun. It was so warm I got a little bit stinky in my arm pits. Woo-hooo!

Then I took Mama Pajama, Fat Charlie, Easy and Luciano for a leisurely walk around the property. In the sun.

They snuffled and rolled and peed and grinned wide enough to fit my whole heart in.

Better. Life is much better.

Today it's gray and dank and chilly. So I had three cupcakes for lunch and now I'm going to soak in a tub full of scorching hot water. With a book. Then I'll be so hot that walking the dogs will feel good.

Thanks for your wise, gentle, kind words! Guess what? THE FEBRUARIES ARE OVER!!!! I'm happy dancin' here, how about you?

hug your hounds, and hugs from me to you

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 Shoot Out on Saturday and Stuff

In the words of someone, I'm late I'm late for a very important date.
This week's My Town theme is from Emma in Arizona, who said:

When I think of trying to photograph weather, I think about [...] any type of clouds, the sunset, a beautiful snowfall...should the weather cooperate for us, I thought it would be a fun topic to catch on film!

I haven't been out in the weather much. Heck, I haven't even been out in the daylight much. So here are some photos of last winter's once-in-a-hundred-years ice storm, just to make you feel warm and snugly where ever you are. Except Minnesoooooota. And Norway.

It was beautiful.

From indoors.

It will be another hundred years before the trees recover, and I will never forget the sound of all of those huge branches cracking and crashing. Some people in neighboring counties were without power for 32 days.

Enough of weather. (I am not such a big fan of winter and it's been dismal cold and gray.)

On to stuff.

We are hanging in here. Bill and the whippets are getting along just fine without me. Bill loves to cook, and now he has a couple of hours to kill after the gallery closes until I drag my weary bones in the front door. He fills that time by piddlin' in the kitchen. On Thursday, I opened the door to the sound of manic whippet woo-woo-woos and to the smell of Italian heaven.

I had had a Fairly Hard Time of It, and spent some part of dinner sobbing into my linguine with sweet Italian sausage marinara, Sammy's worried face resting on one thigh, Swede William's on the other, Easy and Fat Charlie lying like twin Sphinxes waiting for plates to lick. Between those pathetic tremulous gasps that possess your throat when you've fought tears all day, and moments when I almost fell sound asleep face first in my plate, a little bell went off in my brain. Tinkle! Hey! You! This pasta that you are crying into is really good!

And then I wasn't crying any more.

I spoke to my Nursing Director yesterday. I said, "Um. I feel like the learning curve I'm facing is as though I'm driving the Le Mans, in a Gremlin, and they're holding it on Mt. Everest." I asked her to please be honest with me, and to let me know if she had any doubts that I was up to this task. She cocked her head at me and said, "Patience, you've only been on the unit for two weeks. I think you are being a little hard on yourself. I knew when we hired you that you would need extensive orientation. Actually, I've heard that you're doing really well." She went on to say kind things.

(Thing is, I'm used to being more than competent. I'm used to being the one who people come to with questions. I'm accustomed to having solutions. Whoa Lordy!!! Now? I'm checking everything with my SAINT of a preceptor. Even stuff that I know I know, I check with this dear soul first. Twice. Once more for good measure. And when you read this, please be sure to give those italicized words sufficient punch.)

So last night when I got home, after doing fairly okay and getting the nice pep talk from the Director, I was feeling a little more rosy. The whippets picked up on this and gave me their best Excessive Greeting Disorder Welcome Home ever. There was crazy chaos and folderol. Mad, wild, loud bedlam. Luciano stood halfway down the stairs with his nose pointed to the heavens and his lips in a perfect O, just a'howling to beat the band. Sammy ran silly little mini zoomies around the dining room table. Easy barked his head off and jumped up to give kisses. Delia ran between Bill and me, screaming the entire time. William and Lindy wooed and wrestled for good measure, William throwing in a hump or two while Lindy was distracted. Mama Pajama and Fat Charlie wagged and danced and smiled right into my heart.

And Bill said, "I've made something I've never made before. You are going to love it." There was a Bon Appetite magazine on the cooking island. "It's penne with root vegetables," he beamed.

It smelled wonderful.

The recipe called for golden beets, which were not to be found in Paducah, so Bill substituted regular beets. They made the dish a lovely, bright rose-fuchsia color. Just perfect for my new outlook.

The dogs all had precious pink lips after they licked the plates.

I was still smiling when I fell into bed.

Life, even when you feel not quite up to the challenge, is good with eight whippets and the world's best husband.

hug your hounds

Home

Home.

Coming home to a house with nine whippets is not a feat for the weak of heart, nor for the (literally) thin skinned. Whippets are celebrated sufferers of E.G.D. (Excessive Greeting Disorder)

A homecoming is a cause for hysteria and hoopla. For screaming and whoopteedoooos. For wagging and barking and jumping. For toy shaking and stuffie murder.

And there is the all-important full body claw drag. Luciano is the Champion of the full body claw drag. He inherited this talent, along with his beautiful headpiece, from his sire Caruso. Here's the technique:

1. wander up, in the midst of the melee of welcoming madness, to the object of the welcome


2. be cool. act casually nonchalant


3. quietly jump up on the welcomee, placing one paw on each collarbone


4. extend toenails, so that they wrap around each collarbone and extend into the welcomee's clavicular grooves


5. plant a little kiss on the welcomee's lips. If you can sneak your tongue up her nostril, so much the better.


6. stretch


7. now, keeping toenails fully extended, drag your front feet down the entire length of the welcomee's body. Extra points are given for shredded clothing and drawing actual blood.

When Caruso did his full body claw drag, we said we had been "Caruso-fied." He left big long welts. Every. Single. Time. Luciano is approaching his dad's proficiency. Swede William has adapted his own special stealth version. He comes from behind and does rapid fire claw rakes down the back of the welcomee's legs. Very exciting if the welcomee is wearing shorts. Best of all if the welcomee is wearing a loose dress or skirt. The toenails can effeciently hook around the underpants, and one well-timed rake can produce all sorts of excitement.

Easy and Spice were the leaders of this Welcoming Committee. Spice had spent the four days of my absence curled up on Bill's lap. (Bless sweet Delia for sharing her Bill without so much as a 'humpf'.) Their surprised expressions when I came through the door turned to relief and then revelry. They thought they had lost yet another human, but there I was, home again.

I always enjoy demonstrations of E. G. D. It's loud, it's raucous, it's so against the rules. It can devolve into a group howl, which is always good for the soul. It's over in a minute or two.

And it lets you know that you are home where you belong. If you had any doubt.

hug your hounds

A Quilt Week Walk -or three - Come on Along! (and a treasure)

First, look at this lovely painting that a dear, dear reader sent of Giacomino and Maria!

Thank you Sharon, I absolutely treasure it!

Today marks the end of Quilt Week in Paducah.

30,000 quilters come to our city of 27,000 (they outnumber us!) to experience all that is the Annual Quilt Show and Contest of the American Quilter's Society. People from Australia, Japan, Wisconsin, Colorado, Sweden, France, Brazil, and all over this good world.

The Quilters love Paducah. And, dear readers, it is reciprocal. Paducah loves the quilters. We are the home of The Museum of the American Quilter's Society, and because of all of this, Paducah is known as Quilt City, USA.

These quilters aren't ho-hum, no, no, no. They are fiber artists. Take a look HERE. If you're new to quilting, check out Mountain Chapel, My Home Town, and Feather Story. HOLY SCHMOLY!!! Can you believe they do that with fabric!!!! Zounds.

But walks must go on, Quilt Week or no, they simply take on a new and exciting flavor. The first walk is Mama Pajama, Spice and Easy. We go collect Tracey and Francie and meet sweet neighbor Stefanie, who joins us. (Tracey said, "Don't you put me in this picture on your blog. Don't you do that!" So I didn't.)

L to R - Spice, Easy, Mama Pajama, Francie in the foreground, Stef holding the leads


Then we said hey to our sweet neighbor Kate, who was out working on her beautiful gardens.

Francie wondered what the heck all of these cars were doing in our little neighborhood. Hmmm?

The first walk completed, we headed off on the second walk.

L to R - Fat Charlie who really had to poop bad, Francie, Delia, and Luciano. Legs? Whose legs? What legs? Those are not Tracey's gorgeous long legs. They are not. I said "No your legs aren't in the photo. Don't worry about it. Nowhere near."

The third and final walk is the longest. We go all the way to the river with the young'uns, which takes us through downtown. There we can take pictures of ourselves, reflected in the store windows.

L to R - Francie, Tracey who appeared to be getting in this photo on purpose, uh-huh, sure looks to me, Swede William, Lindy Loo, your writer, Sam I Am.

Oh, yeah, now she's even posing!

Paducah's charming Renaissance District (downtown, and our adjoining neighborhood of Lowertown) was teeming with fun people. And so many of them were missing their dogs at home.

"Look! Greyhounds!"

Oh, dear readers, I would be one wealthy person if I had a ha'penny for every time I heard those words. And each time, ("Are they all rescued?") I have to decide whether to smile and walk on, or explain that these look like greyhounds, only they're smaller and they're actually their own whole breed. Whippets.

People don't like to be wrong.

Sometimes they try to convince me. "No, them are greyhounds."

Sigh.

But during Quilt Week, particularly the Brits and the Aussies chorus, "Lovely whippets! Lovely dogs!" Smilin' words.

After all that walking, Tracey and I had worked up a powerful hunger and it was lunch time and we noticed, lo and behold, that we had arrived back in our neighborhood at our favorite coffee house, Et Cetera.

The dogs checked the pretty flowers for huntable bumble bees, and we...

... PIGGED OUT! Homemade spinache quiche right out of the oven, fresh strawberries with yogurt and granola and a peach Izzie for me. YUMMMMMMM. Tracey started out with quiche and just strawberries, but she went back later and got the yogurt and granola too.

(Did I mention yumm? I think I did. In case I didn't: YUMMMMM.)

Et Cetera owner Allan is painting a labyrinth. It is way beyond cool, and another example of the magic of this place.

When we got home, we wallered on the porch. After all that pigging out, wallerin' was about all I was good for.

Easy is learning that folks who walk by our sidewalk are okay. Last evening, instead of barking at a group of home tour-ers, he ran and got the giant moose toy and brought it to them. He set to pulling Mr. Moose's mane off, which lodged in Easy's teeth, giving him the silliest beard!

Neighbor Auntie Karen had her iPhone and got these precious shots (you can click to enlarge, use your back button to return):

hug your hounds