Pretty, lots of pretty

Gray southwest sky... watercolor...4x6"...$60.00

First, I've fallen behind (imagine! me???) in posting Bill's 'shameless sales pitches'. So here are his last two weeks' offerings.

Forlorn..watercolor...6x9”...$100 SOLD

Fresh Produce...watercolor...4x7"...$70 SOLD, too!!

West Kentucky Landscape... watercolor...5x9"...$100

As always, you can email Bill if you are interested in any of the paintings, or if you want to be put on his Shameless Mailing List.

This morning when I walked the dogs it was so pretty out. I was rather weepy and I'm not at all sure why. The sheer beauty of the day could have made me happy weepy - the sky like the one in the painting above, only without a single cloud. The temperature so perfect that I was able to take Mama Pajama, Easy, and Fat Charlie (the 12 year olds) around two blocks instead of one.

Maybe because Mama Pajama, diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis last month, has had three good days in a row! She's enjoying her buckwheat pancakes and last night she wolfed down her boiled turkey cutlets, pancakes, and broccoli. She does whippet spins when she goes out at night and smiles and wags and oh my heart!

Maybe it was the part of the walk with Sam, Lindy Loo, and Swede William down town. The only block in Paducah with out trees, the back of a bank parking lot on one side and a row of empty old warehouses, the empty old Catholic school, and the health food store on the other. That one block where I can relax - no squirrels to be found.

Until this morning. Out from between two cars in the parking lot bolts a Stoooopid City Squirrel, not ten feet in front of us. My leashes are five feet long; you can do the math. WeeeeeHaaaaaaaa! He could have stayed where he was. He could have gone north, south, or east, but noooooooo, he heads west, right in our path and darts across the road, the whippets in hot pursuit. Who needs coffee after an adrenalin rush like that?

(Well, I do. I'm on cup # 3.) So I can't explain my fragility. The fact that it's November? The beauty of a blog friend's brand new perfect granddaughter? My conversations with my brave sister? Overwhelming gratitude I feel for reconnecting with a treasured old friend? Realizing my great good fortune at the people who are willing to put up with my nonsense?

The fact that I have to clean the house from stem to stern? (Heh, heh, heh.)

Who knows. But weepy or not, it's a great day to be alive. And Mama Pajama is having a dream of chasing a stinkin' squirrel, barking, running and wagging away in her sleep. Go Mama! She can still fly in her dreams.

hug your hounds

Sammy the Saint and Literary Doings

It's been a fun-packed time around these parts.

I went to my first-ever writers' retreat and learned oh my gosh so much. The presenters (see below for some great book recommendations) were enormously talented, and helpful, and funny, and did I mention talented? As were the other participants. I think I did a very bad job of being me: I felt like I said exactly the wrong thing at every opportunity; like I picked the absolute wrong choice of my writing to read; like I was a big impostor who-did-I-think-I-was boob for being there. Do you know what I mean?

I felt like I had shrunk so far as to be nearly invisible.

But once I cast aside my ego, bruised and pulpy from nothing but my own demons pounding the poop out of it, I emerged more educated, more determined, and strangely - after a couple of weeks of being back home with the dogs and Bill - more confident.

Our Kennel Club hosted our four day autumn Agility Trial. Two words? It. Rocked. I stayed too busy to be frustrated by the fact that Sammy wasn't entered. For the most part. But the judges were happy, the competitors were happy, the club members were happy, and the facility was great. We got the most spectators ever and they loved it. The dogs were spectacular. The club fed dinner to about eighty guests and I'm still full!

And yesterday Sam I Am and I did a book signing/reading at Western Kentucky Community and Technical College. I am not usually that nervous at a reading. But the recent humility of the writers' retreat, coupled with the fact that I would know so many in the audience, including and especially Bill, I was a mess and a half.

It poured. I mean there were flash floods and closed roads. I followed Heather (of Emmett and Baby Ben fame), and as we walked to the library I thought, If Heather weren't leading me I'd never find this place, and if I knew where it was I surely wouldn't come in this rain.

I figured I'd be reading to Bill, Heather, Kim who invited me to read, and Lee, who was bringing Bill. The thought of no one coming made me even more nervous.

But they did come. Lots of people. Oh I was glad to have Sam I Am with me. At first he was confused: since when were his Bill and his Heather and his Lee and his walking buddy Tracey at a therapy setting or a reading? But he was so good. I usually bring a little bed for him, but I forgot, so I put his coat on the floor.

Heather sat in the front row, and when she cried during Opie's Song, Sam sat with her for a bit. When I read The Wild Dinner Party and he heard his name, he rejoined me at the podium. The audience was so very kind and generous. I stumbled over more words than usual because of my nervousness, but folks were forgiving. My sweet friend Deb came and took these pictures. Thanks, Deb.

These stories are always so well received. They certainly aren't great literature. They're just little stories. But I think it's because they come from the dogs. That's why people like to hear and read them.

They come straight from the dogs, and all of our dogs speak the same language, don't they?

hug your hounds

Or better yet, sneak them cookies like Lee did! You ROCK, Lee!

*** Book recommendations from the writers' retreat:

We All Live Downstream - Writings About Mountaintop Removal

edited by Jason Howard

Can A Democrat Get Into Heaven

hysterical!!! by Anne Shelby

The King of Gaheena

by Squire Babcock

Eli the Good

by Silas House

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

Book Reading and Signing THIS WEEK!

The lovely Kim Russell at WKCTC has invited me to do a reading and signing of Mama Pajama Tells A Story on Thursday, the 29th at 2 PM in the college library.

[click to enlarge]

I sure hope you can attend! I love to do readings of this book - just little stories - but people do seem to enjoy them.

hug your hounds, and if you're local, maybe you'd be kind enough to spread the word

thank you!

Friday My Town Shoot Out - Classics of Childhood

This week's theme, chosen by Ellisa, is Classics of Childhood.


My son, Jake, who is now 33, with his pony Peter. Yes, Peter has Dixie cups on his ears. And yes, Peter is still alive and well and living with Jake's sister Sara and her two little boys!

Our Paducah Kennel Club is smack dab in the middle of putting on our HUGE exciting Agility Trial. Our four day trial filled to capacity, and we started on Thursday at four with more than 200 runs. Today, Saturday and Sunday we have 330 something runs! Go us! We've gotten in the paper, on the TV news (NBC affiliate WPSD), and we're on the net HERE and HERE and HERE!

So it's a fun busy exciting time and I barely got my Friday Shoot Out up but here we go.

Here in Paducah, baby Ben helped celebrate Lindy Loo and Emmett's birthday

Two Halloween's ago, Baby Ben came as a giant squeak toy!!!

Grandson William sang Oh SOLE MIO!!! while we all made pasta from scratch.

They were magical times!

hug your hounds

I'm here!!!

SShhhhhhh! We're taking a break at the writers' conference. It's GREAT! But I feel like a pretender. They asked us to introduce ourselves at first, and said we could say anything, because nobody knows any better. (Uh-oh, grin.)

So I said, "I'm Patience Renzulli, and my debut novel just made it to 23rd on the NYTimes Bestseller's List."

Everyone's eyes sharpened and their mouths made little o's.

And then we all laughed!

hug your hounds and mine for me

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