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

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

Sweet Saturday

It is a G.L.O.R.I.O.U.S. day in Western Kentucky. Sunny. Warm. A little breeze.

Swede William allowed us to sleep until 6:45 this morning, before he sounded his, "Hey, it's a beautiful morning and time's a-wasting" alarm. (One of the great personal joys of starting this new job is my being able to wake up Swede William for a change. Ha!) Sleeping in until 6:45 felt delicious. Decadent. Ahhhhhhh.

I know that you all are curious about how the new job is going. (I won't ever talk about actual patient care. There are privacy issues that trump all.)

This week I have been in a classroom, although the last two hours yesterday I was on my actual clinical unit, simply observing. I am so impressed with everything I see in this hospital. Their orientation is excellent. People who work there have been there ten, twenty, thirty years, and there are LOTS of employees with that kind of longevity. That says a lot.

Bill and the dogs have done fine. I've been getting home around five. (I don't start the 12 hour shifts until December.) I change my clothes, feed the waggle, and then we go for our walks. Yes it's dark. Less stupid city squirrellies. More C.A.T.s.

Including an all white C.A.T. who wants to be friends with the whippets.

image from http://www.free-images.org.uk/cats/02-white-cat.htm

Who approaches us when she sees us coming. In the dark. Under the streetlights. Like a white baggie on the lure machine, screaming "CHASE ME! GET ME! NANNY NANNY BOO BOO!"

Oh boy.

If I'm feeling a little peaked from trying to absorb the last, oh, 24 years of updates in hospital nursing in, say, eight hours, if my feet are dragging and my head is pounding and my neck is more knotted than my gramma's tatting, well, let that white C.A.T. start trotting toward Sam I Am, Lindy Loo, Swede William and me. I am no longer feeling exhausted, no I am NOT! I am shot through with adrenaline. ZING! My personal catecholamine level is suddenly high enough that I could hop right on up to the tippy top of Mt. Everest and not even notice that it was chilly out.

And that white C.A.T. is one of those souls who 'doesn't take a hint so good'.

"SHEW," I say.

"We're going to EAT YOUR HEAD OFF, you beastly white flukinschmordablueysnorkle!" scream the whippets. (They actually sling all sorts of horrid epithets, vulgarities, and plain old cuss words, I'm ashamed to tell you, Dear Readers. Along with foamy spit and biting anything in their reach.)

We get back from the walks to the smells of Bill's heavenly kitchen miracles. Thanks to the C.A.T. my plate is spared my face falling into it. I am wide awake, and able to enjoy the most delectable delights he has created.

After dinner the dogs drape themselves around the TV room. I sort through the pages of handouts (more than 250 so far) and try to get my 55 year old brain to process what it took in. The dogs twitch and bark in their sleep, no doubt chomping on any number of white C.A.T.s with exaggerated fangs and stinky butts in dreamland.

I twitch and cry in real life. I have always had things come so easily to me. I was born with a brain that could grasp, figure out, problem solve, and retrieve anything I told it to in a snap. I was the pain in the ass in class: first one with her hand up, first one with the right answer. Now, I'm not.

It's scary.

I feel more like the white C.A.T. Like I'm approaching something all friendly-like. Only it wants to gobble me up. And I'm de-clawed.

But. I'll take it one day at a time. There is plenty of support available to me. I am going to the hospital today to use the online study programs available in the hospital's excellent library. I will do everything I can and if it isn't enough, I'll know I tried.

I will hug my hounds when I get back from the library. Then we'll walk in this beautiful sunshine.

You can hug yours now!

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

Proud

Delia and her Bill

I'm proud of my husband.

He is on his way to Louisville to make a presentation to the whoop-tee-doo Movers and Shakers and Shapers of our state. We were asked to speak about how the arts can influence a community. I have other commitments, so Bill is going it alone. And oh are they going to love him!

He has worked on his Power Point presentation. He will speak with only some jotted notes, because he knows his subject and he has practiced and worked it all out. He will make his audience laugh, and think, and think some more, and grow. And laugh some more.

This is a man who wrote:

Our lives are a series of choices, usually far more than we ever appreciate. The fortunate person is one who recognizes the choices, and has the courage and the will to make the choices they desire, regardless of the difficulty and risk. Windows of opportunity will exist, often quite fleetingly, and the greater the opportunity the smaller the window.

(From Bill's beautiful book, Have I Told You Today That I Love You )

Delia was sleeping, all curled up under blankets in Bill's study, when Bill took his suitcase out to the car this morning. I will have to let her trot around his studio several times throughout today and tomorrow, to see for herself that he's not there. She won't believe me. He did say goodbye to her, but I'm pretty sure she thought he was simply going to the Post Office or the grocery store.

Bill has started a weekly email promotion. He will be offering two of his small originals at special prices. Here are the first two:

Salmon Sky, watercolor 5" x 8" $90

Summer Day, watercolor, 4" x 6" $60

If you would like to be put on the mailing list, email Bill

I'm going to my first ever writer's gathering/conference on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It will be small and rather intimate, and I will feel inspired, insecure, under-educated, delighted, and just plain scared to death! It is hosted by a publishing house and the speakers, leaders and other guests are all way more accomplished than I am.

But it's one of those little windows Bill was talking about, isn't it? I will feel oh so humble and like a teensy happy flea jumping around trying to listen and learn. I'll do my best, that's all.

I want Bill to be able to be just half as proud of me as I am of him.

hug your hounds and your inspirations

Bill's Work

(Click on any image to enlarge, then use your back button to return.)

Worley Road, watercolor, 9" x 3"

Bill has been creating an absolutely delightful body of work for an upcoming show with two other Lowertown artists. The show is titled Wee Three, and all the work will be miniatures.


Seeing as how I have Special Privileges, I get a daily preview. And since I owe you Dear Readers a great deal, I thought I'd share.

Oh my lands! Mr. Webster defines delightful as giving great pleasure; highly pleasing.

These little pieces are highly pleasing, indeed. And because they are miniatures, their price will give great pleasure also. I look forward each evening to see his day's creations.

Small Fall, acrylic, 6" x 6"

Looking Out, acrylic, 6" x 8"

I included this one, because it's not a typical Renzulli, but I love it!

East Point Lighthouse, acrylic, 8" x 10"

Is it just me? Or do you find them as fun as I do? If you want to see many many more, fix yourself a cup of tea or coffee, or grab a glass of wine if it's that time of day, and go to Bill's blog.

Just keep clicking on "older posts" - it is a nice journey.

If you are a local reader, the reception for the show will be at Leaping Trout Gallery (on Madison between 7th and 8th Streets) on October 9th, from 5 - 8 PM.

It's a beautiful day to hug some hounds!

Last Night's Dinner

***

Home made ravioli - garbanzo beans, arugula, Parmesan filling, with pesto in won ton wrappers a la Bill Renzulli.

He's working on a plan to offer pasta preparation workshops in our humble, homey kitchen. You should see the collection of recipes he's printed for the occasion.

I'm drooling.

Oh, and the dogs totally enjoyed licking the plates!



hug your hounds

PASTA! A home made recipe for fun

Assemble your ingredients:
1 generous portion of Grampa
1 dollop of Sparkling Daughter Amy
1 (and this is crucial, do NOT skimp on this particularly important ingredient) groovy grandson William
2 C unbleached flour
7 organic eggs




Now, let's get started!
Form two volcanoes of the flour.
Break your eggs into a bowl.



Pour the goopy eggs into the flour volcanoes.
Laugh when Grampa's volcano erupts, or, sort of leaks.



Give up on the whole mix with a fork thing, and get those hands involved!



Pasta making is NOT for the weak of heart!
(Or the weak of arms!)




Pasta making IS for Fat Charlie, Sam I Am and Swede William!

Stay neat and tidy at all times, and do NOT dissolve into fits of laughter, aimed exclusively at Grandpa and his pile of gooey, sticky, messy dough, when YOUR batch is working perfectly!

Help poor old weak Gramma. This dough is ornery!

Break into O! Sole Mio! Life is too good not to!

And get the "geetar" - Great Gramma's thingy that makes the flattened dough into linguine - ready for action.

We need Grampa muscles for this.

It's PASTA!!!! Only Three hours later! We are geniuses!

The sauce is smelling mighty good.

TA- DAAAAAA!

One more because they're just so cute!

The proof is in the mmmmmmmmmm!

Hug your hounds (and ALWAYS share the leftovers, and the plate/pan licking duties with them!)

Delia's Pick

On the side bar of this page, I rotate some of Bill's new paintings. (When I remember...) Delia adopted Bill as her own four years ago, and she hangs out in the studio with him. Although, as I write, she is curled up with Sam I Am on the couch under a fleecy blanket. Bill is reading the paper downstairs.

Solitary Tree. acrylic on canvas. 36 x 36

do click to enlarge, you won't be disappointed!

Anyway, Bill emailed me an image of a new painting for the sidebar, and I thought it deserved posting on the main blog. It is just stunning. He painted it when Maria died, and though I'm not sure he would make the connection, I see her in the red sky. I see us in the strong mourning tree.

Or maybe I just see a beautiful painting that I proudly want to share with my dear readers.

I love it. (You can see lots more of Bill's recent paintings on his blog: HERE.)

Now, back to cleaning and decorating the house and getting ready for our FUN guests! Linda arrives tomorrow!!!)

Hug your hounds

Going to a Dog Show

Normally I would be saying, "the van is packed and ready." But these are not normal times.

Gas.

I love my van. I adore my van. I bought my van back in the day when I was a full time R.N. and getting paid! I actually put a monthly "car payment" in a savings account, (earning interest instead of paying it) and when it was time to buy the van, I bought it. The van before this one had been bought used, but this was shiny new and spacious.

It is a fifteen passenger van. A church bus. A big airport shuttle. We took the bench seats out and filled in the cavern with dog crates and bins of my collars to sell and even a full sized x-pen up on a platform. All nine of the dogs ride comfortably, with room for a friend of the canine or human persuasion.

But I have not loaded the van for this trip.

I have taken crates out of the van and put them in... I still hate to say it out loud... the Buick. Rendezvous.

Our other car was always a Subaru wagon, since 1983. Except for a three year hiatus when we thought Japan wasn't trading fairly so we bought a Saturn. Other than that since 1983, we had a Subaru. Lulu the Subaru was the dog car before there was a van, back when there was a truck and horse trailer. She was a good luck, happy times dog car. She continued to be a happy car for our daughter an her husband after she left us. That was a great car.

But the whippets outgrew Subarus, and graduated to vans, and the Subaru became our get around car. And that's how we got the Rendezvous. I was getting around to picking up my new glasses and two desperately needed new bras. (I do not enjoy shopping, and I never budget time on purpose for it. I detest malls. I think that's what's wrong with this country: Walmart and malls. Have you ever seen a happy person at a Walmart or a mall?) But since I had to pick up my glasses, I figured I could drive on out and get something significantly less tired than my current undergarments were.

I found two bargain bras out at the "mall area" (not at the mall and not at Walmart) and I was sitting in the latest Lulu the Subaru at the stop light in front of Chuckie Cheese's thinking about my soon to be perkier figure and my authorly new glasses, when the loudest noise exploded me and next thing I knew a nice man was asking me if I was all right. I thought it odd that I should be lying flat on my back when I should have been sitting at a stop light. And my neck hurt and both of my hands were pins and needles.

Turns out the lady going forty mph in her nice big Mercedes didn't notice the red light, neither did she spot the Subaru stopped at it, nor the car stopped in front of the Subaru, or the two cars stopped in the other lane, and she didn't bother even stepping on her brake the tiniest bit, but instead let the back of my Subaru and the car in front of the Subaru do the stopping of her nice big Mercedes for her.

We think she had a habit of doing stuff like that, because she wasn't insured.

Those two bargain bras cost our insurance company somewhere in the neighborhood of $8,000.00 each.

Bill met me at the hospital. He had found my new glasses which had been on my face, back by the tail light in the way back of poor Lulu. She was totaled.

She had done her job of protecting me, and by some real honest miracle, I had not taken Mama Pajama with me. It was when she was too sick to go on even a short walk, and to make up for it, I'd take her in the car for little errands. Now, I'd written articles on the importance of having dogs secured in vehicles, since in even a minor fender bender a dog becomes a flying object and when it's dog versus windshield, the dog doesn't usually fare so very well. But to give Mama Pajama something to be happy about I had been ignoring my own advice and had been letting her ride shotgun.

I had, thank goodness, left her home that day, and I cannot think about what would have happened had I not. Sweet Mama Pajama is well enough to go on her walks now, and when she rides in a car or the van she is in a secured crate.

So my neck hurt a bit, but we had some big thing going on at the Kennel Club and I was to be there. It was about a week after the accident. Bill asked about another car. What kind should we get, since there were no Subaru dealers here. I hurt. I didn't care. It was up to him.

At the Kennel Club, Bill called my cell phone and said he'd found a car. A Buick. A Rhonda something or other. I didn't pay a whole lot of attention, but when I told my friends, they said, "A Rendezvous?" And their faces looked a little funny when they asked if I had ever seen a Rendezvous. (Dog people know every vehicle made which has room for crates in the back.)

I got home, and at that point my neck was screaming bad things at me, but I stopped dead in my tracks. My husband had bought a big Gremlin!

He came bounding out of the house, surrounded by clouds of excitement. "How do you like it?" he gushed.

"It's a Gremlin on steroids."

1970 AMC Gremlin photo from www.carpictures.com

"Oh that hurts my heart a little," he said.

But that Rendezvous has been a good car. Bill gloats when I put my crates in the Vous to save money on gas. There is a lot of room back there. And we drove it to a vineyard in Missouri on a fun trip with our dear neighbors and we laughed the whole two hours there and back. Bill giving the V sign to any other Rendezvous driver that passed, and calling it his Babe Machine.

And the dealer did take a big painting as partial payment, so that car is extra special to him.

Tomorrow the Vous will take me and Lindy Loo and Swede William to the Midwest Specialty. I didn't think I'd be going, but my friend Carolyn who's fighting the damn brain cancer is going to go. Crystal said the dogs and I can stay in her camper. And the Vous will drink a lot less gas than the van.

Bill's Babe Machine. I can't help but chuckle.

We'll be back Monday, but won't have Internet til then.

Hug your hounds

Birthday party photos, as promised!

I did not get a photo of the plate of nine grilled hamburgers, or of their consumption, but they were nonetheless enjoyed. It took a lot longer to prepare them than it took the dogs to gulp them!

Then the humans ate their meal. Our dear friends Lee and Dee joined us (and oh what a greeting they got from the Waggle - ah-wooos long and loud all around!) and our brand new neighbors, Xan and her dad Michael. Xan took most of the photos for me, except the one of her. We had grilled Italian sausage, grilled veggies including the first corn on the cob of the season, sliced tomatoes with fresh basil and olive oil, home made bread which came in the mail from the grands, and Xan brought delicious roast potatoes. Lee and Dee brought wine.

The dogs helped do the dishes, and then:


[L to R - Fat Charlie's nose, Swede William, Giacomino, Lindy Loo, Sam I Am and Mama Pajama]

"Is she getting out the whipped cream?"



[Mama Pajama on Lee's lap]

"I can reach it from here!"



[Fat Charlie]

"Mmmmmm. Nyummm!"




If you click on this photo and enlarge it, Maria's eyes might give you nightmares.



Seconds... or thirds... for Mama Pajama




Then Swede William went from lap to lap all the way around the table, starting with Bill.

Our fun new neighbor Xan gets a turn.

Maria had too much partying.

Fat Charlie ended the evening with a face full of stinky foot.

Hug your hounds