chi charmer

Still recovering from a busy week and hosting the Thanksgiving feast. My sister and her family stayed with us this week and brought their chihuahua Lola all the way from Carlsbad, California. It was great to see everyone and fun to have a dog in the house again. One afternoon while everyone was out and I was home doggie sitting, I decided to see if Lola would model for me. I took my time coaxing her into the spare bedroom I use as a studio. I let her sniff the room thoroughly, showed her my camera and fired off several shots so she could hear the sounds and see the flash, and then I held her on my lap for a few minutes before putting her on the white table top. It took a couple of minutes of petting and talking to her before she sat down, relaxed, and began striking a pose!

No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does. ~Christopher Morley

best of youtube

I started a YouTube account recently and learned how to take and upload videos, look out Mr. Spielberg, bookbabie is now in the movie business! My first “film” is about our pet squirrel. Well, maybe he’s not exactly a pet, we don’t walk him on a leash or let him sleep at the foot of our bed. But for the moment he does satisfy our need to have a cute, fuzzy little creature around. When our dog died last year we decided to go pet-free for a while so we’d have the freedom to do some traveling. Unfortunately, the economy immediately tanked and we’ve since tightened our belts resulting in vanishing travel itineraries which gives us plenty of time to play with our video camera and risk disease by hand feeding peanuts to overgrown bushy tailed rodents 🙂

Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. ~George Eliot

dogs allowed

So we did it and it was awful and that’s all I’ll say about it. We felt like we needed to stay busy today and get out of the house. But where do you go when you need to cheer up, to forget you had a dog yesterday and today you don’t? Why, Canada of course! The people in Canada are so nice and polite and they always seem so damn happy. So we packed up our cameras and a lunch and took off for Point Pelee National Park in Ontario. The plan was to take pictures of the park’s famous butterfly, bird, and dragonfly populations, to get lost in the beauty of nature and try to not think about Nikki. What we didn’t know was that every bird in Canada has already migrated south (they didn’t hear there was a warm front coming) and they apparently took the butterflies and dragonflies with them leaving behind a park full of happy Canadians and their furry four-legged friends. Yes, it turns out that our friendly neighbors to the north do love their dogs, and not only are they allowed at the park, but at this time of the year dogs are the main attraction as they are the only living things for miles around beside the humans (and the blood thirsty Canadian mosquitoes which are tinted an odd shade of maple leaf red). Still, it was good to get out of the house…but sad when we got home and there was no yappy little dog to greet us at the door.

The point at Point Pelee, that’s it waaaaaaay out in the distance…where the sand comes to, what else? a point.

Me, looking at the point, or maybe I’m looking at a seagull. See it, that tiny spot that looks like a speck of dust in the sky? Wait, maybe that is dust. I’m thinking I need to rethink those pants I’m wearing, that is not a bum George Clooney would covet, is it?

Mister bookbabie scanning the trees for signs of life.

The marsh walk at the park. Quite lovely if you like to look at miles of tall grass-like plants.

nikki

We are going to have our dog put to sleep this afternoon. She’s almost sixteen and has the typical list of older dog health problems: blindness, deafness, trouble walking because of painful arthritic hips, badly infected gums, potty issues, and now she’s afraid to be left alone for any length of time. My husband and I keep reciting that list to each other, hoping I suppose that it will make it okay, make it easier. But it’s not working. We feel like shit.