Can I Keep It?

Joyeux Anniversaire!

Happy Birthday, Monsieur Zali!  You're three years old today!

Of course, in dog years, it means he is no longer underage drinking.  And he would be graduating college in the Spring.   I guess we should start thinking about those grad school entrance forms...

Zali is quite the companion.  A real Momma's boy. I know he wouldn't win any awards at Westminster, but I think he is sooooo handsome. As a baby, both of his ears stood up like Simone's do.  But he's always been a bit of a gamer and took one on the ear from Zoe.  Hud and I would hear a ruckus in the foyer and walk in to find a Tasmanian Devil's tornado of Carmen and Zoe playing grab the pooch.  All of the sudden, Zali would come flying out of the middle of the tussle, launched into the air in an arc and when he crashed to the ground would go storming back into the mix.

On one of these play dates, Zoe broke his ear.  It didn't hurt him.  It simply would no longer stand at attention, robbing him of any chance to be the next great stud and the opportunity to sit in that giant silver cup for the photographers.  I like it.  I think it's rather rakish.

Papillons with floppy ears are called, "Phalenes"  which means, "moth'.  I suppose his accident makes him a, "Papilene" or a "Phalillon". 

So Happy Birthday, Monsieur!  And many, many more! 

And also, a very Happy Belated birthday to my friend, Evelyn!  I hope you had a lovely day. (Don't worry.  I WON'T tell them how old YOU are.  Let's just say that you're older than three and you can drink legally. Tee Hee)

The Condition of the Air

Carmen is not happy.  The air conditioning on the second and third floors is not working.  Carmen likes to nap during the day on her cozy little bed by Hud's side of our big old bed.  It is too hot to do that.  She doesn't like it when the universe screws with her comfort. 

She is not amused.

The guys are here to fix the problem.  I hope they find out what's wrong before Carmen goes all ape doody on somebody. 

We have a poltergeist at Schyterbolle.  It's either Dr. Cox, one of the former owners or my dad.  Whoever they are, they don't do anything really mean.  It's more naughty than mean.  Mischievous is more like it. 

The poltergeist likes to nick small items.  He'll take them and watch you squirm, opening the same drawer over and over, scratching your head and muttering.  The objects will disappear for several days and when you least expect it, will turn up in some unusual place.  The last thing he took was my tweezers.  For ten years now, they have remained in the same drawer of my desk, a tiger oak trundle with only one drawer.  Ten years.  Then one morning, I went to retrieve them and they were nowhere to be found.  "Okay,"  I said out loud, "Give them back," to no one in particular.

Two weeks later, after I had purchased a new pair, there they were, sitting right on top of my hair barrettes in a drawer of my vanity, in our bedroom on the other side of the house.  I'm in that drawer every day for something with which to tie up my hair.  They simply materialized when the poltergeist stopped having fun with them.  Or me, I guess.

I'm hoping that he hasn't escalated to something more sinister.  Like the wiring on the air conditioning.  The unit is only  a year old. 

Carmen might have to bite him.  That would change his condition.

Monkey Business

Cheeky Monkey...

This is McKenzie.  She keeps company with a very nice lady named Christy in Louisiana.  And she obviously is very attached to corn on the cob.

Normally, I play requests to do portraits of dogs and cats.  Okay, once I painted a leech.  Yep.  Our favorite vet tech, Brenda, at the office I take the kids to saves them as pets after they are used to reattach some poor pup's wayward appendage.  They live in a little aquarium with a plastic TV and a palm tree on a tiny beach.  She feeds them raw beef liver.  Yummy pooh.  It turned out really cute.  They have three mouths and I made them all smiling big cheesy grins.

But I digress.

The past few weeks I have been painting the charming McKenzie.  Who really loves corn.  And beer. And riding the dog.  And wearing pretty frocks. And her pet monkey/bear that she carries around by the end of her tail.  I called it, "Multitasking McKenzie". 

Who doesn't think having a monkey would be really cool?  Raise your hand? 

I've wanted one ever since I was in college at Rhode Island School of Design.  A friend and I would go dancing at a  bar we called the "Knife and Bum Club" (aka: "The Fife and Drum Club).  We took his friend's monkey with us, after dying the monk with food coloring to match the shade of purple hair I was sporting at the time.  Careful.  Don't get all queasy on me, kids.  It was 1980. Not last year.  Ahhh, good times.

Christy's gal pal is off to the Monkey convention this weekend to visit with the other monkey mothers.  I forgot to ask if McKenzie is going.  Who am I kidding?  If I knew where there was a hotel full of monkeys -- I'd hop a plane there, too!

Enjoy your monkeys, Christy.  Life's too short and sweet like Summer corn not to.

Pigling Blog

Ce n'est pas une cochon.

Despite the fact that Monsieur is licking the floor like a pig rooting for truffles in the forest.

This weekend we went to photograph some lovely old wall paper in a family home that some friends are renovating in the country.  It was a silver sea, a-froth with flowers and butterflies and birds.  No pigs, but there were peacocks wandering the grounds.

We sat down to lunch and talked about many subjects.  Meandering onto the topic of "Who's a lifetime Memphian?", I had to admit that I was raised in Richmond, VA.  I love living in Memphis, but ahhh!  Richmond.  There's so much history, beautiful countryside, lovely old houses everywhere and it will always be my home.  Even though my remaining family live in Mississippi and Houston, Richmond is the place of my childhood dreams. 

Torrential rains pounded Memphis last evening.  We took on 2 1/2 inches in an hour.  The drain in the driveway flooded.  Our backyard was a surf break. The pool nearly slipped the coping.  Cypress Creek, running under our property, overflowed her open banks in the churchyard.  The basement flooded.  Ankle-deep, murky water swirled like the ocean in the bowels our home.

We needed to wait to drain it until the morning.  When the cap is removed with the creek so high, it forms a geyser.  So we slept  and I dreamed the house was a giant ship, tossing about on a stormy sea. 

I also dreamed of a time when I was in the second or third grade, back in Richmond.  We were going on a field trip to Jamestown.  Jamestown lies to the east about 2 1/2 or 3 hours away from Richmond.  My class had all packed sack lunches.  The bus had pulled off to some picnic tables by the side of the road, next to a swamp, about two hours into the journey.

Suddenly, the bus driver and his assistant, started snatching up children and throwing them on the bus.  Like sacks of potatoes, he tossed the children in, wild eyed.  The teacher kept screaming, "What's going on?"  He looked at her, frantically and told her to get us on the bus as quickly as possible.  We left out meals and ran to the doors.  As he slammed the doors behind us, they came charging out from between the trees.  Wild pigs.  A whole herd of them, snarling and snorting, ate our lunches.

I'm sure not one of us had any truffles. 

Adeunt Etiam Optima

The motto of Schyterbolle is, "Adeunt Etiam Optima".  In Latin, it means, "The Best is Yet to Be".

For many years, my switch was stuck on "survival" mode.  I was only reacting to my life instead of living it.  Scraping up enough courage to fight my demons -- the grandparents who tortured me, failure to be the person my parents had expected me to be, a miserable first marriage to a dangerous man, a terrible, painful, scary divorce, the 'Frenemies" I chose to surround my undeserving self with,  my father's suicide, my father's suicide, my father's suicide -- I have finally silenced the self-loathing chatter in my head ( most of the time ) and chosen to live.  Deeply.  Madly.  Truly.

I have always said that I prefer the company of animals, because people have teeth and claws.

Zali recognized the dog in me.  Namaste.  He made me realize that I am worthy of devotion.  Simone has taught me to to rejoice in my life, as I did as a child.  Zoe has taught me to relish the wonder and miracles of the ordinary.  Carmen has brought me compassion and calm, quiet simple pleasures.   

It's a dog's life.  They've given me the gift of waking most every day without prejudice against myself.  I no longer want to see myself through the vision of my own past.  I want to see myself as they see me.  Now.  In the moment.  There is no time except right now and the delirious surprise of the future.

Who knows?  Maybe there'll be treats.

Adeunt Etiam Optima.  The best is yet to be.

     

Random Acts of Photography

Zali, Master of All He Surveys

In Celebration of the Olympics in China!

EGG ROLLS! 

Hud and I went to our favorite Asian restaurant, Pho Hoa Binh, where we devoured the savory curried tofu.  It's a sinful pleasure.  We like to sneak off by ourselves on occasion and leave the kids at home to fend for themselves.  But in the end, guilt-ridden, we bring the children back a treat.

Today, we gifted them some egg rolls!

Simone thought they were divine.  She'd never sampled anything like them before.

She stood on her wee tippy toes to take her bite of heaven.  The others salivated and impatiently waited their turns.

Carmen likes crunchy foods.  I always give her the end bits.  They have more rice wrapper.

Zoe barely tastes any foodstuff as she snarfs rather than dines.  She sucks her breath in with a resounding whoosh!  I'm almost afraid that she'll take my wedding ring down one day.

Zali likes them best of all.  You can see the excitement in his eyes!

We tried to explain to them about the Olympics and how it moves from country to country.  "You mean that reality show you've been watching about the beach volley ball players who occasionally swim and dive off of tall stuff?" Carmen asked, rolling her eyes,  "Boringggg!"

"Why would they move around the countries when this one has EGG ROLLS!"  Zali exclaimed.  I want to leeve zare, Muhzer!"

Well, no, Zali sometimes they eat, well, never mind.  I told him, patting his little head.  How 'bout we stay here and I'll get you another sometime?

Yay!  The children were delighted.  The world is a better place for them because the Asians invented egg rolls.  

Breaking Up is Hard to Do...

This is the full sum amount of grass in our backyard.  It's a long, winding puddle of the herb really.  An interesting shape of lawn to rest the weary eye from the rest of the chaotically colored cacophony of flowers and shrubs.  We're not big fans of the "grass".  At our last place the yard was precipitously sloped, the end of which terminated in a very busy city street.  I feared for Hud whenever he went out to tame it.  I gave him the ultimatum:  Let's make it a garden or we're getting a goat.

The only reason we keep it is so that the dogs have a place to conduct their affairs.

Simone is playing in the new "rock garden".  It's our feeble attempt to ask the bamboo to leave us a bit of space on which to plop a blossom or two.  When we first moved in, there was a small screen of very tall bamboo, outside the northern windows of the living room.  A few years ago the city received the gift of pandas from China.

"What, pray tell, does this have to do with your screen of bamboo?" you ask.

Because the horticulturist at the zoo discovered that we had the "good stuff".  Our particular breed of bamboo is the grass the pandas crave when they are feeling, ummmm, lusty.  They asked to cut it during breeding season.  We were delighted.  That is, until the next Spring when we realized that they had fertilized it!  It runs everywhere -- into the lawn, the beds, the vegetable gardens, everywhere!  I'm sure I'll find it sneaking up between the floorboards any day now.

The other villain in this sad tale is the forgotten zone in the churchyard next door.  There's an area of jungle that abuts our fence line.  Hud dons his nuclear gear and carves a path through it to the fence so he can spray the weeds with industrial grade weed killer.  If he didn't the poison ivy, spiderwort, possum grape and various other of their unsavory accomplices would devour our lovely gardens.

This year:  It was WAR! 

Memphis had a long, lovely, wet temperate Spring, unusual for our region.  The weeds went drunken frat party girls gone wild, wild.

Our lawn care company could not withstand the assault.  Weeds sprung up in the most  unfortunate places.  The small patch of tidy grass, barely had a blade or two amongst the rubbish.  We tried and tried to get the company to man up its attacks, but they did not.  So, we fired them.  Or we tried to.  This company has the most clever marketing policy.  They simply do not accept that you have asked them to leave. 

Every month the sales people call to schedule our appointment.  We refuse and remind them that they are no longer employed by us.  The nice technician arrives monthly to service the lawn and rings the bell for me to open the gate.  I decline politely.  This has been going on since April. 

At any moment, I am quite sure I'll find a bunny boiling on my stove... It's bordering on stalking.

We've tried to remain very business-like in our demeanor with them until yesterday.  Not really we anymore,I mean, me, I went all ape doody on the head of the poor representative who called to speak to us about our lawn care.  "How do we fire you?"  I harangued.  "Get some counseling!  This is very unhealthy!  You people are no longer invited to our house.  We have broken up with you!  Move on with your life!" 

I might have been ranting.

So for our next lesson kids, I'll be teaching the dogs to use the toilet.  In the house.  In the bathroom.  Flush and everything.

We'll be planting ground cover and getting the goat.  I am soooo over this "grass" thing.  And that goes for the bamboo grass, too.  

What We Did on Summer Vacation

The air is changing.  The kids went back to school.  Yeah, they start them early in Memphis.  The Birch Tree's started its end of the Summer shedding of the leaves.  Fall MUST be around the corner somewhere.

Zoe's so excited.

She can hardly stay awake.  She's been busy contemplating her navel.

I know I should have sent her to camp.  She could have written a paper about learning archery, the fine art of macaroni collage, singing by the campfire and doing the other little girls hair.

Maybe, just maybe she even would have learned how to swim.

But I didn't even make her do any Summer reading.  Well, at least she wasn't inside playing X Box all day. But I should have taught her a new language or cooking skills.

Am I a bad mother?

Her malaise is rubbing off on the other kids...

Zali is beginning to speak slang and throw gang signs.     

Well, I swear he is when he's awake.  His french is punctuated with Yo's and Yeaaaah, Boise!  I think he called me a "MF"  the other day.  But I was in another room and when I asked him to repeat it, he said he called me a "Muhzer/Fahzer".  He was smirking when he said it, so I don't believe him.  If I find out otherwise, I 'll wash his mouth out with soap.

Did your mother ever do that when you were a kid?  I know they don't do it now. It went the way of the arm across your chest in lieu of a seat belt, pinching you when you blurted out something like, "Why does that lady have stinky feet?" and sending you outside to play in 27 degree weather with so many layers that your arms wouldn't  bend, because you needed the "fresh air'.  But the soap thing - that was nasty. 

I won't lie.  I had to do it.  At school, I had gotten angry and called another child a "bwitch".  (I had a lisp, okay?)  My mother asked me where I had heard it.  I couldn't really tell her because my Father's dad, E.W. (not a nice man) had said it about someone. (Read: her!)  I told her the most common child's excuse when they know they can't tell the truth, "I dunno..." 

She asked me if I knew what it meant.  I slowly drawled, "A rweally bad gurl". 

"See?"  She glared, "You shouldn't use words you can't define!  It means a 'female dog'."  And then she made me suck on a bar of Ivory.  At least it was the pure stuff without a lot of perfumes.

Now they use the "Naughty Corner".  Which sounds rather sassy and exciting to me, but that's another story.  Maybe I'll put Zali in the naughty corner instead of the soap punishment. 

I hope he doesn't use the "naughty" bit as a suggestion for behavior...

Maybe I should explain it to him first.  Parenting is so complicated these days!

One of Those Days...

Wow.  I had just completed this post when the gods threw me a new line of flub ups for today and booted my post in to oblivion.

Did ya' ever have one of those days?

I live a pretty blessed life and have no right ot complain, but... insert whining here.

Today I had a really packed schedule, which is unusual for me.  My days are largely off the cuff, leaving me plenty of time to be distracted by shiny things.  Today, I just can't catch a break.  I started vacuuming and the power went out.  Again.  I was ringing up the MLGW to tell them to pick up their order of fried squirrel when I noticed that the trucks were outside.  They had come to install some sort of device that is supposed to keep the varmints from roosting (roasting?) on the transformer.  Apparently, as charming as I am at odd hours of the day, they have other business to which to attend.

The five of us toodled around until the wonders of the 21st century were bestowed upon us again.  I love coming back to the future.  You people have nice things here. And I really needed to vacuum.  I had a client coming to look see some paintings and realized at the last moment that my floors were so thick with dog fur that an octogenarian could have fallen and not broken a hip.  It was either that or scrape them into bundles and sell them as fresh puppies on Ebay. 

I hope the bleach hasn't eaten its way through my whites.  They should be so bright by now that they'll burn your corneas.

Zali had some, er, stomach issues and needed a bath.  Badly.   Like I had time for that, but one of the design flaws of the Papillon is that eight inch white fur under their backside.  He needed help.  I am his mother.  He looked so embarrassed. I felt sorry for him. 

Now, Zoe is not fond of the Great Sucking Beast and tries to evade it by running and falling in front of it like the cute chick in the slasher movies.  It was during such a pratt fall that an iridescent garden globe that resided in the bar fell off of its base and exploded into a bajillion hunert quadillion fragments.   Yes, those are the technical terms. Yay.  I had time for that.  Zali spent the whole time crying at the french doors trying to get to me.  I was maybe a foot away.  And he could see me.  Oy.

In cleaning up the pieces, I managed to jam one under my pinkie nail. Hooray!  Can it GET ANY BETTER?

And it did.  My charming client Elizabeth showed up, accompanied by her friend Megan and adopted, "Play With Me".

Only she bought the color version.  I love it when one of my friends goes to their perfect home.

Zoe's terrible awful very bad day was yesterday.  It started when she stole a bag of dark M&M's and ate the whole thing.  Then she ripped apart a favorite toy.  AND THEN, while we were eating dinner, skidoodled up the stairs to the bedroom and ate all of Aida's dry food.  I was not happy.  Zoe has banished the poor kitten to eating on the bedside table by stealing her chow no matter how high we put it.  The table was safe because she respected my side of the bed and now, if I'm not actually in the bed has found it not so intimidating.

Or maybe today is her very bad day.  She's had tummy troubles.  Then again, so has Zali.  He must have been her accomplice.  At least her computer didn't pop out on her as she finished her day's work.  Of course, she didn't get to place a painting, either.