Can I Keep It?

Paw Prints Gala Buddy Adopted!

Here's The '68 Comeback Special Buddy grooving to the band and waiting on the Diva Dog to get back from the bathroom to trip the light fantastic.

 

Graceland had held onto to Buddy until the last minute so that he could greet the eighty bazillion visitors who traipse through Memphis to honor Elvis' life during the week of August sixteenth.  He graced the car museum for well over a year and a half since his final days in my studio.  I wondered how he would handle a life of relative seclusion once he was taken to his new home after the auction.  Turns out, he is going from one bee hive right into another!  The Official Graceland Buddy was adopted by a surgeon at the Elvis Presley Trauma Unit at The Med.  After retiring from Graceland, it seems my Buddy is going to do some community service for one of the premier trauma hospitals in the country.
 
My family owes a lot to The Elvis Presley Trauma Center.  My uncle was in an horrific truck accident several years ago.  A hammer he had stored in the drivers door became dislodged as the truck hit an abutment and struck him in the head. The police had him air lifted to The Med. He survived, severely brain damaged from his injury, with little chance of recovery.  The nurses, doctors and staff were kind, efficient and  miraculously talented, because during one of his walks down the hall to rehabilitation, he straightened his back and stopped cold.  He looked up at the nurse and said, "Well, hello, World!"

Today he is perfectly normal. Well, as normal as he ever was... 

So it is with a great honor and privilege that the '68 Comeback Special Buddy is going to the place where my uncle made the ultimate comeback.  Elvis may have left the building, but he's off to greet the world.

Random Acts of Photography

This is what I plan to do today...



Of course, I may go to a movie and out to lunch before.  You?

Sleep Well, Lion, Sleep Well

My fifth grade teacher was a marvelous personality.  She was vivacious and strange and wrote only with ostrich plumed pens in a variety of colors she designed to match her brilliantly colored wardrobe.  Miss Alvis was eccentric, intelligent and one of the most interesting people on the planet.

Miss Alvis, was the friend of a senator.  We lived in Richmond, Virginia, suffering an embarrassment of riches in places to of historical importance.  So, one of our school trips that year was to visit the Senate to expand our knowledge of the inner workings of government.  We met the Senator in his office and followed him to Chambers for a vote.  To get there, the class had the privilege  of riding on the Senate Subway.  I wouldn't really call it a subway.  It's rather a series of cars on rails, not unlike the "Tunnel of Love" ride at the local state fair.  Each car seats a couple of statesmen who face one another.  The class of thirty or so children took up most of available seating.  Quirky Miss Alvis in her purple dress and 'That Girl" hair was left standing on the platform with three students, myself among them.  She couldn't let the others leave, but there was no room for us.  Seeing her distress, a kind senator offered his car to share.  We piled in and I sat on his lap.  Another girl sat on the lap of the senator friend of Miss Alvis.

We all made the vote. For the first time in my in life, I would eat in the senate dining room (navy bean soup served by waiters with white gloves).  It was all very exciting and I could not wait to tell my mother about it.  My mother was wide eyed when I told her the story of the subway.  The nice senator who shared his car?  The one whose so generously loaned me his lap?

It was Ted Kennedy.

She was horrified because of the whole Chappaquiddick incident, the lurid stories of his drinking and personal life.  And he was a democrat...

But I only remember a nice gentleman who engaged me in small talk about school, the fifth grade and Washington as the subway clacked us on to our destination.

Thanks for being there when I needed you, Senator.

Circle 'Round

I stood in the driveway for the longest time, watching a red tailed hawk drafting on a thermal overhead.  He wasn't hunting.  He was merely enjoying the air currents as he floated around a small cloud on the cerulean sky.

 
 

At my feet, Zali pranced around and around, stick in his mouth, growling.  He didn't want me to play fetch.  He was merely enjoying the feel of a prize in his mouth and the quickness of his tiny paws on  the cement.

The weather has made some changes that remind me another year is drawing to a close.  Fr the first time in my life, I don't want to impose any expectations on the final seasons.  I plan to enjoy the feel of the months as the pass, happy as they circle towards the end and onto the next round.

Random Acts of Photography

Phhhhhtttt.


*This charming babe is brought to you by www.zooborns.typepad.com Happy Saturday!  And my apologies to Zooborns for robbing them blind this week.  It was just too good not to share. *

Enlightenment and the Art of Doing Nothing

For this session, we will  begin with deep breathing lessons.  Breathe deep into the belly and out through the mouth.  One...Two...Three...

All of these cancer scares (realities) have left me stressed out.  The advice from my therapist is to do some meditation, weed in my garden, brush my dog's hair, whatever will relax me.  I've been so bound up by fear that I'm having trouble concentrating.  It makes it difficult to paint and do the work I was intended to do.  Hello?  Do you think he knows I have an anxiety disorder?  Perhaps he's never seen me at a crowded event with a Papillon strapped to my back.
 
So, with the Zali Lama as my tutor, I have spent the last few days napping and channeling my inner happy dog.  We sit and stare at nothing. Eventually, we doze off.  Wake with a start to chase the cat.  Eat.  The begging at the dinner table has begun to annoy Hud so I may have to avoid that.  The phrase Zali has me chanting leaves much to be desired as well.

"OhmwhatastinkypoopYUMohmwhatastinkybuttYUMohmwhatastinky..."  You get the picture.

*I'm not sure to whom to credit this fabulous shot.  I took it from someone who took it from someone who took it from someone...  But my friend Tatia the one who sent it to me.*

Oooooh, Baby, Baby!

Today's post is brought to you by www.zooborns.typepad.com . Simply because I felt that everybody (read: me)  needed a little of that fresh baby smell.  Ahhhhhh.

One of the best known Old World monkeys, the last wild Barbary Macaque population in Europe lives on the rock of Gibraltar, occasionally wandering into town to cause mischief. This baby macaque was born in the last few weeks at Apenheul Primate Park in the Netherlands, a rare open facility that allows its primate residents to wander around freely and build their own social groups. Thanks to photographer Jean Kern for sharing these photos as well as for his work on orangutan conservation.

There.  Don't you feel better now?

Paw Prints Gala

I did not spend this lazy Summer day, playing with Papillons and napping under the wisteria arbor.  I also did not spend the day dog-less.  I shared company with a feisty cat named, "Mango" and several hundred or so of her canine and feline friends at the Memphis/Shelby County Humane Society.  My mission?  To spruce up the last of the Buddy dogs in time for the Paw Prints Gala this Saturday.

The Buddy Dogs were displayed around Memphis to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Humane Society.  Artists from across the city decorated the fiberglass pooches in an innumerable variety of ways.

Very few remain to be sold in the silent and live auctions this Saturday.  Of the original seventy-five, only twelve are left.  The Buddy I painted to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Elvis' famous "'68 Comeback Special"  will be sold during the live auction along with Jeanne Seagle's John Calipari Buddy.  The rest will be adopted during the silent part.   The Elvis Buddy has been on display in the car museum at Graceland for the past year and a half.

 

The Humane Society will keep the "Everybody Needs a Buddy", honoring the real Buddy, survivor of cancer, a bear trap, Hurricane Katrina and Mango, the office cat.

 

Simone is not part of the bargain.  I will keep Simone here at the Hudarosa.  Because I am quite obviously selfish and need more dogs.

* The Paw Prints Gala, benefiting the Memphis/Shelby County Humane Society will be held on Saturday, August 22, 2009, 6:30 to 11:00 pm at Temple israel on East Massey Road.  Tickets are still available. 
Please support this great cause.  Buy a Buddy!  Starting bids begin at $250. *

Reincarnation

Hud has always said that if he has to go first, he wants to come back as one of my dogs.  I concur, except that I can't come back to myself so it will have to be somebody just like me.  This apparently made tons of sense in my head and very little on this blog.

It was a stressful weekend.  Not for Simone, as witnessed by this charming photo taken as we grilled tuna on Saturday.  Nothing much gets through all the butterflies and rainbows fluttering about in her noggin. Did she do something really good in a past existence?  Ignore her troubles?  Sneak drinks?  I wish I knew her secret.  Perhaps I should learn to treat myself as I do my dogs. 

If I could teach myself that new trick maybe Hud wouldn't have to wait to be one of my dogs.

Random Acts of Photography

We've been enjoying the beauty of the day and all of the lovely things Hud has planted for us.

This cardinal flower vine was given to us by Jes of roller derby fame.  She's tender as well as tough.