Happy Halloween! The kids are all excited trying to figure out what to wear tonight. Simone can't decide whether to be a debutante...
Or a scary three headed Cerberus monster.
Zoe is going as a horse...
For the Headless Horseman!
But Zali thinks they should all go as something better...
A Happy Meal! Of course.
Carkeys was going to be Dr. Freud, but she lost her costume.
Have a spooktacular time tonight! And keep your black cats locked safely inside the house.
*photographer unknown*
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The very notion of a four-day weekend was enough to put me in a rest-induced coma. Well, not quite, but it did provide us with lots of chances for friends and fun.
Friday found us, as ever, at the Bar-B-Q Shop for lunch. What with graduations being as plentiful as mosquitoes, we were lucky to get there early and beat the rush. The rush came, and we waited hungrily for more than half an hour for our lunch. It was worth the wait, what with the to-die-for onion rings and all.
Friday evening we entertained our friends from Rhodes, who I may or may not refer to as the Rhodes College Drinking Team. We hadn't scrimmaged in quite a while, and an evening on our back porch, under the arbor with the ceiling fans whirring, seemed like just the tonic for some weary souls.
Allow me to introduce our friends.
Here is my buddy, John, who keeps Rhodes safe from stopped up drains and toilets. He is a great plumber and an even greater guy. I call him Stallion, like Sylvester Stallone, the Italian Stallion.
La brought her new boyfriend, Chip, to the party to meet all of us. He was very brave and seemed to have a good time.
Sadly, I have not yet shown you his face. I roll that way.
Here he is in a reflective moment.
Here's La with Tracy, who had so much fun Friday night that she went out Saturday and bought herself a new car. It was about time. Oh, did I tell you that Furry sets a mean table? I was so busy photographing our friends that I forgot to do Food Network quality shots of the food. It was wonderful: hot wings, chips with Furry's homemade guacamole dip with basil (instead of cilantro...some folks just don't like cilantro); cilantro shrimp with calamata olives; and brownies and strawberries for dessert
Here's a nice shot of John and Tracy.
Here's Furry explaining to Simone why she can't eat off the table today.
Carmen did her Babushka Dog impersonation and had us in stitches.
I think everyone had a good time. I know I sure did.
The next morning, Saturday, was a non-running weekend day, but Zoe still had to get her exercise. So we went next door to the vacant church. Churches make great neighbors, particularly vacant ones.
Here is Zoe waiting oh-so impatiently for me to tie my shoes and COME ON, DAD!!!
Zoe was, how can I say this, not my favorite dog by a long shot until I discovered that she liked to chase the ball. Now I get to throw and wear her out in the same activity. And I must say, for an almost nine year old dog, Zoe is an amazing athlete. She usually catches the ball on the first bounce, and can leap high in the air to catch it.
She will stare at the ball until either the ball begins to cry or I throw the ball.
And if I don't spring right into action, she bays like a hellhound.
I love seeing this coming at me; she has so much fun.
Did I say that she was a touch on the slobbery side?
Oh, and she doesn't bring it back to me and lay it at my feet. Oh noooo. She drops it ten feet away and buys a little breather time, which I think puts her in the summa cum laude division of lab students.
Is this joyful enough or what?
I love my Slobber Dog.
One more thing before I wander off. Yesterday, Sunday, we went to see the Stax Museum for the first time. I LOVED IT!! The videos of musicians from my boyhood were so lovely to see. I saw James Brown do "Prisoner of Love," covered in sweat, higher than the Beatles making Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I thought I had heard every version of this song, but I had not heard this one.
It was so moving to hear Steve Cropper (a member of the Bar Kays, who backed Otis Redding) talk about what a wonderful family feel that Stax had, until Dr. King was killed, and then the comraderie between the white and black musicians changed. I never knew that the sessions guys at Stax hung out at the Lorraine Motel (where Dr. King was killed), because back in that day it wasn't smart for black and white to mingle in Memphis.
My favorite part: On the display board for the Memphis Horns (Andrew Love and Wayne Jackson, both of whom I am proud to call my friends), they used MY portrait of them, one I did for their headshots back in the mid-80s. What a thrill.
All said, it has been a great weekend. I am signing off now, wishing you a happy week, headed to Rhodes College to exercise the papillons.
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If you should ever wander over to the Hudarosa for a drinky-poo, after all canine chorus has deafened you and we are settled in for a few laughs, you will turn and be greeted by this sight:
Ah! Carmen! Somebody call Miss Manners and ask if this is appropriate enough for her with all of Carmen's lady bits exposed for your viewing pleasure. Surprise! Carmen is a dog. A dog who appreciates airing out her junk in public on expensive Persian carpets. Sigh.
I have no idea how to keep her out of the trash cans. She shops them every single night, spreading the debris she doesn't care for about the bathrooms and hallways. I can't express how delightful it is to get up in the night and return to bed with a Q-tip clinging to the bottom of your foot. Sweet.
At least she sneaks around to eat poo. Part of her is polite. The small part that knows being caught doing that will land her in detention. Argh.
We have had to barricade the pantry. She broke through several plastic containers filled with bricks, a maze of recycling containers and a broom booby trap. In desperation, Hud put the dog food into a wooden crate and closed the hasp to seal it away from her allergic self. And now, I have pushed it across the doorway to the pantry to deny her access to the Tootsie Poos *Now with Litter Crunchies!*. Ugh.
I'm thinking of having her pen an etiquette manual for dogs.
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I know I have been extremely busy with all the studio whirling dervish action going on out there, but why, oh WHY HAS THE NEGLECT MADE MY BIG KIDS INSANE?
This is the only good child living at the Hudarosa:
"MEMommy?What'dIDo?"
Yes, I a packing the rest of them off to Siberia to live with foreigners in the icy cold, where they will only be fed frozen beets and cold air for the duration of their entitled little lives.
The other morning, Zali kept disappearing downstairs. Normally, he likes to snuggle up tight against my legs and dream of chasing rabbits while I type away on my computer. Tickity, tickity, tack, tack, snore, wiggle, wiggle... He sighs in rhythm to my moving fingers. But not this particular morning.
Hud ambled downstairs to take Zoe to the park for their morning run. She was nowhere to be found so he assumed that she had made her way to the foyer to wait for him. Zoe was downstairs alright. She was not delighted by his arrival, but startled out a fiber induced frenzy in the dining room. She was hastily trying to finish her second bag of Khashi Go Lean.
Two years that cereal has rested undisturbed on the bottom shelf of the pantry. On this day, her tiny dinosaur brain figured out that it was crunchy tasty treats in cardboard. She had pulled out the giant Costco box and dragged it to her favorite spot, under the glass dining table. For some reason, she thinks no one can see her there. Ninety-three pounds of red dog. Under a glass table. As an aside, For the first two years of her life, she could not understand why she couldn't taste the food on the table as she licked it from the underside of the glass. Zoe is the Rhodes Scholar of Labs, I tell you.
Zali and Carmen were assisting her. Carmen. The dog who is allergic to all grains. Eating whole grain cereal. Zali. Who is on a diet to trim down. Throwing down carbs like he was breathing air. They consumed half a bag between them.
To Hud's compliment, he did not actually harm a hair on anyone's derriere. He did however, invent a few delicious new curse words involving canines and the Lord.
Simone and I were oblivious to the Great Khashi Disaster of 2010. She was installed on her pillowed perch, right above my head. She only awakened when Hud came up the stairs to inform me that my ill mannered, self involved, starving, pitiful dogs were all headed straight to the pound.
Zali whimpered to be picked up and put on the bed. By rote, Hud reached for him. "Whoa! This is gonna' be a two man job! Get the cherry picker! We got a bigun' here!" In the course of an hour, Zali had doubled in size. He looked like one of those sheep from the Wiley Coyote cartoon. He was a black and white ball of fluff with four tiny legs protruding out the sides at ninety degree angles.
So here I sit with my one good child. God I'm going to miss the rest of them. I was really sort of attached to that chubby black and white one. The fuzzy old one had been around for ages. And that big redhead? Ummmm, she sure was pretty. Dumb. But pretty.
They were paid back with the fussiest tummies I have ever witnessed. Or should I say derrieres...
*Zoe did not connect the dots between gorging and stomach trouble. Today as we returned from lunch with friends, I discovered that Zoe had broken into the pantry once again and tore into a bag of dog food. She had to rip open a plastic container to get to it. To the moon, Zoe(Alice)! To the moon!
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