dealer decal begone!

buying a new car is fun! until you get home and see they've permanently affixed a stupid dealer decal advertisement to your trunk. 

luckily, these can be removed! pretty easily!

first, we washed that part of the car.

next, we sprayed turtle wax adhesive remover - made especially for cars - and peeled off what we could.  a lot was left.




next, we got an extension cord and a hair dryer and heated up the decal for a couple of minutes.

the heat made the remaining decal much easier to peel off.

next we peeled the decal into fun new words: VD HARLOT USA

finally, we sprayed some more adhesive remover, and wiped it clean.

just like new!

sorry south boulevard subaru, we don't love you that much.

regal pouncey approves.

primary

last week kevin & i celebrated the 3rd anniversary of our first date.

december 10, 2008. wednesday night. i was living in asheville, he was living in charlotte. we met at a bar that neither of us had ever been to in hickory, about halfway between.

we hadn't seen each other for more than 10 years. we were friends in college in chapel hill in the late '90s. 'friends' might be pushing it - the truth is he was friends with my boyfriend, and i was living with his girlfriend. the 4 of us hung out together throughout that year, and i always liked him.

we reconnected through the magic of facebook in november and then decided to meet up for a drink. we ordered hawaiian pizza and didn't touch it. we had beer and eye contact and laughs and sparks and made plans to see each other asap. i drove to charlotte two days later with holden and nacho and stayed for 3 days at his fantastic house on a lake and the rest is history.

i can't say it's luck or destiny or hard work or familiarity or timing or what. we like to do a lot of the same things. our energy levels are about even. he is smart and funny and kind and honest and responsible.  he is curious and adventurous and makes his own health and mental health a relative priority.  i love his hair. i love his smile. i love making him smile. his family is funny and generous and eerily similar to my own, and he has excellent taste in friends.

i don't write about him or love or relationships too much here, maybe thinking sharing will dilute it, or maybe jinx it, or maybe because i know the anonymity of the web has evaporated in the past year or two and i am not comfortable with who is reading. i don't want it to seem like bragging, or sillyfluffy, or gag-inducing. i'm not very social and i'm not very open to the public, and i am glad for this blog to be a creative outlet, but if you're looking for deeply personal stuff, and you're not one of the 2-3 close friends i am able to maintain at any given time, you should probably watch some reality tv instead!

i put the picture of the tee box markers on top since there have been 3 years, which is by far the longest relationship i've been in.

there's been a lot of golden moments, and some blue, and some red. but mainly when i look back, they have been gold.

checkin out the piggies

went to charlotte this weekend for a super fun british open party. here is emmitt, a ridiculously cute nugget of 10 month old sweetness. how awesome are his cheeks? and his hair? and his name?

shady bluff, charlotte's rockingest trio also graced our ears with a noon set.

later i walked around the corner and found these two nutball sisters by themselves frozen and whispering. i said "what are you doing?" and they said "being statues." i said, 'can i take your picture' and they said "YES!" and here we are:

light at the beginning

today isn't the end. it's friday. tomorrow isn't the beginning. it's saturday.

but in the spirit of new years, i will say i had a busy 2010.

i moved from charlotte back to asheville with my love.

holden killed himself. i didn't kill myself. it wasn't as hard as i anticipated. it never is.

my business was dissolved, and i started a new one.

i went to new york a couple times, and to florida a couple times, and to charleston, and to colorado. i hiked a lot. i swam in a mountain waterfall.

i became an aunt. to the cutest happiest little monkey in the world.

i didn't see as much live music as i would like, though i did see neil young and bob dylan and that might be enough right there.

i made my goal and posted more times here than i did in 2009.

i watched a lot of dog whisperer. keep moving forward is the secret. be calm and assertive. and move forward.

whatever you are doing tonight and tomorrow and the rest of your life, i hope you find peace and warmth and good people to share your time with. here's to positive momentum - cheers!

kelsey in a chair

it is with sad fingers i report last week's passing of mappycamper's sweet, smart, calm, submissive, beautiful, faithful companion kelsey dog of goleta.

she lived a FULL 15.5 years and gave much joy and peace to all those who met her. she was a princess but not fussy. she sat in chairs and observed while the riff raff sniffed butts.

2010 was a tough year for furry friends. i believe kelsey is now running through a heavenly field with holden and yoshi. according to the very wise trevor garrod of tea leaf green, if that's what makes you happy, it doesn't matter if it's true.

at the same time, i have to welcome to the world SO MANY new babies! there have been 6 new arrivals in the past 2 months, and all the babies are healthy and thriving and adorable. and all the moms are healthy and thriving and adorable too.

i love the sweet unusual girls' names my friends have used - there's twins keira and marla leen, leila sacks, and selah raleigh. aren't they just lyrical wonders?

then there's the boys - emmitt glidewell and yesterday's addition jack radey. maybe not as lyrical, but definitely catchy. and catchy names correspond to success in life.

the story of holden: a slideshow

here are some of the highlights of holden's 12 years with me.

he was born a poor black child at a fancy kennel in raleigh, nc. there were two left from his litter, and another litter of 7 week old pups available, so he was massively discounted, considered 'old' at 3 months.

i named him skippy. his first dad named him holden, and since he paid for him, i let it go. it wasn't after holden caulfield, or holden oversoul, it was for the redneck place on the nc coast - holden beach.

holden's first dad lived in a fraternity house, so holden lived with me from day 1, and i always knew he was my dog.

when he was a year old his first dad broke into my email and read that i thought a guy at school was cute so he threw my computer in the road and ran it over with his car and moved out of the house we were living in and stole holden. i was in law school, a couple weeks away from my first exams. after some wrangling, and a couple days, i got holden back, and then he was all mine for good.

he ate an indigo girls cd and a 50 yd spool of mint dental floss, and those made it through on their own.

he had his first intestinal surgery at age 2 when he ate a pair of my roomate jill's tights and an underwire bra, and they got tangled up and made him very sick.

he ate 30 lbs. from a 40 lb. bin of kibbles and had to be physically pulled away trying to scarf the rest. he assploded for a week.

he loved doing taste tests when jill would put a cheese ball on one side of the room, and a munch em on the other.

i made him a vest from an old navy doggy raincoat, stenciled on it 'guiding eyes for the blind - dog in training' and he wore that to go to UNC baseball games with me and sat in the grass.

jill and i put him in the vest and went to harris teeter one night wearing sunglasses and holding the white stick from horizontal blinds and let holden off the leash hoping he would go run through the aisles to the meat counter, but he just sat down at the automatic doors and looked at us like we were crazy.

on vacation in charleston, he ate an entire cheese cake off the counter.

he had lots of dog friends, he never humped any of them.

when i was studying for the bar exam i listened to the lectures on a walkman walking around chapel hill for 3 hours at a time, it was so hot in the summer i often went late at night and always felt safe walking with him.

at night, he slept right next to me using me as a bolster.

he moved cross country in a 42-hour non-stop drive, the car was so packed he had to sit the whole time on the passenger's lap.

he was an excellent vintage t-shirt model, especially liked wearing track jackets.

he couldn't believe it when we got nacho. what had he done to deserve such an indignity?

he and nacho crossed garnet st. in pacific beach san diego - a very busy 4 lane highway at rush hour and made it to the safety of a shell station.

they pulled a pyrex dish off the counter, and it shattered and they ate the casserole-crusted shards. the vet suggested feeding them a loaf of white bread soaked in milk to help pass the glass. it worked great. he loved it.

he jumped off a terrace in the backyard and impaled his chest on a metal stake and needed dozens of stitches.

he an nacho got into a case of pop rocks candy and couldn't stop eating them even though the explosions on their whiskers scared them.

he ate socks, socks, and more socks - the little ones made it through, a couple of the bigger ones required surgery, some of the lucky ones required a shot of amorphine to make him throw them up before they got to his intestines.

he ate an entire cow rib bone and needed surgery to get that out.

he ate a giant bowl of trail mix and needed an amorphine shot to throw that up.

he had a few lipoma fat balls removed, one the size of an orange.

he had one myxosarcoma that they didn't remove all the way and was going to grow back.

he loved to go swimming, but wouldn't go in a pool because he was scared he couldn't get out.

he didn't like going up or down wooden stairs because his paws would slip.

he loved running around the yard looking for dead things to eat.

he loved riding in the car with his head out the window.

he loved sitting next people on a couch, curled up in a ball.



here are pictures from his first day on the ride home from the kennel, to 4 days before he died on a hike near the blue ridge parkway.


warning: after kevin watched this he said he wanted to hang himself.

moving tomorrow

i seriously couldn't be more thrilled and grateful to be moving back to asheville though all the chaos and disorder and fear that comes with moving do take a toll when you do it more times than years you have been alive and i am looking forward to staying happily in this next place for at least 15 months which is the lease length.

holden is so excited he's crapped twice on the floor.

after looking unsuccessfully for non-skid stair treads my fantastic roommate went to lowes and found a roll of gym floor matting and cut it in strips and holden will now tentatively go up and down the stairs by himself which is extremely promising since the new place has 4 staircases. it's a canine miracle! onward! forward march! westward ho!

hope

i don't want to get too excited and count unhatched chickens, but i think we're moving to back asheville next week.

this house in charlotte is going on the market and the realtor thinks it has a better chance of selling if the dogs and all my shit are out.

spent yesterday looking at 8 places all over asheville and went back to the first one at the end of the day and realized it was the best and went to the rental office and applied and she thinks it will be ready by the end of this week.

the house is very old and up on a hill and has a spectacular view of mountains to the west and is a mile and a half from downtown. it has a dog door into a fenced yard. it has a slanting funhouse staircase. it has high ceilings and clawfoot tubs and ancient glass windows and a weird layout with no bathrooms on the first floor.

i am really excited.


a half foot of snow fell here last weekend, and super trouper friends came down to visit from asheville and more friends braved the roads to come over for saturday night and we had a good old time full of gumbo and a mountain of minicornmuffins and many extra furry retrievers.

the insides of orchids are extremely pornographic.

brave man

went to the bobcats game last night - they slaughtered the suns. the crowd was blase considering how well they were playing, we decided it's hard to cheer for millionaires. at halftime they should let people in the upper deck move down, and fill in all the empty seats.

during halftime 100 people came out to jazzercise, 99 female.

jazzercise halftime

rustic martini

what the hell kind of name for a bar is that? it looks like a post office.