deeeeep freeeeeze

the swannanoa river is bigger than a creek. with this week's polar vortex bringing sub-zero (really) temperatures to asheville, the river froze over in parts.

there's a platform of ice along the bank.

thankfully today is back up into the balmy upper 30's and the ice is now chunking and flowing downstream.

many people were without power and many have burst pipes and flooding. we had a burst-scare yesterday afternoon when i turned the kitchen cold water faucet and nothing came out. frozen pipe! all other faucets in the house worked, so we knew it wasn't a main pipe, but the kitchen sink happens to be located DIRECTLY over my 1200 precious heirlooms (vintage clothing) stored on shelves. i strongly considered buying dozens of plastic bins and moving hundreds of pounds of clothing upstairs, just in case. for over 24 hours the pipe was frozen, but i just kept a sharp lookout/listen out and this afternoon it thawed. no burst, no flood, thank you baby jesus!

pouncey has two balls!

pouncey's puppy reunion!

this weekend we took pouncey out to trails end in waynesville to play with his brothers and his mama.

there were 4 pups in his litter. all boys - 1 was white, 3 were brown. the white one was picked first. his name is harley and he lives in franklin, nc.

next we picked pouncey out of the remaining 3 brown ones.

then another family came and picked jake. sadly for jake their circumstances changed and jake didn't get any attention and he was returned to trails end a couple of weeks ago. he is kind of like a feral animal. he has stubby legs and was trying to hump pouncey the whole time, but there's a sweet dog underneath.

the last puppy was duke and he stayed at trails end with their mama, blizzard.

mama blizzard thinks this is fun but wants them all to go home later

pouncey had a BALL!

pouncey, duke, and jake

pouncey was the best fetcher. the fastest. the most energetic.

also the goofiest. and tied for best manners.

pouncey, jake, blizzard, duke, and harley

jake wins coolest eyes.

clan of the cave dog, jake

cover dog, duke is the biggest by 10 lbs. he is very friendly and sweet, and he is definitely in charge.



pouncey is the only one who is fixed. (jake is getting fixed soon to curb the humping.)

harley also sucks on his bed! just like pouncey. they were the first two taken from their mama, i think this is why. harley doesn't really fetch, he runs in circles. much like nacho. his fur is soft as a bunny, too.

l-r: pouncey, harley, jake, duke

pouncey and duke have matching tongue spots on their XXL tongues. of all 4, they are the most similar.


family portrait time!

pouncey, duke, harley, and jake - the 4 brothers!

i don't think they recognized each other, but maybe they sensed a familiarity, and i know they did have lots of fun!

party crasher

my brother is 2 years younger than i am. he is also much more social than i am. when we were growing up, many times i wanted him to disappear.  the more i wanted him to disappear, the more he wanted to do what i was doing.

when i left home and went to college and looked back with some perspective for the first time, i felt a little guilty for being mean to him. he has a big heart and he never meant any harm. i should have been more patient. but damn he was annoying!

i found these pictures of my 7th birthday party and all these feelings became crystal clear.

fine. okay. he can come to the sleepover. it's 6 girls and...chris. fine. okay. whatever. his sleeping bag goes in the corner.



great. everybody is singing and having a pillow fight. he can stay over there. inside his crayons sleeping bag.

 

 NO! no. no. no. what the???? NOOOO! how did this happen. i hate my life. i hate this party.

looks like somebody ate his wheaties

pouncey had some vaccines this morning and as i brought him into the office, the vet said "looks like somebody ate his wheaties this morning...with some CRACK on top..."



the beginning of a snarl



aww pouncey so cute



SNARL!

 

really he is a nice dog, just a little spring-loaded!

nachos falls

once upon a time there was a waterfall.

nacho went to the top of the waterfall.

nacho hopped straight down the face of the waterfall.

nacho had to think quick because there were slippery rocks at the bottom of the waterfall!

nacho thought quick and hopped even quicker!

nacho did a full extension leap and landed on the dirt and was fine! stuck the landing! 

 the rest of us had heart attacks.

stretched pouncey

nothing wrong with this dog's enthusiasm level!

the shutters of leisure mountain road

there's a road in north asheville/weaverville with the craziest cutest funkiest shutters i've ever seen assembled in one place.

the road is called leisure mountain road.

without further ado, behold the shutters:

we have circles:



we have diamond paddles:



we have traditional paddles:



we have leaves:



we have star trek arrows:



we have stars:



we have primary shapes:



we have slightly unusual shapes:



we have tulips:



we have white diamonds:



we have red diamonds:



last but not least, my personal favorite, we have pine tree moons:



about 3/4 of the houses on the street are currently participating in this ongoing shutterfest.

i bet when they were first built in the 70's they ALL had fun shutters.

way to keep it funky, leisure mountain road!

brevard labrador vintage t-shirt with eli, nacho & pouncey!

the dogs were happy to help model a 80's vintage t-shirt from brevard nc featuring one of their cousins with a duck in his mouth.

2 minutes after this picture was taken our buddy the black bear came down the hill, headed towards us - there was a 4 foot chain link fence between us and him, though.

the dogs started barking like crazy and charged him, and i followed them also yelling at the bear. he made a quick turn and scurried to the neighbor's. 

garbage day!

is that a dildo?

the river is kind of a trash can. especially after heavy rains, it's easy to find things like plastic bags, nerf balls, socks, hubcaps, and makeup brushes washed upon the banks.

the other night we were down there throwing balls for the dogs and saw what looked like a dildo bobbing around in a little cove. it was skin colored. it was phallic. it was floating. what the hell else could it be? a paint roller? we were flummoxed.

reenactment featuring curious pouncey as a puppy

do you want to know what it was?

it wasn't a dildo!




it looked like a dildo though, didn't it?










do you really want to know?










okay!






it was a baby doll arm!

bear in the driveway

2 minutes ago! smallish bear, probably only 150 lbs.  moseying, and i do mean moseying down the driveway.

the dogs went berserk.

it's garbage day and the bears like garbage!

"all depression has its roots in self pity..."

i just really love this quote from tom robbins' fierce invalids home from hot climates


“All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously." 

At the time Switters had disputed her assertion. Even at seventeen, he was aware that depression could have chemical causes. 

"The key word here is roots," Maestra had countered. "The roots of depression. For most people, self-awareness and self-pity blossom simultaneously in early adolescence. It's about that time that we start viewing the world as something other than a whoop-de-doo playground, we start to experience personally how threatening it can e, how cruel and unjust. At the very moment when we become, for the first time, both introspective and socially conscientious, we receive the bad news that the world, by and large, doesn't give a rat's ass. Even an old tomato like me can recall how painful, scary, and disillusioning that realization was. So, there's a tendency, then, to slip into rage and self-pity, which if indulged, can fester into bouts of depression." 

"Yeah but Maestra - " 

"Don't interrupt. Now, unless someone stronger and wiser - a friend, a parent, a novelist, filmmaker, teacher, or musician - can josh us out of it, can elevate us and show us how petty and pompous and monumentally useless it is to take ourselves so seriously, then depression can become a habit, which, in tern, can produce a neurological imprint. Are you with me? Gradually, our brain chemistry becomes conditioned to react to negative stimuli in a particular, predictable way. One thing'll go wrong and it'll automatically switch on its blender and mix us that black cocktail, the ol' doomsday daiquiri, and before we know it, we're soused to the gills from the inside out. Once depression has become electrochemically integrated, it can be extremely difficult to philosophically or psychologically override it; by then it's playing by physical rules, a whole different ball game. That's why Switters my dearest, every time you've shown signs of feeling sorry for yourself, I've played my blues records really loud or read to you from The Horse's Mouth. And that's why when you've exhibited the slightest tendency toward self-importance, I've reminded you that you and me - you and I: excuse me - may be every bit as important as the President or the pope or the biggest prime-time icon in Hollywood, but none of us is much more than a pimple on the ass-end of creation, so let's not get carried away with ourselves. Preventive medicine, boy. It's preventive medicine." 

"But what about self-esteem?" 

"Heh! Self-esteem is for sissies. Accept that you're a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace - and maybe even glory.” 

― Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

pouncey sucks pillows

pouncey sucks.

he sucks on his bed. he gets a corner in his mouth and sucks on it. sometimes he falls asleep with his bed in his mouth.

we always say 'pouncey, stop sucking on grammie's bed' (the bed was a christmas present from grammie), but the sucking doesn't stop.

he isn't chewing or shredding it, he is just sucking on it. for long periods of time.

i just googled "dog sucks on pillow' and the conventional wisdom seems to be that dogs who are taken from their mothers too soon may suck on pillows. like sucking thumbs. a security thing.

pouncey was taken from his mother at 5-6 weeks since she was too old to make enough milk for all the puppies.

and now he sucks on his bed instead. 

pouncey at the insane asylum

for those following along at home with the pouncey calendar - it's time to flip to april!

you may notice this picture, of pouncey 7 weeks old in front of a crumbling building.

that building is the old VA hospital.

it has been closed since the 60's, though they used it in the 80s-90s as a halloween haunted house.

i've been told that it is still standing because it's full of asbestos and the cost to properly demolish is prohibitive.

more information and photos: abandoned places livejournal

the new VA hospital is functioning across the street.

baseball in cuba

baseball is the national pastime in cuba. there were pick up games going on all day in every park.



in the middle of the havana streets, little boys played "taco" - stickball using a cut off broomstick for a bat and plastic water bottle cap for a ball.



i never saw a girl playing.

on friday night kevin, his parents, and i went to a baseball game. without internet it was hard to determine if there was a game, and what time. we heard it might be cancelled because the stadium lights were broken. the stadium (estadio latino americano) is located in a rougher, darker, part of town. we got in a taxi and said "beisbol? pelota? estadio?" and the cab driver started yelling "beisbol! beisbol!" and was pretty sure there was no game that night and the stadium would be dark.

we drove up and the floodlights were on and the game was on and starting at 8pm and excited fans were going inside. we were (nicely) directed by police to go buy tickets at a window charging $3 instead of $1 that locals paid, and ushered to seats on the visitors side through the farthest gate away.

the local havana team is called the industriales. their mascot is a blue lion, and they are like the yankees of the cuban league. they were playing the cigar makers from pinar del rio.

the stadium was big. and clean. and full of energy. and people. and people blowing vuvuzelas. air horns. there were drummers. non-stop. we walked around the entire stadium, and it was on the verge of out of control going through the home team side. they did not serve beer, which kept it from having a hooligan feel.  it was exciting.

kevin was impressed with the pitching. 

30 second video of the scene:

we had to meet people in old havana at 930, so after the 3rd inning the 4 of us left and went into the street and kind of wandered looking for non-existent taxis. a few older men were sitting on a corner stoop, saw us and said "taxi?"  we hesitantly followed him down a dark alley and got into his small old honda civic-like car after he shooed a cat out of the front seat. he was not a taxi driver, he was a man with a car looking for some tourist cash. the gas light was flashing and his brights were on as he drove us over potholes back to town. we gave him $10.