florida trip

had a great time in florida for a few days last weekend. flew into weather so bad they closed the PNS airport and turned off the lights and had to use the light of my cell phone to use the bathroom. after that it was very sunny and very windy all weekend. stayed at a very nice place called watersound in santa rosa. the sand was like powdered sugar and the whole area was deserted. lovely! this was the waking up view.

and here are two pelicans about to do it.

and here is a 2 year old in a coffee table.

and here is the beautiful drive home.

also they charge $11 for a watered down well bloody mary at the CLT airport, with NO olives. obscene!

we heart peace obama

barack and michelle obama are visiting asheville this weekend, staying at the grove park inn. security is heightened. cops are riding around in golf carts. i bet they'll have a fantastic time here.

nugget of cuteness

a couple more holden memories

i forgot to add a few more important events in holden's life -

when he was a puppy he ate the fringe off an oriental rug that had cost thousands of dollars. the owner was not pleased.

around the same time he also jumped into a brand new fancy koi pond as the horrified owner looked on.

while visiting my parents in NY, my mom had a basket of popcorn on her lap that holden was very interested in. i looked over a few seconds later and saw the basket tumble off my mother's head, showering her with popcorn. she thought if she put it on her head holden would think it was a hat and stop begging. that backfired.

i took a year off after college before i started law school so i could get NC residency and therefore cheap tuition, and i was a nanny and i worked at the front desk of a gym in chapel hill, and i was pretty bored and sad that i wasn't in school anymore for the first time. my brother was at boston college and had run the boston marathon a couple times with friends as a 'bandit' (without a number) and suggested that i train for it all year and go up there and run it with him in april. so i printed out the training schedule from runner's world and followed it pretty religiously and was all set to go with my favorite shoes broken in perfectly and the day before i was flying up there, holden ate the back off one of my running shoes. i ran the marathon with my brother wearing a shoe with a back made of pipe cleaners and duct tape.

april 20

i know you don't smoke weed, i know this... but i'm gonna get you high today, cause it's tuesday... you ain't got no job... and you ain't got shit to do

LEGALIZE (and tax) IT!

but

"you can overdo it" - willie nelson on larry king last week saying he had smoked up that day.

scooter

the traffic is just as regular and random as the birdcalls

downtown asheville

i love where i live. i love walking places. i love the spring. i love saturdays. happy earth day!

2 weeks; 0%

how long it takes to get dog remains back from the vet; chances the remains i get will really be holden's.

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.

did christ ever shit?

google analytics generates a list of the keywords people have typed to arrive at this blog.

one of them was
did christ ever shit?
(which brought them to this old post "christ did a cow shit in here?")

i think, holy shit of course he did.

what do you think?

happiness is a labrador

when you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight

-kahlil gibran

R.I.P. holden (June 7, 1998 - April 9, 2010)

holden had to be put to sleep last night, he ate a stick that lodged in his intestines and poked a hole through both sides and became infected. he was his normal happy self yesterday morning, went on a walk jumping around a creek and everything, and then yesterday afternoon threw up and started acting sluggish and by 4pm for the first time in his entire life he wouldn't eat a treat i put next to his nose so we took him to the vet and he could hardly walk and they took xrays and gave him a morphine drip and got him ready for surgery and we went back there with him and petted him and told him he's a good boy and they called a couple hours later while he was on the operating table and said the infection was too bad and i gave permission to put him to sleep and cremate him. he was only in pain for a few hours tops. he was almost 12 and his cancer was growing back and i feel lucky he didn't go through more suffering. i'm okay and nacho is okay, we're all okay. he taught me so much about responsibility and commitment and unconditional love. sorry for the bad news HUG your pets from holdielocks. i love you dog.