a message from nacho

sunny point breakfast salad

with red potato hash browns, 1 egg over hard, bacon, cherry tomatoes, with maple dijon dressing and an angel biscuit. not pictured pint glass full of mimosa. sunny point cafe

tried to go to 12 bones but a water main broke so they were closed. this was a great plan b.

party nach

happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.
beautiful weather today here in asheville, about to go for a hike and then later for some dinner and drinks. can't beat it!

could a puppy be cuter than nacho?

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.

banana peel squirrel

you'll feel better next time you throw a banana peel out the window and say 'the squirrels will use it for a nest.'

don't touch til november

spring is here and it feels like summer. full sun and low 80s. i want to do cartwheels.

i went to the dentist this morning and i have one baby tooth and in that baby tooth lives a cavity. i was expecting at least 4 cavities, so i'll take one.

no congrats from me to the men's basketball team which shall not be named but rhymes with puke.

in a fun small world situation, my friend michelle is good friends from alaska with jason the mandolin from bearfoot, who will be playing on my friend daniel's radio show in arkansas tonight:

Hello! Wanted to let you know about a live band playing on my radio show tonite (Tuesday) for your calendar and listening enjoyment. Spread the word to anyone who would be interested in a young bluegrass band featuring 3 women and 2 guys, acoustic instruments and vocal harmonies.

Bearfoot 4-6-2010 Honest Tunes Radio Webcast:
http://dgold.info/radio/webcast2010/music519

Bearfoot bluegrass band live in-studio, plus more Honest Tunes 8pm to 10pm Central on KXUA Fayetteville.

Go to www.dgold.info/radio to listen to the live webcast stream – at Showtime

easter in asheville

i hope everybody has a spectacular easter.

may all your lambs of god rise from the dead, just as the dead brown and gray branches are rising with pink and green fluorescence.

may you find all the eggs that bunny hid.

may your new shoes not give you blisters and your easter bonnet not mess up your hair.

prewash

had a fantastic couple days in new york last weekend which involved many things including a baby shower, making a poster, flower arranging, eating meatballs, octopus, and a baby-shaped cupcake, family funtime, playing shufflepuck in the world's smokiest bar and saying 'kisses henry' to my furry brother henry to get him to jump up and lick me on the face.

treacherous

the only thing more fun than moving is moving during a sleetstorm up and down crumbing stairs on the second day of spring

hooray it's over! hooray i'm not moving for another year! at the least! the very very least!

morning has broken

sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
like the first dewfall, on the first grass

holdenfur

nachappy

spring is springing around here. have a great weekend!

tragedy

"mentally preparing" for a possible tragedy or misfortune in the future is toxic. when you imagine it happening and feel the emotions, you make yourself live through the hell, not matter how unlikely it is to happen. you can handle it. you can always handle it. it's never too much. it's always okay.

delicate arch

this was me
taking this picture

last september

it was as big of a rush as jumping from a plane telling myself i was not scared of heights

you mean like lesbian?

nature is god is love

dirty joke

a white dog fell into a mud puddle.





(this was one of my grandfather's [named flops] favorite jokes - but it was a white horse)

tea leaf green webcasts tonight!

From DGold:

I am hosting 2 webcasts with Tea Leaf Green on Tuesday March 9th.

First live acoustic plus interview on my radio show at KXUA 88.3 FM Fayetteville Honest Tunes after 6PM.

Later that night I will attempt to ustream their live concert at George's Majestic Lounge around 9PM.

The links, embedded Ustream, setlist and all details posted here:

http://dgold.info/radio


Please send out the information through your channels. That would be awesome. Help me let others know. The important info is simply this:


Tea Leaf Green Webcasting Tuesday March 9th, http://dgold.info/radio

------------------

Thank You for helping me to get the word out about this live music from San Francisco rockers Tea Leaf Green.

One of my favorite bands & highly recommended. Enjoy the show if you are around on Tuesday.

DGold
Honest FM, Fayetteville ARK

i'm going to put up my antenna cuz i want to tune on in.

Kevin Welch - Millionaire

Love is more precious than gold
It can't be bought, and it can't be sold
I've got love enough to spare
That makes me a millionaire

I've got a woman
with eyes that shine
Down deep
as a diamond mine
She is my treasure
So very rare
She's made me
a millionaire

When we ride around
this old town
in my beat up car
with the windows down
People look at her
then they look at me
say that boy
is sure living in luxury


Her kisses fall
from everywhere
like riches on
a millionaire
So when my pockets are empty
and my cupboard is bare
I still feel
like a millionaire

melt

it's going to be in the 60s this weekend and i will be outside. can't wait.

mini mountainranges

we got about 5 inches of snow today. and coincidentally also 5 lbs of peanuts in the mail.
nutsonline.com is awesome.

difference between butterscotch and caramel

butterscotch is made with brown sugar, caramel is made with white sugar. nacho is made with bunnyfluff.

bounty

i don't have much to say. just kind of waiting on a bunch of things. first and foremost waiting for the weather to warm up. a new heater was installed yesterday, so hopefully the house will be warmer and the gas bill won't be double the rent and there will be less carbon monoxide released every time it turns on. i was starting to feel hints of brain damage. looking forward to going to a soup social birthday party tonight. i'm going to try to make kettle corn for the first time, and if it doesn't work, i'll buy some. all's well.

north mississippi allstars

ventured out last weekend to see the north mississippi all stars play at the orange peel. i was amazed and relieved and gleeful that the guy at the door took my ticket, stamped my hand, and let me inside. no pat down. no opening my bag. no rifling through my pockets. no opening up my wallet and change purse. it's the first time i've been back to the orange peel since being rabidly searched at the door last year and i was so impressed with how pleasant it was to enter.
the show was pretty good. of their first 5 songs, 3 of them heavily involved "SHAKE IT" in the chorus. most of the instrumental noodling sounded like the allman brothers' 'jessica' on repeat. i know about 6 of their songs and they played them all.

75 and Sunny - Ryan Montbleau

music can be sunshine

75 AND SUNNY - Ryan Montbleau

I’d had a bad night. I mean a night so bad, I thought I was king of the world. And I drank ‘til daylight. I mean I never stopped once until my hands finally fell. And I fought my daytime self with a mighty dose of, “Hey, look at night time me!” And I never do win that battle, but I fight it over and over and over and over, it seems.

And I saw an old man smiling on a park bench feeding the pigeons. And my head was spinning, and as my young body ached I wished for an old man’s vision. And I watched the way he moved--slow, serene and lucky to be alive. And I thought to myself, “I’m never gonna make it that far with too many more nights like last night.”

And I’d rather be 75 and sunny than acting like I’m 17 and freezing again. I’d rather be up early in the morning than up late at night erasing memories of where I’ve been. Or to be through at 52 someday stone-faced and bleary-eyed. You’d better believe I’m living for the moment but my moment’s growing bigger by and by.

And I’ve got a best friend. She don’t drink or smoke like I’ve been known to. She’s got religion. She’s a one-woman dynamo and shines a light in every room she goes to. She says the light that’s there won’t go nowhere, no way. She don’t spend every second smiling, but she’s learning something exciting every day.

She’d rather be 75 and sunny than 29 with a chance of showers all the time. She’d rather be old as dirt than new as any $9 bottle of wine. Or to be thawed at 35, mama, stoned with her back to the wind. You better believe she’s living for the moment but her moment is the whole damn thing.

And I see these spin kids, double wide-eyed rolling and rolling and tumbling. They’re roaming in inches, taking the high dive approach and screaming towards the water. Their hearts race a million miles as they buy another smile from a jar. Their bodies are screaming for the water and, you know, I just hope they can make it that far.

I hope they’re 75 and sunny, not 29 with a chance of flurries all the time. I hope we’re all old as dirt, not new as every $25 trip that we could try. Or to be thawed at 35, mama, stoned with our backs to the wind. You’d better believe I’m living for the moment, but my moment, son, is the whole damn thing.

And I say I’d rather be 75, oh, how nice, oh, how easy for me to say. I’ve never broken a bone in my life, let alone had my heart or a hip replaced. And I keep this furious pace, and I still feel so good and strong. And I still get tempted for a taste, just a taste to keep me going, going, going, going, gone.

But I’ve got a notion that everything I’ve leaned been coming ‘round. And my devotion to the new thing and the next thing and the hip thing is slowing down. And I’ve got a light in here, won’t go nowhere, no way. And I don’t spend every second smiling and I ain’t trying, but I’m excited for every day, every day.

‘Cause I’d rather be 75 and sunny than 29 with a chance of showers all the time. I’d rather be old and in the way than this year’s new kid running for my life. Or to be thawed at 35, mama, stone-faced and bleary-eyed. You better believe I’m living for the moment, but my moment… You better believe I’m living for the moment, but these moments… You better believe I’m living for the moment, but my moment’s growing bigger by and by…by and by.

snow lounge

i'm just not that into the winter olympics.
ooh look at us...instead of chopping wood and foraging for food, we have enough money and free time to play games in the snow all day...
just kinda rubbing it in the face of the rest of the world...
i know it's about dreams. and it's great these people are pushing their physical limits. but all the nationalistic competitive crap is heavy.

see what inspired tiger woods

let me guess...fake boobs?

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.

oral hygiene survey

so, how often do you brush the roof of your mouth?

tar heels

went to the unc-wake forest game this week at the dean dome in chapel hill.
after a competitive first half, the good guys lost, by a lot. the heels looked smaller and less aggressive than the deacs, and have lost their last 3 games. everybody is injured, and if they're not injured, they're an undeveloped freshman.

they're still national champions for a few months but it's not looking good for a repeat performance. count this a building year.

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.

dog's nose front door

welcome wagon evidence

wrinkled sunrise

it's so cold the reservoir froze. i am very grateful to be in an insulated house with working heat and pipes that aren't bursting. not everybody is so lucky. i would like to eat a giant hot apple crumb cake and hibernate until april.

ebony and ivory and chocolate

there was a lady on 'the dog whisperer' last week, very uptight and botoxed and anxious with a spastic chihuahua and she was on the street with cesar and her dog, and another dog started walking up the sidewalk to them which was making her dog go berserk, and cesar asked the lady how she was feeling. and she said she didn't know. and he said if you don't know how you're feeling, look at yourself, and he swept his hand down in front of his chest indicating his powerful balanced upright wide tall stance, as opposed to her slouched, twisted, tight hunched shoulders and she looked down and understood and as soon as you see it you can start to fix it.

like michael jackson man in the mirror said, take a look at yourself and then make that chaaaaange