farmers market car trunk nap with dalmation puppychild

clowny overbite

nacho and eli got great reviews at their annual checkup this week. eli needs to go on a diet - he's gained 10 lbs in the past year. nacho started antihistamines to see if it will make him less itchy, and his skin less pink. he was scratching like crazy this summer and i never found any fleas on him, i think it was the mosquitoes but i'm not sure. we'll see if the antihistamines help.

morning has broken

my friend michelle had a perfect baby girl this morning. this makes 4 baby girls born to good friends of mine in the past 2 weeks. last january must've been extra cold. found out 3 more friends are with child this week. it's nonstop procreation around here!

i am so happy for all of them, but now more than ever i feel this way.

what a weekend

went down to charleston friday for the phish show.

had ridiculously good lunch at hometown bbq and then walked on the beach before the show.

met some friends & had a blast in the coliseum. it was packed and the crowd is like performance art - jumping in sync with the light show in sync with the band.

went to clemson last night & saw bob dylan for the first time from 15 yards away. 3rd row dead fuckin center. he's still got it.

also HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! 

backgammon

i remember 'playing' backgammon in the 70's-80's when i was less than 7 years old.

i haven't played since, but my interest has been revived in the last month and i must say i enjoy playing this game.

if you 'put me in jail' and send one of my chips to the center bar when you could have moved other chips in other equally good ways, i may take it personally and not speak to you the rest of the game and for some time thereafter.

runs like nitwit

nacho's indian name.

he hops and gallops. nothing smooth about the gait. like a polar bunny.

exploding cameras

they reaaaaaaally don't want you to put another kind of battery in there.

when flaffy poop

he likes to chew the toys, but he is no chewing them, he's peeing on them.

he mark alllll the place in the house and where flaffy poop outside or inside he just running in circle

and after that sometimes i said he just step all in the poop and he making a mess

airplane etiquette

1. if you have the window or aisle seat, do not take the middle armrest.
2. if you sneeze, cover your mouth with your arm or a tissue
3. if you shoot snot out of your mouth or nose when you sneeze, don't wipe your hands on the tray table/wall
4. do not eat 6 oz. of curry before boarding

all that's left

he went to pick up ashes
of my dog who's dead
ten days since i mohawked
the fur on his soft head

the IV tube stuck in his arm
on which he laid his chin
i said goodbye my sweet sweet pet
i'll see you soon again

it sucks that i was lying
i thought he would be fine
his insides tangled dying
his outsides showed no sign

the saddest part is over
it can't hurt any worse
time will work its magic
only blessing no more curse

giant poplar

went out to joyce kilmer memorial forest this week to be amongst the OOOLD trees.

joyce kilmer was a poet and WWI soldier who died at age 31. he wrote the poem 'trees' - it starts: i think that i shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.

he had the same name as my MOM - joycie!

a logging company went bankrupt in the early 1900s and prevented the area from being clearcut so there are some GIANT poplars out there. there are some giant hemlocks too, but those are dead now from the wooly adelgids.

circle

there was a baby shower/blessingway here yesterday. in the middle of the rainiest day in the past 6 months. onesies were decorated, the 4 directions were called, inspirational cards were shared, champagne was drink drank drunk, babies were fed, wigs were worn, flowers were everywhere, lemon pound cake was eaten, the strength of michelle was reinforced and celebrated.

moose humping mailbox

thank you animal planet

meditation and mantra

"may loving kindness come upon all things"

instead of screaming inside my head about things out of my control that i don't want to do, i've tried to repeat this sentence.

"may loving kindness come upon all things"

i'm not great at it, but the more i do it the better it will work.

here's another one:

'I sit down and say, and I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without entertaining any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I say, like 'Japhy Ryder, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha,' then I run on, say to 'David O. Selznick, equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha' though I don't use names like David O. Selznick, just people I know because when I say the words 'equally a coming Buddha' I want to be thinking of their eyes, like you take Morley, his blue eyes behind those glasses, when you think 'equally a coming Buddha' you think of those eyes and you really do suddenly see the true secret serenity and the truth of his coming Buddhahood. Then you think of your enemy's eyes.'

dharma bums jack kerouac

with friends like these

who needs facebook?

i guess they're just kidding, but still.  taking playground teasing to a widespread public level.

camelback eli

this is turning into a dog blog, but what the hell. i love dogs!

kevin & eli have a trick where kevin squeezes the nozzle of the camelback water hose and eli opens his mouth and drinks the water. so he doesn't need a bowl while hiking. it's a great trick. nacho doesn't get it - he puts his head down and water spills all over him and he remains thirsty.

we hiked yesterday in pisgah national forest to john's rock which is a boulder outcropping on top of the world. the camelback hose wasn't spraying right so this is some next level shit.

nacho doggy

time makes you bolder, even children get older, i'm getting older too.

i've really noticed in the last month that nacho is aging. i thought he'd always look like a puppy, but now his face is getting whiter and something about his eyes are getting droopy. just when i thought he couldn't possibly look any funnier, he goes and looks even more like a nitwit dog. all 55 lbs of him will climb in anybody's lap, and when he greets strangers on the street he puts his ears way back and shakes his entire caboose. he's a good boy. i just wish he could freeze at 3 years old.

 

shrimp & grits

we had a dinner party last night & it was very much fun.

it started with 5 pounds of frozen panama bay shrimp from our good friend bob at shrimppeople.com.

kevin shrimp pierred them up.

i made jalapeno cheese grits.

audra brought fabulously fresh white hydrangeas.


lindsay and josh brought farm and sparrow seeded bread - i've never had better tasting bread.

michelle brought an amazing homecooked handpicked fall fruit crisp.


joey and paige brought the funk.


everybody brought their dogs.

got a text message this morning - "Sorry about the panties in your yard."


success!

too hot picnic table

pot holders, man.

send us money, we'll send cassettes

man's best friend

où sont les neiges d'antan?

magic hour

ladies love cool nachodoggy

san diego 2005. tilly the wheaten terrier. or wheaten terrorizer. she was only 7 weeks old.

congratulations MOM

my MOM won the club championship this weekend in her flight! in a playoff on the 19th hole. how clutch is that?!

this is a major lesson in facing your fears and conquering them. she had never played golf before and was discouraged when she picked up the game 10 years ago and was whiffing and hitting sideways, and now she is so consistent, she hits every fairway and has a ball playing with her friends and WINS CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS!

GO MOM!

bluebells

i had a great labor day weekend in breckenridge colorado.

the weather could not have been nicer - full sun and high 60's.

went on some great hikes - this is from the black powder pass trail in the rockies. it was above the tree line and had outstanding vistas and made my lungs burn but in a good way.

walked around the amazingly beautiful breckenridge golf course and got taken into custody on the 6th green by an overeager player's assistant. it was the closest i've ever been to being arrested. i was soon freed from golf prison and had to ride around the rest of the holes in a cart. i found a dozen balls in the grass along the fairways.

met a super nice yellow lab named pivo. i wanted to dognap him.

played a bunch of ipad scrabble, and a game of real life scrabble in teams. badly lost the ipad games, we soundly won the real life one.

hung out with an incredibly kind and generous family i am lucky to know, including a really sweet 3 year old named piper. how cute is that name?

glad to be back safely in asheville with nacho & eli & cooler fallish weather on the way.

 

the call to adventure

The call to adventure signifies that destiny
has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual
center of gravity from within the pale of this society
to a zone unknown. This fateful region
of both treasure and danger may be variously
represented as a distant land, a forest, a kingdom
underground, beneath the waves or above the sky,
a secret island, lofty mountaintop, or profound dream state;
but it is always a place of strangely fluid
and polymorphous beings, unimaginable torments,
superhuman deeds, and impossible delights.

-Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

tighty whities wipeout

went to the asheville tourists game last night downtown at mccormick field. it's a sweet old field, and the bleachers are shaded and they have great ballpark food and it's good people watching and the tourists usually score every inning i've seen.

after what seems like every out they have little contests for people to win prizes like trivia, or little kids chase the teddy bear mascot around a car sponsored by local business. it's a lot of advertising, but the kids seem to like it.

this was one of the contests - 3 kids fit themselves into a giant pair of tighty whitie underwear and race down to the outfield and back. the kids in white tumbled and rolled around the whole time. kids in red won easily.

close fitting mock turtle neck collars, 4:20

introducing chippy

he's rowing his little kayak above the TV, so instead of watching football, which generally makes me sad and bored, i can watch chippy, which generally makes me squeal with joy.

just say who

i think we should remove the word "whom" from the english language.

3/4 of humans have no idea how to use it.

of the 1/4 that know how to use it, 1/2 don't use it because it sounds so freakin pretentious

1/2 use it and feel superior

it's a lose-lose-lose-lose proposition

drop the "m" - drop the confusion - drop the grammar snobbery - just say 'who'

happy birthday quissy

happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy BIRTHday dear quissy
happy birthday to you

hope it's a great day and especially fun with your littlest red sock, WILL.

you dropped your poptart

looks like frosted wild berry.

talkin at the texaco

uniform:

• super short hair
• chin goatee
• xxxl t-shirt
• jorts
• short socks
• sneaks

welcome to eastern tennessee

eli nacho swimming hole

charlotte street computers retrieved my sd card! no problemo. also gave me tips on laptop power cord management - always unplug the power cord from the laptop when you pick it up - it's a fragile joint, and an expensive fix, and the weight of the battery loosens it and can break it.

here's a picture of nacho swimming in circles, and eli swimming for a stick.

the great smoky mountain national park does not allow dogs. they list the reasons here:http://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/pets.htm


i would agree with them, if they didn't allow horses, which they do. there are giant piles of horse shit all over the trails, so the anti-disease excuses go out the window.

tree hugger

i got a new laptop!

my friend who i shall call the computer whisperer put it together for me. it's awesome. except i shoved an SD photo memory card into the cd rom slot last night and now it's stuck in there. i tried to fish it out with a paper clip, to no avail.

i have many photos of dogs swimming in caribbean clear swimming holes in tennessee from this weekend on that card i would like to share and i can't believe i was so inattentive and moronic to jam it in the cd drive.

going to charlotte street computers when they open this AM to let them disassemble. no, no disassemble!

flossie's sister's partner

if i had a band, and played the clarinet in this band, i would call the band "flossie's sister's partner."

this was a girl on the show "animal hoarders" - which is usually pretty sad and disgusting, but then there is an intervention and animal control comes with a truck load of crates and takes most of the animals, and the people get new carpets and paint, and it has a heartwarming ending. 

the people really have much love for these animals, they just get overwhelmed.

 

little fall of rain

leads to swarms of mosquitoes.

if you want to sunbathe in asheville, you need no sunscreen, only deet.

the truest sentence

Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

- Hemingway, A Movable Feast

why pistachios were dyed red

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistachio

"The shell of the pistachio is naturally a beige color, but it is sometimes dyed red or green in commercial pistachios. Originally dye was applied by importers to hide stains on the shells caused when the nuts were picked by hand. Most pistachios are now picked by machine and the shells remain unstained, making dyeing unnecessary except to meet ingrained consumer expectations."

coffee

after probably 6 years without any caffeine, i'm on a coffee kick again. it started about a month ago with an ounce in the AM, black with some honey, and now it's probably 4 ounces. it makes me feel like this guy ^^^ is implanted in my abdomen for a couple hours. much easier to focus on words and to walk up hills.

light at the end

walk towards the light

see, it's not my fault

Later born siblings were found to be more extroverted (sociable, outgoing), sentimental, forgiving and open to new experiences than their older siblings. First-borns were found to be more perfectionistic than their younger siblings.

from today's msnbc.com article "Sorry, kid, first-borns really are smarter."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38683279/

you are loved

junkfood will

i brought a vintage ringer t-shirt that says "NO JUNK FOOD" to little william this weekend, and though he has some room to grow into it, his nitwit dad put it on him and took pictures.

pls avoid plants

love the lifted leg/dog taking a whiz cave painting here

baby william

went to ny for basically one day this weekend to meet my new nephew william. he is almost 3 months old and smiley and sweet and chubby and eats a lot and doesn't cry and doesn't stop moving. he's always fist pumping and ninja kicking, even in his sleep. he is lucky to be surrounded by awesome parents & grandparents and furry uncle henry.

we sneaked 50 lbs of frozen shrimp and scallops and lobster tails through the security at laguardia without any problems. i put the insulated bag on the conveyor belt and a guy asked "is this food?" and i said "yup." as it was x-rayed, the girl stopped the belt and said "oh...my...god" and the guy went over and said "it's okay, it's just food." and that was it!