Miro April, 2009
Emily February, 2014
Just call her Intrepid.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Emily begins to read
Emily Dickens reflects her namesakes, Emily Dickinson and Charles Dickens, in her first choice of literature. She pulled the TV remotes and a magazine off the table and chose the magazine as her point of interest.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Sunday, February 9, 2014
First snow
Winter Olympic soccer.
After toys, it's time to get back to pruning.
And then a little mountaineering.
Wrestling is a year-round sport.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Introducing Indus Emily the Dickens
This is what happens when you have ten minutes and try to photograph an 8-week-old puppy investigating the yard for the first time.
She sees the camera approaching.
She's interested in the camera.
She--well, you can see what she does.
The human tries to pull the camera away.
Wait, nobody leaves until I say so!
OK, done with camera. On to chicken pen.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Happy Birthday to Miró
From his arrival
through crazy adolescence
he finally reached maturity, with full use of his brain at age five. In the words of Dorothy Miner, author of Airedale Terriers, a Complete Pet Owner's Manual, "If Airedales were human, they would be physicists, revolutionaries, or cartoonists. They are bright, clever, independent, and not just a little manipulative."
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Miró knows how to suit his dignity to the occasion.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Thinking of names
Oddly enough, "puppy" has become a daily ingredient of my conversations. People ask what I'm going to name her. I researched female artists, writers, and scientists. It's an unfair world, in which you can find loads of famous male names that will suit dogs--Matisse, Monet, Puccini, Yeats, Keats, Jeeves--but few female.
My son researched female pirates and came up with names like Elise Eskilsdotter and P'en Ch'ih Ch'iko', not to mention Sadie the Goat and Charlotte Badger. Interestingly, Sadie was named The Goat due to her habit of head-butting her victims, making hers an appropriate name for Airedales who are known to have inch-thick skulls and ramming crests.
I looked for something distinctive, yet appropriate, and without too many syllables. I imagined myself yelling, "CallioPEE" (Greek muse of epic poetry) out the back door. Perhaps too pretentious. By the way, I read that Calliope (cal-i-o-pee) is the daughter of Mnemosyne (nem-ah-sen-ee, I think), a name that makes Calliope look simple.
Or we can go with a major Canadian artist, Emily Carr, who happened to live in the Pacific Northwest. You have not seen a tree until you've seen one of her paintings.
There's Georgia, of course, for Georgia O'Keeffe, appropriate because the sire is George. Mom is Gypsy.
Or the French author Collette, whose worked in music halls before becoming a popular author. Her best-known work is Gigi, which was made into a Broadway musical and a movie. I'm not particularly interested in her writing, but her name and slightly scandalous character could work.
Other than Harper Lee, Flannery O'Connor and Zora Neal Hurston, I couldn't think of other female writers with distinctive names. All three were born in the southern USA.
I have a hunch that Emily might stick. It has tradition. My first Airedale, the breed my late husband and I chose because it was one on which we both agreed, was named Emma. The name was less popular in those days but well-known among English majors. Jane Austen's Emma is a character who is deeply loved.
I looked for something distinctive, yet appropriate, and without too many syllables. I imagined myself yelling, "CallioPEE" (Greek muse of epic poetry) out the back door. Perhaps too pretentious. By the way, I read that Calliope (cal-i-o-pee) is the daughter of Mnemosyne (nem-ah-sen-ee, I think), a name that makes Calliope look simple.
Or we can go with a major Canadian artist, Emily Carr, who happened to live in the Pacific Northwest. You have not seen a tree until you've seen one of her paintings.
There's Georgia, of course, for Georgia O'Keeffe, appropriate because the sire is George. Mom is Gypsy.
Or the French author Collette, whose worked in music halls before becoming a popular author. Her best-known work is Gigi, which was made into a Broadway musical and a movie. I'm not particularly interested in her writing, but her name and slightly scandalous character could work.
Other than Harper Lee, Flannery O'Connor and Zora Neal Hurston, I couldn't think of other female writers with distinctive names. All three were born in the southern USA.
My brain hurts.
This is post #555.
This is post #555.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Monday, January 20, 2014
Pup prep
Puppy pick-up is scheduled for the first of February, at which time the blog action will pick up, too. The one thing I'm not looking forward to is having to reinstall the baby gates. I'm digging through all the equipment that I organized and stored. (Being organized is my dream. I don't think it will ever come true.) Gates, x-pen, puppy-sized crate--check.
Some items have been re-purposed.
Stainless steel dog bowl.
I hunted down other necessities.
This size collar lasts a couple of weeks.
Then there are the essentials.
Seriously? None for ME, the best-behaved?
Cruel world.
In a couple of weeks, Miro will be making some creative new installations with the innards of a stuffy toy and probably also with a "super-tough" toy that will last about five minutes longer.
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