Old Faithful

I am grateful to have a job, but I am not grateful for what it has done to my relationship with my little shadow, Oliver. It used to be when I came home from work, my parents would have stories of how Oliver sat at the door for hours, pouting because I was gone. How he just went up to our room and sulked in his bed next to mine. He greeted me with thrilled exuberation and much tail wagging when I returned in the evenings from work.

I do not want my dog depressed, sitting at the door bummed out because I am gone. But, the alternative is that he has adopted my parents as his masters. Particularly my dad. He has become my Dad's shadow; sleeping next to his bed, following him around the house. This is not surprising to me. After all, my parents are now his primary caretakers; letting him out, giving him pats and scratches all day, administering his mid-day meds, and generally loving him. Nevermind the fact that I'm the one who works to buy his kibble (does he think that all-natural stuff grown on trees?), and I'm the one who puts his food out in the morning with his medication inside hotdog and his glucosamine mixed in for his creeky joints. Puppies can me so ungrateful!

The activity in the home and daily routine is a result of my parents' lives now, not mine.  In the evenings, when it's time for bed, Oliver likes to sleep next to my dad. For a while he would start out in my room, but then he would pace around and even go to the door scratching at it incessantly. If I would give up and let him out, he would burst out, tail wagging, "Grampy?!" running to dad's office across the hall, "Graaaaaaaampyyyyyy!?" running upstairs to find him. Then, he'd sleep there next to dad.

Ultimately, I let him do what he wants to. Oliver doesn't ask for much, and if he is more comfortable sleeping up where my dad is, I don't mind if it makes him happy. He's an old man and the height of his day is the beef jerky my Mom gives him, so I'll give him whatever I can to aide in his quality of life.

This weekend my dad left for the cape and I asked that he leave Oliver here with me. Oliver moped for the first day without his grampy, but then, he got over it a bit and started following me around like old times.

Last night was the best. He wandered upstairs like he often does at bedtime. I didn't force him to come back down, even though I knew dad wasn't up there. I went to bed. As I started to nod off, I heard a scratching noise at my door. Could it be? Is it possible he's come back to me?  I got out of bed, convinced I was just hearing things, and opened my door to find him standing there. He walked in and plopped down on his bed. Next to mine. And I liked that very much.

Poor Judgement?

My friend Maureen and I just exchanged emails which amused me. Well, sad at first, really, but then ended with a good punchline from her. She started it by sending me a newspaper story about a man in our hometown who was arrested for abusing his wife/girlfriend. When I was eight and he was in his late-teens, early 20s, he did work on our house, and I had the biggest crush on him!  

I apologize for the language ahead of time...

ME - What an douche!

MO - yes, I second the douche comment. 

ME - He was so pretty....when I was eight. Actually, now that I think about it, what does that mean that I had a crush on such an a-hole at eight? I can pick em!  LOL  er...um.

MO - when you were eight you also had a crush on Michael Jackson...look how he turned out....

tags - maureen, mo, michael jackson

Lake Worth Street Painting Plans

My friend Shannon and I have made plans to meet in FL for the Lake Worth Street Painting Festival in February. I am very excited. This morning I woke to a message via FB from Shannon, suggesting we look into registering for the event soon. Tonight, she touched base again to let me know all the hoops we have to jump through to participate. The following thread, which we found to be quite funny considering the speed at which we exchanged and the morphing and almost absurdity that our ideas took, is what resulted, until we decided to continue our conversation via IM.

My favorite part is Shannon's closing comment there. Hysterical.

We went on IM and further discussed. We decided that American Gothic sock monkeys would be awesome. Initially I thought, because of our photo backgrounds, that we should put sock monkey's into famous photographs, but that just got sick when Eddie Adam's famous Vietnam image came into my head (don't judge me, I've seen it done with Legos).

We considered Eisenstadt's VDay shot in Times Square, but ultimately knew that for optimal humor, we would need to see the sock monkey's faces. We decided to scetch up some american gothic and keep each other posted if we thought of something else that might work.  We like to do stuff that's not so complicated. As I joked (no but really) to her, "Our goal really is to be done by lunch so we can get to Toojay's".

"Mmmmm. Grilled cheeese"

Waiting for Dad

 

tags: scott's end, cape, bootsie, oliver, dogs, dad

So You Think You Can Dance

I didn't get a chance to watch all the episodes this season, but here are a few of my favorites...

This one's awesome. And I love Christina Applegate...



And this one has such athleticism...


And how neat!



I love the pace of this one; fast witht he slow music. And Twitch is awesome...
 


And this one's just so much fun. Almost instills hope in me!



Tags: So You Think You Can Dance, SYTYCD, video, shasha, kent, neil, melanie

Home

This is what I hope will be my home before too long.
And yes, that is purple.

tags: house, home, street, photo

Baby Giraffe

It's hard to believe it's real, right? So darn adorable!  I'd link the image and credit the photographer but when I click on it, it goes to tumblr and I don't tumbl so, that's that.

Behold the cuteness...

Copley Square Green Market

I had a shoot for work the other day in Copley Square. When the shoot completed I wandered the square for a bit, which was all a-buzz with activity. Great people-watching and pretty food and flowers to look at and photograph!

My Lovely Weekend

To see images from my weekend, which was quite fun, visit my other blog HERE

Self-Portrait

When I went on a shoot touring the West End of Boston yesterday, getting a shot of myself was not my intention!  This teacher was lecturing his students in Government Center outside City Hall and I hoped to get a tight shot of his glasses with the students or even the building he was talking about, but because he moved his head around so much, there were a few with me in them.

Inspection Day

Today was inspection day for the house I am hoping to buy. It was quite a lot fo information (read: problems) to deal with. Yowzer!  Stay tuned!

We're a little stumped on how to deal with this main room. It's basically the livingroom. The brick on the left is the fireplace. I'm thinking that trading the window on the right with the door might help make it possible to layout but we're not sure. Got any brilliant ideas?

Here's the view from the entrance. Strange.

I am diggin this wall space!

Blog Privacy

I do not blog as much as I used to, but for professional reasons, I thought it would be wise to privatize my blog and only allow those who I choose, to read. So, if you accepted the invitation, thank you! And welcome to my blog!

Oh, and I don't expect you to read, I just didn't know who does read and who doesn't and as such, didn't know who to send invites to.

And I'm sorry if you had to create a gmail account to access the blog. Dad doesn't have one and was able to sign himself up via the invite. 

Sorry it's so annoying!