We now PAWS for a visit with Man's Best Friend

At only $2 bucks to get into the Central Iowa Kennel Club's show this weekend at the fairgrounds it seemed like a fun (albeit perhaps, fragrant) place to come in out of the sub-zero cold and hang out for a while.


Fun, it was! Competition was taking place in a bunch of different rings where things seemed to be very serious but outside the ring I found a collection of fine-looking dogs, just about any kind you could possibly imagine.




This is Joe, the first guy I met at the show. At 19 month olds and a mere 150 pounds, I didn't have to bend over very far to take this picture. He wasn't competing, he was just having a look around, sniffing tails and maybe wondering why everyone else looked like they'd just come from a beauty parlour.

Like these little brothers. Seasoned professionals, no doubt.

The moment I walked near them with the camera they looked straight at me and froze in a pose. Cute as heck, they'd just had their hair done and with a final puff of hairspray, were ready to take their turn in the ring.




In the very next ring, in contrast to the fluffy cuteness of the little twins, the Mastiff's were on their best ring-behavior in front of the judges. This guy was my favorite. I love big dogs but this guy won my heart when he broke composure momentarily when he spotted a kernel of popcorn on the floor and dover down to grab it. Occasionally spirit overrides good manners. I like that in a guy.

Two rings down, the competitors were so tiny I can't imagine they'd make a decent sandwich but boy oh boy, do these little dogs have attitude.




They prance on their petite little paws like royalty and I swear this handler was asking the dog for permission to lead him out of the ring.

As I watched the various rings it was easy to tell which dogs are naturally just very smart. I'm sure it's also the result of careful training but these Aussie Shepherds were fascinating to watch. They took commands like soldiers, froze as if at attention and kept their eyes tightly fixed on their handlers despite all of the surrounding distractions.















If you ever watched that English woman.....Woodhouse, was it ????....talk about training dogs on public tv, you'll notice that she set the standard and apparently sensible shoes are still de rigueur in the dog show ring.




Grooming is a big part of the show.
All around the hall were dozens of grooming stands with shelves of sprays and creams and combs and dryers alongside kennels where lots of the dogs were snuggled up and resting until their turn in the ring. Much like the state fair when I watch the kids fussing over the final grooming touches of their sheep and steers, lots of the dogs were getting their finishing touches from groomers of all ages.

This little girl was surprised and shyly agreed when I asked her if she would be in the picture with her dog. I thought they were just so cute together.

This one might not have known I was taking his picture. I have never seen so much hair on a dog.





He is a Bouvier Des Flandres, a breed I'd never heard of but I understand they are historically cattle dogs. What a handsome guy! And I actually do think he could see me. Just like all the others, he turned and gave me his best side when I raised the camera up for the picture. I like him. He's big and snuggly looking, I could see myself reading a good book on a cold winters night with a dog like this sleeping at my feet.

I have no idea what kind of dog this is but she has to be the Farrah Fawcett/Joan Collins of the four-footed set. Just look at all those products in the background!!! When she looked up at me I swear I could hear her say to me "...don't hate me because I'm beautiful!" I walked away wondering if they ever take her hair down and let her out into the back yard for a good run and a few minutes to just get down with her very bad self.

Indeed, it was a day for fancy hairdo's.

For everyone.

And outside the exhibit hall on my way back to my car...............

An abundance of that yellow snow mom warned us about. Outside the ring??? Maybe that fancy pooch is just another one of the guys after all


.

...and they give you FREE COOKIES

They finally let me donate blood again today. I've been a regular donor for years but unbeknownst to me, a beach vacation red-flagged me as a no-way donor for a full year since apparently the area of Mexico in which I traveled has more than it's share of mosquitoes. A year has passed and I saw a news clip last night about the critical need for blood, so I stopped in this afternoon and earned my stickers.

If you've never donated before, it is really easy. You do have to answer a bunch of health-related questions and take a little finger-prick test first, but if your iron level is good, you're not recovering from a 'bout of malaria and you haven't paid anyone for weird barnyard kinda sex in the last year or so, you're probably a shoo-in for a nice, relaxing half hour or so in a cozy chair with your feet up.

Well yes, of course there is a needle involved but I'm here to tell you, the people at the blood center are the BEST when it comes to needles. The absolute best. It's clean, it's safe, it's really easy and the very cool thing is................you honestly, for-real could save someone's life.

If you've ever seen the effects that a blood transfusion has on someone who badly needs one, it is pretty darn amazing. When I needed one a few years back, I was sure glad someone had cared enough to take the time.

DID I MENTION THEY GIVE YOU FREE COOKIES AND JUICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Such a deal.

Seriously, give them a call if you can.

Do Not EVEN Ask......

The lost is.........uhm....... the lost are found.
Five brussel sprouts and one artichoke have been located.
Quite by accident and no, I'm not telling you where I found them.

MISSING: Five Brussel Sprouts

Last night Donny asked me about my New Years Resolutions which prompted me to recall (this morning when the fog of last nights post-holiday Company party cleared) that I had already failed to follow-through on one of them: to try new varieties and eat more vegetables.

There is alot of year left.

So this morning I shopped. I bought an artichoke and a little bag of five fresh brussel sprouts. Yes, five. I am suspect of brussel sprouts. I strongly suspect that I don't like brussel sprouts. But last week on Simple Cooking or Simply Cooking or Look Cooking is Easy or whatever the heck that Saturday morning show is called, honestly I can't remember for sure.....I watched as the freshly-scrubbed and hip-looking Ana cut little brussel sprouts into quarters, spread them on a cookie sheet with a little olive oil and baked them in a 450-degree oven, swearing that the little shrinked-up sprout sections were, after a liberal sprinkle of sea salt, "sweet and delicious".

She didn't mean sugar-sweet, I knew what she meant. Lots of years ago my ex-husband and I were invited to a pots-and-pan party in the home of his boss. It was the kind of party where the host invited a big table full of couples and then proceeded to prepare an entire delicious meal, by way of the use of waterless cookware....promising us from the moment he first dumped the butter-beans into the pan with nothing more than 2 tablespoons of water...that everything would be sweet and delicious.

Butter beans. In a pan. With just water. Yyyyyyuk, right?

Ha!!!! NOTSOMUCH!!!!!!

The only reason we'd been invited at all to the party was because another couple had cancelled and the host was obligated to the pots-and-pans sales guy to provide a full table of deep-pocket friends and neighbors for the free meal. We had no money. I remember Dave's boss even making a point of asking him not to mention that we couldn't afford the pots-and-pans....just eat the meal, graciously decline the salesman's offer and slip out the side door as soon as someone else started to write up their order. We really didn't have much choice. It was the boss, after all.

The point is.............those darn beans were FABULOUS. It was the first (and the last, since we couldn't afford the pans) serving of butter beans that I'd ever eaten because they just look nasty to me and they honestly, truly, really were delicious.

Oh lord. Where was I.............butter beans, cookware.............oh yes. The beans were SWEET. Not sweet like they had sugar spooned over them but they were absolutely sweet, the waterless cookware and low temps having cooked the natural sugars in the beans out to make them noticeably sweet and.......yes, they were really really good. Who woulda guessed!!??

So fast-forward 30 years and it's conceivable to me that if I followed the directions of my happy Saturday morning cooking friends, the result just might be a mid-life love affair between me and a pan of five little brussel sprouts. I was game to give them a try. Thus the shopping trip.

The problem is, I'm a kitchen chef all dressed up in a ball gown of enthusiasm with no floor on which to dance. I can't find them. I can't find my five little brussel sprouts. I can't find my artichoke either. I have looked everywhere. I shopped for them at a favorite market, I watched the bag-girl tuck them into one of their paper bags with the cool little handle, I brought them home, I SWEAR to you I brought them home.

And they're gone. Gone. Vanished.

The bag is here. The little chocolate bar I bought to send to my friend with a birthday card is here. For the love of God people, does this EVER happen to anyone else?????

WHERE ARE MY BRUSSEL SPROUTS AND MY ARTICHOKE!!!!!??????

Show Me Your Cubicle

In contrast to it's December neighbor and the New Years Eve reminder of 12-months passed, January is a clean-slate month, with New Years Day a glimpse from a high place overlooking the horizon where shapes of what lies ahead begin to come into focus. Some of the shapes are clear: a scheduled business trip or vacation, a milestone birthday, a new car to replace the one that started making suspicious (translate that: EXPENSIVE) noises just as you were starting to shop for the holidays. Others are vague shapes that start out looking like resolutions and goals, dreams, big plans, maybe even fears.

After years of resolving to be a kinder and gentler me, I am pleased to announce that I am, finally, kind as can be and gentle as hell, so I'm moving on to loftier goals in 2008. No, I'm not going to list them. But I thought I'd explain one of them to you as it presents a real dilemma for me: the compromising of my personal happiness and comfort to keep my boss happy.

To begin, I'd like you to meet my cubicle:

Well, technically not a cubicle. A very famous designer named Herman suggested it would be cool to make our office interesting with shapes that resemble something of a regulation Navy-drab grey cluster of screened honeycombs. This is the personal space to which I report each work day, unless I am on the road traveling. For ease of communication and lack of a better term, I'll call it my cube. (Although remember, it's not really a cube. I LIKE square, cube-y spaces and my space is anything BUT cube-y.)

My cube has funny shaped tables. Nothing fits on them squarely. The desk is shaped like a kidney bean, undoubtedly the result of a study somewhere which revealed that account reps sitting at kidney bean-shaped desks increase their annual sales volume by an average of 24%. While they might look really cool in a catalog, they're not very functional. But enough about my not liking my desk. The company paid tons of money for it and the matching file thingies and the industrial looking racks too and once the choice was made, I accepted the decision and that was the end of that.

Perhaps you noticed that my cube is "busy". I like that term. It's the one my neighbor used when she looked into my open one-car garage last summer and noticed the accumulated belongings of me and all three of my grown children. It was her nice way of saying, "wow, that's alot of stuff...."

She was right. And she'd be right about my cube. I have alot of stuff. My boss has mentioned to me that he doesn't like all the stuff in my cube so I thought it would be a good idea to give some thought to how I could change my cube it to make him happy.

I took a closer look.

It's hard to know what has to go and what can stay. I work for a company full of artists and am slightly perplexed when someone doesn't understand that working in a grey-drab world of Herman may feel modern and efficient to some people, but to me it's more than boring, it's like a big, annoying lid on my creativity. It lacks color, it lacks texture. Why on earth would someone like me want to come to work every day and sit in a colorless, texture-less cube??

Still I ponder. What goes?

My little stuffed penguin?? I think not. A co-worker gave that to me. I love it. He went out of his way to be nice to me. My fur and rhinestone framed picture?? I think not. I hosted two clients for three days last summer when they came to Des Moines to visit. I immortalized them earlier on my blog after all the fun we had. They made that frame for me as a thank-you gift. I LOVE that frame. When I'm on the phone with customers that are not happy with me, who are yelling at me, I look at that frame and remind myself of better moments.

In a grey-drab Herman world, the new beginnings of a living, breathing philodendron in a Propel bottle should be obvious. It's GREEN and I understand that sort of thing is really big right now. The DebbieBucks sign? Yeah? What about it?????



I use all these pens. ALL of them. Markers too. And the scissors. Yes, there is more than one pair. That's because people borrow mine all the time, so I need to have an extra. I use the handle of the paintbrush to stir my coffee. Clearly THAT can't go. And I use the little metal cocktail stirring shaped-like-a-hand thing to scratch my back. Duhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

I suppose the rubber band could go in a drawer.

What about this little picture?

No way it goes.

Last year I flew with one of our artists to work with people at a gallery in the San Francisco area. It was a short trip, we were busy all weekend and, as is usually the case, had little time to see the sights. On the way to the airport the morning we left, one of our new friends took time to show us around town, even stopping for pictures at Haight and Ashbury and on the sidewalk right in front of Jerry Garcia's old place---which was something akin to a pilgrimage to Mecca for the artist I was traveling with. It meant alot to us that he took the time. The picture is something we made to thank him for being so great. I meet lots of people like that. I like to think of them.

Stuffed owl?

It's from my last trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. A little kid gave it to me when another artist and I were sitting at an outdoor restaurant, enjoying dinner with a gallery owner in the shadow of the Grand Teton mountains. It was a fabulous summer night that I like to remember.

The shells are from my trip to the Jersey shore. I worked and played there last year. I really love it there. The ceramic turtle has been with me for a long time. He sat on the dashboard of my van for years before some lady pulled out in front of me in traffic and totaled it. I bought him a long time ago because turtles are my favorite critter and they remind me that, just like the turtle, I have everything I really need to get along in life, right here under my own shell.

Photos of granddaughters and other favorite little people? They're a given.

Anyone who doesn't understand................probably doesn't have grandkids.

And behind all of those special things are work-related references that I use all the time.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By now you're getting the idea that I like to be surrounded by things that evoke good memories and positive feelings. Such is this whimsical little card taped where I read it everyday, the work of a wonderful artist, Brian Andreas:

It reads:

If you hold onto the handle, she said

It's easier to maintain the illusion of control.

But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you

I like the way Brian thinks.

And there you have it : the rubber band goes.

No champagne for me tonight. I've done the confetti and dancing thing and I love nights like that. But tonight it's quiet, the Christmas lights are still on. I just finished a movie and the evenings beverage of choice is ice cold chocolate milk...........in a very elegant class, of course. Just when I was thinking I must be the only person home alone on NYE this year, I got a nice little text message from the East and I realized I wasn't really home alone a'tall. Thanks MFD :))

Happy New Year everyone!!!!!!!

Yeah, that was fun enough.

Bring on New Years Eve.

Hey, Santa Baby.....

Christmas morning is right around the corner and Mr. Binks and I are stacking our deck in anticipation of Santa's visit. We've heard the big guy in red likes treats.

I baked some cookies. Mr. Binks thought leaving his favorite catnip mouse under the tree would be a nice touch. Who knows, maybe reindeer like the stuff???

And we both agree that a nice, big glass of milk is the perfect accompaniment to Christmas Eve treats. Yup, we're sure we've got some great stuff on it's way to us, straight from Santa's bag.

I've also heard a rumor that Santa loves fine music. Mr. Binks, on the other hand, has very sensitive ears. So last night after he went to bed, I recorded a personal message to let the man with the bag full of presents kinda know what I've got in mind in case he forgets his glasses and can't quite read his list.....

Double click on the little arrow.

Hey, it doesn't hurt to be specific.......

Ho Ho Ho and Merry Merry from our house to yours!!!!

BIG WHEEL RALLY

This weekend my Sara and a bunch of her crazy biking friends dressed up, dressed warm and took to the streets to raise money for The Heart Connection, a wonderful non-profit group that addresses the needs of children with cancer and their families. The event is the annual Big Wheel Rally, a pub crawl with participants dressing up and riding fancied-up big wheels from bar to bar down a main street here in town.

That they raised $5000 for The Heart Connection is the most important part of the story.


But photos from the event give you an idea why everyone looks forward to it so much every year. (Hi Nick, where's Tinky Winky??)

Who is that masked banana?????

Closely followed by our favorite masked man....

You'll notice that warmth and hydration are big priorities,
not necessarily in that order.

Saturday's ice storm didn't dampen anyone's spirits,

although maybe it spun a couple of the riders off in the wrong direction.

That's a sheet of ice on the street.

But most riders managed to stay upright.

Well, most riders.

At one point my favorite banana went flying.

She's ok. It was all for a great cause.

And no beer was harmed in the making of this photo.

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like..........

Last weekend I flew into Norfolk, Virginia, arriving after dark. My hotel was right on the beach, along miles of which there is a drive-through holiday light display. I've been having troubling kicking my holiday spirit into gear, but the sight of these lights from my balcony was a great way to jump-start my mood.

All up and down the beach the cars creep on blacktop paths normally reserved for foot traffic and bicycles during any other time of year. Since it's a seaside community, there are lots of ocean-theme lights alongside the usual Santa's and snowflakes........seahorses, mermaids and shells. Palm trees. Sailing ships. It's pretty. The lights outside the path are actually mounted in the beach sand with the ocean just a few yards beyond. My camera had a hard time capturing it in the dark.

The next morning, I had hot chocolate on my little balcony and watched the sun rise over the beautiful Atlantic ocean.

Right on cue, my favorite weather guy started talking "winter" the day I got home from my quick trip to the East Coast. And sure enough......

...ice on Saturday and this morning, snow. The flakes were so big and gorgeous, I called Sara on her cell phone just so she could look out the window and see them. She was, at the time, upstairs under the covers in a very deep sleep. Someday I am pretty sure she will remember back to this magical moment and thank me. But it may take a while.

The tone of her appreciative voice convinced me I'd just go ahead and enjoy the little birds I saw feasting on the seed I spread on my patio by myself and tell her about it later.

Tonight the frost through the front door that I leaded and stained is a perfect showcase for the Christmas lights my neighbor put up across the street.

And my holiday spirit is open-throttle, full speed ahead.

Now where did I put my mistletoe.

It's Official

Yup, it's official.

We're too big to fit into the overhead bin and must be checked through as luggage.

CONTENTMENT 101

Favorite socks.

Nice, big glass.

A little splash of Bailey's over ice.

And a little extra cream, because it's better that way.

Mmm yeahhhhhh.

Grandma loves her calcium.

Yeee Hawwwwwww

Thanksgiving Eve and it's snowing right now..........but just a week ago it was sunny and breezy, perfect weather to hit the trail and get a little dust on our jeans. So my lil' cowgirl pardner, Miss V and I pulled on our boots and headed down the road to Rich and Sally's place where we found the fine and friendly pony, Socks, saddled up and ready to go.

She jumped into the mini- saddle like a pro, stuck her boots in the stirrups and off we went.

Any seasoned cowpoke will tell you, it's all about you and the horse. When you swing into the saddle there is a communication between rider and horse that requires no words.

Her grin pretty much says it all.

Although astute observations are occasionally shared.

"Grandma. There sure is alot of big poop out here."

Yup, honey. That's why we wore our boots.

But isn't it a fine day to be a cowgirl.