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Maximo, Lulu and I received our first Wag Pac in the mail recently, and this short clip shows us discovering the treats and toys inside. Wag Pacs, created by Dogtime, are delivered to your door on a subscription basis, and should be available for order by Christmas.
A one month subscription is $29 per box, 3 months for $24, and the best deal of all is a 6 month subscription for $19 per box. An excellent way to surprise and treat your loved ones, both canine and human! In addition to enjoying your dogs' delight, a percentage of the cost of of your Wag Pac subscriptions go to a local animal shelter of your choosing. We chose for our donation to go to Animal Talk of King County.
Enjoy the film, my ridiculous dog voice, and the wagging tails of Maximo and Lulu as they investigate their Wag Pac!
0 Comments on out with fruit baskets, in with wag pacs! as of 1/1/1900
Saturated in rare November sunshine. We worship you, and all your glories!
Walkies: Shilshole Bay Marina. Looping around Golden Gardens, we said HELLO! to a colony of ducks overwintering on Golden Gardens' Freshwater Pond.
The Pond turtles, like old Russians, bare midriffs exposed and bare arms outstretched on benches of the Local Park, absorbing precious Vitamin D. The turtles, too, make the most of the moment.
As the sun fell, in a brilliant pink ball, we admired its glorious descent into another world where it is not darkness, but day.
0 Comments on Wednesday, November 14th as of 1/1/1900
The chihuahuas and I were guests at the Arnim/Hucks estate on John's Island. No roads or running water in a cabin, hand built by Bill Hucks and his family within a grove of Madrona trees and a sea of native grasses.
This is a shot of my notebook, my muses (Maximo & Lulu), and Haro Straight (to the left). I went swimming in Haro Straight. Was that ever refreshing! After fifteen minutes I lost the ability to use my limbs. Coming ashore, I fell back into the water, my legs were so uselesss! I staggered up onto the rocky shore and Dana, and her daughter Kate, buried me under the rocks, hot from a day in the sun. The cold in my limbs surrendered to the sun's residual heat.
What is heaven on earth but moments, and minutes, such as these?
0 Comments on my summer vacation as of 9/25/2012 9:57:00 PM
In my imagination, Maximo wears a coon skin cap, made from the animal that took a bite out of his thigh last Thursday.
Lulu is obsessed with the area in our back yard where this incident happened. She goes to the spot and barks, barks, barks. In defense of her brother, against the coon ghost.
Maximo had two puncture wounds, so deep, that I took him to the vet.
The last time he got in a fight with a raccoon (who knows, maybe it was the same one!) he had minor puncture wounds on his abdomen. This time, the wounds were so deep, they looked like crevasses carved in flesh. He's doing fine now, four medications later (and as the wounds heal, they are itchy and he loves to lick them—he is now wearing a protective cape that otherwise acts as a napkin).
So, I thought he and Lu would like to see their coon foe transformed into a coon skin cap. Maximo! Maximo! King (yeah, just barely) of the wild frontier!
Kim Baker, author of Pickle, The (Formerly) Anonymous PRANK CLUB of Fountain Point Middle School, had a book launch party at Secret Garden Books last night.
Pickle is about a boy, Ben, and his team of motley pranksters, who come together at their middle school under the auspices of a pickle making club, their creative cover for a focus on pranks, and in so doing, get to know themselves, and each other.
Put it on your reading list. It's FUNNY! And FUN! And guaranteed to encourage and inspire the prankster in all of us.
The illustration (at left, by me!) is of a limited selection of hors d'ouvres (aka bizarre treats and unmentionable eats) Kim and her Posse created for the book launch. The pickled (of course!) quail egg escabeche with jalapenos was my personal favorite.
I took three rubber roaches home and am excited to use them in a prank. This morning, I saw them on the table, where I left them last night, and had a split second freak out before I remembered they were rubber!
My question is: what is the difference between a prank and a con?
Thanks, Karen! It was great to see you last night! And I think the difference is in the spirit of the giving. A (good) prank is a chance to connect with humor. A con has shadier implications.
Nik and her dogs are caught in a snowstorm, lost, but only for a little while. Soon they will run up against a wall and follow it to the front door of a cabin wherein fire and food awaits, tended by the winter wise lady who lives there with a young deer she saved from a certain death at the side of its starved and frozen mother.
One of my favorite movies is Kick Ass, about an ordinary adolescent who wants to do good. He fabricates a costume, broaching the safety of his bedroom (where fantasies run rife) to fight crime where he finds it.
In this film, our hero doesn't have superpowers. He can't cling to the sides of buildings or destroy his opponents with superhuman prowess. His only "super power" is his desire for justice. His own ass is kicked many times over by run of the mill thugs before he encounters his nemesis, and rises to the occasion (quite literally, because, come on, if you don't have super powers you totally need the latest in technology). Right (with technological might) prevails and the world is safer for it.
Maximo, Lulu and I were asked by Dogtime.com to review the dog food Eukanuba Chihuahua. Maximo and Lulu ate enthusiastically every time I fed them Eukanuba Chihuahua, and every time they also interrupted their eating to drink quite a bit of water. The food makes them thirsty!
Enthusiasm in eating is something we all look for when feeding our animals, but this should go together with a critical reading of the ingredients. Let's look at the top three ingredients in Eukanuba Chihuahua.
The first ingredient is Chicken. The second ingredient is Chicken By-Product Meal, which could include anything from entrails to beaks. The third ingredient is Corn, which has a high glycemic index, meaning that when metabolized, it raises blood sugar levels. Used as cheap filler in foods for animals and humans, corn products are implicated in rising rates of diabetes in the United States.
Maximo and Lulu give Eukanuba Chihuahua Two Paws Up, but I am a label reader and cannot endorse this product while two of the top three ingredients are of questionable quality (such as animal by-products) and cheap fillers (such as corn).
Thanks go to Eukanuba for the opportunity to review their new product, and to the Dog Food Advisor, the dog food watch dog!
0 Comments on eukanuba chihuahua dog food review as of 1/1/1900
Every morning I sit in front of a large window through which I watch hummingbirds fight over their feeder, clouds stretching across the sky, and the coral bark maple (planted by me, ten years ago) responding in full color, to the season.
Today, the maple looks like Jacob's Coat of many colors. Yellow-green leaves blush as any tree might before stripped of its mantle. The sky is blue, a solemn promise that the chilling nights are but a hiccup before spring asserts itself again. The red in this palette reflects begonias blooming in pots on the stoop.
Oh, October!
0 Comments on color palette: blue sky & blushing tree as of 1/1/1900
This is a full color version of one of nine line drawings I created for my SCBWI LA portfolio. I drew action shots of Nik, Maximo and Lu and inset them into a half drop pattern I designed for the purpose of making endpapers.
The portfolio piece is one color and white, following the standard of end papers being printed in one color. This I colored in cmyk and lives also on notecards.
0 Comments on walking forward looking back as of 1/1/1900
(FYI! Before you get over excited because I know dog socks are a niche market begging to be filled, these socks were borrowed from a human baby and are not really dog socks at all! )
0 Comments on how i'm going to make my millions: dog socks! as of 1/1/1900
Recently i had foot surgery, then I cut the tip off my finger in a dishwashing accidident (not covered by my insurance policy). Frankenfoot found a friend in Frankenfinger. Thanks to a neighbor's visit to the Disney store, Frankenfinger got to shed her Sponge Bob bandaid for some evening wear. Who cares if the dress was too tight and her face was turning blue! A good dress should never be underestimated.
Jackie, my dear friend, recently adopted two dogs. They were dropped off together at the pound, and waited three months to be adopted. Jackie's friend looked on the Human Society Online Adoption Site, saw them, and said to herself: Who would adopt two ten year old chihuahuas? Then Jackie showed up to introduce her new dogs. Funny!
They came to visit for a week in May. Paco's missing most of his teeth and his pink tongue pokes out the side of his mouth for lack of a tooth cage. Annie weighs only four pounds and has long hair. Both have classic chihuahua tan coloring and white eyelashes. They are mellower than Maximo and Lulu, which says a lot, as my dogs have been given the street award for mellowest chihuahuas ever. Maximo and Lulu have met their mellow matches.
Everyone behaved well except Maximo, who growled at Paco and Annie when the got too close to his spot in the window. But by the end of the week they all had a spot in the window.
This sketch was done super quickly with grease pencil on trace. Here's to furry house guests!
i created a palette based on charming, may day flowers, radiant with life expressed thtough color. "I tried to capture the colors, or the energies inherent within the colors ton comibienthena a singoe hehernt paletter, reolent fo new life, resuurestio, eater nad the hop eht t LQYA ETERNAL RENEAL IW PRIMISED,. modern colors are saturated with energetic color, retro or modern. the two seen t be dedicated to all true love, as in love, to a divine calling, and may we feast on strawberries.
Remember the rough rough cover sketch? This drawing is a refinement of the key figures in the sketch. The snake is painted on a cave wall, and Nik, accompanied by Carlito, is now discovering it. Eeek!
To come across this strange serpent in a dark cave would be scary. Even more scary if someone came in after you with a gun. Which is what happens next in the story. Eeek!
Stay tuned for a fully fleshed out cover in color. Eeek!
I just wanted to write Eeek three times. Thanks for indulging me. That was fun.
1 Comments on cover development, last added: 1/28/2010
Great illustrations. They are perfect for such a soiree! or, should I say, sour-ee? I look forward to gobbling up "Pickle" soon!
Thanks, Karen! It was great to see you last night!
And I think the difference is in the spirit of the giving. A (good) prank is a chance to connect with humor. A con has shadier implications.