All Things Kerflooey

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I have loved New Orleans since I was a little girl…but never got there until last year. Go figure. But I’m fairly certain it will be my home away from home some day soon. Excited to see this series premiering this Sunday.

I have loved New Orleans since I was a little girl…but never got there until last year. Go figure. But I’m fairly certain it will be my home away from home some day soon. Excited to see this series premiering this Sunday.

In my inbox this weekend was an email from the adopter of one of my foster dogs. This is a retired couple from near Milwaukee, and two summers ago, they met me in Woodbury, MN, to meet and adopt my little crabby old man, CJ.

CJ was a senior Peke. He started his rescue journey with another foster volunteer, but he wound up  at my house. He was mostly deaf, mostly blind, and, once he was comfortable, very very demanding. He had this loud mewling noise he’d make when he wanted someone. Like a baby, it was either give him what he wanted, pick him up, or suffer through the noise.“CJ” stood for Crabby  Joe. Paul and I started calling him that not long after he came to live with us. But really, he was often a clown. I remember the first time we took him for a walk…I thought he’d lag behind…I wound up chasing him down. His energetic sprints usually ended with him getting tired and me having to carry him home. He’d sit in my arms like a spoiled little sultan. He began surprising us with other behaviors, too. He came to us with a little pink stuffed toy, and he took that thing wherever he went. He babied it and cleaned it with his tongue and made certain it was snug in his dog bed. One evening, I was on the kitchen floor sort of playing with him using the toy(which involved me prancing the elephant around while CJ ignored me) and suddenly CJ sprang from his dog bed and started to run around like a nut. Soon he had all the dogs chasing him and he looked for all the world…happy!

But our vet estimated CJ to be at least 14-15 years old and in frail health. Paul and I had pretty much accepted that CJ would join our permanent menagerie here at the Hatlestad Home for Wayward Rejects when I began getting emails and calls from this fantastic couple. They’d lost their senior Peke a year ago and were ready for another. They were blessed, they said, and preferred to give their home, time, and money to an older, needy dog who might otherwise be passed up. You can imagine how I loved them. When they met me in Woodbury to pick up CJ, I felt as if we were old friends. And it was a teary, happy uniting.

In all the time they have had CJ, they have never lost touch with me. I received faithful, fond updates, tons of photos, and even videos of him racing around the house. This last email I received told me that CJ had been euthanized and had “Crossed the Rainbow Bridge.” He fought a great fight, even thrived, but his heart condition had worsened to the point where further treatment would only have prolonged his troubles.

So I wanted to share a little of CJ’s story and his adoption as I say goodbye to this sweet, wilfull, adorable, crabby Pekingnese that I’ll most certainly never forget. And I am in a debt of gratitude to his adoptive family for seeing past age and imperfection and realizing the joy he could bring to their home, however brief. John and Susan, Thank you.

In my inbox this weekend was an email from the adopter of one of my foster dogs. This is a retired couple from near Milwaukee, and two summers ago, they met me in Woodbury, MN, to meet and adopt my little crabby old man, CJ.
CJ was a senior Peke. He started his rescue journey with [...]

I am really feeling like an inadequate blogger here. I’m re-commiting myself to making  more regular entries (yeah, right. No, really).

So that said, I’m going to wow you with my current sub-obsession, which is Sugar Skulls in honor of El Día de los Muertos…the Day of the Dead, which falls on November 2nd – All Souls Day. This sub-obsession has strange origins (like so many of my obsessions do): I was falling in love with the idea of knitted or crocheted potholders.

Truth is, I miss knitting now that spring is mostly here, but I can’t bring myself to make winter-y items like hats, scarves and gloves. Afghans might be all right…if I had the patience to stick with one to the finish. But no, I mostly like small, short-term projects because I am a woman of proclivity toward immediate gratification. So, what, what, what, I wondered, could I knit or crochet that wasn’t meant for cozy warmth and isn’t a doily? Well, potholders, of course.

You gotta have them, if you cook or bake at all. And those new-fangled silicone ones do nothing for me, nor do the one finds in stores in sets of matching finger-tip kitchen towels and fridge magnets. You know what I mean. So why not be the Indie girl I aspire to, I thought. I shall make my own.

This little decision led to the delicious neccessity of research. No plain old squares or circles for me – I would find the best, the coolest, the kitcshiest patterns out there and make some damn.sweet.potholders. Doing some web searching I found some vintage chicken potholders, a very punk-cute chickadee pattern, a scottie-dog, a kitty-cat….but, oh my mind siezed with the idea: wouldn’t it be completely perfect to make skull potholders? Now there’s a statement.

So I googled and binged, but all I was finding were patterns for skulls in relief on square potholders (purls on knitted field) or skulls in a contrasting color on square potholders. That’s not what I wanted; I wanted to make potholders in the shape of skulls. I started getting discouraged but then I found some very cool fabric by a designer named Alexander Henry that featured brightly decorated sugar skulls on bright or black backgrounds…

 I’ve already gotten a good start on my first sugar skull potholders (I can’t show them here yet because they are for a friend and I don’t want her to see them until she receives them personally). I have plans for more. And maybe a tattoo.

I am really feeling like an inadequate blogger here. I’m re-commiting myself to making  more regular entries (yeah, right. No, really).
So that said, I’m going to wow you with my current sub-obsession, which is Sugar Skulls in honor of El Día de los Muertos…the Day of the Dead, which falls on November 2nd – All [...]

A snippet of a collage self-portrait in my 100 Candles Blog

Past thoughts have been archived for future display or perhaps to be re-used as posts if I go dry. But wanted to get a clean start.

Funny where my mind takes me; right now I haven’t a thing to say. I love to write. Writing keeps me sane, helps me think, or confuses me, depending on the day, time and subject.  And life moves by so fast, so fast. I have to do this to slow it down, maybe even capture it just the littlest bit. So I can remember and so I can tell you: here’s what happened in my life today…or yesterday…or last year. You get older and your memories range over larger spans of time, although with seemingly lessened clarity. But I like that. I like to reinvent things that I thought I knew happened. I like to look at them with the softened edges that age gives them…so much is not so painful now. So much is not so embarrassing; they are just little pieces of life – not good, not bad. Just life. And instead of trying to forget or at least disremember, I find myself smiling to myself when I take a purposeful look now and then

Thank you,

Me.

Past thoughts have been archived for future display or perhaps to be re-used as posts if I go dry. But wanted to get a clean start.
Funny where my mind takes me; right now I haven’t a thing to say. I love to write. Writing keeps me sane, helps me think, or confuses me, depending on [...]