Sweet light

Wrigley's day out

Come on, I've posed for your camera but I'm ready now.

Let's go to the Dog Park!

Hey!  The gang's all here!

I tellya . . there is just so much stuff to sniff here.

Wrigley loves to go to the dog park.  Yes he does.

Cautious neighbors

Lots of barking but there are two fences between us.

The week ahead

Well, it's Saturday.  Looks like a fairly quiet week ahead.  The BRD and her Beau Jack are off to Cancun.  SWMBO is house/pet sitting.  So I'll be batching it.  I went to the store the other day and bought three steaks to get me through part of the week.  I'll figure something out for the rest of the time.  I told SWMBO yesterday I probably would cook some lamb chops, to see what they're like.  I've never had them except at a cheap buffet meal and I didn't care for them.  But everyone keeps talking about how good they are.

It doesn't seem to me like there's a lot of meat on 'em but perhaps I'm wrong.  Or perhaps they're richer and one doesn't need a lot of meat.  I just don't know.

Odds are lamb chops won't make it in my door though.  I've never been a big fan though I did have some great lamb shank at a restaurant in Greektown in downtown Detroit maybe 30 years ago.  They also featured something they called flaming cheese, which they served on a platter doused with vodka or ouzo or something.  Right before the dish arrived at your table, the waiter hit it with a lighter and flames rose three or four feet into the air.  It was spectacular but it seemed a bit dangerous to me as I gazed at the char marks on the ceiling!

It was good though.

I don't think I'll try any flaming cheese at home either.  I've wanted to try to flambe something some time but I've never been able to work up the courage.  The smoke detectors probably wouldn't like it either.

By the way, don't compliment my photography.  I swiped the photos from the Internets.  (Good ol' Google!)

Have a nice week.

Sometimes . . .

 . . . they manage to get along.

That's Jazz (on top of the headboard) and Blackwell (just below) enjoying a bit of cat nappage the other day.  Usually when they're awake they just can not seem to get this close together without problems arising.

 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Sadly news came from the BRD this morning that she had to take her cat, Sheba, to the vet to be euthanized.  Kidney failure.  Just a few days ago Sheba, the mighty hunter, had caught a bluejay.  It seems to happen fast with cats.

Jet and Lily remain. 

As does Wrigley, the dog.

Armistice Day

Though it has been known as Veterans' Day in the United States since the end of World War Two, the original name for this day of remembrance was Armistice Day.  It commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany on November 11th, 1918 at 11 o'clock in the morning.  Though the signing ended fighting on the Western Front, war went on in other areas for some time.  Eventually the fighting ended and World War One was over.

While we remember those who died in past wars, we mourn the continued and continual fighting and killing all over the world.

Mag 40

The golden amulet hung from a chain of uneven pearls, glowing in the half-light as it lay there on the dark velvet in the jewel box. I stared at it, wondering what it meant. No answer came to me. So I took it to the Professor.

He had been a professor at a university which I shall not name at one point in his past. But certain irregularities had occasioned his fleeing the academic life. Now he lived in solitude in a small apartment, a seven floor walkup in the city. He made his meager living from his knowledge of archaelogical wonders not often seen by honest men. They were secreted out of countries of their origin and discovery and sold often to the highest bidder. The new owners dared not display them. They were consigned to locked private museums for only the possessor to gaze on.


I had dealt in some of these wonders in my checkered past, which need not be detailed here. And when I was stumped by some new but obviously valuable piece, I often went to see the Professor.


On this day, I found him in his flat, surrounded by heavy tomes, the air in his dank rooms heavy with the smoke of some Egyptian tobacco he consumed in his Calabash pipe with the Meerschaum bowl. I coughed and then held out the box containing the golden amulet.


The Professor eyed me from beneath his bushy white brows, then took the box and gently opened it. I cannot describe my shock at the change in his appearance. While still holding the object in shaking hands, he appeared to lurch back from it as his face turned pale.


“My god” he said, then repeated it “my god”.


“What is it?” I asked. “Are you all right?”


For a time the Professor was silent, seemingly trying to gain his breath and search for words. Finally he spoke. “It is the sacred medallion, the only one of its kind in the world”, he gasped.


“But sacred medallion of what?” I inquired.


He looked up at me and I could see the fear in his eyes as he said “It is the symbol of the Rodent King.”


With trembling hands he closed the lid on the box, handed it back to me and said “take it away, please, take it away before it . . .”


At that moment, I was struck with fear myself and slowly backed away and closed the door gently behind me, wondering what had come to my hands and what curse it held.


I never found out. I accidentally left it on a bus as I was returning home and never saw it or the Professor again.

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The amulet of the Rodent King is a product of my much two fervent imagination prompted by Willow as part of her fiendish plot on Magpie Tales to extract writings from we, her slaves.  Click on that link to find more imaginative whimsies.