Dog Days of Summer

Summer is here. It is HOT. Too hot to be outside in the late afternoon.

But Mindy and I both needed exercise, so I decided to take her to a leash-free park we'd never visited before, right off Far West. It's basically a 1/3-mile (or so) loop around a moderately picturesque, but non-functional (as far as swimming is concerned) body of water that has some purpose related to flood and water quality control. There are several signs around the perimeter asking people not to let their pets swim in the pond.

This is all fine and good in theory, but if you have a pup that loves to cool off in the water and it's 93 degrees out, as it was at the moment, this is basically akin to putting me on a running track that is built around a cupcake shop and telling me, "NO!" every time I start jogging toward the door. I managed to keep Mindy out of the main body of water, but I finally relented and let her cool her paws in about 1/8" of water that was running across a paved area. I looked away for just a minute, then I heard a "ploop, ploop, ploop" that sounded distinctly like it was much more than 1/8" of water. Mindy was nowhere to be seen.

I jogged down to where she had disappeared, and some movement caught my eye. I parted some really tall reeds not far from the pathway, and saw this:

Somebody explain to me why this dog hates getting a bath?

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Spring has Sprung!

Oh, it's that lovely, lovely time of year again in Austin, that delightful - but far too short-lived - season we call spring.

I took advantage of the wonderful weather on Sunday by...staying inside and doing my taxes. Sigh. Being an adult kind of stinks sometimes. But we did sneak out for a short break and visited our favorite Dog Park.

We saw tons of familiar faces, both furry and human, and throughly enjoyed our three loops around the park. The bluebonnets and other wildflowers are out in full force - if you're looking for a spot for the obligatory spring bluebonnet photos, this is your place. Here are a few of mine:

OK, not a bluebonnet, but very pretty! I actually don't know what this is - does anyone else?


Everything's better with bluebonnet on it (yeah...slogans have a way of sticking in my head. Forever.)




Kodak (TM) Picture Spot.


Mindy absolutely refuses to look at the camera for photos.
She'll sit obediently, then nonchalantly look the other way every. single. time.


More camera avoidance.


I'm done sitting now, Mom! Let's go plaaaaaaay!

Hope everyone else is enjoying this fantastic weather!

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Happy Birthday To Me! Again.

Thought I was done babbling about my birthday, didn't you? So did I.

But then I got a birthday package in the mail from one of my oldest (oldest in terms of the number of years we've been friends, not oldest in terms of age) friends, Dave. Dave and I went to college together; dated for a really, really long time; is the reason I moved to Texas; and is so awesome that we're still great friends even though we broke up thirteen years ago, both got married to other people, and he moved to the other side of the country.

Anyway, I got a package in the mail from Dave. And this was in it:

If you know me, you'll know this is a portrait of my beloved pup, Mindy. Unmistakably so...the artist, Jason Laramie, did a fantastic job of capturing her personality and her expression. This is the photo from which he did her portrait:



Pretty amazing, eh?

Anyway, it was a total surprise and I could not have been more delighted. If you're interested in commissioning a pet portrait from Jason, his contact info can be found here and more examples of his beautiful work can be found here.

Thank you so much, Dave and Jason, for a gift I will cherish forever!

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