Vacant or Pensive Mood? CHECK!

Some beings intuitively understand Wordsworth's line about "when oft upon my couch I lie, in vacant or in pensive mood" and take it to heart.


Somehow, I don't think they are thinking about daffodils, but perhaps rawhide chew toys or figuring out a way to make you pet them 24/7.

Dogs were Born to Sleep in the Sun

Especially this one: Her name is Kia. Part pit bull, but she is the sweetest natured doggie in the office. The bosses are canine friendly. We've had as many as 5 dogs in the office at one time. This particular one is my favorite. She was bringing her bone along to show everyone in the office today.

She even let the boss take it from her without giving up a fuss!!! [This NEVER happens with most dogs.] She daintily waited for him to give it back, which he did, fortunately! She'd "had it" the other day with the little pocket Pincher (whom most of us in the office think is on crack)and she let him know who was boss of THAT relationship! Docile she may be, but she doesn't suffer fools gladly.

Life Happens

Don't blink. Mom is taking a picture this boy will treasure forever.

Pity the poor agnostic dyslexic insomniac

He stayed up all night wond-
ering whether or not there's a dog.

One of Life's Imponderables - Dogs vs. Tinsel

Why do they like to eat it? You'd think after the first 5 or 6 times they'd catch on that it makes them sick. Do they listen? NO. I've yet to know of a dog who didn't sample it. Or maybe the tinsel on our trees was particularly attractive? OR maybe it was just because we'd touched it and they KNEW the master/mistress's hand. Whatever. Took me forever to figure out why they grab the newspaper and run off with it.

I can just imagine this conversation

I love this sign outside my bank.


Me: Maggie, these nice people at Washington Mutual would like you to remain outside.

Maggie: What? You're going to leave me in a hot car? Leave the cell phone, I'm calling the ASPCA.

Me: Well, would you mind putting on a harness and making like Rin-Tin-Tin?

Maggie: You don't even pay me scale now.

Me: Are you going to be REALLY good this time? You're not going to drool all over the Assistant Manager are you?

Maggie: I do NOT drool over him, that guy is gorgeous. He gave me a squeaky toy last time.

Me: That was because you ate all the lollipops the time before last.

Maggie: Can I bite some people?

Me: NO!!!!! You almost got us thrown out last time....although I have to admit that man counting out $120 in pennies was asking for it.

Teller: What is this dog doing in here?

Me: I asked her to stay outside and she didn't want to. You must be new here.

Why Dogs TOTALLY R*U*L*E*

Because you can be foolish with them, and they don't mind a bit.

This one is now an angel dog, but still very near and dear to my heart.

Out and About

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Nice doggie .... staaaaaaaaaay ..... and when papa comes back he'll take you for a treat.



This well behaved labradorable was outside O'Connor's religious supply and bookstore. He made up for the fact, that once again, O'Connor's is absolutely useless, except for holy cards, rosaries and medals, and the odd cruet or two. Oh, 25 years ago or so, they had book stock worth looking at, but not anymore. This doggie parked out back made up for it.

I hate shopping with a purple passion. HOWEVER, the only two kinds of stores I enjoy are bookstores and CD/DVDs stores. The grocery store is tolerable, but other than that I'm not really "contributing to the economy." Then I went perusing a few used bookstores to see if I could find a nice clean hardbound of something I wanted, rather than just a paperback. Much more successful.

Those of you who followed my San Diego Fire saga last October might remember me mentioning we only get 9 or so inches of rain a year. Unfortunately, it tends to come mostly in a six week period. One sure way to cure a drought is to take your car to the car wash. These two dorks did this today (perhaps we should thank them?) thereby providing the city and county of San Diego with a public service. Guys, perhaps next time you can do this in the summer when we really need the rain...and not wait until it has actually started to drizzle? Just a thought.

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Has Anyone Seen Stretch Boyle?

Perhaps encouraged by the conversion of Tony Blair he has retired to a monastery in Greece to pray for the conversion of the entire Labour Government? [If so, he can throw in a few prayers for the US Democrat PArty to do likewise. Someone send up a flare!]

8 Facts/Habits Meme, Encore

Adrienne, over at Adrienne's Catholic Corner, tagged me for this meme. 8 facts/habits - I'd done this one back in the summer, but since Adrienne tagged me, I suppose I can come up with another set.

1. Fact - the first pet I ever had was a beagle called Mr. Mike. In this picture, he was barking, I was crying, and for some stupid reason or other my mom decided to take this picture rather than rescue me from the kisses of this puppy. As you can see below, I quickly secummed to his charms. I have never harbored a cat. They're okay - for *other* people.

2. Habit - When flying, I always ask for Ginger Ale. I don't know why. I might have picked up the habit on my first flight when I was 6 or so. Perhaps subconsciously I feel if I *don't* have a Ginger Ale, the plane will crash. So if I'm on a plane, and order Pepsi, which I hate, and you're sitting next to me - start saying your prayers - you may want to alert nearby passengers, depending whether or not they grabbed ALL the space in the overhead bins. You're still "safe" if I order a mixed drink with Ginger Ale.

3. Fact - My favorite president in my lifetime was Ronaldus Magnus. When I was young, I rather admired what I read about Theodore Roosevelt. I wondered "where are the larger-than-life American visionaries now?" Ronnie was *the man* as far as I'm concerned. I got to see him twice. Once the eve before he was elected president the first time. His last campaign stop was in the Fashion Valley parking lot in San Diego, a little to the east of where the trolley stop is now. The second time was at a rally at the San Diego Sports Arena prior to his second term.

4. Habit - In coin flips heads/tails - I always pick tails. Just. Because. Other. People. Always. Seem. To. Pick. Heads.

5. Fact - I've never made a cup of coffee in my life, and don't intend to! I like coffee ice cream, and coffee toffee, just not coffee. I've been known to drink a cold caramel coffee frappe, or whatever it's called, a few times a year. Given this is close to liquid caramel ice cream, I don't think it really counts as "coffee."

6. Habit - I never feel like making dinner myself after Sunday Mass. I order Chinese on my way home and pick it up.

7. Fact - I finally learned to play bridge last year from a 20 minute tutorial, whomever wrote it was a genius. I've only played against the computer so far. Bridge IS the king of card games. I've tacked on a funny bridge story* at the end of this, for you bridge fans.

8. Habit - If I'm in a church which is not my own parish, I always sit as close to the tabernacle as possible, unless some pinhead designed it so the tabernacle is somewhere you'd have to send out a search party to find. I haven't been caught out at those churches often, but sometimes when visiting a friend or relative, they have the misfortune of having had that foisted on their parish.

Generally, I end up sitting in the front row. Usually you can find "splendid isolation" up there and as a rule of thumb I refuse to hold anyone's hand at the Our Father - unless some 5 year old wants me to, in which case I do, because 5 year olds can get their feelings easily hurt. 35 year olds can too, but they should know better!

9. Fact - I prefer odds to evens, and I don't have the energy or time right now to see tag 8 given people and leave them notes (that's the longest part of the "Tag" to complete, writing is easy) So if you haven't done this meme and want to, consider yourself tagged. Oh, and Marie down in Australia, if you happen to read this, I'd have formally tagged you because I don't think you've done this one yet.

Sit NICE, or you don't get ANY!

*Murder, Mayhem, and Contract Bridge The quips just keep on coming in Jack Olsen's The Mad World of Bridge (1960). Bridge is "not so much a game as it is a psychosis." "In the 1930s, America's Bridge players spent an estimated $5 million a year on Bridge instruction, or roughly enough money to pay for 500,000 hours of psychotherapy."

But when Olsen wrote of Whist, "Take this simple game, add a dummy, the concept of no-trump, bidding, and an occasional felonious assault, and you have Contract Bridge," there was a smidgen of truth behind it. In a chapter called "Murder at the Bridge Table," Olsen detailed the many documented accounts of felonious assaults at Bridge tables all over America in the '20s and '30s.

Most of these accounts are of husbands and wives bashing each other after particularly tragic misplays. ("Nothing spectacular. Just a typical evening of Bridge as it is played in many homes.") But there were also a number of deaths (and critics claim that television causes violence!).

The most infamous case occurred in 1929 in Kansas City when Myrtle Bennett accidentally shot her husband, John, following an argument over a Bridge game. The Bennetts were entertaining their neighbors, the Hoffmans, when the game took a turn for the worse. John misplayed the hand, leading Myrtle to remark on his apparent lack of intelligence. John slapped her, then announced he was leaving. He went to their bedroom to pack. The Hoffmans tried to calm the Bennetts down, but Myrtle and John continued to argue and eventually Myrtle pulled a gun. John ran into the bathroom to hide, but as he was closing the door, Myrtle fired twice. The bullets ripped through the door, mortally wounding John.

Ely Culbertson, the first great popularizer of Contract Bridge, called the affair "a lesson in the importance of precise bidding valuation." Myrtle Bennett was eventually acquitted, and the hand that led to the shooting was eventually published in newspapers nationwide, along with commentary from Bridge experts. Culbertson contributed an analysis called "How Bennett Could Have Saved His Life."

After the hubbub had died down, it was discovered that the newspapers had been hoaxed. The published hand was a fraud. Neither the Hoffmans nor Myrtle Bennett could remember a single card that had been played that night. There's a lesson in this.
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St. Therese and Tom, Redux

Someone had run across an earlier posting of my blog re: St. Therese and her dog Tom. She wondered if there were other pictures of this dog. Here's another I have, also from the book "Therese and Lisieux" by Pierre Descouvemont and Helmuth Nils Loose. When I was in Lisieux I was able to buy a postcard of this picture.

(Marie Guerin, Leonie Martin, Celine Martin - flanked by two servants - Mr. Martin, and his brother and sister in law, the Guerins)

The photo was taken in 1892 at the Guerin home, where from that time Mr. Martin lived until his death in 1894. Later the same wheelchair used by Mr. Martin was given to the Carmelite convent. In June of 1897, Therese would sit in it in the garden at Carmel and write her last manuscript.

By accounts Tom was a spaniel, and you can see he looks more spanielly[sp?!] from this angle than in the other photo. Also breeds of dogs can undergo changes in appearances over time. This one would be around 130 now if he'd lived! And that's "people years."

(Here he is in isolation. My guess is that he's wagging his tail, to judge by the blur.)

The book is well worth getting, it has a lot of things about Therese and the Martin Family I had not seen elsewhere.
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Happy 38th Birthday to Philip

Freeze right there, buster

Philip, over at Carpe Canem, didn't mention on his blog that his 38th birthday was Sat, the 24th. He did let it slip, though, over in Nova's comment box. He seems a little non-
plussed at having turned the ripe old age of 38.

Honey, 38 is nothing. Your get up and go hasn't got up and left. Who said you had to use base 10 anyway when counting your birthdays? In hexcidecimal, you're only 24.


Now that I know, next year I'll have enough time to go down to Tijuana and have this rendered in black velvet - "they" can also make sure Sienna is one of the players, and for good measure Jesus and Elvis can be added too. I can get it for either 7 bucks or 348 bucks, depending how sharp a trader I am.

Hope your birthday was aces!
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These Dogs are on a Mission

I'd found this picture some time back on the internet, and it's just too good not to share it. I'm not sure quite what you'd give these guys. An Irish setter we had once grabbed an entire (uncooked) pot roast from the kitchen table when my mom's back was turned. My mom was torn between laughing and killing the dog. Our Heinz 57 loved anything you fed her, including tomatoes, but her favorite was turkey. And my springer spaniel loved anything that came from my hand. No chocolate for you guys. They look very serious. I expect if they showed up at Fr. Blake's, he might bless them and send them away with St. Francis medals.

A favorite

stained glass window is at The Immaculata in San Diego. I don't get to go see it very often, as normally if I attend a weekday Mass, it's in one of the adjacent parishes I live near. I love the domestic setting in which the Holy Family is depicted. The Immaculata was constructed in the last hurrah of when churches were made to look like churches and not multi-purpose meeting "spaces." My high school baccalaureate Mass was held in this church. It was also one of two venues where the relics of St. Therese came to visit a few years back on their world tour.

Usually dogs get short shrift in Jewish and Arabic culture. Which is why I like this particular window so much, being a dog fancier. The dog itself looks like a cross between two dogs we had when I was a teen and into my early adult years: an Irish setter (the shape of the dog) and a light brown "All-American. " Granted, more than a bit anachronistic on the "setter," but I love it all the more for that. And, of course, the boy Jesus is giving this well cared for dog a bone.

Too often the story the gentile woman in Matthew 15: 21-28 (also Mark 7: 24-30.) is a bit misread. People sometimes think that Jesus had to be cajoled into curing the woman's daughter. But Jesus really intended to help her all along. The apostles (bishops in training then!) had been trying to shoo the woman away, and wanted Jesus to send her away too. The story reminds them that it's not only the Jews he has come to save. He uses the incident as a teaching moment. When she says "even the dogs under the table eat the children's scraps" one has to wonder if Jesus didn't have a smile for her and was remembering what His own encounters with dogs were like.

Blessing of Animals

In this case, Maggie. Maggie was my English Springer Spaniel. I was inspired to post it due to the really nifty blog posted by Fr. John Boyle, of St. Simon Stock in Ashford, England. See his story re: doing a blessing for a horse named Apollo here.

This photo was taken at Mission San Diego de Alcala, in about 1990. The parish annually has a "Blessing of the Animals" event during its "Festival of the Bells" celebrations. The hand doing the blessing, belongs to Msgr. Thomas Prendergast, then pastor of the San Diego Mission. He's just recently retired "in residence" at my own parish church in San Diego. Back in the mid-70s, Fr. Prendergast was the first priest I ever served Mass for, when I was in college.

I do hope God reconsiders letting our pets into heaven....like He changed His mind regards having more "Noah" incidents. ;-D I figure that if maybe enough people ask about it....

Child: "Sister, will Spot be in heaven too?"
Sister: "You will have ALL the things you need in heaven to make you happy."
Perfect answer. They must have all went to the same "nun school" for this one.

Consider this, in the case of dogs at least:

You might be as good as your dog IF ...

you can start the day without caffeine;
you can get along without pep pills;
you can eat the same food daily and be grateful;
you can understand when there is no time for you;
you can overlook when things are taken out on you;
you can take criticism and blame without resentment;
you can face the world without lies and deceit;
you can conquer tension without medical help;
you can relax without liquor;
you can sleep without drugs;
deep in your heart there is no prejudice against creed, color, religion, politics, educations, disability, or financial status.

Then, my friend, you are almost as good as your dog.

Anyone else have any "blessing of the animals" photos they'd like to share?

Expecto Patronum

Expecto Maggie

Sorta....would be nice. Having read all the Harry Potter books, I find there are two HP incantations I wish I could have for real.... One, called "Accio..." just because I am lazy and it woud be nice to have things just come right to my hand The other, is obviously a patronus....Mine would be an English Springer Spaniel. It would chase all those bad boogey men away like mortgage men and Jehovah's Witnesses....this particular patronus would be good at playing fetch if my accio power is taking a day off.

Would that you could have a patronus, what would it be?

(originally posted on My Telegraph, July 23, 2007)