Thank you to everyone who donated so far to the 2007 Humane Society’s Walk for the Animals. The response has been amazing. When I started out I set my goal at $160 figuring it would just be a low key way to raise money for a good cause and do something positive to mend the pain of losing my little Ghengis.
Then I had to keep raising my goal because I kept reaching it.
Today I got over the $1300 mark and I am one of the top individual fundraisers. Thank you to everyone who donated to this cause. This is proof that I am not the only one who was affected by Ghengis and his super fella magic! He was my little guy and I will always be proud of this.
And to be fair, a lot of thanks goes to David! A few weeks ago he came home with a book called “Remembering my Pet“. It’s a book for kids who have recently lost a pet. It asks you questions about your pet and you fill in the questions, write down your stories and memories, you also get to draw and color in the book. This book is the reason why David amazes me in such a consistent way. Here I am, almost 34, most people, if they were going to buy me a book about pet grief, would buy me something written by a renowned grief psychologist, over 200 pages long and with no place to draw a picture of a whale shark or a hippo. David saw that book and knew I needed it. I may not have known it, but I needed THAT book. I cried and cried and then I drew pictures of Ghengis, and I remembered many of his ‘firsts’ and I talked about his favorite things and how much I loved him
Part of the book discussed things to do after your pet dies, things to make it better. Like making a memorial or doing charity work for animals. And there it was. Suddenly it was clear. Stop grieving and start doing something. The next day I signed up for the walk and I have felt better ever since.
And lets not forget that David is truly the captain of the fun and the mr amazing of the support!
Thanks, David! I love you!
Category Archives: Doogles
hooray for the dogpark
Let’s hear it, my peeps! Let us all raise our hands in the air falsely signifying that we do not care!!
We could not ask for better dog park weather, not at all. God bless the Minnesota sspringtime (when it does actually happen). Chester is getting better and better at the park. He’s getting socialized and learning to trust other dogs. He’s even engaging some in play. Interestingly, he always picks out dachshunds from a distance and goes after them. He really loves dachshunds. Also, he cannot stand pugs. Don’t know what the deal is with that.
Tonight we managed to find a couple clusters of people with smaller dogs and Chester hung tight to me for a while then slowly ventured off for farther and farther expeditions. I was very proud of him. Proud until he forgor who his owner was and decided to take off with another lady. We’ll have to work on that. He comes when called so I’m not so worried about losing him, I am just a little concerned that it does not occur to him that this person doesn’t look like me or smell like me or pay attention to him the way I do.
Maybe it does occur to him and the little bastard has no loyalty. BASTARD!
oh hey…while we’re on the topic of dogs…
Let me just remind you to donate! Seriously, I can be really persistant about this! Kidding! Donate if you can and want to, it’s a good cause.
Let’s do it for Ghengis!
As you know, last year I lost my dear little Ghengis. I’ve survived months of mourning and grieving and now it is time to do something.
I am raising money for the 2007 Humane Society’s Walk for Animals. I miss Ghengis in the deepest way, I really do. Part of what hurts so much is that I don’t have the means to tell him just what a great dog he was. This is one way that I can do it.
The funds I raise and donate will be a memorial to Ghengis. There is no better way to honor his memory than to help other dogs (and cats and bunnies and ferrets and squirrels and mousies!).
If you would like to donate, please click here. It’s fast and easy!
Do it for him…
EDIT: Thank you to all who have donated so far! I am truly touched by your generosity! I have bumped my goal up since your donations have surpassed it. Thank you thank you and Ghengis thanks you!
LOOK!
New photos! over there on the right! A couple new dog photos, a couple added to ephemeral and many added to craftin! see the dino purse, the turtle parade and the little bunnies!
Finally, photos to love and share
en la edad del miedo le ofrezco los cacahuetes
Before I regale you with tales of my enormously delicious paella meal, I will tell you 2 things from this weekend that are totally retarded. It’s important that you don’t get the idea that I am some sort of super hero with only magic and smooth writing pens. I am just a regular person with a regular life. I want to guarantee balance. If there is no balance, there is no truth…
1) We decided to do our grocery shopping for easter dinner on saturday night at 10pm. This could end here as it is pretty retarded, but it was cool, we got our stuff and got home. I walked in the door with approximately 8000* bags of groceries on my arms. If you know anything about my dogs you will know that they are an excitable and yet entirely retarded pack of beasts with no concept of “other” or “cause and effect”. As I tried to get in the door quickly Maddie was trying to tell me important news like “My name is Maddie” and “OH MY GOD!!! You are now inside the house” or my personal favorite “when you were not in the house I farted and it kind of smelled like dog food and it was really weird so I barked a little.” My dogs never say things like “wow, that’s a lot of stuff, can I help you carry anything?” no, they can’t conceive of any notion other than, “TOUCH ME TOUCH ME ACKNOWLEDGE ME VALIDATE ME!”. In Maddie’s frenzy she managed to knock into my legs and send my flying onto my face.
Sprawled out in the living room, groceries everywhere, do you think Maddie would feel remorse? No, mostly she just saw it as an opportunity to say, “my nose is very wet and I want to leave nose wetness on your face as a gift.”
2) Sunday, after eating a delightful brunch at my dad’s house (ham….the king of the pink meats) I had to swing by my house and hurriedly gather up the food and equipment to make the amazing paella dinner at Owen’s place. With Anna’s help I hauled the bags and pans and whatnot out to the car. I dropped Anna off at home and popped over to Owen’s place. It was a beautifully sunny afternoon, the skies were so clear blue and I was belting out “The Decemberists” at the top of my lungs. When I got to Owen’s and started to unload the car, all my joy dissolved…
In the process of loading up the car I had put my lovely 12 in Calphalon paella pan on the trunk of the car. You know where this is going. No pan in my car, certainly no pan just sitting on the trunk of my car. I lost my pan. I drove home hoping it had fallen off my car as I was pulling out of my driveway and nobody noticed it. Sigh. It either shattered into 1 billion anodized pieces or someone not so unlike myself came upon it and said “a practically new calphalon pan with cover that retails for $168** just lying in the street? Happy easter to ME!”. My pan is gone. I would be sad or angry but really it was my own fault and all I can do is laugh at my own stupidity.
Okay, that was my “retard” portion of the weekend, now on to the food.
Owen is amazing to cook with. Anything I use gets snatched up and cleaned immediately, he takes orders well and makes me buttered english muffins when my energy gets low.
The first crostini we made was went from the planned “Mirableu blue cheese, roasted apricots and spiced pecans” to a combination of Point Reyes blue, roasted plums and spiced pecans due to the vagaries of the imported cheese and stone fruit situation in minnesota. This ended up being a balance of sweet, salty, sour and spicy all at once.
The next crostini was Brillat-Savarin brie, pears poached in ginger syrup and roasted curried yam slices. Same result, sweet, spicy and salty, but no sour. I loved it. The pears were amazingly spicy and sweet. The leftover ginger syrup went into martinis later in the evening.
A salad of mixed greens, flowers, herbs and mint and an orange mustard vinaigrette. The vinaigrette in its initial incarnation of orange juice, oil, homemade mustard and shallots was weak and without the proverbial balls I was looking for. I added about a teaspoon of mustard powder and threw it in the fridge for further flavor blossoming. The mustard powder did the trick, sweet and tangy and definitely not bland.
This is the paella recipe that I used as sort of a base. A jumping off point, so to speak. We got rid of the chorizo to satisfy the sensibilities of the fish but not meat eaters and replaced it with squid, halibut and bay scallops (along with the shrimp, mussels and clams). I wanted the flavor to be more “Spring” than “Summer” so I cut back on the tomatoes a bit and added a metric buttload of orange juice reduction and orange zest. I also used peppadews instead of piquillos.
Also, it took way way way longer for the rice to cook than I anticipated, so the fish got a bit overcooked, but no one minded.
Dessert was an orange cream tart with strawberries, mango and blueberries on the top, glazed with lemon ginger marmalade. I accidentally added too much sugar to the mascarpone cheese and it ended up being way way sweet. sigh. better luck next time I guess. Owen arranged the fruit on the tart as he has way more visual creativity than I do.
We ate, drank, gossiped and had a great time. David and I drove seperately and he won major points for finding and bringing the cocktail napkins that I forgot! I didn’t even have to ask him. He’s like magic.
I hope it was a happy Easter for you all! Oh! April, sorry babe, there were no leftovers. We were big big pigs.
* When you own two dogs it is important to always have a steady supply of plastic bags in the house. This means that when you bag your groceries you use plastic and you place 1 or 2 items only in each bag. a 2 bag shopping trip can easily yield 8-10 bags if you bag things up properly.
** I did not pay $168 for this pan. I got it on sale. I am not THAT retarded.