Ahem. A little Doberman haiku.

Rosie’s tail is short,

So she chases her hind leg.

She catches it, too.

Miz Shoes regrets she will be unable to recap today. She and The Renowned Local Artist had to take the Noble Dog Nails (aka Lt. Commander Nails, Retired, Sah!) across the Rainbow Bridge. He was a good and loyal companion for fourteen years and will be forever in our hearts.

The Noble Dog Nails was a Jack Russell Terrier. When his vet first saw him, he warned us that JRTs tend to die early, because they are suicidal: jumping out of moving cars to chase a dog spotted in another car, running into traffic, running away, going down a hole only to never be seen again… Nails did many of those things. It took longer to train the RLA that a Jack can NEVER be off-leash anywhere without a good fence and adult supervision than it did to train Nails to sit.

Nails graduated at the top of his puppy training class, accepting his biscuit and carrying it back to his spot before he ate it. We were also thrown out of agility classes after a couple of sessions because the trainer felt that Nails “didn’t want it enough”. Which was probably a fair assessment of the situation. Nails fought an Akita and later a Golden Retriever, and came out ahead with the Akita and slightly the worse for wear with the Golden (known forever after around these parts as Cujo). He field stripped a banana tree, leaf by leaf until we had no banana tree. He caught birds, possums and bufo toads, and was smart enough to find the RLA after the first two bufos caused him to end up at the vet’s office for anti-toxin. Toad. RLA. Mouth wash. No vet. Smart dog. Nails was not afraid of thunder, nor was he afraid of fireworks, as our friends who were with us the July 4th when he seized a lit firework and tried to kill it can attest to. We got it out of his mouth before it went off.

When my father passed away, Nails jumped up on the bed, sniffed Daddy from one end to the other and then stood guard over his body, like a little terrier version of Anubis, escorting the Egyptian dead to the other side. I’m sure that my old man was waiting on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge for Nails, greeting him with a gruff “Hey, Dog.”

Nails was able to destroy indestructible dog toys. He could, and did, climb trees. He was a fearless and grouchy companion, who swam in our pool every day. He would sit like a little old Jewish man on South Beach back in the day, on the top step of the pool, with the water coming up to his chest. Then he would launch himself off the step and swim in doggie laps, a circle about 4 ft. in diameter, before going back for another sit on the step. He hated pool noodles. Whenever they were in the pool, they were the enemy and had to die. He would dive in the pool, and grab the noodle in his teeth and wrestle it out of the pool, where it was rendered harmless and could be ignored.

Our very favorite game that we played together was “Hunting Lubbers Out in India”, where Miz Shoes would wander about the back yard, a long stick in one hand and a martini in the other, Nails close behind. Once a giant yellow lubber was spotted decimating the foliage, Miz Shoes would beat the leaves with her stick, and when the lubber leaped for safety, Nails would pounce upon it, and with a quick shake of his head, kill the lubber. Miz Shoes would sing the great Bonzo Dog Doodah Band classic “Hunting Tigers Out in India” as we hunted. It was cracking good sport, and Nails was in full Lt. Commander Nails, Retired, Sah! mode, all empire and duty.

Good dog, Nails. Smart dog, Nails. Brave and loyal and fierce and handsome Nails. Sail on, little old man.

“He will need to be fed once a day. He prefers feline supplement number 25.”

“I understand.”

“And he will require water. And you must provide him with a sandbox. And you must talk to him. Tell him he is a pretty cat. And a good cat.”

“I will feed him.”

“Perhaps that will be enough.”

- Data and Worf, as Data asks Worf to take care of Spot (Star Trek, the Next Generation)

Saturday, we took Ming to the vet for his final visit. Here we are, sitting in the sun. Ever since that episode ran, I made a point of telling my cats that they were pretty cats. And good cats. I told that to Ming as I petted him.

This is the cairn we built over his grave. There is a blue jay feather, piercing a hibiscus leaf, and some flowers. I put a spool of thread in with him, because he had to have three separate surgeries over the years to remove the wads of thread he’d managed to eat. Where he is now, he can eat all the thread he wants. Ming also has a little bat about toy with feathers. The Egyptians got it right about cats.

And because I swore I would do this this year, and because even in sadness there is always brightness, here is the afghan I’ve been working on. Not bad for only two weeks of knitting.

Who knows, maybe I’ll even get my Project Runway recap up before the second episode.

This could be a photo of my old hefty-boy. It is certainly the philosophy of the animal companions at the Casita des Zapatos.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Sometimes, you just need puppies.

Are you ready to rumble?  What I wouldn’t give to be in New York City this month. First we had Fashion Week, and tonight and tomorrow it’s the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Last year a PBGV won the hound group and almost had an upset win for Best in Show. Almost.

Tonight is opening night, and as always, I’ll be on the couch with my Jack Russell and my PBGV and we’ll just be going crazy for the doggies.

According to the vet, that’s the only way I’ll lose Ming this time around. The diagnosis is pancreatitis, and the body’s response to it is anorexia… which no matter what affects me, I cannot develop, and lord knows I’ve tried. So. Ming gets to go to the day spa (aka the vet’s office) for feeding and observation, and I get to take the five-hour emotional exhaustion nap. But the little fuzz ball is back home for the night, complaining as only a Siamese can complain, and as far as I’m concerned, that makes everything all right in this world.

It is also the finale of this season’s America’s Next Top Model. Since Binaca is out of the running, and Salacious D isn’t such a hobag, it won’t be ANT Skankho. It won’t be anyone memorable, either, but this is what we expect. Surrogate Daughters 1 & 3 are coming over for the fun, so the RLA is going to have to run for cover, or at least testosterone, because the squealling and trash talking is going to be formidable.

And so another episode of let’s freak out Miz Shoes and make her smoke like a chimney has come to an end. Thank you.

Ming is still not eating, not drinking, not using his litter box. I have canceled my trip to Ratville. He’s just a little cat, and he’s getting thinner and littler by the minute. As much as it sucks, it is the ticket that we punch when we take this ride: allowing something to live with us and rely on us. He gives me unqualified love, and I protect him and send him on his way to the sunny meadow where the mice are fat and slow. Maybe this isn’t his time, but I’m not out-sourcing his guardianship while we find out.

Ming the Merciless is home today, having undergone an exploratory surgery Saturday. Where the vet found absolutely no reason for Ming to have stopped pooping. That’s both the good and bad news. No thread wad, no tumor, no adhesions from previous surgery. Just an immobile intestine, which the vet massaged, saying that often that will jump start the peristalsis. Anyway, Ming is home and the dogs are respecting his space. He’s drooling, which is both unattractive and suspicious, but again, the vet assures me this means nothing. Ming has used his litter box to pee, but we await the tootsie rolls of feline health.

I have delayed my trip to Mouseville another day. I have updated my etsy shop, where you can now find a lot of vintage knitting books, and a scarf and a shawl that were hand knit by yours truly.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the pool deck to watch Ming and knit a purse, not necessarily in that order.

He’s not a stray, he’s Ming the Merciless and he’s 14 years old. He is my beloved little Siamese and three days ago he stopped eating. He’s throwing up. He’s lost weight. He hasn’t pooped in two days. I’m waiting for the vet to call and tell me why. They wouldn’t let me stay with him, I had to drop the little fuzzball off. I’m crazy with apprehension. I just know that despite my watchful eye and care to close the door to my sewing room/studio, that Ming has gotten in there and eaten thread. I just know that he has an intestinal blockage and will require surgery, if that can even save him. I’m fretful and stressed and waiting for the phone to ring.

Think good thoughts, and help me get my shtinky puddin home safe and healthy.

UPDATE: Yes, it’s an intestinal blockage. No, he isn’t in mortal danger. We’re bringing him home overnight and he’ll go back in the morning, and most likely have surgery. Thank you for the good thoughts.

DEC. 9 UPDATE: He had surgery yesterday. The good news is that there wasn’t a tumor, scar tissue or a lump of thread. The bad news is that there was no reason for him to have had that blockage. The good news is I have the best vet in the world. The bad news is that he doesn’t know why Ming got sick, or if this will have gotten his intestines moving again. They just stopped. Lack of motility. The thing that has scarred me forever is that prior to the surgery, they gave Ming an enema. Now all of you cat lovers out there know how nigh onto impossible it is to give a cat a pill. The very thought of going in through the other end of the cat has me hiding under the bed in terror. One friend suggested that perhaps they knock the cat out first, but I don’t know if even that would help. Four paws full of claws, even clipped ones and an angry head full of teeth at the other end? I just can’t imagine the process, and every time I try to think about it, my mind skitters away like a droplet of water on a hot frying pan.

There he is, the newly liberated dog BOB!, sweetly sleeping in his fuzzy blue blankie, on a couch. In a home. We did it. Thanks to everyone who contributed to his liberation fund. Jules and BOB! are very happy.

We’re in day two of a soaking, steady rain here in South Florida. This is rain of biblical proportions. This is rain measured in inches to feet. This is rain that isn’t going away. This is monsoon season rain. It’s beautiful, actually.

The problem with it, though, is that it makes South Florida drivers forget what precious little they know about driving. This means that you find folks driving with their flashers on, driving in the middle of two lanes to take advantage of the dry spot, speeding on bald tires and then hydroplaning into the nearest tree or car or house, or simply driving at about 10 miles an hour, just in case. I had my teeth cleaned this morning, and my appointment was at nine. It took me more than 15 minutes to cross Dixie Highway and drive two blocks. Part of that was because I couldn’t turn left out of my street: the cars were backed up beyond my horizon. So I turned right, then went south to the next cross street, then couldn’t turn north on Dixie Highway because it was a parking lot, so crossed to the first northbound back road, and from there arrived (finally) at my destination. I was 20 minutes late, but it didn’t matter because the dental hygienist was even later.

Now my teeth are all shiny and clean and I’m torn. On the one hand, I want lunch. Since it’s raining and cool and damp, I want the universal comfort food for rainy, damp weather: a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tomato soup. On the other hand, my teeth are all shiny and clean and I don’t want to eat at all, because I want them to stay feeling this slick.

Having masterfully steered this entry to lunch, allow me to remind you readers that today is “Take Bob to Lunch Day” or, as I like to call it, “FREE THE BOB DAY.” Let me refresh your memories about Bob.

Bob is a small Italian greyhound currently housed in a strip mall “pet store” in California. Bob lives in the window, sharing the hot, tiny space with a chihuahua with gummy eyes. Bob has developed callouses from the sawdust that lines his window, and a sore on his neck from the plastic price tag/collar he wears. Bob is so pathetic at this point that he’s been marked down—twice. Often, Bob is seen to have no food or water. But that is going to change, with our help.

Jules (of Dirty Feet and Lily White Intentions) has negotiated Bob’s release price, but she’s still a little short of the ante. That’s where we come in. Take a look at Bob here. Or here. And read about him

here. And here. And here. And donate your lunch money (just for today, whether you put 2 bucks in the vending machine outside the ladies’ room, or do two glasses of chardonnay with a Cobb salad and your lady friends, or (in my case, I brown-bagged it today, but a normal lunch in the Miami Downtown area runs $7.87 and I rounded up).

Help Jules liberate Bob. (Not his real name, at least not until Jules gets him home, bathed, petted, fed, loved, petted, a nice collar, a soft doggie bed and a chew toy or two.) I tried to link to Bob’s donation page, but couldn’t. So follow one of the links above, and give generously to someone who is opening her heart and home to a doggie in need.

Bob is a small Italian greyhound currently housed in a strip mall “pet store” in California. Bob lives in the window, sharing the hot, tiny space with a chihuahua with gummy eyes. Bob has developed callouses from the sawdust that lines his window, and a sore on his neck from the plastic price tag/collar he wears. Bob is so pathetic at this point that he’s been marked down—twice. Often, Bob is seen to have no food or water. But that is going to change, with our help.

Jules (of Dirty Feet and Lily White Intentions) has negotiated Bob’s release price, but she’s still a little short of the ante. That’s where we come in. Take a look at Bob here. Or here. And read about him

here. And here. And here. And donate your lunch money (just for today, whether you put 2 bucks in the vending machine outside the ladies’ room, or do two glasses of chardonnay with a Cobb salad and your lady friends, or (in my case, I brown-bagged it today, but a normal lunch in the Miami Downtown area runs $7.87 and I rounded up).

Help Jules liberate Bob. (Not his real name, at least not until Jules gets him home, bathed, petted, fed, loved, petted, a nice collar, a soft doggie bed and a chew toy or two.) I tried to link to Bob’s donation page, but couldn’t. So follow one of the links above, and give generously to someone who is opening her heart and home to a doggie in need.

Are you ready to rumble? I am. Tonight is the big opening night at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show Extravaganza in Madison Square Garden. I may have mentioned a time or two that I love the doggies. And the show. And the dead seriousness of the whole show.

But wait, there’s more. Later this month (on the 23st) RJ and I (and our husbands) trot over to SoBe for the Great South Beach Wine & Food Festival.* The weekend ends with us returning home, hung over, exhausted and sated to ensconce ourselves our couches for the best of all possible awards shows, the Oscars. Then, on the 28th, we have the return (season 8) of America’s Next Top Skank-Ho Model . I’m tired just dreaming about it.

* Yes, I have the pickled green tomatoes all ready to present to the great and wonderful Tony Bourdain. Sigh. I’m so not worthy.

But the pickles? They are. Totally. He’ll be my foodie slave forever, IF I can get him to actually eat one. I don’t, you know. But for people who like this sort of thing? They love love love my green tomato pickles.

I used to have an assistant who was useless. No, she was beyond useless, and a back-stabbing idiot. She would constantly come to me to complain about her computer: “It doesn’t want to do exwhyzee,” she would whine. “I told it to do exwhyzee and it won’t, it insists on doing efgeeaitch.”

I would suck in air, count to thirty in a language I don’t speak, and tell her, “No. Your computer is not a sentient being. It neither wants nor does not want to do anything. It can only do what you tell it to do, so the mistake must be a user error. Show me exactly what you tried.”

And then she would, and I would point out that she had/hadn’t held down a specific key, or had her caps lock on, or she had typed a word backwards, or some other stupid mistake and she’d glare at me and talk trash behind my back. But that’s not why I bring her up. No, I am reminded of her today because all mechanical things around me are breaking down.

She was a real whiz at astrology (of course) and she would have said that Mercury went retrograde, or Uranus was in my house of blahblahblah.

But the fact is, I got the lap top back on Monday, and by Saturday it was turning itself off, again. So now, the lap top in on its way to Cupertino, and I’m freaking out. I’m also down $500 dollars, because repairs are a minimum of $300 and I had to buy an external hard drive to back up everything before I sent the machine away.

This morning I woke up to a white koi pond. White with coral and calcium silt, and my pond pump is screwed, and I am sitting at home waiting for the pump guys to come and a) take the old pump away and b) sell me a new one and c) install the new one so that I can flush the pond and make sure that my five 25-pound koi are not dead on the bottom, since I can’t see through the water to check. Nobody seems to be floating belly up, so we’re good so far.

But I’m sitting at home, not at my work desk, and the boss is back from two weeks on the road and he’s pissed that I’m not there today. Not to mention that I missed something while he was gone that I was supposed to be on top of and wasn’t.

Crap.