What are the goofy nicknames you have for your pet? Bonus points for sharing a picture of him/her.
Submitted by Papi Chulo.
Finally, a decent QoTD!
I'll go over each of the animals in turn:
-The Hector
-Hecky
-Hectorius
-Heculus
-Big dog (Boston was "little dog")
-Stinkhound
-Smellhound
-Farty Mcfarty-sons
-Fartulence
-Big Orange Dog
-Stripeypants
-Percy
-Parsley
-Parsnip
-Fatnip
-Tubba-wubba
-Sniamese
-Meezer
-Mr. cat
-Percy-cat
-Bud
-Pooooss
-Mouse
-The Oriental Potentate
Shanti:
-Black Cat
-Petiiiiite
-Ma fiiiiille (my girl)
-Pretty girl
-Slinky miss
-Little panther
-Little mink
-Chatty catty
Beau:
-Bobo
-Little man
-Little buddy
-Little prince
-Beauretard
Van Quick:
-Quickie
-Quickie-mart
-Quickie-pants
-Quick
-Pumpkin (because of his bright copper colour)
-Stupidhead
-Doofus
-Chief
-The Muscles from Brussels
Boston's several nicknames were:
-Bossy
-Bossy-boodle
-Little dog
-Bostonian
-Old man
-Old buddy
-Cockroach
-Cucaracha
-The Boston
-Mr. feets
In the past week:
-My dog died
-I found out my cousin and her husband are splitting up. Nobody really knows why. They have two little girls and got married just a few months before I did, 8 years ago.
-I just found out that this other friend of mine in the US is no longer with his wife of 20+ years. I have no idea what happened there, either--if it was mutual, if he left her or she left him, whatever. I've known him for 15 years but we're not intimate enough that I feel comfortable just asking him about it, unless he brings it up. At least they don't have any kids.
-Work has been hell. I've been making a lot of stupid little distracted errors--nothing major, but they add up and I feel flakey, spacey and humiliated.
-Mr BA still hasn't found work. His severance has run out and he has had to dip into his retirement savings. He has lots of leads and pots on the stove, but no firm offers yet.
Retrograde Mercury, you are kicking my ass. Please resume forward progress soon, plskthxbai.
Earlier post here.
When I got home from work, I looked in on him. Mr. BA had covered him with a blanket. He was curled up on his bed in his normal position. He really did look as if he were only asleep. We took the remains to the vet. the place was a zoo and these two old biddies were at the reception desk, yakking away with the two assistants. I just wanted to ask if we could bring Boston in the back, so we didn't have to freak out the whole waiting room by carrying in a dead dog. It took at least 15 minutes before I could get anybody's attention. By which point I was pissed. When the girl finally said, "can I help you?", I snapped, "I'm the lady who called earlier with the dead dog." At which point she kind of stammered and apologized, and showed us to the back. They laid him out on a little steel table, poor old man. His tongue was kind of hanging out the side, just like when he was alive. We said our goodbyes and signed the papers to have him cremated. We aren't keeping the ashes or anything like that.
He joined our family when he was six. His Florida racing career was less than stellar. He had been adopted by an elderly lady in Florida when he was two, but she had to go into a nursing home, so we were his second home. He was missing one toe (not an uncommon injury) and the tip of one ear, the only reminder that he had ever had a rougher life. When we got him he was pretty porky, for a greyhound, and it quickly became obvious that his former owner had fed him scraps from the table. He figured out PDQ that was just not going to happen at our house. He dropped some weight and became the sleek little dog in the picture above, which was taken a few months after his arrival.
He was the only one of our greyhounds to get up on the furniture, and soon claimed the couch as his personal daybed. He was exceptionally cowardly, even for a greyhound. If you so much as looked at him while holding the nail clippers, he would yowl and whimper. When you got home he would come trotting up to you, making a funny little yodelling, sing-song noise. We figured he was just trying to tell us all about his day. The house is already feeling very quiet without him.
Mr BA got home from some errands this afternoon and found that Boston, our beloved 12-year-old retired racing greyhound, apparently passed peacefully in his sleep sometime earlier today.
He was a good, funny, wimpy, sweet boy, The last few months he has been mostly sleeping, but otherwise was the picture of health. I'm glad he didn't suffer. We'll miss him, as will his four-legged buddies.
Anna, a young mare at our barn, had her baby this morning!
Here he is, only 12 hours old. Check out the teeeeensy hoovses!
His official name is Cool Cherokee. His sire is a well-known Canadian jumper named Cool Man, and all the Cool Man foals born this year have to have names that start with C.
I like to sing along to the radio when I'm driving.It keeps me alert, happy and relaxed. Now, 99% of the time, I listen to jazz. We got Sirius satellite radio last Christmas, and they have a really good jazz station.
So yesterday, I'm driving back from doing an errand. I'm stuck in a traffic jam because I forgot it was Ottawa Race Weekend (where we have our marathon, 10k, 5k, etc.) But no worries, I'm in no rush, the sun is shining, I have the sunroof open and the windows down. I'm listening to my jazz. Then Donna Lee comes on.
Donna Lee is one of bebop god Charlie Parker's most famous compositions. It's based on the chord changes to the tune "Back home in Indiana", but with a completely different melody. It's really fast and furious, with a hard swing. It's one of my very favourite songs:
So, Donna Lee comes on. The original version, with Charlie "Bird" Parker quintet. Miles blowing on trumpet. Max Roaxh on drums and Bud Powell on piano. It's teh awesome. I crank up the volume. I'm scatting along--the "head" (the theme) is pretty hard--all angles and jumps-- but I know it by heart. then I noticed the guy in the car stuck exactly opposite me in the other lane is staring at me. He puts his window down more (why do people still say "roll down the window", when they are pretty much all electric now? Anyways.)
He says, "is that Charlie Parker?"
I say, "it sure is."
He says, "put it louder".
So there we were, two jazz nerds stuck in traffic on a sunny Saturday, just enjoying one of the great performances of all time. When the traffic started to move, we gave a little wave as we moved off in opposite directions.
I love little moments like that.
Make your own (get business cards, even!) at Design-her-gals.
I dyed my hair platinum blonde two summers ago. It looked bitchin', but it was too much trouble and maintenance for me ever to do it again.
None of the "guy" options really looked anything even remotely like Mr. BA, so I skipped it. (I love how their software just automatically gives your man the same skin colour as you. I guess interracial, while more and more common, is still not good enough to be "default". )
See, BrownSuga? We don't look anything alike!
Show us your favorite painting.
I believe this is another recycled QoTD. My answer then was the same as now.
Just one is too hard, but here are three. Crossing the River Styx by Joachim Patinir:
The interior of St Baavo's church, by the astonishing 17th-century Dutch painter of architectural subjects, Jan Pietersz. Saenredam.
And the Antwerp Madonna, by the 15th-centruy Burgundian genius Jean Fouquet. The painting has been stunningly restored in recent years. I saw it in all its psychedelic glory in 2002 at its home in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp. In a private viewing for just myself and a very charming and melancholic Russian count, a great-grandson of Leo Tolstoy and the curator of the Tolstoy museum. Which is a story I will have to entertain you with another time.
Show us something striped.
