arse poetica

We Could All Use a Snuggle

What utter loves. The cuteness was so overwhelming that I took about 1,200 pictures of this from every conceivable angle. This one will do. Love how Kate's front leg and paw look so big. Ha.

Rainy Day Blues

As much as I love the Dingo, when she's wet, I just die. That face!

Oh noes! Where did she go?

There's my sweets. Let me in, Mom! Dad's a terror w/ the towel!

Friday Dingo Blogging--Late Edition

Yes, I am in love (in love!!) with my dog. So what.

Friday Beastie Blogging

The beasties are sharing a bed. Used to be Dingo's bed, but Finn doesn't know that/care, so she plops right on it as soon as she walks into the room. For a while Dingo would lurk around, eying the now off-limits chair, like, Where am I going to sleep? There's no more soft spots, before harrumphing on the rug in front of the bed. (Literal hangdog expression.) For a couple of liver treats, it looks like the sweet Kate can be convinced to do anything, including sleeping next to her bratty little sister!

See what I put up with, Mom? Surely I get an extra bone for this.

Friday Dingo Blogging

Angel Dingo sent from the heavens.

Friday Dingo Blogging

Hi, I'm cute.

Yep, still here. Still cute.

What. Ooh, sniffy spot!

Friday Beastie Blogging

Doggie bookends. It's clearly been a hard day.

I Could Sleep...

Dear Divine Influences in the Universe,

    Thank you for pop music.

Yrs most sincerely,
ae

Band_of_Horses - Is_There_a_Ghost.mp3

Some pop songs just get.it.done. Goodness. The Dingo looks like I feel right now.

Friday Dingo Blogging

I've been reading in bed a lot lately. I think Dingo's trying to tell me something.

Friday Dingo Blogging

Best.Dog.Ever. Is there anything better than The Lean? ::siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh::

What can I say? It's true love.

Friday Beastie Blogging

El Beasties en route to grandma's (theirs, not ours) for a long weekend while db and I sauntered around Asheville, possibly to rub elbows w/ Billy Corgan.

P.S. db hates those sheets, but I think they're funny in a kitschy-klassic kind of way. In any event, they get a lot of use for tasks like letting the dogs lie on them or covering the plants during an early frost, so selfless. Thanks, sheets!

Friday Dingo Blogging

"Hey, Mom. D'ya think it's okay if I deal w/ these weeds later? I'm too busy lying here looking cute. Thanks."

Friday Dingo Blogging

As you can see, the Dingo is very enthusiastic about helping us weed the big-ass dandelions, &c. in the backyard. How I get anything done w/ this gorgeous face around, I'll never know. Eminently smoochable, this one.

This long weekend it'll be another backyard marathon as db and I try to whip an incorrigible "natural area" (a.k.a. the backyard) into some semblance of comfortable natural order. A tip from yr pals at arse po -- buy stock in Advil now! Our yard is big, there are many weekends ahead, and lately we've been going through that stuff like it's Chiclets.

Friday Dingo Blogging

Oh, rilly? Cos Dingo ain't buying what you're sellin', mi amigo.

[It's either that or db's wearing old man socks w/ his sneakers again.]

Friday Dingo Blogging

The many poses of Dingo.

Does the Dingo Love Me?

Yeah, she does! But what does it mean when the Dingo's tail goes in circles? Extra double super-duper happiness?

If You Want to Know if Spot Loves You So, It’s in His Tail.

Every dog lover knows how a pooch expresses its feelings.

The muscles on either side of the tail apparently reflect emotions like fear and love registering in the brain. Ears close to the head, tense posture, and tail straight out from the body means “don’t mess with me.” Ears perked up, wriggly body and vigorously wagging tail means “I am sooo happy to see you!”

But there is another, newly discovered, feature of dog body language that may surprise attentive pet owners and experts in canine behavior. When dogs feel fundamentally positive about something or someone, their tails wag more to the right side of their rumps. When they have negative feelings, their tail wagging is biased to the left.

A study describing the phenomenon, “Asymmetric tail-wagging responses by dogs to different emotive stimuli,” appeared in the March 20 issue of Current Biology. The authors are Giorgio Vallortigara, a neuroscientist at the University of Trieste in Italy, and two veterinarians, Angelo Quaranta and Marcello Siniscalchi, at the University of Bari, also in Italy.

I don't know how those guys got funding for that research, but bless 'em.

On Our Way to Grandma's House

We've got to get on the road early, so it makes for sleepy times.

 

Friday Dingo Blogging

Snow day!

We can't buy a snow fall that lasts more than half a day yet, but the Dingo likes to enjoy a little freedom while it lasts. Look, ma! No leash!

It Was All Just a Dream

I had the WORST dream this morning -- the kind where you don't even want to say out loud what happened, the kind where you wake up and you're so disoriented and filled with grief that you don't know where you are or when it is and you have a moment of wishing that it could be before that awful thing happened so as to negate it, render it a temporal impossibility. Awful.

You know when you've spent half your dream sobbing and you wake up and the feeling remains with you and your heart feels bruised from the shock and the pain? My chest literally ached when I dragged myself from bed. I felt waterlogged, heavy and drained at the same time.

But look! The Dingo's okay!

db, who is the best daddy in the world, sent me this photo this afternoon to remind me. It's amazing how powerful dreams are and how thoroughly they insinuate themselves into our limbs and muscles and lodge in our hearts and split us from the inside. I feel like I need to rinse off and ring out each cell in my body to rid myself of this feeling. No, thank you.

Friday Best.Dog.Ever. Blogging

Man, oh man. She is awesome.

Friday Beastie Blogging

The holidays have plum tuckered us out.

Saying No to Mess

I was curious to see that the article Saying Yes to Mess has remained atop the Most Emailed list in the Times for so long. Yes to mess? Mmm, no.

db and I are, thankfully, of a mind re: clutter. I will NOT live my life tripping over things or searching for scissors or tape or moving the hammer to get to a coffee mug. Things need to have a place -- a discreet place, not a place just anywhere you happen to lay (whatever) when you get distracted by something else.

I like clean lines, clear fields of vision, some symmetry. Part of this is aesthetic, part of it necessary to the proper functioning of my mind. I'm a visual person, which means that I can't think if my desk or house or world is too cluttered.

Somehow we manage to collect more than we'll ever need, and decluttering is not only necessary, given our space limitations, it's good for both mental and karmic health. Someone has need of all that extra stuff taking up all that closet space, right? Give it away! (I'm trying to institute a don't-buy-it-in-the-first-place policy, because I'm becoming increasingly worried/disgusted that we pay $1 for stuff that's shipped thousands of miles at an astronomical human and environmental cost, and why?? Priorities!)

db's parents are here to spend Xmas w us, and he and I have taken the opportunity of their visit to do a deep clean -- cupboards emptied, things donated, clutter GONE. All those little things lying around w/o a home -- put away, recycled, given away. Damn, it feels good. Why in the heck do I have 500 mugs and bowls?? We're a family of two. (Well, four, but the dogs have their own bowls.) Gone!

We still have lots to file and find a home for, but we're miles ahead of where we were on Wednesday. I am amazed at how much one can get done if one doesn't have to go to work! Give us another couple of days, and we'll be able to start the New Year w/ a nice clean(-ish) slate. I love a clean slate!

For all my love of clean lines and non-clutter, I do not live in a minimalist fantasy of simple unfetteredness (though we're slowly but surely moving into that zip code). Have I mentioned the Dingo and Little? No pretend aesthete could survive with these two shedding, dirt trodding, ornament-knocking-off, bone-eating-on-the-rug, toy-leaving-around, cooler handle-chewing (today, by Little!) brats if s/he were any kind of stickler whatsoever. Ahh, a further benefit of pets: keeping persnicketiness at bay.* Thanks, beasties!

[*Persnicketiness not kept too much at bay, apparently, because I would SO own these!]

[Pictured: A fine pair of beasts, illustrating the kind of symmetry we get around these parts.]

Friday Happy, Silly Dog in Xmas Kerchief Blogging

Aww, who's a good fuzz? The incomparable Dingo enjoying her greenie and sporting a v. handsome neckerchief. She's got style, that Dingo!

Profiles in Furage

Such loves!

Friday Dingo Blogging

 

Bliss. Happiness is a sleeping dingo. Moments after this, Kate jumped down off the chair, because I was playing w/ Finn and making happy noises. The second Dingo was off the chair, Little was right back on it, which afforded the Dingo and me some quality bellyrubbing time.

 

And you all want the lovely music to save your lives

I just had one of those heart-bursting moments of pure happiness in which your chest cavity fills w/ lava and melts everything it touches and you think: yes, it's possible to be really happy. I actually laughed outloud. As good as life is and as little as I have to complain about, it sure would be nice to be able to feel these sustaining moments more often. Why is it so hard? [Because of purposeful distraction, dearest. -- Obvious Answers to Obvious Questions Ed.]

We're in bed -- the whole doggy, shambling family -- and poor db is the only one sensible enough to be sleeping (or trying anyway). I'm tethered to the interwebs, as per usual, having just devoured a really interesting book of poetry, and the dogs have finally finished their bones and are now happily, cozily settled.

Just before though, at the moment of the lava melt, the Dingo was walking around the bed trying to find her best point of entry. She's not a pushy Dingo; she prefers an invitation. She also prefers that Little not be that close. The Dingo is a beast who needs her space (though db and I are exempt from these proximity prohibitions). So she jumps up, whumps down too near to Little, who turns her head to look at the Dingo, which proves just too much, so the Dingo jumps right off the bed and walks around to me like, What gives?

So I pat the bed next to me to encourage her and again she walks the perimeter, gauging, deciding. But I can't see her, because it's dark (db is sleeping, afterall) and the light from the laptop is blocking everything else. So I lower the laptop screen and pat the bed again, and she jumps in, half on me, and scooches up right to me, and sitting up like she is, she is taller than me, so I am looking up into a happy, panting, doggy smile, now halo-lit from my laptop; she is beaming at me, radiating happiness. I kiss her cheeks and smell her good smell, feeling so ridiculous and lucky w/ this amazing, happy dog making me laugh outloud in bed. This is surely the definition of security.

And just then I hear the line -- not even in my ear, because the best thing about this new generation of headphones/earbuds is that it sounds as if the music is just in your head, organic, a part of you -- "and you all want the lovely music to save your lives..."

Don't we though.

[photo: ae | Sloss Furnaces sculpture garden | Birmingham, AL | 11.17.06 ]

Happy Cozy Thanksgiving

Among many other things, I'm thankful for these two bratty fuzzies. Who else would hog the bed, knock over the plants, shed hair everywhere, and bark at falling leaves? (Besides db, I mean.) An absolute joy, these two, and the reason digital cameras were invented.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

Friday We-Miss-Our-Beasties Blogging

Not quite as charming as the Dingo ... but then no one ever accused Kate of being a guard dog. In fact, her foster parents asked specifically if we were looking for a guard dog, because the Dingo was not anywhere close to being one. This is why she's the dog for us, bien sur.

But this one has all the impishness of Little! Some pre-Incan artist 1500 years ago must've had his own little brat! Maybe Finn's long-lost cousin.

[photos by ae | B'ham Museum of Art | 11.16.06]

Friday Beastie Blogging

Beasties! Quiet, sleeping, peaceful beasties. Not being bratty at all. Never! They're angels.

[L] The light blue at the bottom of the pic is my t-shirt. I have a whole series of photos of the Dingo curled up between me and db, sleeping w/ her chin on her paws, which, I'm here to tell you is the cutest thing that has been witnessed in some time.

[R] Little cracks me up, because sometimes I look at her and she looks like a brand new puppy, and sometimes she looks like she's 85. When she's sleeping, she looks much more puppy-ish. This is one of her more reserved sleeping poses. Usually, she's draped half over the arm of the chair, paws sticking out like she'd been posed there, or she's upside down, arms stiffly up in the air. 

Friday Beastie Blogging

What seems like forever ago, during my sick day, I gave the beasties a frozen treat mid-day, and this is my favorite photo of the Dingo licking her little cup clean, not a drop to spare. And you know she did turn to me like, "More?" Finny, upon finishing hers, promptly set to eating her cup, but what's new?

Friday Dingo Blogging

I know some folks might look at this picture and think the Dingo is the one who's spoiled. Not hardly. It's just harder to get a pic that shows how spoiled we are by her, though this one's doing the trick pretty good. Others may look at this photo and think the Dingo's glowing green eyes mean she is an alien beastie. Oh, she's descended from the heavens alright, but it's just a trick of the light. And she's giving me that look in the pic because the flash woke her up. Ha.

 

Friday Dingo Blogging

I mean, I don't even have to try! This dog is just this cute! What a big love. Have I mentioned that she is the best smelling dog ever?

Friday 'Spot the Dingo' Blogging

This photo was taken on Sunday through the dangling broken limb of one of the sky high trees in the backyard while I was standing on the bottom rungs of the 10-ft ladder db had climbed to cut down said broken limb. I have some v. impressive photos of db's saw-wielding prowess, and maybe one day there'll be enough sleep in the world for me to actually post them. For now, zzzzzzzz.

Friday Dingo Blogging

Still life w/ Dingo and Mac.

 

Wild Dog Days of Summer

db and I watched a show tonight about the African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus). Man, they are fantastic beasts.

Unlike other animals that blend into their environments -- say, the Congressional Hyena or the Senatorial Weasel -- the African Wild Dog has a highly visible and distinctive coat, a function of their being cooperative hunters and needing to recognize each other. They are the most sociable of all the dogs, have 4 toes (no dewclaw), and make sharp, high-pitched sounds. The pack has a dominant breeding pair that are generally monogamous for life (!), but the entire pack assists in caring for the pups.

The cooperative nature of the pack is what really struck me. They don't fight each other for food and use intimidation; they share! Members of the pack involved in the hunt bring food back for members left behind taking care of the pups. And males and females perform both functions -- hunter and babysitter.

We were too squeamish to watch a pack of them bring down a wildebeest (poor wildebeest!) and had to change the channel about a million times. Thankfully, there was enough footage of the puppies playing.

Afterwards, inspired by the dogginess of the AWD's, I spent about an hour on Flickr looking at the dingos, and I swear that our Dingo is one of those. Absolute beauties. I mean, this could be our beastie. Actually, rumor has it that our dingo is one of those. She's a Carolina Dog, also known as the American Dingo.

====
UPDATED: Because I am damn indecisive about photo placement while also neglecting to note the photo credit. Rank amateur!

Friday Beastie Blogging

The more I see of man, the more I like dogs. ~Madame de Staël

Friday Best.Dog.Ever. Blogging

Not possible to love this dog more. Why, oh why, don't I work somewhere where they let you bring your beasties to work? Sniffle.

Friday Best.Dog.Ever Birthday Blogging

Our wee beastie turns three!

The Best.Dog.Ever. has been many things to us: the Dingo, Beastie, Punkass, Stinkowitz, Stinks, Fuzz [usually posed as a question: Who's my good-smelling Fuzz?], Licky Lickerson, Loco Dingo, and Kate, but the thing she's been most in the two years we've been lucky to have her? Loved.

Happy birthday, Stinkowitz! We love you!

You Gonna Eat That?

Ha. A panoramic view of the intense focus the Dingo gave to db's supper last night. There may have been a pay off for her kind attentions, because when I walked back into the living room at one point, my happy beastie was licking her lips. Bad, db! Bad!

It's 11:15. Do You Know How Adorable Your Dog Is?

Look at my fuzzy-face fuzz! Who's the best dowg?

And, um, whatever it may look like is going on behind Kate's head, it's not what it looks like. It's the Home & Garden Channel. Really.

Sick Day

Not pictured: box of kleenex, me. Also, I realize that today is the 25th. Dur.

The best thing about a cold is the deep, rumbling moans that I can launch like sonic booms while lying on the couch. And I get to reenact one of my favorite scenes of all time for db several times a day: the scene in "When Harry Met Sally" where Harry is lying in bed talking w/ Sally on the phone, they'd been watching "Casablanca," and Harry, in his way, is worrying to Sally that he thinks he's got the 24-hr tumor that's going around (ha), and she, being accustomed to his hypochondria, tells him she's going to bed and asks what he's going to do. He replies, "I think I'll stay up and moan." And he does. Mrrrrrmmm... Mrrrmmmm.... Mrrrrrmmm...

Good (Doggie) Friday

The beasts do love a walk, and the weather's been so beautiful lately that it's easy to indulge them. The tongue-wagging, the wiggly behinds, the tapping toes and flapping ears -- damn, they're cute. Happy holiday weekend!

 

 

 

 

Hi, We're Cute

Friday Wee Beastie Blogging

It's easy to be a proud mom w/ these two leading members of the Cute Patrol rasslin' 'round the house. The Dingo (Kate, on the left) is still hogging the bed. Maybe you've noticed the bags under db's eyes? Little (Finn, on the right) is still rolling in the stinkiest thing she can find in the yard. She has a streak of sap (yaay, not stinky!) on the side of her face that will take laserbeams and industrial strength compounds not yet invented to remove. db's thinking of pulling the mom routine and shaving the sticky mess off. Anybody's mom take the scissors to their hair after a bubblegum incident? [ae raising hand.] Contrary to popular sentiment, Finny cannot yet take flight w/ those ears. As soon as she can, though, we're going on tour!

 

::blush::

Gosh. It seems I've been nominated for a Koufax Award in the category of "Most Deserving of Wider Recognition." You beautiful, crazy people, what the hell are you thinking, and thank you!

There are easily 25 blogs on the "Wider Recognition" list that I would vote for -- try, for instance, Blondesense, Black Feminism, The Daily Howler, The Disgruntled Chemist, The Fat Lady Sings, I Blame the Patriarchy, Lance Mannion, Norwegianity, One Good Move, Pam's House Blend (go, Pam!), Pinko Feminist Hellcat, Phronesisaical, Redneck Mother, Science and Politics (go, Bora!), The Sideshow, Whatever It Is, I'm Against It, and for the two of you who might not know it, a superstellar blog, which, if there were any justice, would have transcended this category in the second hour of its publishing: Creek Running North.

But don't let me talk you out of it! If you like me, really, really like me, vote, and I'll send you love and riches. Okay, I got no riches, how about a hug? No exhortation to vote early and often -- rules state that you can only vote once in each category (IP addresses are tracked).

For the first time, I really understand the cliche "it's an honor just to be nominated." It's true, and I'm humbled. Thanks truly. These damn interwebs really are something. I'll redouble my efforts in attempts to be deserving of the kind nod. And do you think maybe now I should tell people I know that I've got one of these newfangled weblogs everyone's talking about?

Wampum: 2005 Koufax Awards -- The Polls Are Open. First round closes on Sunday!

[Why is there a picture of the Dingo on this post? 1) She is the most.gorgeous.beast.ever. and 2) she is quite obviously the best part of this blog. Look into her eeeeeeeyes ... you want to give her a boooone ...]

Friday Beastie Blogging

It's beastie blogging day! These big-eared brats loooooooove the bed, because they are beasts of discriminating taste. Why shouldn't they be comfortable? Carpet is scratchy, and their dog bed is so, so far away. And being heat-seeking beasties, they go where we go. You can see that duvet. It's down-filled, people! Why would we ever expect the beasties to eschew down? Ha. I laugh in your general direction. The Dingo sleeps w/ us; Finny in her crate. The Dingo, and this is not an exaggeration, takes up as much of the bed -- namely half -- as you see in the picture. That, btw, is my side of the bed. I am not pictured, because, well, I would be a speck in the far right corner of the pic where I am usually squished as the night rolls on. Zzzzzz.