Friday, November 6, 2015

AUDumn Walk

A photo-chronicle a late afternoon walk with Audrey on a mildly cool day in early November. There is no theme here, and nothing of particular significance occurs. 

 

"Audrey," I observe out loud. "You look bored." She stares at me because I'm stating the obvious. Well, it isn't raining , but at just minutes after 4:00 PM the sky will soon fall pitch black, so it's now or never. Both of us need the exercise, and she has clearly determined that nothing on TV is worth watching.  Furthermore, I need a break from trying to absorb what I am struggling to learn. So, quietly we gear up for a stroll around the 'hood. This time, I decide to let her take me--instead of the other way around.

 


The fragrance of SQUIRREL must be permeating the neighborhood.  Audrey seldom, if ever, barks up the (proverbial) wrong tree, and the fact that some neighbor has a penchant for throwing fresh peanuts in the grass that lines the street and sidewalk doesn't make for silence and contemplation. It makes for emphatic barking and occasional noshing on "goober peas," shells and all. 

 

 The first time we met him, Audrey growled at  this significant-looking bear. The second time,  though, he wore two strands of beads around his neck, one each of gold and metallic green. University of Oregon colors. Audrey, being the Ducks fan she is, has never opened her mouth to him again.


This is where she leads us next. More of the same landscape. More squirrels perhaps? Pretty brown, orange, and yellow leaves cover the grass proving that deciduous trees really do exist in Western Oregon.


 

Same cutesy anti-poop sign in front of someone's house for at least two years. (Why would anyone want to poop in front of your stupid house anyway?)

Audrey discovers a gift bag-- and I am not making this up--  from Victoria's Secret, which is not so typical of the usual freebies people leave at the street corner "donation centers." For some reason, the pink bag and its contents disturb her; so after barking vehemently at it for about half a minute (while I manipulate my phone to catch a picture of it), I urge her on. Although Audrey has acquired some of her most treasured possessions in this manner, she covets nothing here.

We pass the sign placed among the rose bushes in front of da Vinci Arts Middle School. None left anyway.

This is so cool! I have a dog that almost completely matches the sidewalk. Or is she really a chameleon? Or as my friend Marie suggests, "Urban camouflage!"


 I ask a young man with thinning reddish hair heading in the direction this sign is pointing. It turns out that just about half an hour from now, the curtain will rise on a da Vinci Arts Middle School student production of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed. I would have loved to have seen that!  "It's playing the weekend and the next one, too," he adds. 


Lo and behold!


da Vinci Drama Presents

A Midsummer Night's Dream 

November 5th,6th,12th and 13th at 4:30 PM

November 7th and 14th at 2:00 PM

 

  Enough of that. Time to get back down to business! Either Audrey's delusional or there are critters down there and everywhere there's a sewer grate. And that's practically every other block!

Damn! I can never get her tail to stay still. I let her hover here a little longer than usual. Obviously, she finds it exhilarating. She might have stayed here all night, but it was time to move on and turn down  NE 28th Avenue and onto NE Burnside Street to circle back home.
On Burnside, Audrey greets a small dog wearing a gray sweater with a fin-shaped protrusion unsuccessfully trying to rise from the middle of his back. Turns out, it is a shark sweater. The male Chihuahua/Dachshund  cross has the improbable name of "Garbo." The young woman on the end of the leash is named Tami. We chat for about 10 minutes about dogs, dog food, the local dog boutiques and other vendors of goods that tempt overindulgent dog "parents." 

After turning the corner of 22nd and Burnside, we see this odd-looking warning on the women's (vintage) clothing store that occupies the space that used to belong to Meat For Cats and Dogs, the neighborhood holistic pet store, which we skip today. Audrey really gets manic in that place. Wouldn't you, too, with the prospect of getting treated to a raw dried organic chicken or duck foot?

 

We pass The Standard (our Neighborhood Bar) as we head home for a dinner of raw organic turkey and vegetables. Already, it is getting dark. Goodnight.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Playing Catch-Up After Too-Long "Sabbatical"



Audrey (Scotch Broom To The Manor Born, JA, RATN, CA) all grown up! She's a FREEGAN. But saving that for another time. . .
This should have been posted five and a half years ago. These pictures are THAT OLD! Not only that, I need to go through this whole site to update. But for now, here's the first of about 100 posts from July 2010 until today. To date, Audrey has earned three performance titles. More on that and a lot more soon.

Audrey a Cairn terrier puppy from Scotch Broom Kennels on beautiful Lopez Island-- one of the San Juan Islands-- in Washington State. She was bred by Carol Onstad to whom I am ever-grateful for letting Audrey come live with me! Without a doubt, she was the best gift I have ever received! Her mother, Scotch Broom Angelica (aka "Angie") was one of seventeen puppies in just two litters by my Geordie (CH.Joywood's Geordie for Magadog, CGC, CD, ME) and Carol and Rudy's Spicey (CH.Scotch Broom Braemar Spicey). All seventeen were named after herbs, spices, and other condiments. Spicey's co-breeders were Carol and Pauli Christy, at the time both Floridians. Audrey's father is CH. Braemarscotchbroom Midshipman aka "Salty."

I was partial to the name "Audrey," and I sought an appropriate registered name to match. I was initially drawn to Scotch Broom As You Like It as a possibility.  There is a minor character in that play with one line that starts, “I am not a slut. . .” And from an early age, my soon-to-be puppy-daughter certainly appeared to be a camera whore. But subsequently, I decided that she would be Scotch Broom To The Manor Born, after a Brit-com of that name (minus the "Scotch Broom") whose protagonist was Audrey fforbes-Hamilton, played by (now she's DAME) Penelope Keith. It also offered some ironic humor to the rather humble apartment complex in Oregon City, where I was living at the time, the name of which I will leave to your imagination.

She is almost the same color as her grandpa, my beautiful Geordie, a "gray brindle," She is technically a "cream brindle"-- with a few more warm tones than he had. My darling Maggie, a "red brindle" was her great aunt. All three with black masks and points. I am seriously smitten. Again.

 
Pictures below by Carol Onstad and Bette Shuh, when Carol (and her late, wonderful husband, Rudy) still lived on Lopez Island.


 Audrey at home at "The Manor," the apartment complex where I lived for a couple of years. (It's almost on the other side of the classy-spectrum from 115 Central Park West, for example.)




On the left-- with one of her sisters at their birthplace on Lopez Island, Washington



 Another baby picture. . . jaunty little thing, n'est-ce que pas?
With her five sisters and one brother.

 Tenacious tiny terrier @ her birthplace
 Enjoying dinner with her clan at Carol and Rudy Onstad's home. Audz is the one with the tail that points to the bottom right of this picture.
Incredulous when I first saw this one. Carol insists that this brood ALWAYS divided themselves up according to coat color. A friendly competition. A bit reminiscent of "color war" (or "teamweek," as they called it at Camp Winnetaska in beautiul Holderness, New Hampshire.)
With Carol where we rendezvous-ed at the Columbia River Cairn Terrier Club's inaugural specialty show and banquet.
Initial bonding with my new "daughter" @ the Red Lion on the Columbia River in Portland.

For the astrologically curious, here is Audrey's astrological birth chart. She's a Taurus with a Sagittarius Moon and an Aquarius Ascendant.

That is all for today. It's getting late. But I'll be back.