Art, Poetry and Life

Here are my two beloved dogs who do the same.



Camie the Keeshond is the sweetest natured dog ever. Keeshonds are a stocky type dog (generally 38 to 45 lbs) and very furry. A few hundred years ago they were used for killing rats on barges. Camie, however, does not hunt or kill anything and is somewhat timid. Camie must be in whatever room I’m in. I got her from a rescue. Actually, I had gone to PetsMart to get bird seed and saw people from the rescue unloading dogs. I went over to the cages and started reading the tags on each cage and looking and talking to each dog. Camie, the name given to her by the rescue, was cowering in the back of the cage. I got on my knees to talk to her and she came up to the door of the cage and gave my fingers the tiniest little lick. That was it. I had a dog. I was told she was two years old when I got her and I’ve had her since August of 1999.




The black and tan one is a 15 lb Miniature Pinscher. She is my crooked little dog and her name is CJ Picasso. She is very independent and somewhat of a brat because she doesn’t always listen but I love her anyway. CJ was just a tiny 5lb puppy when my daughter saw her wandering around up in a small town in Northern Arizona. There were not many houses around but she went to a few and no one claimed it. My daughter then arrived at the place where she was visiting, the grandmother of a friend, and found out it belonged to a guy who’d been thrown in jail. The guy had given it to the grandmother who used a walker to get around and already had four dogs. She told my daughter to take the puppy cuz it would end up freezing to death outside or become a larger animal’s dinner. My daughter brought the puppy home to me in December of 1999. So then there were two.

Camie didn’t quite know what to do with this 5 lb. bundle of energy. CJ never stopped moving, running, pulling on Camie’s fur, tearing up shoes, emptying wastebaskets and tearing all the tissues into a million tiny pieces and sometimes eating them. I had to start putting all the wastebaskets in the sink and all my shoes up high until she got past that stage. Camie tolerated her for a few months until they got used to each other. I wish I had photos of all the times CJ would pull out tufts of gray fur from Camie. She’d stand there triumphant with gray fur hanging out of her mouth looking like Fu Man Chu.

Robert Cray is my favorite blues singer. There are others but he is the first blues singer where I just about melted into a puddle when I first heard him. I have a bunch of cassette tapes that I can't play in my car so will eventually get some CDs.

This is a great song. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gspgpKcu7Bo

Thanks Darko for your post on the blues. It got me listening to it all morning.

I just got it in today's mail! How cool is that? Way cool! Thank you Ze'!

Shortly I will leave for the airport to pick up one of my daughters. Tomorrow, the other daughter arrives with her husband. All are visiting to celebrate the marriage of my son, their brother, and to meet the newest member of our family who is from Vietnam. She and my son were officially married last Friday before a Justice of the Peace.

My time on Opera, for the next few days, will be limited to a few minutes in the mornings and late evening as we all will be very busy preparing for a party on Saturday.

Have a great next few days. I know I will.