Today was Henry's 5th birthday. He woke up early to bark at the pest control guy, then took a nap till after noon, had some of Mom's rotisserie chicken, visited with friends, went for a walk of his chosen direction and duration (that was my present to him; I tend to get impatient with all the mailbox sniffing), and had a nice desert licking the peanut butter off my PBJ knife. When they say it's a dog's life, I assume this is what they 're talking about.

Also today, while Mom and I were out on the patio with the poodles, Henry heard Audrey inside bark once asking to join us, so he took it upon himself to walk back to the kitchen door, which is held shut with a spring, and lean on it just enough that Audrey could get out. Then he calmy went back to lounging around the yard with Louis. That's why we often call him "The Good One." He knows what he is.

Fun fact: as a puppy, he was called Shakespeare. If I'd known that when I took him in, I'd still be calling him that. It fits.

Another fact I learned about him last week (from his foster mother) was that he had been adopted out to more families than I had been led to believe before he came to me at six months. He disliked one of them so much, he walked home to his foster family the next day. That doesn't surprise me. He's a very bright and confident boy, and I'm very pleased he has chosen to stick with me for four and a half years.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Permalink | Tags: audrey birthdays dogs henry holidays louis poodles

Yes, it's been days since my last post, and this blog may have seemed dead. But that's just how I'm celebrating Easter this year.

Speaking of not-dead guys, the local Catholic Church has had a crucifix on its front lawn this year with a Jesus that looks like he was carved by a chainsaw. The folk art approach doesn't bother me. I don't know what Jesus would think of it. I suspect that as a carpenter, he'd probably be pretty impressed by chainsaws.

On the other hand, he probably wouldn't be too happy that people are so into seeing him hung up. The Catholic list of 10 Commandments conveniently omits that whole "graven images" restriction -- they love their icons! -- but Jesus was a Jew, so he might have a different opinion about Exodus 20:4.

What does bother me a little is that the statue has a very well defined set of washboard abs. I'm sure the historic Jesus had low body fat (although infinite fishes, loaves, and wine didn't do Dionysus any favors), but could he really have looked like Mark Wahlberg in a Calvin Klein ad? I hadn't thought so, but now I'm reconsidering. Jesus was a wise guy, and a thirst trap certainly would have helped attract eyeballs to his newfangled religion. It's a whole lot easier to love your neighbor when he's beautiful. (That's why even Catholics agree about keeping your hands off your neighbor's spouse.)

Hmm. Maybe those clever Catholics are right. A cut wooden Jesus just might be a good idea. Not only does it have me now rethinking my religion, I'm also inspired to cut back on my own intake of waistline-expanding Easter candy. Jesus saves!

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Permalink | Tags: easter holidays

I was recently gifted several issues (Volume CXLV, Numbers 3-6) of The Saguache Crescent, the newspaper of record for Saguache, Colorado, for 145 years and counting. (Still just 35¢! Cheap!) It has a delightful engraved, four-column masthead of the sort they just don't make anymore.

I've been told that natives (by which I mean the descendants of white settlers who now populate the region) pronounce "Saguache" much the same as I pronounced the name of the ubiquitous Swiss wristwatch of my 1980s childhood: Sa-watch. Wikipedia says there's a bit of confusion about what exactly the word means in the original Ute language. It's either "sand dune," "green place," "blue earth," or "blue water." Maybe all of the above? In any event, it sounds like a nice place. No wonder people have been writing and reading about it for so long.

Wikipedia also alerted me to the fact that The Saguache Crescent is the only known newspaper in the world still printed on a 19th-century Linotype machine, something that's pretty obvious when you have one in your hand. Back before you watched the news on your phones, kids, they used a keyboard to assemble physical letter molds into lines that became the printing slugs that were inked and applied to paper. Because the final slugs were a single block of lead, typos—which might have been your fault but just as easily could have been the fault of a finicky machine, something no computer will ever admit to—were forever. It's charming in hindsight.

Once you go looking, you'll find plenty of web articles explaining that The Saguache Crescent is run by one man, "DEAN I. COOMBS, Publisher," as a labor of love. He prints one paper a week for his modern community of about 500 people, obviously reusing slugs as often as possible. All of which explains why all four editions of the paper in front of me contain the same misspelled headline:

"VD Love Lettesrs at the saguache public library."

And I know I'm old-fashioned, but I'm going to blame the lingering nostalgia inspired by this Old West newspaper for causing me to wonder why in the world the Saguache, Colorado, public library is getting love letters from Venereal Disease.

Comments (1) | Leave a Comment | Permalink | Tags: holidays news saguache valentines day

I'm starting to feel like a broken record, but the coming year has got to be better than the last, right?

The legacy of 2025 will be that of a time of transition. I have lived through the coming of cable television and the Internet and social media and smart phones and now AI and the loss of newspapers. More than ever, it feels like the billionaire-run corporations own us, body and soul. It certainly doesn't help that the elected head of our government, the man who is supposed to be a champion of the people, is shattering every cultural and economic norm he can reach.

Take heart that there are a lot of us feeling fed up right now. And, as always, the voices of history can provide some guidance in these troubling times:

Someday, somebody's gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye. Until then, baby, are you going to let 'em hold you down and make you cry? Don't you know? Don't you know, things can change? Things will go your way if you hold on for one more day.

Can you hold on?

Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Permalink | Tags: hold on holidays music new years wilson phillips

In an apt metaphor for America in 2025,¹ I'm ending the year trying to find a bandage that will stick and cover the self-inflicted wound to my scrotum.²

¹ You know what I mean. I have actively tried to avoid posting about current events this year because I've been trying to keep my attention on things that don't make me miserable. The results have been mixed. I've been through four 1.75 liter bottles of Kaluha.

² It's not what you think, unless you think I intentionally stabbed myself with a pointy object. I nicked a tiny skin tag with scissors. Maybe I *should* shave; band-aids would adhere better.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Permalink | Tags: fuck you america holidays new years walter

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Permalink | Tags: comic strip havanese strip holidays new years poodle strip

One last word on this Christmas season: this year, I attended a 2025 community theater loose adaptation of A Christmas Carol as a play, watched the 1938 MGM film version on TCM, and then read Charles Dickens' original 1843 book on Project Gutenberg to check how the others deviate.

137/2569. A Christmas Carol (1938)

Mostly, the key differences are the heavier emphasis on Bob Cratchit and Fred and the costume design of the spirits, but also the visual adaptations tend to leave out Scrooge meeting his own corpse. (The Ghost of Christmas Future goes hard.) These days, corpses aren't very Christmas-y.

I have never cared for Scrooge's abrupt change of heart, but Dickens clearly isn't much interested in how Scrooge became a miser or why he suddenly gave a shit about Tiny Tim so much as he's selling that kindness and charity are the only way for a society to become a community. "Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset." I do not personally enjoy the Christmas season, but I don't think Dickens is wrong.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Permalink | Tags: christmas holidays literature movies

I think between all the cinnamon rolls, donuts, candy, hot chocolate, ham, mashed potatoes, and pie, I gave myself the gift of an extra 10 pounds for Christmas.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Permalink | Tags: christmas holidays walter

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Permalink | Tags: christmas comic strip havanese strip holidays poodle strip

I finally found a Christmas ornament I want.

Not to hang on a tree, mind you. There is no tree. There's never a tree. No, that one just needs to sit on my desk below my monitor where I can look at it often, nod, and sigh.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Permalink | Tags: christmas holidays internet