soeurs du jour

side tracked

photography excites me and disappoints me at the same time.  i go out each day and visit your blogs, i look at your photos, i look at mine, and i think, mmm??  why them and not me? i want to grow and progress and expand and develop and learn, you get my drift. i also want to finish reading doris lessing's the golden notebook but time interrupts my reading as well as my photography. i am enjoying this book for two reasons, the soul searching it inspires and, truthfully, the challenge of reading it. very smart that doris lessing. 

Mrs. Lessing says: 

'About five years ago I found myself thinking about that novel which most writers now are tempted to write at some time or another - about the problems of a writer, about the artistic sensibility. I saw no point in writing this again: it has been done too often; it has been one of the major themes of the novel in our time. Yet, having decided not to write it, I continued to think about it, and about the reasons why artists now have to combat various kinds of narcissism. I found that, if it were to be written at all, the subject should be, not a practising artist, but an artist with some kind of a block which prevented him or her from creating. In describing the reasons for the block, I would also be making the criticisms I wanted to make about our society. I would be describing a disgust and self-division which afflicts people now, and not only artists." 

so today, just like my friend robin, i was up early, had the two cups of coffee, did my hair, packed up the dog and the camera and set out to take the photo to end all photos.  my cell phone rang, it was charley's good friend.  "hi bubby".  

i didn't miss a beat, i said "get your shoes on, charley and i are coming to pick you up, we'll go for a walk and take pictures".  the photo shoot to end all photo shoots had certainly ended, rather abruptly and all of a sudden the day was side tracked, and i was turning down the grandmother path.  he climbed into the car, water bottle and bag of trail mix in hand, and off we went.

he and charley pretty much ignore me when we walk.  they run ahead, they run back, they fall down.  One friend throws the stick, the other brings it back; the boy laughs, the dog wags her tail.
     

the two of them have been close for a long time.  they love a little out of town time together so they can go fishing.

the two little friends were playing and running and i was just preparing to focus very hard, both mentally and manually with the camera when this face jumped in front of the lens, scared me and i accidentally took the picture.  i laughed, it was in focus and cute and i had no idea how or why it turned out as well as it did!

and the moral of my little story, sometimes the best photos are the ones you least expect.  i will always look at this funny little head shot and remember this day.  it was a photo to end all photos.  i will get there, i will take better and better shots all the time, i expect that in due course i will finish the golden notebook.  maybe this funny little head shot was in focus for a reason, to help me unblock my artistic sensibility and focus.   

xo

margie

charley brown

no one loves the cottage more than charley.  

a chocolate lab and a lake, a match made in heaven.

she loves to fetch a stick or play hide and go seek.

or just hang on the beach with her best friend molly.

or pose for a photo shoot, my charley dog.  

remember charley is half boy half girl! 

that's why she has that rugged, yet feminine look about her.

greetings from the haliburton highlands.

margie

a cool thing for charley

 I just found this via mightyhaus.

I think she might need this, for going to the cottage.

i hijacked this post from kath, it was one of her draft posts sitting waiting for some beef.  i had not asked her where she was going with this, we usually do "blotting", my new code word for plotting the blog, together, but not this one.

charley is actually a very low maintenance dog. we have a busy home, and pretty often someone will yell "has charley even eaten?"  don't worry, she does not starve, is not neglected, she just knows how to wait her turn.  she goes with the flow, she reacts with each individual in the best possible way to guarantee the love.  and she loves a road trip!

one of my sons is not so much for the dogs.  he is a wonderful father, plays endlessly with his kids, but charley and he are standoffish. until last week. this son, also known as blind as a bat son, lost his glasses at our house.  i looked, he looked, not to be found.  two days later charley wandered up to me with the glasses hanging out of her mouth, unbroken.  i called the son who was needless to say thrilled.  

son came over almost immediately and as he walked in the door, in a very quiet voice, i heard him say, "thanks charley" and i swear i heard charley say "no problem bro".   i caught this photo of them sitting at the end of the dock, beside each other.  ya never can tell.

meanwhile kath, if you are cruising the retail outlet known as the internet, charley is collarless.  her collar has had too many dips in the lake and has ended up banned from the house.  smells musty, bad musty.

if you are really good, you can come and attend one of charley's panting tutorials.

charley the chocolate lab

i never loved a dog.  i have had many dogs during my short 55 years, good dogs, bad dogs, but i never actually loved any of them.  oh i was nice enough, and the kids loved them, and my late husband, the bear, loved them but i never loved them.  don't tell the sister but i never even loved her dog chester, of blessed memory, even though i referred to him as my nephew.   

and then there was Charley.  Charley is a long story and i will begin with the beginning because that always works for me.  i want everyone to stop right now and realize with me that for the first time i used a capital.  by mistake.  or maybe a freudian slip.  is charley the only one who in my mind's eye deserves a capital.  it's possible.  

suffice to say that we needed a dog simply because our home was empty without one.   as a. said, who doesn't love a puppy.  it was a quick decision ending with a road trip to nowhere, to a breeder, home with a puppy wrapped in a towel.  love at first sight, not so much for me, but for everyone else.  my youngest son named her charley.

the very first day we walked this little dog at the dog park my business partner called and begged me to come to her father's home and have my fortune told by a fortune teller.  she said this several times, "a real fortune teller".  

the actual telling of my fortune was astonishing, this woman was very accurate.  near the end she looked at me and said who is charley?  my puppy.  odd, she said, i don't usually see animals but this is something different.  this dog, she said, is very different, she is your guardian angel, you must try and keep her with you at all times.  she kept shaking her head, telling me she couldn't see what it was but this was a very different, very special dog.

being responsible dog owners we took charley early one morning to be spayed.  several hours later the vet called with a post operative report, charley was fine.  why does she have a boy's name? the vet asked.  oh my teenage son didn't want her to have a girl name, simple as that. well it turns out the name was more than just a little appropriate.  charley is a hermaphrodite. that's right, a boychick, half boy and half girl on the inside, girl on the outside.  

this news was greeted with shock, disbelief, and finally laughter.  it was not viewed as a flaw by the kids, more like a bonus.  two for the money as they say.

she seemed smart enough, she learned the tricks of the trade very quickly.  a good dog needs to understand how to please each individual in the home, and even visitors to the home.  she was such a wonderful addition to my life in particular

charley and i slowly attached to each other like something, i don't exactly know what, i had never loved a dog before.  a conversation with an elderly aboriginal woman led to the discussion of hermaphrodite dogs.  she was astounded to hear that charley was such a dog and she proceeded to tell me that in aboriginal folklore these dogs were thought to have two souls and as a result were able to travel back and forth between this world and the afterlife.

and so, on july 14 last year, charley touched me all night long.  i was alone and having a stroke, she kept her head on me the entire night, she put herself between me and the stairs as i stumbled to the washroom so that i wouldn't fall.  

since that night, if i wake up for any reason, she gets up and immediately comes to see if i am okay.  she will stand beside me, her head resting on the side of the bed until i fall asleep.  i am vaguely aware of her going back to her dog bed.  if i go to the washroom she follows me, sitting in front of me, staring, waiting to make sure that i am okay.  my guardian angel. 

tomorrow i am having a little heart surgery.

so charley, just in case i need you, be ready to leave on a dime.  xoxo

 

 

 

Edited by Kath:  

At 12:52 I received this email:  "I qm done. Fine. ALl ok. Ghroggy. Xo"

All I can say is, "good dog, Charley, good dog."