dog tag

waterlove - Sonny

oh my yellowdog
you just don't know
how you're getting me through
the late great show

dedication page - Yellowdog Debra Marlin


the beach - Sonny & Lake

heaven

lazy afternoon

I've been tagged twice this week.

Tag No. 1 The Book Tag from Valerie at dogs of all things. Now the wonderful thing about blogs and tags is you can, if you choose, use them as a sort of jumping off place. You can create your own tag, you can change the rules, you can pretty much do anything you please. As I'm about to prove. I'm not tagging anyone specifically but anyone who'd like to play along - please do.

The rules for this first tag as stated on Valerie's blog are as follows
1. Grab the nearest book 2. Open to page 56 3. Find the 5th sentence 4. Post the text of the next 2-5 sentences and these rules. 5. Tag 5 Friends

I did not quite grab the nearest book in fact I was busy yesterday trying to encourage the latest greatest creative breakthrough muses to pay a visit and wasn't thinking at all about tags. I was standing at the bookcase rifling through my collection of design and ornament reference books when this book yellowdog literally leapt to my attention. A photo book of golden retrievers, and one that I had purchased long ago and soon after I began to think of my two Em & Jake as my own yellow dog + red dog. A book that I haven't looked at in at least 5 years and a book which, I realize after spending some time with it yesterday, has a completely different meaning to me now. Now that my yellow dog and my red dog are gone.

Page 56 is the photo titled Lazy Afternoon. It's a book of photos so the text is limited. I've chosen to change the rules and post the first paragraph from the introduction on page 18

I had on several previous occasions looked longingly at Sonny, wishing to drink him in with my eyes so that if he were to pass, I would not feel that I hadn't looked long enough at him. I had, after all, been able to cast my eyes upon beauty, and I wanted to store it. I had tried to absorb as much of him as I could. The fact that I had let him know at every turn of my love, and his importance to me, does not diminish the amount of emotion I feel in grieving but rather completes it.

Yellowdog - Debra Marlin the above 4 photos are from this beautiful book

I know exactly what she's saying ...

With Jake I used to lie on the bed and I'd smell the pads of his feet, the scent of corn husks, freshly mowed grass with a hint of roast chicken and I would tease him telling him he smelled just a little bit like roast chicken. It was our joke. He loved to have his neck rubbed and scratched and his belly and I would whisper to him while doing so. You need to live to be at least 16 'cause Mama can't live without ya.

I do this now with Miss Winnie D, it's a regular part of our bedtime routine, after she hops up and settles in her spot for the night. I lay my face against hers and I drink in everything about her. Her smell, the warmth of her body, her breath, the sweet sighing sound she makes if I pat her just the right way ... the way she looks at me. She's my dog and I'm her person. I love her so much. I try to burn these moments into my memory, and I'll keep them tucked away for later on when she's no longer here with me..




reddog + yellowdog - Jake & Emma Jane Louise

Tag No. 2 - The Photo Tag is from Cynthia at Oasis Writing Link - the rules - choose the 6th photo from the 6th folder and tell a story around it.

Well this photo folder business may be a PC thing. All my photos are stored in iphoto and I haven't been organized enough to sort them into folders. iphoto stores photos in rows, in my setup, of 7 photos across. These are the photos stored on my new computer which is roughly a year old. I chose the 6th photo from the 6th row ... and no surprise it's a photo of Miss Winnie Dixon.

Here's my girl avec red bandanna taking a break at the beach to pose for the photographer - a practice which she's become very skilled at. I love the little peek of her tongue, wetting her lips with a sigh. She's taking my picture ... again.


Miss D