Today is our younger dog, Satori’s 2nd birthday !. guess that makes her 14.. same as Gabe.. !   She’s the one on the left.. shes a Labradoodle-doodle.. A lab/poodle crossed with a poodle.. She’s got the personality of a teenage girl.. I think..

.   I  The girls celebrated by getting their winter haircuts. As counter intuitive as it may seem. we need to keep their coats a little shorter in the winter because they get so much snow and ice stuck in their fur when we’re out running/walking/snowshoeing

Here’s Satori with her Fall ‘fro

And older ‘sister’ Chai looking a little wooly-mamothy

I couldn’t get the girls to pose for an after haircut shot.. but you get the idea.. they look  so diffent. I’m not used to seeing Satori’s eyes !

Granddog Reptar, he’s maxs aprtment dog up visiting from NYC…  idn’t seem to mind the lady’s new ‘Dos

Diane whopped up a birthday surprise for all the dogs.. Steak !.. Not something you usually see in a household of mostly vegetarians. 

She doled out some for each of the dogs.. The birthday girl. Satori, bg sister Chai, grand-dog Reptar.. and a Wicker, our friend Dan’s dog.. the smell of meat had them all in a frenzy !

Diane put the bowls done and the stuf was g-o-n-e in a flash.

This is Wicker

It was fun having a party for Satori. These dogs have brought so much love into our lives, it’s nice to thank them..

Please give our best wishes to all of your dogs….

Arf, arf folks,
Arf Sam
-me

Gentle reader.. I did it again.. it’s 1.:30 in the morning and I’m just sitting down to blog.. A sI sat, I realized that my first meeting of the moring is 6AM .. (ugh).   That’s what you get when your work friends are in weird corners of the globe.    Still.. I can’t complain.. I like the projects I have going now..

   It was actually fun being back in the office today after working at home for a week and a half.  My plants were definitely happy to see me.. they looked more dehydrated than we were on the colony.    One thing I was excited to do today as to install one of my cool xmas gifts.. Gabe and Diane had found me these cool inserts that convert your yucky ald florescent light bezels into nice pictures of the sky.. I had been looking for a way to brighten up my 40 year old ceiling.. I had to do some cutting and bending, but I got them in.. It’s a completely different room now.. instead of staring up at the ugly blue white lights.. I get a view.. albeit and illusionary view.. of the sky.

  Hey..Vishnu teaches us that  all things are illusion or Maya… .Since Sam’s passing  I’ve learned that things are not always quite what they seem.. the ordinary can be changed forever in a day.. or … the must extraordinary.. and difficult circumstances can somehow become commonplace and ordinary. Unbelievable..
     I gotta sleep.. now.. more coherent tomorrow.. .. or at least more tomorrow. Night folks, nite Sam

-me

ps. Here’s a quick sexine experiemnt that Max and I did tonight as we were working on my movie.. I thight it looked cool

greetimgs from my kindle. it’s my new best friend. if you don’t kmow what a kindle is .. you should ! its an electronicreader about the size of a book. its pretty amazingz. it can hold about 1000 books worth of text. it can read aloud… and it has a simple browserz. its good enough that i can use it to enter a blog post when im too lazy to get off the couch and look for my laptop.
hey… since this thing is .ade for readimg books… i should ask folks what they are reading. do you have a book that youd recommend to me ? diane says thqt i like long books where nothing happens. got any of those ? seriously .. im lookimg for recommendations.
well.. im goimg to hitit post and see if this works.
night folks
mite sam
-me

We spent last night ushering in the 2010 in a quite and low key way.. in fact.. I cannot remember spending a more quiet and peaceful nNew Years in my adult life. Gabe had about 8 friends over.. Our friends Victor and Patty dropped by.. but aside from that.. it was Diane and me on the couch reading our books.. trying to stay awake to see the new year. while Gabe and his friends sledded, hung out by the fire and ate…

Diane made them two kinds of fondue.. cheese and chocolate..  We sacrifised a circa 2006 xmas chocolate snowman to the fondue pot . We sat around chanting as he metled.. kinda cool and kinda creepy  (not really)

“help mee-eee-eeeeeeeee”

Then Gabe and Kristen had everyone  write their resolutions on tpieces of paper and then threow them in the fire…  Here’s are my 3..

– follow my true path (whatever that is)
– be open to the world (and whatever that brings me)
– manifest love and fun

It felt good toss them in the fire and watching them go up in smoke..

Miraculously, we managed to stay awake. At the stroke of midnight we were all in the barn.. we  all hugged and yelled and drank sparkling cider.

It was really warm and wonderful..    and always a little sad now..

After midnight I walked aroudn and talked ot soem of the Sam things in the house.. the stone,

the fridge…

Then I sat down and listened to my favorite rendition of Auld Lang Syne  (click here to hear it) ) it’s  supposed to to be closer to Burns original melody. I sat there and held a Samstone and listened to the song and found the tears I was looking for. ..

I looked up the words again . there are several versions. I found one that’s earlier than Burns.. by a Scottish poet named James Watson .. Pretty poigent when you read htem in our context….

James Watson (1711)

Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,

and never thought upon;

The flames of Love extinguished,

and fully past and gone:

Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold,

that loving Breast of thine;

That thou canst never once reflect

on Old long syne.

CHORUS:

On Old long syne my Jo,

in Old long syne,

That thou canst never once reflect,

on Old long syne.

My Heart is ravisht with delight,

when thee I think upon;

All Grief and Sorrow takes the flight,

and speedily is gone;

The bright resemblance of thy Face,

so fills this, Heart of mine;

That Force nor Fate can me displease,

for Old long syne.

CHORUS:

Since thoughts of thee doth banish grief,

when from thee I am gone;

will not thy presence yield relief,

to this sad Heart of mine:

Why doth thy presence me defeat,

with excellence divine?

Especially when I reflect

on Old long syne

CHORUS:

We ended the new years night the way we always do by choosing angel cards. Each card has a word to reflect on. I like t think it portends the coming year.. I got ‘delight’ ! .. I’ll aim for that !

We all woke late today.. and got right to work on all those Jan 1 kid of things. Diane did the bills while I reorganized all of our food containers.. THere’s something abotu new years day that wants us to restore order…

That done, we headed to Bristol while Gabe when up to Bolton.
Diane and I had a great visit and snow shoe with our good friends Priscilla and time a and their dog Stella.. Stella , Chai and Satori managed to find a frozen frog in the snow.. now what’s THAT mean for the year ?

The snow was really nice and packable.. it caked around Satori’s legs, giving her dense white boots.. we tried to help.. but it kept getting caked on.

Afterwords, Tim and I went o his shop. He’ helped me cut a snowboard in half for a project I’m doign with Gabe.. It’s a splitboard.. it’s a kit to build skis with skins to climb up a mountain, then a quick toggle and they lock together to make a snowboard.. What this space ot see how it comes out.

OK. that’s it for today..

practice writing 1/1/2010
do you say twenty ten ..
or two thosand ten ?

Whatever you say, g’nite
‘nite Sam
-me