my beloved beet

Backlit Archie

Morning

Evening

“Circus Dogs”

This painting hung in my mom and dad’s house for 60 years or more. Now it’s my sister’s. Artist unknown. I love it. 🐶

Handsome Fellow

Chili Dog Day

Noice, Abe

Hard to imagine a sweeter time than the Sunday afternoon between Christmas and New Year listening to “My Bar’s Jukebox” and enjoying local IPAs in the backyard on a sunny 67(F)-degree day with my associate.

Grade-A stocking stuffer

Two-dog Christmas

What a Sweetheart

Archie

Pub Name

If I ever open a pub, “The Dog and Water” might be in the running for a name. 🐶

. “Ya' comin?”

.

More sweet life.

🐶

Early Maggie (and early kids):

Late Maggie:

1. Archie.
2. My leg.

📷

Things I Really Like: an Ongoing List

• Birdsong
• Tottenham Hotspur Football Club
• Archie
  
• Tamales
• Black licorice
• Woodsmoke
• Good Table Talk (more often, actually, Bar Talk)
• a Ploughman's Lunch in a pub's garden
• a 5:1 Martini, with a dash of orange bitters and 3 olives
• Wind Chimes
• Telephone calls with my out-of-town kids
• Tacos with my in-town kid (and kid-in-law)
• Resident Taqueria
• Heat
• Daffodils
• Steel-cut oatmeal and a soft-boiled egg

Wet things smell stronger,
and I suppose his main regret is that
he can sniff just one at a time.
In a frenzy of delight
he runs way up the sandy road—
scored by freshets after five days
of rain. Every pebble gleams, every leaf. 

When I whistle he halts abruptly
and steps in a circle,
swings his extravagant tail.
The he rolls and rubs his muzzle
in a particular place, while the drizzle
falls without cease, and Queen Anne’s lace
and Goldenrod bend low.

The top of the logging road stands open
and light. Another day, before
hunting starts, we’ll see how far it goes,
leaving word first at home.
The footing is ambiguous.

Soaked and muddy, the dog drops,
panting, and looks up with what amounts
to a grin. It’s so good to be uphill with him,
nicely winded, and looking down on the pond.

A sound commences in my left ear
like the sound of the sea in a shell;
a downward, vertiginous drag comes with it.
Time to head home. I wait
until we’re nearly out to the main road
to put him back on the leash, and he
—the designated optimist—
imagines to the end that he is free.

🐶

Andy Rooney?

Archie’s binky. 🐶📷

🐶 📷