Kickin' One Up, Old Skewl
Freeforall...
Miss Alice and I are going on our first trip, aside from going to the vets (where I always spend a fortune), off of our home front and crossing a state line to embark on our first real adventure. I did not let her get on the computer last weekend because I had unfinished business with a lengthy story that needed closure.
You can rest assured there will be a humdinger of an Alice diary entry once we get home. We will argue over the title and the content and negotiate over which pictures she will use in her next release.
I'm not sure which of us is more excited, but it occurred to me - thinking back to the good old days of old-school blogging - that I should put up a quick entry, take the next 48 hours off from the computer, and take everyone back in time to when we used to do a thing called "Open Mic" where anyone who might find themselves bored, or have some random thought cross their mind, on any random topic, that they feel like sharing with the rest of the community here in my little corner of the interwebs. I haven't seen it done on Substack, although that doesn't mean it hasn't been, but there are quite a few of you that subscribe, follow, and interact with this newsletter; I thought to myself, "self?" why the hell not?
Happy weekend, my people. I'm getting my first vacation in an incredibly long time. While I'm gone, feel free to comment here about literally anything you want. There is one rule, though, and it's a tough one.
There are no rules.
When I was a kid, we had a Lhasa Apso who was my constant pal.
In my memory, he was pretty well-behaved on our family trips.
He loved to hop through the snow, which we never got in Bay Area suburbs.
We encountered moderate snow in Portland, Oregon, where my mother’s family lived.
My grandparents had no pets but tolerated our dog when we came to visit. I don't remember seeing either of them petting him, but one night, we caught my grandfather giving Lhasa the rind off the smoked liverwurst. After that, Opa (born in Cologne, Germany) and Lhasa were friends.
One summer, while in summer school at El Portal (the county’s special ed school), I got to bring Lhasa to school for the day. It might have been the last day of the summer session because there was a barbeque, and Lhasa got a whole hamburger, which he was very excited about.
I have cats now, and they would just be traumatized by travel. But I miss them when I go walkabout.
I live in a throbbing Canadian messopolis...next week with my family we venture to the north country...a painting and a few words will surely ensue