I spotted online that Henrys Cameras was selling a Pentax DA 18-55 f3.5 lens not the new II version but the old version for $99, down from $199, so I grabbed one. I took it to the Simcoe County Museum to try it out on my dslr K10D and shot a bunch of photos of the old buildings and old vehicles on the site there.
Tonight I drove down and picked up Shakespeare’s ashes and brought him home for the last time. He was 10 years and seven months old. He came home the first time when he was 10 weeks old. He was a wonderful dog.
spent some time revisting the mess of wires for the tv, dvd/vhs unit, cable modem, wireless router, digital descrambler and a partridge in a pear tree….. the living room has become monumentally neater, still not perfect but 85 percent of the way to tidy
I have a lot of framed art I am just going to toss, they have mostly lost favour with me and with all the bookshelves not that many walls to hang art on remain open. besides I am tired of being stared at by wolves, bobcats, cougars, and foxes……tired of feeling like a slow moving member of the lunch herd.
It passes the time and manages to simulate accomplishment, this tidying sorting repertoire.
There is a huge gaping hole where Shakespeare the wonder dog used to be in our daily lives…on the first morning after his death I went for a walk in exactly the same way I did every day with him, then got in my car and drove to Penetang for my dialysis. It is raining again today and we are still periodically sobbing and crying.
I am glad I have dialysis otherwise I would be dead but until I get a fistula in my arm later this summer and then three months late I will switch from my chest tubes to the fistula in my arm for dialysis I cant go swimming. I really am upset I did not get to go swimming with Shakey this summer. He went in less often, mainly just wading around up to his chest on a few hot days. When he was younger he could really swim fast.
I always expected him to come out one day with a fish in his mouth.
Shakespeare, 1998-2009, he was 10 years and 7 months old, we had to put him down tonight, the tumour in his abdomen began to bleed and on the vet’s recommendation we put him down. I was holding him when he passed. my sister and I both cried our eyes out.
he was a wonderful dog, my best friend, now he is in heaven with his big sister, Diamond.
it was spooky, he got up in the living room after having layed there for several hours and walked through the kitchen to the back deck where he is in this shot, about a foot to the side from the exact spot where his sister last lay down the day she died.
last photo of Shakey shows him lying on the deck
taken about an hour before we put him down
he used to lie out here with his sister, Diamond and Sundance the cat, both gone as well. today he had slept for an hour or more on the deck as I sat with him and read a book.
he has bounced back, going for walks and even went wading in the lake yesterday
today we are hanging out in the shade on the back deck listening to the crows caw
It seems he has a tumour and we are going to lose him. He is 10 years and 7 months old. We got the word today at the vets. Not sure what treatment we are going to pursue. He became weak today and we got him loaded with some help into the car and took him to the vet. After a bit he got stronger and after blood work and two xrays the vet showed us the tumour. A tumour on the spleen killed his big sister, Diamond, in March of 2006. She was just 9 years and two months old. We are extremely upset. He has been a wonderful, sweet dog.
watched two flicks yesterday while I did my dialysis run: Gran Torino and The Caller. Clint’s movie was wonderful, a truly great movie, the second with Frank Langella and Elliott Gould was a very interesting slow speed thriller which somehow didn’t quite catch fire but was still a fine treat. Through my local library and interlibrary loan I borrowed the VHS tapes for John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and watched the whole thing yesterday. Alec Guiness was reportedly very anxious about his performance and asked to be replaced partway through the shoot. He was perfect as George Smiley.
Rented two dvds on the weekend, Che and The International. The International is a complicated but introguing thriller with Clive Owen and Naomi Watts. Che is a movie like no other I have ever seen. Not sure the flashbacks to the revolutionary struggle mixed with che’s visit to NYC in 1964 works to an advantage. Any fan of Benicio Del Toro will find the film a worthwhile exploration. Bookwise, I finished Sea of Thunder by Evan Thomas (2006) a detailed study of the Pacific War with special attention to the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Thomas looks in depth at the Japanese commanders. When I checked the mail today I found a book shipment from Amazon.ca – Selected Chaff: The Wartime Columns of Al McIntosh. of the Rock County Star Herald. I found him through the PBS Ken Burns series The War. I am looking forward to reading this.
I ventured to the open mic poetry event over in Penetang tonight. thirteen souls showed up, and I read a few poems: “smoothing it down”. “Shiloh National Cemetery”, “For Shirley” and “Carried” and “temporarily paradised”, and “Something I Heard in Your Voice”. The room was warm, as was the group. Lots of interesting readers and we did a couple of group poetry exercises. A fun literary evening.
Bluetyger - William J. Gibson's Notebook 