Idle Minutes

Cats Enjoy Christmas Too

20-Dec-07

I don’t own a cat…

But I know how they think.

Filed in Animals, Cartoons, Christmas Postcards, Pets | | Comments (2) »

Product of Purposeless Puttering

18-Dec-07

There are times when you just don’t know what to say.
There are times when you don’t know what to do.
There are times when you don’t know what to post.
This is one of those times.

So I thought it might be constructive to post a product of purposeless puttering for those readers that are prone to draw, paint, or otherwise create. As you are keenly aware it is not easy to purposelessly putter. Especially when you are attempting to get the mind NOT to purposelessly putter.

I purposelessly puttered on this for about two hours I’m sorry to say.

Purposeless puttering is a polite way of saying “I don’t give a rat’s hiney how this turns out.”

Someone coined the phrase “Plan your work and work your plan”.
That will prevent purposeless puttering…provided you feel like working.
If you don’t feel like working…purposeless puttering is about the best you can do besides sleeping.

And so it is. I have purposelessly puttered.

In the immortal words of Scarlett o’Hara…”Tomorrow IS another day”.

Filed in Passing Time, Sketching and Drawing | | Comments (0) »

Birthday Leisure Tip

11-Dec-07

Rosie and her modified scratchy-rolly maneuver

As I mentioned in the last post, Rosie had a birthday this past Monday the 10th.
She’s thirteen. That’s uh, ninety-one in human years.

I hope I’m still able to bark as loud as she does when I’m ninety-one.
I also hope I’m still able to chase squirrels,
or at least be annoyed enough to bark at them like she does.
And I hope I’m still able to do the scratchy-rolly maneuver.

What exactly IS the scratchy-rolly maneuver?
She begins by pushing the side of her head into the carpet while walking forward (corgis are quite short legged), then flops the trailing end of her long body over on her back and begins to roll slightly back and forth. Coinciding with this rolly movement is a repeating left-right-left bending of her torso. All of this rolling and bending is done while still on her back and is set to the lyrical groans and noises unique to Welsh Corgis.

This typically goes on for thirty seconds to a minute with a one or two second pause here and there for a light sneeze (also while still on her back). Then she pops up on all fours, sort of freezes in position with a blank stare, and suddenly gives a good hard head shaking sneeze. Lastly, a good shaking from head to rump.

Maneuver completed. Time to do something else. Woofing, barking, racing ’round the couch, or simply going to the bedroom and curling up on the bed…again.

Birthday Modification…
On her birthday, around mid-morning, she performed the standard scratchy-rolly maneuver with one small modification. Instead of popping up and producing the final sneeze and full body shake, she remained on her back…and fell asleep.

What we see here is the modified scratchy-rolly maneuver.

I find this to be an ideal modification for one to make on their birthday scratchy-rolly maneuvers and I intend to incorporate it into my own birthday fun in April.

I learn something from Rosie almost daily.

Filed in Animals, Pets, Stories, The Book of Rosie | | Comments (9) »

Rosie Wants a Head Rub

08-Dec-07

It has been a while since I posted. It’s time I got back at it so here’s a good start.

This is my little dog Rosie. She is a Welsh Corgi. She’ll be thirteen years old on Monday and though she sleeps a lot, she is still quite playful and agile. She is more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

I use a laptop computer. Most mornings I sit down to check my email.
I sit in a chair with my feet upon an ottoman and the laptop on my…um…lap.

Unfailingly, Rosie will quietly toddle over to me and stop under my legs where they create a bridge to the ottoman. She then makes a grumpy little puff from her flues (the corners of her mouth).

I ignore this.

Without moving she puffs a bit louder.

I move the laptop down to my shins, bend my knees apart, and reveal the endearing scene we see here.

With a slight smile I can never restrain, I say “what do YOU want?”

Again without moving or batting an eye, she replies with another, still louder, grumpy puff.

Then I rub her ol’ noggin with both hands, wiggle her big ol’ ears back and forth, bend over and kiss her on the head, and get a double lick on the nose in return.

Having successfully exercised control over her so called “Master”, she toddles off to the bedroom and curls up on the bed for a few hours of napping.

I can’t tell you how many laughs and snickers I’ve had watching this little dog for thirteen years.

I decided to start a sketchbook called the Book of Rosie. This is the first sketch in the book. I’ll post them as I sketch them.

Rosie will be anxious to hear your comments.

Filed in Animals, Pets, Stories, The Book of Rosie | | Comments (7) »

Rose Hips

21-Sep-07

Sorry for the delay in posting. I got tied up in regular life for a bit. Now to resume the travel sketches from Maine…

Everywhere we went in Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park there seemed to be these shrubs with little red thingys on them. I would say they look like itty-bitty tomatoes.

My dear wife enlightened me. They were Rose Hips.

“Why do they call them hips dear?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they look like hips.”
“Good answer dear. I have no idea what you mean by that.”
“Me neither.”

That was the limited discussion we had on the matter. Even so, I was somehow captivated by the little stinkers and decided to sketch them. These were at Thunder Hole, which is a place on the rocky coast where the waves crash into a large pocket in the rocks and create, well, a thunderous noise…I suppose. The tide was out and no thunder was being produced.

Even so, it seemed a place where shrubs of any type might not have an easy life.

With no thunder in the making, I began to observe the effort undertaken by the Park Service to produce the long concrete stairway, worked right into the rocky landscape, right down to the hole itself, complete with a nice viewing deck.

One would no doubt get drenched standing on that deck when thunder production is taking place.

The stairway had a very nice stainless steel railing all the way around it. Very expensive and not the first one, as sawn off rusty nubs of steel posts sat grouted in the rocks beside the existing railing. Evidence of previously failed design and installation.

I admired the effort because with the harsh environment of the salt water and air, even the stainless steel railing suffers from rust and broken welds. In other words, the whole thing was a real design challenge in the first place and remains a maintenance challenge even with the use of stainless steel. But the Park Service thought we citizens would enjoy the ability to get right down on top of such a natural experience and took up the challenge. A fine job they did and still do. You and I would not otherwise be able to safely view and experience first hand “the thunder”. It’s a good thing…and educational thing…and enlightening thing, to get that close to harsh, secret places in nature.

I suppose I should have sketched the stairway, considering all the effort that went into its creation.

But the Rose Hips…they set footing there at Thunder Hole without the aide of the Park Service. They were alive and stable in the same tough environment that the stainless steel was having trouble with. I wished to myself, as I studied them up close along the stair walk, that I was as tough as them. And yet still somehow able to be…rosy.

So I sketched them.

Filed in Everyday Objects, National Parks, Nature, Stories, Travel Sketches | | Comments (12) »

My First Award

17-Sep-07

A little interlude post between my travel sketches from Maine, which will continue tomorrow.

I’ve won an award! YeeHaaaaaaaw! It’s the Best Kept Secret Award which is given to blogs which are considered, well, best kept secrets. You can click the award to see the other recipients and learn a bit more.

I’m one of the first recipients and honored that Bob over at www.bobbarama.com was so considerate.

Bob runs a blog carnival to which I submitted one of my humor stories a while back. Blog carnivals are a great way to get one’s blog content noticed by more readers. You submit a post to the carnival host. If approved, a link to your post is placed in the weekly carnival of links in the carnival host’s blog. There are carnivals for practically any category you can think of. Some are weekly, some are monthly.

Bob’s blog is the host blog for his humor carnival. There are always plenty of good humor links in each of his carnivals, so check out his blog for details.

Filed in Awards | | Comments (0) »

Acadia National Park, Sand Beach

13-Sep-07

Acadia National Park, like all our National Parks, is a truly beautiful place. Perhaps the rocky coast is the most enjoyable for me. There is just so much character in the cliffs where the land meets the sea.

This particular little spot was called Sand Beach. It is exactly that. It sits in a cove between where the sea comes to meet the rocky cliffs on either side. It’s a crescent shaped semi-circle of coarse sand, cozy but roomy enough to wander.

And wander we did. We were the only beings there on a September Thursday evening just before dusk, except for some seagulls. In the sand was an endless tapestry of seagull foot prints in all directions as far as I walked. Seagulls I take it, like to walk on the beach.

My wife explored and I explored, each sort of wandering on our own and taking in the serenity of it all. It’s one of those places you don’t want to leave.

The waves make the kind of noise that sets your mind at rest when they crash to the shore. Loud but gentle. Predictable. Dependable. Watching a wave come to shore, from its first noticeable whitecap, building to its abrupt crash with the land, to its then thin coating of water slipping up the sand beach, sliding forward fast, then slowing, creeping further, a little, a little more…then retreating back to the sea, energy depleted, momentum lost, is a mesmerizing thing.

There is something eternal about it. Peaceful.

I wonder sometimes if the original inhabitants of this land ever came to places like this and just sat, all alone, thinking and contemplating…you know, a couple thousand years ago. On this side of the world there wasn’t much to think about back then perhaps. But I bet if they knew it was here, they came…and they sat and they felt the peace.