The Official Story of Carmelita Linda and the Big no so Easy

She's a mutt, a Basenji hound mix. She looks like a little like a pit-bull terrier cause an idiot cropped her ears, but she is more hound than terrier; she's very slight, has a very long neck and her ribs are well-sprung. Also, she has webbed feet which may indicate retriever. She's about 35 pounds, approx 1 1/2 years old, has one blue eye and one amber. Her coat is short, smooth and ticked, like a miniature Great Dane. Where her ears used to be is soft and fine.
She's a Katrina rescue, from New Orleans where she swam, floated on flotsam, ran with a pack, had a mate ( who was adopted too) and was pregnant and with twelve puppies when they found her. Sadly, she was starving so her puppies had to be taken by surgery. She has been socialized and living in a rescue home for six months in NYC, part of the Companion Animal Network and a wonderful man named Garo. He filmed her and her mates capture, as part of an instructional video, so she is already a media star. We got her only last Monday and she's already housebroken and leash-trained. She is friendly, affectionate, sweet, smart, gentle and calm, but not over shy although she is afraid of trucks and water, which makes perfect sense considering all the swimming she did. They say Basenjis are very much like cats; she doesn't bark, grooms herself and believe it or not, she purrs! We can't believe how lucky we are! She is perfect.

Carmelita in the boudoir

Apologies for the lack of pix. We have had spring fever and need to be outside and sometime the Blogger, she do not upload the pix. Also, we have been working very hard on training. She's doing well on the leash, loves people and kids, not so sure about some dogs. She knows "Sit" and "come". After only four days, my Caramel is housebroken! Unfortuntely she's still a little freaked by traffic and only goes in the back yard. We will transition to the front eventually. It took ten years to get my garden together and now this interloper comes in befouling it all. And I'm not upset about it! She is the best puppy!!!!! Her favorite toy is the rawhide bones from Uncle Sid. Karma-lita! Did I mention that she purrs?
More photos to come when I feel a little better.
I've been reading the AKC book( 800 pages) and this puppy is definitely a hound mix, Love hound, I believe.


A quick non-canine anecdote:
Coming home from Philly last Sun, we stopped for dinner. Our young waiter asked if there was anything else we needed. World peace, says I.
Says he: we need to get Bush out of the White House. I reply, You youngin's need to make that happen, get those GOP's out of office. He replies, I'm a Republican and I voted for Bush, but I realize my mistake and he MUST go.
Now Andrew Card is the latest rat deserting a sinking ship.
You can't make this up.

Carmelita, hold me tighter

Our babygirl puppy arrived last night ! Words cannot express her temperment, her beauty, her sincerity and the love between us, but believe me, I will constantly endeavor to do so. We are so happy!! She posed for these, she's a ham!( her right eye is blue, left is hazel)

We got us a woofiedog!

We have met the doggie and she is ours! It was instantaneous mutual love! What a squooshbucket she is! This is not a good picture at all, she's more like a Basenji and she's cuter and smaller than she looks. She's not hyper and not shy, just right. And very smart. We are visiting the Bro & Co. tomorrow; my 10 year old grandniece Sophie, the only girl on her hockey team, won her divsion championship!
After the weekend we will get her and I will relate her incredible story
Our chiquita Carmelita!

Of moving experiences

Finally, my Mom's house is almost cleaned out! Honey, this child is too old and infirm to be moving furniture. But I'm manic enough to do it anyway, despite having 3 strong men aboard. I woke up this AM wishing I were dead. Apparently, sometime during the night I was beaten with a baseball bat. Tonight's appointment with Garo from the Animal Rescue place is the onliest thing keeping body and soul together. Only the anticipation of dog breath keeps my own constant. I am full of anxiety. I'm afraid she will be too big, we need someone semi-portable. Can we pick just one? Will there be cats? Black and white ones? I'm seriously hard-up for cats. Y'all know I love all the creatures, great and small, especially dogs. But it's cats, not dogs who rule, let's be honest.The reason we never got a dog was because our ex-cats ( dead cats) didn't like them, but we've been dog-obsessed forever.
We just took a quiz on Pedigree.com; the dogs that would suit us best are the French bulldog, Boston terrier, beagle, smooth fox terrier and Basenji, all of who(m) suit me fine. Steve has an unreasonable distaste for beagles, but we'd both prefer a muttsky that no one wants. From her pic, Jackie clearly is a pit bull mix, or Amstaff as it were, with very little Basenji. There are so many to chose from and I trust Garo's call. Details to follow.

So we moved the furniture and stuff from Mom's, but there is still some stuff that we want to give or throw away.

King size bed and wood headboard,
has 2 twin matresses,but they're hard as rocks
60's plaid pull-out couch, 2 seater
2 large ornate hanging brass and glass lanterns, chains included
various 60's glass hanging light fixtures and one table lamp
brass and crystal lamp/ mother of pearl table combo, beyond description
few rolls of upholstery fabric
50's exercise bike
50's luggage metal footlocker, 2x3x2'
2 TV carts
3 pine captain's chairs, good shape
various pots, pans, plate, glasses, tableware and flatware
"101 Strings" LP's ( records)
beach chairs
60's sewing machine, needs cleaning
20-30 wooden hangers

I don't want to do ebay and I'm kinda obsessive about recycling so if any of you know of anyone or any place in the NYC area that wants this this FREE STUFF which must be PICKED UP, please let me know. Our junk may be that obscure object of desire for someone else!
Wish me luck tonight!


Oi! I forgot I have a surprise photo today! It is from the faraway south Northwest. From top right going clockwise, my darling Morgana, my sweetie Vatru, furry cookies, and Morgana's daughter R who has the glow of she who is with child. I miss y'all!

One call closer to a dream

Fabulous news! The rescue place, adoptions@companionanimalnetworktv.org returned my call! We called about Jackie, the puppy we fell for online. She is a Katrina rescue dog too, a 1-2 year old Basenji, tan and white, medium size and it looks like she has two different colored eyes! She loves dogs and cats! She has a pink nose and a white tipped tail! Some moron clipped hers ears, but look how cute she is !!!! She needs a name change, something more feminine and southern, although she really is African. Any suggestions? We will meet her tomorrow night in Queens. If all goes well, she will be delivered to us a few later.
We are seeing Donna from Tel Aviv tonight. Thursday afternoon we (we means Steve and Jarad and Chris; big strong men, not me.) are moving some furniture from my Mom's house to mine. We will be ready for our woofiedog. I'm beside myself with joy and anticipation. Will we be as match? Will Cupid's arrow accurately find it's marks?
It was 25 degrees last night, will it ever be spring for real?
And on that subject here is this from DJ, who herself lives in eternal springtime:

Oh sweet spontaneous earth how often have the doting fingers of purient philosophers pinched and poked thee, has the naughty thumb of science prodded thy beauty. How oftn have religions taken thee upon their scraggy knees squeezing and buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive gods (but true to the incomparable couch of death thy rhythmic lover thou answerest them only
with spring) E.E. Cummings

A dark anniversary

Looks like I'm back, thanx for your calls and emails. Blogger and/or the Internet been hinky lately, must be all that Fed wiretapping.
Steve sent me a quote today, probably meaning to comfort me: "History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives"- Abba Eban
Today marks three years in Iraq, 2,300 American troops dead, as well as tens of thousands of Iraqi's. Re: a NY Times article last week, there is over twice the unrest in the world as there was 50 years ago. And probaly triple the corruption. And many, many more weapons. I do not believe we are learning from past mistakes. I am afraid that wisdom will not prevail. I'm afraid that wisdom, like responsibilty and accountability will lose their relevance in a world where greed, selfishness, fundamentalism and fanatic dogma, (redundant, but I'm steamed!) will conquer wisdom. It's very sad as I'm a great fan of wisdom. And Spring, which gives me hope.
Happy Spring everyone! The first crocuses are coming up, tulips and narcissus, lilacs and roses are coming to life but it's still in the 30's. Brrrr.
We had a great weekend with friends and relatives. I ate much cake and many cookies, I even baked some. I put caramel-filled chocolate kisses in the middle of each but the caramel burst through and spread out into one big cookie. Ugly but tasty. We had a surprisingly good dinner at a very crowded, noisy Austrian bistro, Cafe Steinhof which for years I thought was just a beer bar. On Sat. we paid what was supposed to be a short visit to my Aunt Sarah in NJ. We brought my Mom's photo collection and wound up staying till 1 AM, along with my Cousin Lorry and her wonderful beau. L is 14 years older than me and while we didn't grow up close, she and her older sister were my role models growing up. (All other cousins my age were stinky-ass boys) It was wonderful and probably the first opportunity where had time enough to get to know each other. I was very gratified to get her take on being a female in this family. It was alternately thrilling and chilling and we found we both carry a lot of the same baggage. We come from a family of wonderful, formidable women!
From left: Ann, Fay(Mom), Ann's husby, Ben, and Sarah, in the early 1950's.
Sarah is the only survivor and will be 96 in June, she is incredible.
My Dad, Mom, Aunt Ann and Uncle Jack, all died this time of year and I've been missing them all a lot. Sitting around and talking about them for hours brought them back for a while. And when I hold Aunt Sarah and kiss her, it's just like embracing my Mom. Love is a wonderful thing, huh? Too bad we all can't keep more of it in our hearts, for each other. It might help us remember to be wiser as men and nations.

My roots

After an intensive cleaning session, I am purged of some evilness. It is my way of bringing a speck of order to my world. Although it took hours yesterday, I finally learned how to use the scanner! Of course once learned, I was unable to upload these pix. Grrr. Blogger has been hinky lately.
These are the before and after X-rays from my root canal on #18. What an expensive portrait. See how beautiful the newly packed roots are! They are full of gutta percha, which sounds like fish intestines but are not. Now that I have learned the scanner, no one in my photo collection is safe. Beware!!!!

I don't want to complain but....

Uech! That is guttural, don't cheat and read it as oock, I'll be pissed off.
Could be the full moon, could be the approaching equinox but I am feeling alternatively: grumpy,angry, mean, inflamed but not in a good way, irritated, pain, hostile, hyper, exhausted, evil, distressed, depressed, nauseous, impatient, fat, old, dumpy and I really screwed up my hair this time. It's 1/2" long and pale orange, quite an unflattering look with my yellow complexion. On the bright side, my latest bout with IBS helped me lose a few lbs.
After after 6 hours of in-chair time, I've completed my root canal, but have a appt with my regular dontist for another tooth that is beyond root canal. Very ungood news. I didn't have much pain from the actual dental work but sitting without moving results in full body pain. Wah. #@*$@%!
I've fallen for 5 pets online and have only received one (negative) response.This pet thing is more stressful than I thought it would be. I'm afraid that when go to a shelter my head will explode.
I hate everyone. Except you, of course.
I can't read the paper, every section pisses me off from the news to sports to lifestyles. What is America thinking? The way values in this country have changed since 9/11 is staggering. Americans need to be less selfish.
We have been encouraged to spend money and increase our reliance on oil in the name of counterterrorism and crimes are being commited in that name everyday, everywhere. Where is responsibility and accountablity? Why is this man and his administration still in office?
Why are so many Americans still thinking racist, sexist, elitist, materialistic, militaristic, religious, partisan? We should be joining not dividing. Everyone has the power to do small things, let's start with tolerance and unselfishness.
I'm so angry I could spit! No consolations please, it'd be like sympathy for the devil. I'm mean and bad I tell ya!
BTW, Happy Purim to all! Our Rabbi neighbor Jeff stopped by with a basket of goodies, a custom on Purim a holiday where kids dress in costumes to celebrate the death of Hamen at the hand of Queen Esther, one of the rare females in jewish folklore. Weird, that. Triangular jam cookies called hamentashen (Hamen's hats) are tradtional. I go now to consume mass quanities.

Phoebe for the spiirits

International Women's Day was yesterday, while I was ranting and raving and riding a tangent to Digress City. Thanks to Morgana, my far-away honey for the reminder.
Today, I am not alone. I have a visitor, a doggie neighbor to spend the day with. I've always had some kind of pet and now I don't even have my snails , worms and pillbugs either.That's another story. I'm tragically pet-lonely and pathetic so I borrowed a dog from the neighbors. She is the fabulous wonder Phoebe, a black lab-chow mutt.(she's got the blue tongue) She lives with 3 small boys and is still the most patient and best dog! O frabjous day! She's sitting in the middle of the staricase so I will tumble to my death when I trip on her. Oh Lordy how I have missed that! Steve said I sounded happier on the phone!
I can no longer look at websites from shelters after doing it for days. I wind up wanting all of the animals and crying over their terrible situations, especially the zillions of gorgeous pitbulls that were abused and abandoned and cats left to freeze in the streets. My thing is kvetching not preaching but; a brief PSA
PLEASE NEUTER YOUR ANIMALS AND ADOPT FROM SHELTERS!
Love in the form of Phoebe will hold me till the weekend at which time we will sally forth to a shelter and perhaps get both cat and dog. They also have birds and bunnies and reptiles, oh my. I am such a pushover for a pretty face! This is Shanti, the kitkat we wanted that got adopted. I now must comfort myself with a song from the Marvelettes; words that over time would prove to have great, personal meaning for me (I hooked the big one!) but are also relevent for all beings in any situation. An excerpt:

Too many fish in the sea
Listen here, girls
Take this advice, and remember always in life:

Into each heart some tears must fall
Though you love and lose, you must stand tall
'Cause we all got to cry sometimes
I said, sigh sometimes
Pull yourself together
No use crying forever
Because there's too many fish in the sea
Too many fish in the sea
I said, there's short ones, tall ones, fine ones, kind ones
Too many fish in the sea

PS.This Phoebe is lifting my heart and killing me with thoses eyes. Ay, ay, ay.
Love, Sally F.

Bast be Blast, no cat for us.

Rats! The person that was fostering the kitty sent us an email last night, Shanti has been adopted. I wish she would have let us know sooner so I wouldn't have gone totally nutso.We even picked out a name! I purposely didn't post her photo cause I didn't want to jinx it. We will go to the shelter in person next time, no more mooning over a monitor and falling in love with pixels.
Sorry Catherine, about the photo. BTW, I tried and failed to leave a comment on your blog (Approximating A Life - check her out ) re:blogging against sexism day.
My comment was incredibly clever and biting but lost it was. I shall not attempt to recreate it here. I'm tired and frought with disappointment.
Instead, I will rip off Bob Marley who had a very strong early influence on me. I also post these pix that my cousin just Jack sent of he, me and Bubba , our respective maternal grandmother. It was Mother's Day 1957, he was 13 (?) I was 7 3/4.
Before WWI My grandfather and his brothers left for America. Bubba raised 3 daughters and 2 nieces in a shtetl in Poland. Alone. She was an unbelievable force of nature. She did not read or write. She did not teach me feminism.(She stuffed me full of food and taught her daughter to do the same-see photo) But she taught me strength, sisters and that is the most important legacy for a woman.

"Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights,
get up, stand up, don't give up the fight"

With bated cat breath

Poor Steve had a terrrible intestional thing and was in bed since Thursday with a very high fever. He's better today and probably lost 6 pounds as well.
But we both suffer still, unrelentingly and increasingly from Acute Feline Interruptus. We can't take it anymore, we need a cat. Our cat jones is coming down in a bad way and action had to be taken! I've been online all day searching rescue group sites for Our One True Cat. I thought it would be a male but no, it was she I fell for: truly, madly, deeply. She looks like all the cats we've ever had rolled into one! I emailed Steve, he fell too. I made the call. We'll have to go through a process.
We wait.

S&R part II and how Tex got his name

I really didn't mean to keep everyone hanging but I needed to do some fact checking and 1969 was a long time ago. I spoke to Shelly today and here's what he said:
He was just out of the army and looking to get laid. He also thought that my family was rich. HA! (that's a bogus Rockaway/Far Rockaway thing)
Between our first and second dates, he got engaged but still hoping to get some, never told me. This was neither the first or the last time this would occur in my dealings with the males, indeed, I believe lying for sex to be a recurring leitmotif in the lives of all our fair sex.
In other words, say I, you were a dirty lowlife, a rat bastard cockroach?
Precisely, says Shelly using the universal excuse for bad male behavior,: I let little Shelly do the thinking. Vile dirteaters! Noxious scum. Ladies, beware!
Well, it was 1969, I was just a rebel with a burning desire to reject the values imposed on me by my family and the establishment. I had lot's of living to do! I was amused, not fazed. So we stayed in touch. Shelly married, I met a guy. I went to Woodstock, gave away the boyfriend, fell seriously in love. My life would take a turn to a place of darkness,joy, despair and hope. After 4 tumultuous years we parted. Shelly and I remained friends.
Let's jump ahead, shall we, to what, 1974?.
After my break-up with Jimmy, I had to get a place and had to leave the beach. I was friendly with one of Shelly's old girlfriends, Judy. (At an earlier point, he decided I needed to approve all his girlfriends). Tex and I both worked in midtown and sometimes we used to play hooky from work and go uptown, get H&H bagels then visit Judy and her roomate Bernie. Now they were looking for a place in the Slope and needed a third roomate. Kismet, thought I! And a cool batchelorette's Park Slope duplex pad. I must digress here to tell about the time we had the best and most ass-kicking New Year's party, with live band! There were over 40 people until Tex mistakenly closed the flue in the fireplace chimney and we were all out in the street in subzero weather.
Meanwhile, out at the beach my parents had rented to a new tenant, a young hippie teacher. Steven ( not my husband Steve) and his friends and I became friendly and one night they invited me to go to the city to hear some jazz. Lee was the one I was attracted to and he to me but in one fateful move, Steven put Lee in the backseat of his car and me in the front and the rest was history. Steven had just been divorced but was on cordial terms with his ex-wife Ruthie who frequently brought him food. I spent a lot of time sleeping at Steven's ( with my parents upstairs, can you believe my chutzpah? My mom phoned several times to tell him to lower the stereo! Tull, usually) and I ran into Ruthie a lot. Eventually Steven and I would part but I liked Ruthie so much I introduced her to Shelly. They moved in together and were married soon after and now have 2 grandsons. I did good, right?
But not before the following story which explains the answer, yes DJ, there is a Tex and it was a harrowing and tasteless story one just as I foretold!
How well I know my beloved Tex! In his own words:

You and I were making out on the couch in your lesbian apartment and blind Abie was in the room. We thought it was quite hysterical at the time. Anyway, he asked who I was and for some reason we thought that Tex was a really funny name.
If I never told you - years later I met Abie here in Fla. - through a mutual friend and the talk turned to Vietnam and the army. The friend mentioned my name and Abie replied "Oh yeah, they used to call him Tex.

See, tasteless! After a conversation about it, it all came shamefully back; (a gargantuan effort it is, going back in the way-back machine) what really hapened was:
Abie, an Israeli friend from my childhood in East New York, came back from Vietnam blind and quite messed up. Everyone came back messed up. That particular day he came over with something illegal. How he got there remains a mystery but we were at the Park Slope apartment which I shared with Judy and Bernie, who were Shelly's lesbians. (In fact, the place had hot and cold running lesbians as well as many unauthorized roomates,& their boyfriends.) Abie said that Shelly, who has a deep voice remember,sounded like a Tex should sound. The funny part is, he looks like a very tall Arab. We were all stoned and laughed about it for an hour so the name stuck. The Florida part cracks me up. Misty, water-colored damn memories!

Ramblin' on my mind

Do you ever feel that your life is a movie? A comic book? A stop in the Twilight Zone? This is one of those rhetorical question I love to pose; of course you have!
Yesterday during my root canal I opted for a change in the radio station instead of nitrous gas, cause bad music can exacerbate pain and adds insult to the toothy injury.The dontist, thank gods, is a blues fan so he switched to a satellite blues show. From 4:00 to 5:00 they played the Robert Johnson tune," Ramblin' on my mind" in every version and permutation possible, from Muddy to Mayall to Lucinda. A full hour!
I thought I was tripping from the novacaine. After the horrible ordeal was done, I mentioned it. Neither the dontist or the assistant heard it. Hmmm.
I am presently waiting on my bro so I must fly; we are interviewing a new broker for Mom's house. Also, I'm into the whole creating suspense thing; always leave them wanting more! Or am I mixing up politics and show business? Ha, another trick question-they are the same!!

Mi vieja; your Tex query was a valid and good one, but I forget when, why or how he became Tex. It must be a very tasteles and harrowing story but one I will pursue in my endless quest for truth, justice and the American way, as well as useless bits of trivia and a good piece of bread.