I am Your Dog

This was part of the party favours from Seasmoke’s birthday party. I thought it was a touching read. Kind of makes you want to take the day off and spend it with your dog(s). Googled high and low to find out the source. Found it in lots of web pages, but no author. Anyway, here it is in yet another web page. Enjoy it. Then go hang out with your dog.

I am Your Dog
-Author Unknown-
I am your dog, and I have a little something
I’d like to whisper in your ear.
I know that you humans lead busy lives.
Some have to work, some have children to raise.
It always seems like you are
running here and there, often much too fast,
often never noticing the truly grand things in life.
Look down at me now, while you sit there at your computer. See the way my dark brown eyes look at yours?
They are slightly cloudy now. That comes with age.
The gray hairs are beginning to ring my soft muzzle.
You smile at me; I see love in your eyes.
What do you see in mine? Do you see a spirit?
A soul inside,
who loves you as no other could in the world?
A spirit that would forgive all trespasses of prior
wrong doing for just a simple moment of your time?
That is all I ask. To slow down,
if even for a few minutes to be with me.
So many times you have been saddened
by the words you read on that screen,
of other of my kind, passing.
Sometimes we die young and oh so quickly, sometimes so suddenly it wrenches your heart out of your throat.
Sometimes, we age so slowly before your eyes that you may not even seem to know until the very end, when we look at you with grizzled muzzles and cataract clouded eyes.
Still the love is always there, even when we must take that
long sleep, to run free in a distant land.
I may not be here tomorrow; I may not be here next week.
Someday you will shed the water from your eyes,
that humans have when deep grief fills their souls,
and you will be angry at yourself that you did not have just “One more day” with me.
Because I love you so,
your sorrow touches my spirit and grieves me.
We have NOW, together.
So come, sit down here next to me on the floor,
and look deep into my eyes. What do you see?
If you look hard and deep enough we will talk,
you and I, heart to heart.
Come to me not as “alpha” or as “trainer” or even “Mom or Dad,” come to me as a living soul and stroke my fur and let us look deep into one another’s eyes, and talk.
I may tell you something about the fun of chasing a tennis ball, or I may tell you something profound about myself,
or even life in general.
You decided to have me in your life
because you wanted a soul to share such things with.
Someone very different from you, and here I am.
I am a dog, but I am alive.
I feel emotion, I feel physical senses,
and I can revel in the differences of our spirits and souls.
I do not think of you as a “Dog on two feet” —
I know what you are.
You are human, in all your quirkiness, and I love you still.
Now, come sit with me, on the floor.
Enter my world, and let time slow down if only for 15 minutes.
Look deep into my eyes, and whisper to my ears.
Speak with your heart, with your joy
and I will know your true self.
We may not have tomorrow, and life is oh so very short.
–Love, (on behalf of canines everywhere) your dog

Over at the Map Room

Yesterday the wife and I met some fellow labrador-owning friends to celebrate a birthday at The Map Room over in West Ashley. First time we’d been there, so I was looking forward to it. It’s located in a strip mall where the Kaplan Learning Center used to be (it’s moved next door) in an impressively large space. There’s a largish bar area toward the back middle of the area with a couple of rows of booths and tables in the front section of the room. There’s a stage area in the back right corner where live music plays. A large open space in front of the stage provides plenty of music for dancing. The music last night was pretty jazzy stuff, so not much dancing going on while we were there. In the other corner next to the stage are a bunch of comfy looking couches arranged in front of a TV and a couple of video games for people to hang out on.

Food was pretty decent, with a varied selection of appetizers and pub fare done up a little more sohpistication than your usual pub grub. I enjoyed the fish and chips that I had, although the wife wasn’t terribly impressed with the shrimp and grits (too greasy for her liking). Our friends seemed to enjoy the spring rolls and chicken satays they ordered.

We had a good time there talking and enjoying the tunes. Seems like it would be a good place to stop off on the way home and hang out for a bit after work.

I was kind of disappointed there weren’t more maps decorating the room though, considering the name of the place

Holiday week roundup

This morning’s round up is brought to you by the letters C, J and the number 4.

Jared summarizes a couple of techie bits about Ebay, Google and Microsoft. He also measured quite a bit of rain thanks to yesterday’s storm.

Post birthday reflections on blogging and journaling at the same time by Bellascribe.

Jason has a great photo of some fireworks over at South Carolina Photography Guild.

Geoff talks about some of his more recent activities that are mostly the same in back home. He also has a very cool picture of the new Cooper River bridge.

Agricola has journalism and ethics on his mind, specifically relating to the NYT.

Janet discovers a fountain under her house (and not the good wishing well kind either).

Pope’s got a list of things for us guys to do while the SO is shopping. I like #1.

Paul asks how intelligence ranks when choosing a mate. He’s also got a book for you politicos to read while waiting for the next election.

Like a lot of people, April doesn’t watch the news either. I find it rather depressing too.

Who doesn’t like a good cheeseburger? Robert at Al Forno reviews the burgers at Sesame up in N Chuck, and talks about what he wants in a cheeseburger.

Mike’s getting class action suite settlements up the wazoo.

Biffle the Idea Guy suggests a valet parking scheme for the downtown area.

A couple of hiking pictures from Jason at Cavaliers and Roundheads.

Nebraskan transplant David and his friends were cheering on Germany in World Cup action.
Chuck gets new plumbing and hot water and passes along a good tip when looking for contractors:

IF you decide to use a general contractor, get one that your friends or someone you trust has used. Get references and talk with his/her former (hopefully happy) clients and PAY NO MONEY in advance. The good ones will take care of ALL the details, secure the required permits, hire qualified and dependable licensed craftsmen, proceed in a timely manner and help you avoid costly missteps.

djdroogie‘s moved his blog and wrapped up his vacation to start Prototype school.

More Crazy4America from Uncle Zoloft.

Journalistic mudslinging and stirring up tour guides at GMLc.

Gone to Carolina recounts their first 4th of July celebration in SC.

I’m just sayn’ has some quotes to ponder on.

Knitting blogger Lisa starts on the scarf and gets a special little something from her secret pal.

Microfamous doesn’t really want to be famous and lists her reasons why.

Physics, Superman and superchickens at Jason’s.

Monsoon Cantina has lots of pictures from his daughter’s first birthday party-turn-housewarming party.

Perusing Life has a Friday Five meme thing going on.

Saphyre is pain free thanks to her new morphine pump.

Surry Labs’ Saucy is recovering from her spay operation.

Microbial Lab’s dog routine doesn’t sound too much different from mine, although I don’t have a wonder beagle to deal with yet.

Our other knitting blogger Vera shares pictures and crafty knitted things from something called a LYS SNB night. Whatever it was, it looked like fun.

Joan describes the world tour she took after winning $10k worth of travel. If only the rest of us could be so lucky.

Trippingly on the Tongue has some opening lines for imaginary novels.

The finished product

Aside from a few small areas needing touch-ups, the garage painting is finally done! Woohoo! Strike one more project off the list!

Garage painting finished

Painting away

Monday and yesterday, while everyone was enjoying cookouts, doing the beach thing, watching fireworks and dodging falling bullets, the wife and I were neck deep in a house project long in the planning. One of those things that looks really easy when all you’re doing is watching other people do it, a little more challenging when you’re doing it.

We were painting the garage. Finally.

Ok, so painting isn’t really all that difficult. Grab a roller and paintbrush and have at it. It’s just a lot of work, and we have a big garage. First we had to move all the crap out of the garage and into the house. Then it was off to Lowe’s for a couple hundred bucks worth of primer, paint and a few more associated supplies. That was Sunday.

We started with naked drywall

Unpainted drywall in the garage

By the end of Monday, the garage walls were all primered up and ready for painting.

Garage walls primed and ready for painting

Yesterday we worked on the ceiling and painted it in a nice light blue (kind of hard to tell from the photo)

Garage ceiling painted

We would have started working on the walls too, but when we pulled the masking tape off the walls, parts of the primer were coming along with it where the drywall joint compound was . Silly me, I didn’t think to wipe the dust off before hand so the primer just wasn’t sticking at all on those sections. So instead of painting the walls, I ended up spending a couple of hours scraping and re-priming parts of the walls where the primer peeled off.

I think a couple more evenings of painting and we should have yet another house project finished and checked off the list.