Hot Digital Dog!

Our dog "Mamita" passed away from cancer two months ago. "Mamita" had only two faults: she was a  notorious food thief and shed bright, red fur prodigiously, taxing our vacuum cleaner sorely.
We loved her none the less and tolerated her flaws for over a decade. On the six o'clock news one evening we saw that the dog pound (aka animal care facility) was having an adoptathon.  For some reason, we were compelled to go and see if we could find a replacement for our diminished pack.
Though the animal care facility was clean and well managed we were greeted by an overwhelming sense of misery at all the poor little beasts that would not be adopted, loved or cared for.  My companion started crying, bewildered by the burden of making a choice of only one.  The first twenty dogs were unsuitable based on our needs and intolerance for large, noisy or aggressive pets and our despair deepened. We found a small female Dachsund labeled #153375 and that despair vanished. That little dog said to us with confidence and certainty in her eyes, "I am the one for you" without  whimpering or groveling.  "Jutta" as we named her, was right. We got her spayed and microchipped (the digital part of the title) for fifty dollars. We gave them sixty, an extra ten for the dogs who would not be as lucky. We can pick her up on the 26th of January. "Jutta" and I will share the same birthday as far as I am concerned. Hot diggity dog,I will be fifty eight and she will be two!

Photos by Mary "Beetle" Carroll

"A Free Ticket to Inner Space"

     When I was a kid, I thought by the time I am my current age that I would be living on Mars, another planet or even another dimension.  Hell, I can't even absorb college algebra so I will probably never get a college degree let alone an advanced degree in rocket science. As lacking as I am in my left brain skills, I have been very blessed indeed to have a more than a modicum of creative ability that has manifested in a variety of mediums. These artistic impulses gave me solace in what I can only describe as a miserable childhood and youth. Much of what I created has been lost in my travels, destroyed in fits of pique or sold to people who found them worthy of the asking price. In dreams and in my mindwanderings I retain a memory of everything I created.
     In the last few years I  have found a new talent that I wish to develop and thanks to a community college English instructor by the name of Sharon Colangelo I am pursuing that new path. I will miss my chisels, canvasses and paints, but I now find those tools too unwieldy to take with me on my flights of fancy.  The only tools I need now are a pen, a piece of paper or a laptop, and words to fuel my journey.