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The doggy daze of summer
Jul. 5th, 2012 10:09 amJust returned from a luuuurvely vacation of 10 days, the first since I got the new job in September. I celebrated (celebrate a vacation? Why the hell not?) by buying a dress and hacking off most of my hair into an inverse bob. I've been very lazy about taking pictures, though (or maybe I'm just self-conscious about all the weight I've gained from this Pacific Northwest artisan beer and cheese diet), so don't hold your breath.
Vacay was a two-parter. For the first, Joe and I went to southern Cali to attend the wedding of some very close friends from the Humboldt years (the groom was our roommate and officiated at our wedding; the bride was a good friend and classmate). It was a beautifully iconic SoCal wedding at the Presidio de Santa Barbara, all sage and taupe colored with succulents in the flower arrangements and lovely sunburns had by all. We got to hang out with a bunch of friends we hadn't seen since undergrad, and the easy flow with which everyone re-integrated with each other despite all of our divergent life paths after graduation was a real blessing. We rented (and if you don't know HomeAway or AirBnB I HIGHLY recommend it, there's no hotel we could have gotten this cheap with these amenities) a cottage a half-block from the beach (with delightfully campy Nantucket-style decor, complete with Moby Dick salt and pepper shakers); I had a spectacular wipeout on the boogie board (darn waves breaking too close to shore) and nursed my scrapes over steamed clams and margaritas.
Corgi didn't come with us for part 1, as she's not short enough to be a carry-on and we're too much the helicopter dog parents to entrust her to baggage claim. We left her with a friend on our agility team who also has a corgi and makes a perfect pet-sitter by virtue of her being even more uptight about her dogs' welfare than we are. She texted us the day after we left to warn us that Jenna's eyelid had swelled up overnight (Joe thinks she rubbed her face against a tree in a fit of peevishness, my money's on a bee sting). A (surprisingly affordable) trip to the vet later, they confirmed no damage to the eye and gave her some antibiotics. She's doing great now and didn't really seem to be bothered by the ulceration nearly as much as we were.
Vacay part 2 (broken up by a 2-day interlude of Diablo 3) was Camp Corgi out at Grayland Beach (that's the southern tip of the Olympic peninsula for those of you following along with a map). We did this last year and had such a blast that we went ahead and reserved a campsite for nearly a week this time. The local corgi meetup group (about 25 families with about 40 corgis) reserved a few groups of RV and tent campsites (even a couple of yurts) and spent days eating oysters (there's a sizeable mudflat about 6 miles up the road), drinking booze and letting our dogs run on the beach to terrorize nesting plovers and roll in stinky things. The parafoil kite I got Joe for Christmas (a Snapshot 1.3) had its maiden voyage and we were not disappointed; it has a nice pull even in low winds and offers a solid challenge in gustier conditions.
Unfortunately, the weather didn't hold out this year at Grayland and we were awakened early Saturday morning to discover that our tent seams had failed to be waterproof and the resulting puddle of water was what prompted our introverted Jenna (who by choice doesn't sleep on the bed with us at home) to snuggle up with us on the air mattress. Some of the other campers offered an extra tent, but by then we'd had enough fun and decided to head home for an extra day of recuperation (read: more Diablo 3) before we went back to work.
It's trite, but I really do feel like a new person after this. Joe's grandparents' last words of advice to us was to make sure we got outside once in a while, and we're certainly doing that. I feel like I'm finally experiencing the Pacific Northwest the way I'd hoped when I first got here, before the economy tanked and I spent some pretty dark years scraping by on freelance web design. Life is good, and I don't think I'm just saying that because the sun has finally come out for the first time all year and I'm crazy with that Northwest bug that gets you insanely high (this is as real and documented a phenomenon as its opposite the Seattle Chill; local blogger claims that people "get personality transplants and become everybody else's best friend") every time the sun comes out.
Been working in the garden a bit more, and YES even drawing. Highlights include a dog agility piece in grayscale up on DeviantArt (haven't decided on digital vs. analog vs. no color yet), and a couple of 9"x12" fantasy compositions (both dragon pieces!) in the works. I've been posting some sketches to my Twitter feed (@pongolyn if you follow such things), but promise to archive them on DA eventually if you don't. They mainly involve a developing story in my head exploring the ancient bonds between humanoids and canines; how it might have developed in a fantasy setting. Right now it's mostly sketches of tribal elf huntresses and (of course!) corgis. But it makes me smile, and so...
What's up with y'all?
Vacay was a two-parter. For the first, Joe and I went to southern Cali to attend the wedding of some very close friends from the Humboldt years (the groom was our roommate and officiated at our wedding; the bride was a good friend and classmate). It was a beautifully iconic SoCal wedding at the Presidio de Santa Barbara, all sage and taupe colored with succulents in the flower arrangements and lovely sunburns had by all. We got to hang out with a bunch of friends we hadn't seen since undergrad, and the easy flow with which everyone re-integrated with each other despite all of our divergent life paths after graduation was a real blessing. We rented (and if you don't know HomeAway or AirBnB I HIGHLY recommend it, there's no hotel we could have gotten this cheap with these amenities) a cottage a half-block from the beach (with delightfully campy Nantucket-style decor, complete with Moby Dick salt and pepper shakers); I had a spectacular wipeout on the boogie board (darn waves breaking too close to shore) and nursed my scrapes over steamed clams and margaritas.
Corgi didn't come with us for part 1, as she's not short enough to be a carry-on and we're too much the helicopter dog parents to entrust her to baggage claim. We left her with a friend on our agility team who also has a corgi and makes a perfect pet-sitter by virtue of her being even more uptight about her dogs' welfare than we are. She texted us the day after we left to warn us that Jenna's eyelid had swelled up overnight (Joe thinks she rubbed her face against a tree in a fit of peevishness, my money's on a bee sting). A (surprisingly affordable) trip to the vet later, they confirmed no damage to the eye and gave her some antibiotics. She's doing great now and didn't really seem to be bothered by the ulceration nearly as much as we were.
Vacay part 2 (broken up by a 2-day interlude of Diablo 3) was Camp Corgi out at Grayland Beach (that's the southern tip of the Olympic peninsula for those of you following along with a map). We did this last year and had such a blast that we went ahead and reserved a campsite for nearly a week this time. The local corgi meetup group (about 25 families with about 40 corgis) reserved a few groups of RV and tent campsites (even a couple of yurts) and spent days eating oysters (there's a sizeable mudflat about 6 miles up the road), drinking booze and letting our dogs run on the beach to terrorize nesting plovers and roll in stinky things. The parafoil kite I got Joe for Christmas (a Snapshot 1.3) had its maiden voyage and we were not disappointed; it has a nice pull even in low winds and offers a solid challenge in gustier conditions.
Unfortunately, the weather didn't hold out this year at Grayland and we were awakened early Saturday morning to discover that our tent seams had failed to be waterproof and the resulting puddle of water was what prompted our introverted Jenna (who by choice doesn't sleep on the bed with us at home) to snuggle up with us on the air mattress. Some of the other campers offered an extra tent, but by then we'd had enough fun and decided to head home for an extra day of recuperation (read: more Diablo 3) before we went back to work.
It's trite, but I really do feel like a new person after this. Joe's grandparents' last words of advice to us was to make sure we got outside once in a while, and we're certainly doing that. I feel like I'm finally experiencing the Pacific Northwest the way I'd hoped when I first got here, before the economy tanked and I spent some pretty dark years scraping by on freelance web design. Life is good, and I don't think I'm just saying that because the sun has finally come out for the first time all year and I'm crazy with that Northwest bug that gets you insanely high (this is as real and documented a phenomenon as its opposite the Seattle Chill; local blogger claims that people "get personality transplants and become everybody else's best friend") every time the sun comes out.
Been working in the garden a bit more, and YES even drawing. Highlights include a dog agility piece in grayscale up on DeviantArt (haven't decided on digital vs. analog vs. no color yet), and a couple of 9"x12" fantasy compositions (both dragon pieces!) in the works. I've been posting some sketches to my Twitter feed (@pongolyn if you follow such things), but promise to archive them on DA eventually if you don't. They mainly involve a developing story in my head exploring the ancient bonds between humanoids and canines; how it might have developed in a fantasy setting. Right now it's mostly sketches of tribal elf huntresses and (of course!) corgis. But it makes me smile, and so...
What's up with y'all?
