Richard Engel Named the 2011 Daniel Pearl Awardee « Los Angeles Press Club

Richard Engel Named the 2011 Daniel Pearl Awardee « Los Angeles Press Club

SQUEEEeeeeeeeeeeee!

msnbc video: Engel receives Daniel Pearl award; Craig White retires

msnbc video: Engel receives Daniel Pearl award; Craig White retires

We honor the courage and valor these two men have to bring us
the news nobody else will, or can. Just not sure how much mom
is lovin' hubby's new coif...a little too Hollywood for her brave
bedouin correspondent. No worries, she'll mess it up!

i'm just a little pig and i'm COLD!

Mom, i iZ tucking myself in, see, i got the blanket in my mouth?

Dear Friends in Hot Places,
Please come visit us. Bring those bright yellow bell peppers, please. Did you know guinea pigs do not
make Vitamin C and must receive supplemental vitamin C from those warm places y'all complainin'
about? So, come here. Bring us stuff. Thank you.
Love,
Calvin the brrrrrr....small.

Draw Y'SELF!

Mom gets confoozled when all the animals inSIDE her head go on a rampage to be drawn at the exact same time when all the animals OUTside her head demand to be fed, petted, and allowed to runabout with maps of where the half-sketched little buggerZ are so we can EAT THEM and get her head quiet enough to realize the only aminals that EVAH matter are us!

That is our mission. This sketch from many years ago: We still have not permitted her to finish it. Nor shall we. And, if she does, eat it we will! ARrrgg! We be ArtPiratePigs, Matey, and don'tcha FORGET IT!

works in progress...aren't we all?

rough beginnings to be continued as able...
not so unlike EVERYTHING in life.
PROCESS: start, keep going. stop. start again. repeat
as often as necessary.
And that's all we got for ya, mateys, along with our
favorite Zen saying, so we'll sez it again:
"Fall down seven times, Get up eight."
Day after day.
Week after week.
Month after month.
Year after year.
and, at the end, all we have to show for ourselves
is how much we have LOVED.
it's not about the product, it's about the process.
AND THE QUALITY OF THE COFFEE.
Nevah underestimate the quality of the coffee!

RICK AND "ARTISANS" PREPARE FOR GRAND OPENING!

We haven't been by the gallery all week but know that, for owner Rick, it's "crunch time" preparing for the grand opening of Artisans downtown during Bellingham's famous First Friday ART WALK! We're pretty sure the place won't be recognizable when we arrive and can hardly wait to see what he and the artists have done with it! We know there will be music on this platform where these branches now sit bundled, and plenty of yummy food (Rick is the site manager for our Saturday Downtown Farmer's Market, too!) and LIVE music, with everything he can pull out to make it a Magical Evening for All! As for mom, she found a swirly, layered skirt at the thrift shop like the kind featured in Robert Redford's Sundance Catalog and she wearing her cowboy boots in case the band plays a two-step (because that's as far as she can walk - er- Dance!) with a girly tank top instead of the usual Pacific Northwest "Let's go Climb Mt. Rainier after a coupla lattes!"uniform, worn by all...
This is special: Friday Night ARTWALK GALLERY GRAND OPENING featuring photography of us (and some other pictures she drew with her colored markers)  is COWBOY BOOT-SWIRLY-SKIRT-SPECIAL! Deet! Deet! Deet!

Let's hope she can make it! We have our chilly widdle tails crossed...and our fleece blankets at the ready!

Winter Hath Wrought "Brotherhood"

Taj (on left) and Raj Mahal
"brother up" in Raj's cuddle
cup to stay warm during our
cool (cold) summer nights.

Winter's Returns...June 2011!

Wintry sunset view from our apartment over downtown Bellingham and the San Juan Islands
taken June 30, 2011?! Wasn't there just some kind of Summer Solstice thingy?

Dear Mom,

Why do I sniff cold? We offend summer with our revelry? It's in the mid-40's and now I'll have to share my cuddle cup with Raj to stay warm and he hogs it. What happened? Why that sunset look
like Winter? Did we miss something or did you break summer, Mom? Please don't break summer.

Love,
BrrrrrTaj Mahal

Open Letter in Gratitude for Grief

Dear Julianna,

You don't know us but we know you. For years we and our friends enjoyed the adventures of Wiggley and Ginger "down under" half a world away. We extend our heartfelt condolences for your losses, and we speak with the authority of a herd who have lost three amongst us, as many we take in are already sick or dying...

What you really, really don't know is that you inspired our own blog, PandaPig's Peace Sanctuary: The Way of the Guinea Pig and perhaps even new blogs our own readers have begun from the perspectives of their own four-legged friends...you do not (nor will we even pretend that we do) know the beauty, wonder, and inspiration that you, Wiggley, and Ginger have brought so many. Our personal favorite posts will remain the television reviews they offered up when they stealthily watched T.V. if you were not at home! Those posts were EPIC according to our herd (although we suspect their "getting away with something they weren't supposed to do" was really the most inspiring for the piggies; i loved the reviews!)

And now, you are informing us that Ginger and Wiggley would like their blog to continue.

So, from one of the many you have mentored, unknowingly, into the world of Guinea Pig Blogging, we send you love from YumYum, Calvin the small, Raj Mahal, Taj Mahal, Coconut, and MacNutPie! We have had you on our "Blogs We Follow" until an unfortunate incident a few days ago (o.k. maybe the Editor did it! FINE!) accidentally erased it!
As we reconstruct our new list, we are quietly grateful to bring you back into our world. And you don't even know us.

We only need you to know how loved you, Wiggley, and Ginger were and will always remain.

In Memory of Two Fine Guinea Pigs we dedicate this post to the Magnificently Creative, Talented, Loving Woman, Julianna Koh,

-and Wiggley and Ginger -

We shall Blog On! We shall continue adopting unwanted guinea pigs! And, also inspired by you, Julianna, we have started our own art business to support the Sanctuary...and the Grand Opening of the Gallery who will be featuring us is this Friday Night.

BIG LOVE FROM ACROSS THE "OTHER POND, THE WARM ONE"

Your Friends in NORTHWestern Washington, USA, near the Canadian Border:
YumYum, the herd, and mom, Chana.

Be Good. Do Good. Love All!

Julianna's continuing adventures can be found at:
twoguineapigs.blogspot.com

(We will now ask her permission to use the above photograph we
used without asking her permission and hope she says yes...)

IT PAYS TO ASK NICELY...

And if it doesn't, then WHEEK AND SQUEEE in a shrill, high-pitched soprano that reminds mom of the great Molly Easter Bunny Debacle and: VOILA! let there be cuddles, treats, a nice comb-out, and no small amound of admiration! When youZ a guinea pigula youZ got a reputation to liveZ up to!

{EDITOR: more like "down to..."}

"What? Mom, that you writing when you supposed to be devoting your full, undivided attention on one thing and one thing only according to your Zen mindfulness practices? And that one thing would
be me!"

{EDITOR: "fine! i'll be mindful when i throw up from this migraine!}

"See, enlightenment only a guinea pig away!"

{EDITOR: "thank you, Master Po."}

"Any time, widdle Pukin'GwassHopperMomma."

Enlightenment: only a guinea pig away...

"GONNA HURL, GONNA HURL, CLEAR THE DECKS,
CLEAR THE MESS HALL, A HORK A-COMIN'!"

...only a guinea pig away.

"You're starting to sound like Pete Mertz, the World's Worst
Weatherman alwayZ on UScream when we wanna see somethin'
besides ---- UH OH!"

...only a - (Ewwwww!) MOM! Dat just NASTY! indoor heave sound.
Honestly! i is eating! no manners on that one, none at all...nom-nom-nom!

My Turn...

Yesterday, Coconut got the cuddle and EVERDAY Calvin getz the cuddle or YumYum but today is my day and I am going to Wheek and Wheek until mom wraps me up in our colorful fleece blanket and LOVES ME! WITH CARROT TOPS! And if she does a good enough job, i will help her headache go 'way.

My Name Is MacNutPie and I demand RESPECT! (in the form of carrot top cuddles and then a runabout later with Coconut and then a "cage-and-cuddle-cup-clean-up" before a load o'fresh timothy hay lands adjacent to my bed at bedtime.) We ask for so little...we are a simple rodent.

As Captain Picard would say to his ensign: "Make it so."

"MOM! MAKE IT SO!"

"Please use your indoor voice, MacTheNut...please!"

"fine...make. it. so."

"WHeeeeeeeeeeeeeeK! SqUeeeeeeeeeee! here she com'n to get me!"

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!

indoor voice...shhhh....

"What about Ellie the affalump, too?"

"I'll get her right now."

Mom did: And It Was Good.

MMMmmmm...Cuddling, on a Sunday Afternoon...

There's gotta be a MOTOWN song about this...me and my elephant,
Cuddling...oooooh, on a sunday afternoon.....ooooooh,
"Shaft! John Shaft!"
Yeah...that the one.
Taj Mahal is IN THE BUILDING!