Am NOT Fallin' Asleep With My Eyes...Open...

I am not falling asleep with my eyes open. I am falling asleep with my eyes closed!
Thank you very much!

"They look open to ME!"

"YumYum, Shhhhhhhh, you'll wake him!"

"O.K."

Nighty-night, all.

Mom, You 'Wake Yet?

MMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm.........guess not.
I'll just finish this piece of kale and try again later.

"Gonna go into a kale coma, rate you're goin' Calvin!"

"Am not, YumYum, am NOT!"

"Oh, CAAAAALvin?"

ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............

"Just like I thought! Kale coma."

"Happens to the best of us, YumYum."

"True that, MacNutPie, True THAT!"

MMMMmmmm....Nap Time is Nigh

We may take a brief blog-break to do this: get "scrunchy-love" from mom. We're worth it!

Love,
Calvin, YumYum and the Herd

Nap Time

Dear Friends,

Mom and I are taking a long nap for an indefinite period of time because I love naps and mom's art is actually starting to sell which means she is actually having to work (tsk, tsk, the tragic artist's life!) and figure out what "accounting" means.
And trust us, THAT ain't PRETTY, Uh-UH!

Art Friday went way Over-the-Top Awesome! but mom put in a 12 hour work day which has not been done in decades, DECADES!  So, today she bandying about with Blank-Expression-Face. Claims she seeking out her bed while askin' if I'll take a nap with her in my special bed with my colorful fuzzy-blanket, but I has
to ask: "Mom, doesn't you have an article to write about me for the Guinea Pig magazine first?" And, "Mom, doesn't you have to actually write an email before pressing SEND to the gallery and actually include the price of your painting
somebody askin' about? You just sent a blank email, mom!"
(Oh, PLEASE let it sell so we can get that cool new BIG, GIGANTIC, PLAY-CAGE we been wanting FOREVAH!) And "Mom, when are you going to deliver cards to the Organic Market that ordered them last week?" and "Mom, when are you going to pick the cards up from the printer that the Organic Market ordered last week?" and so it goes...mom looks like she is really, really putting forth her best-ever effort to think...

sigh.

GUESS WHO DON'T LOOK LIKE THIS TONIGHT?

Mom worked at the gallery all day today, met lots of artists (seems like she not the only one who waits 'til the 11th Hour to prepare) and heard lots of stories, gonna share 'em, too...later. But she don't look like this tonight! She a wreck! And she still has to walk back cuz she had to leave her car there since it's actually the BELLINGHAM "First Friday Art Walk" and won't be no parking by the end...
so she's toast and it ain't even started and she ain't even there! We are wheeking for the fresh organic blueberries she got as part of her "pay" for working (she didn't WORK! she just got seated at her special little table to label all her own work, put cards in envelopes, all things that coulda/woulda/shoulda been done WHEN?)
Good one, mom! So, she don't look like THIS tonight. We ain't gonna say what she does resemble cuz a'wantin them sweet, plump, ripe, Northwest blueberries...only gonna remind y'all what happens to dem berries after we eat 'em... YEAH: DAT!
NASTY, MOM! TAKE A SHOWER, DO ANYTHING! DO EVERYTHING!
OOOpsie Doodle, betta Go 'fore she seeZ this and eats our berries h'self!

P.S. NEWS FLASH!!!We found out CD3 got a guinea pig: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BAD-FLASH: a happy family came into the gallery with three kids who also gots guineas and was telling mom how to give us a bath! SHE ASKED IF WE HAD

A SWIMMING POOL?! WE SUPPOSED TO? CALL THE CAPYBARA

PEOPLE! Then the children did A Very Bad Thing: they also explained to mom

how to give guineas a b.a.t.h:. SERIOUSLY.

WE DON'T THINK SO! We WANTS to be "known" when we goes about
and we do it through scent; some call it nasty, some call it "oooh, gonna
HORK THE BIG ONE!" and some mebbe think mom should wash her
sheets after we pees all over her bed. Well, you entitled to your opinion,
who cares? ANYBODY? NOPE? DIDN'T THINK SO!

But congrats to CD3 and - if we're lucky - when mom comes out of her

coma we hope to run a post on CD and her new BabyGirlGuinea! 


Nighty-night, sorry to miss Molly Movie Night...woulda shared dem
blueberries wid y'all, too! (MUCH LAUGHTER AMONGST THE
HERD.)

"Ah, we so funny, we KEEL ourselves laughin!"

Can You Say "FA-MOUSE PIG?"

Mom found out sometime during her haze (oopsie, meant past few days) this pic of Calvin the small gonna supposed to get published in the World's First and Only International Magazine about guinea pigs. We got a link to it on our "Blogs We
Read" list over yonder there: "The Guinea Pig Magazine" and it real pretty, too.

When the editor asked mom to tell her a little about Calvin well, y'know mom can't keep her pie-hole shut so she wrote a TOME, so then the editor said it was actually for a photo page but mebbe mom could write the story of Calvin the small's rescue for the next issue...mom need to learn what "less is more" means, but she ain't evah gonna...she says that what "editorZ" is for: Southern lassies can run they's pie-holes
as much and for howevah long they feels like it, what mom says. She justifies
everything by sayin' "From the Deep South" but...Lassies?

SERIOUSLY?!

(ENTIRE HERD BELLOWING IN LAUGHTER, ROLLING OVER ON THEY'S LIDDLE BACKS AND WIGGLING ALL THEY'S TOES WITH THE GIGGLES! LASSIES, OH WHERE MOM COME UP WID DIS STUFF? SHE KEELIN' US THAT SO FUNNY!)

Time To Rest

Hi y'owl,

It's time for mom to take a break so we are going to take a break with her. We will be back once the spark returns! For now, she too sick and we is going to behave -

YumYum: "Speak for yourSELF!"
CoconutPie: "Speak for yourSELF!"
MacNutPie: "Speak for yourSELF!"
Raj Mahal: "Speak for yourSELF"
Taj Mahal: "What Raj said plus
she betta clean our cages TODAY!"

"My name is Calvin and I just spoke for myself, apparently."

All Together: "CLEAN OUR CAGES, MOM! AND WHERE
IS BREAKFAST AND WHY AREN'T WE ON RUNABOUT
OR GETTING COMBED ON YOUR LAP?! YOU THINK YOU
SICK NOW JUST WAIT - "

Expletives Deleted. That's all, folks!

One Big Enchilada!

Nobody knows this, but mom is a weather geek and minored in geography stuff in college. Last night we all had to endure TWO episodes of "NOVA," one on DARK SPACE (pretty cool, actually) and the other one on Fractal mathematics and applications discovered by Benoit Mandelbrot.
Gotta admit, that was kinda cool, but eating popcorn to math?! Seriously, mom? SERIOUSLY!

Why she have to cancel NETFLIX just because they doubled their price and offered nothing in return? We been having lots of fun "at the movies" and was just learning to sing like Crazy Heart, who is in concert in Seattle this weekend. That Jeff Bridges one fine piece o' Old Guy!

Night-night from Migraine Central, HurricanerZ, take care!

Lurve,
All us guinea pigulas *TWANG!*
(since we ain't go no more NETFLIX, gonna take REAL GOOD
care of mom tonight, yeah REAL GOOD: Mu-ah-Ha-HAAAAAAAAH!)



Marifun Sends ME a Magic Carpet!

Whaddya mean that a real good song? MOM! Please stop singing...i don'know who "StepOnWolf" is, but i's ABOUT READY to STEP on it myself! (what it? someMODy tell me, what it?)
Please get Marifun for me...she gotta hush you!

YumYum: "MacNutPie, that the very first song mom ever learned how to play on the drums, so it is very special to her. (It means she remembering her youth:
THAT ACTUALLY IS FUNNY!!!!LOL!) Youth, WHADDA CONCEPT, HA!"

MacNutPie: "I HEAR CARLOS and SEE HORKS!"

(ya'll just had to be on at MMN late last night to get THAT: or ask GMarch!)

Thank you, MariFUN, and we hope your soup is good and you got a magic
carpet to ride out Irene...cozy, safe, and soupy!
We lurves YOU! And KNOW you'll stay in touch or we'll all sing and
StepOnWolves worrying 'bout you'z and the rest of our East CoasterZ!

Be safe...you and all in Irene's path have our deepest prayers.

Artwork Courtesy of the MigraiNation - August, 2011

                                                                   

                                                         "Giraffe and Spot, the Dog"

                                                                       "Kiwi Eggs"

"Little Deer"

This is only a sample of the drawings mom worked on feverishly to distract from the pain of seemingly relentless migraines. Being one of the worst headache months in memory, she will be starting medication to - hopefully - lessen the frequency and intensity of them. We wonder what the drawings will look like THEN: probably she won't be drawing because she'll be outside doing fun stuff, playing with us more, and draw blue things, which are calmer. We shall see! She takes them
to her neurologist to illustrate the "visual auras" and he is putting them on his website. He invited mom to speak to his migraine group up in a town too far for her to drive so she couldn't.

When she took these and a few others to ARTISANS GALLERY yesterday, she saw some of her cards in their window! The owner, Rick, does an amazing job constantly changing up the gallery so going in is always a surprise. Next Friday Night will the another First Friday ARTWALK and last month they featured chocolate-covered-fried-bacon as an appetizer: Shiver me timbers! 
WHAT A VEGAN-ACK! (glad mom didn't see it...porkZ made from pigZ)


On a more cheerful note:GREAT NEWS FOR GUINEA BELLINGHAMSTERZ!
Today is cage-cleaning day which means Runabouts on the $6 (not authentic) Persian Rug she bought from a neighbor because it's soft and cushy and the colors match our pee and poo so perfectly our "refuse" will only add to rich tapestry of it's beauty! (That's our story and we're sticking TO IT!)

This weekend we are predicted to break 80 degrees, so as we approach September and the beginning of snow up in the mountains where it never melted from last year, mom hopes to get out and spend time by, if not ON, the water "getting" our few days of summer...NO COMPLAINTS, though, considering how much the rest of the country has suffered from heat, drought, and storms...Nooooo Complaints!

We have also been watching Hurricane Irene with prayers for all our near and dear ones up and down the East Coast...mom emailed our "Special Sister" in Savannah, GA (back "home") but has not heard back so we hope they are all safe. We hope EVERYONE remains safe and has everything needed to remain comfortable as the storm pushes N.E. especially our friend, Jerry, camping on an island off the Maine Coast, whom we have called yet not heard from yet. Windstorms with gusts up to 110 are not uncommon here in November, and mom grew up in Savannah and Tybee Island, so we knows them storms can give a whoopin'!

PLEASE STAY SAFE AND KEEP US ALL IN THE LOOP!

Love,

SQUEEEEE! WE GET TO PEE AND POO ON THE NEW RUG!

YumYum, of course!

We LOVE to Read!

O.K. so maybe we love to read the boxes that books come in before we turn them into teepees and eat them!
So? It's still reading to us!

Celebrating Our Friend's First Novel!

Jim Cohee | Mrs. Dalloway's

^^^Way Cool, you Booklovers! Check IT OUT!

Back in 1983, when mom was a wildlife photographer

enroute to live on the Big Island of Hawaii, she stopped

in San Francisco briefly and found herself walking by

the Sierra Club National Headquarters. Being mom,

she marched upstairs and announced to the receptionist,

"I am here to see your photo editor!" as if announcing

the Queen had, at long last, arrived...

Mom don't know much about professional etiquette.

The photo editor, Linda, saw the best in the business,

and even they made appointments. So, when her

receptionist interrupted to tell her, "This you really

gotta see to believe!" she actually saw mom.

Mom has no recollection of what transpired other

than informing Linda that the volcano Kilauea had
just erupted and she would be photographing it
for SIERRA magazine, as she was going there
and they undoubtedly would want a feature on
this explosive volcano!

That was back in early 1983. Mom did go to
Volcanoes National Park and they actually
let her live there as a staff person but had
a very different job in mind for her, which
was to ride horses into the jungle for the
purpose of trapping feral hogs for slaughter,
as they were destroying indigenous vegetation.

Mom loved the "Indiana Jones on Horseback"
part but not the killing part, and also her friends
who had flown over the volcano said you get
sucked into something that makes the little plane
lurch so hard you throw up. She didn't want to
throw up on her camera.

And yet, throughout the ages she and Linda
and her husband Jim, remained close friends,
visiting one another as the Cohees were both
Midwestern expatriates who saw mom when
she lived in Iowa and mom would see them
when visiting San Francisco.

On September 17, 2011, Jim's debut novel
will be celebrated at Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore
in Berkeley and we invite anyone who lives
in the area to attend. Jim is the former Senior
Editor of Sierra Club Books making his
debut as a fiction novelist with The Swan,
certain to be only the first of many beautiful
novels. We are so excited for them: WHEEEK!