White on Grey

This delicately sugared Russian tea cake from our fave-O-fave local bakery in Bow, Washington

is an essential provision for all Explorations of Grey.

(OFFER VALID ONLY WITH LATTES.)

Blue Grey

We enthusiastically look forward to sharing our many hues of grey with you. This is Padilla Bay, where the mighty Skagit River runs from the "American Swiss Alps" (North Cascades National Park) into the Bay. It may also be the last viable estuary for all 5 species of salmon native to Northwest Washington. We don't know what that means. Looks like whales from a distance. We like whales although we have never met one. Right now we just want breakfast. "WHEEEEEEEEEEEK!"

Julie Andrews - Dancing Queen - YouTube

Julie Andrews - Dancing Queen - YouTube

Dedicated to Ms. A, who reminds me to dance.
Even - ESPECIALLY! - with piggie pee on my nightgown~

Where Everybody Knows Your Name...

And you're always glad you came..."CHEERS" TO THE TRIPLE-SHOT GRANDE!

p.s. We actually ran into the actor who played the Postman on "Cheers" near the ferry terminal on one of the islands many years back, Edwin said he and I were wearing identical hats...mom and Cliff both lookin' alike! IMAGINE what that says about mom! In truth, a lot of non-Hollywoodies who don't need ranches or New York do live in the Puget Sound area and some even live here.

But they all turn pale, mossy-green after awhile, like the rest of us, so they fit right in!

If It's Monday...

Mom still not feeling too well, but she looks worse than she feels. Pretty chicky here looks better than mom! But she has discovered that NOW is the time to prepare for the next Art Extravaganza, and is determined to ORGANIZE EARLY! That is why she fell asleep with Calvin already once today, and is going back to bed now.

But we had the most fun yesterday and she did get my cage cleaned and half of Calvin's and the new crop of hay that's come in is just the way we love it, the last crop was mainly dust. We like the flowers on the ends of the stalks. Like popcorn, so we had a blast watching Vacadude's Playhouse where he did a LIVE ON AIR puppet show about the meaning of "Columbus Day" and it was funny. Personally, we think this holiday should be revoked now that we know "the end of the story" but Thanksgiving had an even worse ending (not for the Pilgrims, for the ones who saved them, mmm, not good at all.)
But there's too much football. They'll never revoke Thanksgiving. And giving thanks is good. We just feel it would be good to do every day. Don't you?

Winter has blustered its way back onto the radar...so odd, considering how - in many ways - it kinda never left! Spring and Fall? Fuggetabout it!! Nevah happened. So, mom chose ONE room to focus on finding the heat vent and it's OUR ROOM and we're now hunkered down next to mom's bed with one heating vent and Calvin's back to his nightly "special me in bed with mom" ritual.
So,  I had to pee on mom ro re-establish my dominance and value as #1 Alpha
Pig of Perfection. DON'T JUDGE! She likes the way I feel so warm on her chest and I bask in the Glow O'Da Cuddle because we've been together so long we just hug and I purr straight-up-close-and-personal but, hey, I'm YumYum. She was
wearing the one flannel nightgown she inherited from her recently passed-away friend but no harm done. She just glad I drinking enough water TO PEE ON ANYTHING, EVEN IF IT HER! That's the beauty of having a brain-Farked mom.
She don't know any different. Whatever happens, happens! It all good, as long as
we together as a family. And she thinks she a guinea pig, too. Ya just gotta work
these things to your advantage when you're YumYum, cuz that's how I roll, baby, that just how I roll!

Now, to count our myriad shades of grey...

Light grey, dark grey, in-between grey, blue grey, green grey, cloudy grey, watery grey, hazy grey, moist grey, sprinkley-rain-grey, mediocre-rain-grey, windstorm without rain grey, windstorm with rain-grey, windstorm-with-hail grey, winstorm with horizontal, pouring, zero-visibility grey, windstorm with rain and hail grey, windstorm with horizontal rain and hail grey, foggy grey, grey poupon,
spooky grey, grey of the Scottish moors, where you can almost hear Sasquatch howling...and it's only OCTOBER...HEATHCLIFF!

VacaChat on USTREAM: Mostly an exercise in silliness. I will do Q&A sessions (if there would be anyone willing to watch and ask Q's) regarding the cartooni...

VacaChat on USTREAM: Mostly an exercise in silliness. I will do Q&A sessions (if there would be anyone willing to watch and ask Q's) regarding the cartooni...

Nothing more fun after a Runabout than to lounge in our plush,
new Cuddly, Dudley-cups and watch VacaDude! Tonight we
learned all about Columbus Day...sort of.
It was a good day.
It was about us!
At LAST!


THANKS, VACA, FOR TOPPING OFF A GREAT DAY!

MAIZEY SUNNY-DAYZY

Finally, mom is getting her strength back and WE ARE NOW JOB #1, as we ALWAYS should be!

Long, long overdue: A nice Sunday afternoon Runabout through our Maize! Even got
its own Maize-Oasis for when we need replenishment after all that chasing each other.

I chased my brother so much I got tired. I personally enjoy the Maize because it gives me
a chance to hide where nobody can find me, like...NOW!

"What happened to mom's bedroom? Because between our cages and our maizes..."

"Why she need a bedroom, she an 'On-The-Go' kinda woman!"

"Actually, Raj, she more 'On-the-Slow' but we left room for her bed...somewhere.
We think...mebbe...hmmm, well, guess she could share our new cuddle cup?"

Raj: "What doth thou mean by 'our' OH, Gracious Brother?"

Taj: "Mom got no bed, no way, not a chance, NADA. Oh Well!"

"All that chasing sure makes us thirsty! Lucky we got our own "Maize-Oasis" fully stocked
with these little tiny bottles full of --"

"What Raj really means is we have a special Bedouin tent, a special Well that resembles a
sippy bottle, a nice bowl of food...NO LITTLE TINY BOTTLES OF ANYTHING,
ANYWHERE, NEVAH!"

"Raj, put a lid on it! I doesn't care if you got a bi-colored, fancy lip or not, SHUT IT!"

"HEY, WHEN IT GONNA BE OUR TURN? MY LADY AND I WANNA PLAY CHASE-
AND-HUMP! MORE FUN WHEN SHE PLAYS 'HARD TO GET' ...SO YOU TWO SCRAM!"

"Sure, MacNutPie, sure...(hee-hee, who he think he is? He the one on da INSIDE!"

Actually, we are starting to wear ourselves out...Hey, Raj, wanna go home now and take a
proper nap in our brand new cuddle-cups?

When I said "our brand new cuddle cups" Raj translated that into his! But I don't mind napping
atop my Pigloo. I can watch MacNutPie chase his plump 'missus' who can outwit, outrun, and
outsmart him anytime!" Dat Pig sure take after his PapaPie! Fo 'Sho!

WELL, FINALLY, OUR TURN, WELL-EARNED!
Chase-And-Hump requires NUTRITIONAL CARBO-LOADING and now that mom finally
let us out, CocoNutPie, HERE I COME TO GETCHA, GONNA GETCHA GOOD!

"Yeah, whatEVAH! I found a carrot, so come on and
GET ME, FELLA!"

An Officer and a Gentleman

This taken during an interview featuring Jason Amerine (featured on "The Colbert Report" last week) and author Eric Blehm following the publication of The Only Thing Worth Dying For. Stephen had his pick of ANYONE to interview on the day marking the tenth anniversary of our entry into the war in Afghanistan...but he couldn't have picked anyone better.

Jason Amerine - The Colbert Report - 2011-06-10 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

Jason Amerine - The Colbert Report - 2011-06-10 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

On the same poignant show where Stephen made an unusually

touching tribute to Stephen Jobs last week, he also broke rank

with his "character" during an interview with

Lieutenant Colonel Jason Amerine, who was one of the key

Special Ops officers featured in our friend Eric Blehm's

New York Times bestseller, The Only Thing Worth Dying For

which we highly recommend.

Further, a moving documentary featuring both Amerine, Eric,

and the surviving soldiers and their families can be found through

a link on Eric's Facebook. It is in Four Parts, to be watched

sequentially. It puts a "face, place, time, and on-the-ground

urgency" to the book because, having watched the documentary,

you can not only read the book but see and actually feel it, as well...

We met Eric during our tenure as MOD Blog contributors

and remain friends. He is (as mentioned earlier) currently

not responding to emails while he completes the first draft

of his newest book, but you Facebookers out there can keep

up on him through his FB page.

To Ten Years at War..."Thank you for your service."

A BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY

enjoytheride

^^^ Might wanna hanky...do watch.

It's worth it. Or it wouldn't be here.

"Love has only a beginning;

  It has no end."
                    ~Sant Darshan Singh Ji Maharaj

Thank you for sending
this to us, YahooRose!
And thank you for our
Appaloosa...we ride him
every day. No, we cannot
explain...But Rose knows!

Good-Bye

Stephen Jobs, Godspeed

Steve Jobs: Stanford commencement address, June 2005 | Technology | The Observer

^^^TO READ AND CONTEMPLATE...

If you read or skip down to the part where Jobs talks about life and death, we find

it deeply moving and wise beyond his years. Mom doesn't own one i-anything, although it would make a tremendous difference in our lives if she used technology we could all understand. We followed Jobs for a different reason, and know we have mentioned it a number of times. Which is that Edwin was diagnosed, in much the same way, with this same rare form of pancreatic cancer which is, supposedly, 100% curable with surgery. When the doctor came out after the endoscopy (and Edwin was still under anesthesia) he didn't have to say one word. He invited mom into a private room, sat her down, then patted her on her knee. She burst into tears. That was the exact same way she found out her best friend was dying years earlier. And Sylvia did die. Mom was there for Sylvia...it was only to have been a routine colonoscopy...turned out to be mom's first "pat on the knee" experience.

We couldn't afford anything Apple, nor can we now. So, we watched Jobs for his weight gain, weight loss, the color of his skin, the way it hung loose on his face
over time, while his pants looked baggier, his skull leaner. Edwin does not have cancer but it took two surgeries, none of them easy. We followed Jobs' secret illness while he fought to keep it that way so Apple stocks wouldn't plunge like the weight rapidly fleeing his body...we watched because we wanted to see what happened to the famous man with such a rare form of "curable" pancreatic cancer.

Then, at the age of 56, Jobs died. Edwin and mom are 55. So we followed Stephen Jobs, not because mom's a techie, or can afford the newest, latest, greatest i-Thing, we watched because we have gone through at least some of what he fought so hard to keep secret.

And we grieve for him. Our generation lost our Thomas Edison prematurely,
before we could wring everything from him, or so one commentator lamented.
Perhaps he - knowing more acutely than anyone - his own mortality, actually 
wrung it out of himself, perhaps even hastening his own death...we don't know
him. He said it wouldn't matter whether or not he was the richest man in the
cemetary, that the only thing that mattered is what he did while he was here
on earth. He followed his heart. He was an iconoclastic personality who changed the world. And he was a college drop-out.

So, to honor him, we ask you, dear readers, to introspect within, find your passion, and follow it. Ours is animal rescue, supported through art and the kind generosity of like-souled humans. Mom never feels like she does a good enough job because she gets tired so quickly but we know she does the best she can and we are all happy to be together, especially she is happy we are all together, we calm her
and give her life a sense of purpose and meaning.


We love and admire people who have the guts and courage to follow their hearts.
Right now our friend Eric Blehm is working feverishly on a book which has
broken his heart, yet the story will be written because Eric is a passionate man and devoted to his heart, follows his calling, and has a beautiful wife and family who
support him in this. We have friends who takes risks such as these and love them,
find inspiration in them, and live better for knowing them, whether we ever meet
them or not.

So, we followed Stephen Jobs. We follow Eric Blehm, although now we can only
see the front page of his FACEBOOK because he is communing with the one he
is writing about with a rapidly approaching deadline. We follow our new friend
Alison, working desperately against some pretty tough odds to continue printing
the only Guinea Pig Magazine in the world! We follow our new friend Jen, of
Jen's Custom Crafts, who sewed all our new cuddle cups and YumYum's plush
"MAN-CAVE" because she does this to support her own rescued animals, her
family, and still donates a portion of her profits to small animal rescues
like ours!


So, we follow the visionaries amongst us, mostly invisible to the world, less
newsworthy than Stephen Jobs, yet no less fearless. We follow them, we keep
in touch with them, we admire them, we are here for them, and we hope to
become one of them.

Godspeed, all of you. And Stephen, you fought heroically. Godspeed, friend.



"You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference
in my life."
                                      ~Stephen Jobs