snippets xi-i

Anybody who wanders around the world saying, "Hell yes, I'm from Texas," deserves whatever happens to him.

One of the key genetic rules in breeding dogs, horses or any other kind of thoroughbred is that close inbreeding tends to magnify the weak points in a bloodline as well as the strong points. In horse breeding, for instance, there is a definite risk in breeding two fast horses who are both a little crazy. The offspring will likely be very fast and also very crazy.

- The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, Hunter S. Thompson

Terrific piece.

ondineula and frankenaries

Don't worry. They're playing.

tree-climbing aries

He follows her everywhere.

chair and blinds

whatcha reading vii

No man, proclaimed Donne, is an Island, and he was wrong. If we were not islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other's tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitive shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or another, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are snowflakes - forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection), but still unique.

- American Gods, Neil Gaiman

guest post: aries got to play in a waterfall today

Pit bull fetch. Amy took these with her iPod this afternoon.

whiskers

rein and ondine go to the river

Vicki brought her border collie, Rein, for a playdate this weekend, so we took them to the river. It was Ondine's first time in the water. Rein showed her the ropes.

Beautiful day.

matilda

Amy's cat.

bardarbunga

yeah it's like living in a circus

night colors

Aries is blue and Ondine is jet black, yet it is Aries who disappears outside at night. His coat has exactly the right depth of color to blend inconspicuously into his surroundings. You get the feeling he knows it, too, because he stands perfectly still and watches as you try to find him. It's unnerving. Ondine is as easy to locate as Aries is hard; she is never still, and the eye is quick to spot inky black shadows flying by.



Although when you see it it's too late for you anyway.