Let’s start with why this weekend was retro. I flew to Dallas at 7:30 Saturday morning. I packed a few clothes, a puppy stacking box, a Sherpa Bag . . . I planned to throw in a blazer in case I needed to look less like a street peddler and more like a semi-educated attorney. I slipped my cell phone into the blazer pocket. Then I checked the weather for Dallas. 107 degrees! OMG! No blazer — only lightweight slacks and shirts. I live a half-hour from the airport and was at airport parking when I wondered if I had rescued the cell phone from my blazer pocket. To make a short story shorter — I had not. I was cell-phoneless. I couldn’t check email, or text messages. Holmes and Nola were at a show and I couldn’t find out how they’d done. (Turns out I didn’t miss any news on that front). How dependent we are on our telephones! I did use Lisa’s computer to send out a couple of messages (better than a note in a bottle), and Wendy called me on Lisa’s cell to tell me the dogs had done nothing.
A nice man in the boarding line at SW Air had emailed Lisa to tell her I had forgotten my phone so she wouldn’t be sitting in the cell phone waiting area for no good reason.
So Lisa picked me up at Love Field and took me to her house. Baby puppies! She had nine of the cutest little guys and girls you can imagine. Four brindles and five reds or sables. Four girls and five boys. I was in heaven. Then all the folks for the puppy party began arriving and chaos ensued. Lisa Phillips came to help (thank goodness) and I took stacked photos — or as close as we could get to them. The puppies were 8 weeks old on Friday and aren’t quite ready for prime time. However, we got at least a decent shot or two of each of them. One brindle girl and one brindle boy and a sable boy were very yummy. In fact, the brindle girl was so yummy that I wheedled Lisa into co-owning her with me. I brought her home. She is Riley for those of you that have checked out Lisa’s blog. Her registered name will be “Snapdragon Elyan Something Unspoken”. The litter theme is Tennessee Williams’ plays.
I left Dallas at 2:20 today, landed in Albuquerque at 3:00. Riley was so very good. She slept on the plane, had a little drink of water, made a great start on meeting 100 people by the time she is 12 weeks old. When we landed, I went out to the dog grass area east of the airport before I even picked up my bag. I took her out of the Sherpa carrier and set her on the grass. You could almost hear her sigh as she took care of long-overdue business. Then we went to PetSmart. I really hadn’t planned on bringing home a puppy and needed a new bed for her. I had to run to my storage unit to get a litter box and shavings. I fed her and cuddled her then put her back in the puppy room — vacant since the fearsome foursome became big dogs. She howled and yelled for hours. I’m picking Holmes and Nola up at around midnight and am hoping that once the house is again full of dogs, Riley will be more comfortable. I love her body and I love her attitude — the voice is another matter. I am so very grateful to Dr. Lisa for sharing her with me.
She doesn’t really have blue eyes — it’s from the flash.
Guess we needed a puppy show collar.
