puppy play

Last weekend we pet sat for an 8 month old puppy named Nigel. This was the first time I'd ever done pet sitting, and it was a lot harder than I'd expected. Luckily, Jolly and Nigel got along like a house on fire. They played several times throughout the three days he was here until they both collapsed on the floor. I would then put Nigel in his crate and he'd sleep for several hours.


It was definitely a learning experience, but I told the boy not to book us for any more sitting any time soon. It's hard enough taking care of my own dog!

dog days

So, the first photos from the new camera are in. I'm happy with them in that this is soooo much better than from my old camera! Already I can tell I have a lot of practicing and learning to do. I can't wait to get outside though because my apartment is so poorly lit and I've never been completely happy with the quality of any photos taken here. Especially at night. These were taken at f/1.8 at around 1/25sec, which is too slow.



Three more here.

What do you think?

quick hellos

I know, I know, I haven't blogged in nearly two weeks! The truth is, I've been so stressed out with the last few weeks of school and finals. I have my last final tomorrow morning, luckily, and then it's nothing but freedom until winter session starts on January 5th. On Wednesday, the boy, Jolly and I are going to my family's house in Massachusetts. More on that next week!

In the mean time, here is a photo snapped in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, yesterday, on the way home from the Brooklyn Flea's Gifted holiday market. I am kicking myself for never remembering to take photos, but we dropped a pretty penny at my favorite, Whimsy & Spice! I hope my family likes their yummy spiced goodies. I also picked up a jar of homemade mustard from McClure's Pickles for my grandmother. Very delicious, as are their pickles, but I didn't want to shlep a glass jar of them home, so another time.


I'm signing off with a photo of Jolly (right) and another dog being cute at the dog run today. The surface was completely iced over and slippery, but that did not stop them from running around!

If I don't talk to you until then, merry Christmas, Kwanza, and Hanukkah!

postcard design

I designed a postcard for a downtown dog daycare boutique to announce that they are now offering 10 dollar half hour walks. This is the front side. I did not take the photo, though it was not very high quality to begin with, which led to some problems when printing. In the future I hope to use the higher resolution shots that I took, even with my camera, it should be an improvement. In the coming weeks I will also be designing a rates postcard and a general flyer postcard, too. I love postcards!

dog photography

The boy is a dog trainer and walker downtown, and he's been wanting me to create some advertisements for him for a while now. Yesterday I met him at work and we took his favorite dog, Yuki, a Shiba Inu, to the East River for a photo shoot! Here are my three favorites:




I'm too embarrassed to admit what kind of camera I used to shoot these. For everything else, I shoot on film and I haven't upgraded my digital camera in years. It's awful. Hopefully next year I'll get a new one.

I'm still nagging the boy to give me some ideas about what he wants the ads to say, since he keeps nixing all of mine! But hopefully from these we can create some postcards to hand out or send in the mail.

a fresh start

Jolly is finally back at the dog run! I haven't covered her ordeal too much here on my blog, but the short story is that exactly a year ago, Jolly and I were walking home from the dog run when suddenly she yelped and began to limp. Our vet discovered that Jolly had a genetic deformity in both of her front legs that caused one bone to grow longer than the other. It made her look like she was always standing in a ballerina's first position. Since then, she hasn't been allowed to run.

In January, she underwent her first surgery to correct the right leg. For eight weeks, she had titanium external fixators and pins in her leg. It's hard to imagine if you didn't see it, but you can channel the braces Forrest Gump wore on his legs as a child. Jolly's were much thinner, and there was a flat metal ring around her leg anchoring it all. It was not a pretty sight underneath the bandages, and she had to wear an Elizabethan collar. A few months later, she had the same surgery on her left leg. Everything was removed at the beginning of August, and it's now been nearly two months. So on Saturday, we brought Jolly back to the dog run, and she's been doing really well!


I'll post more pictures of the dog run later in the week. It's super fun for her. On another note, a few days ago I was eating soup after class, staring out the window when I saw a... blimp? A Zeppelin of some sort? I snapped a picture, but it was flying past the small window space so fast I hardly caught it! Weird!

a simple solution

I got a request for a blog entry last night, and it wasn't exactly from a reader. It was from the boy, who had helped me out with something great!

As you're all well aware, I got an iPhone on Monday. Though I had a nifty clear, hard case for it to protect it, I quickly found something I didn't have -- a way to carry it around with me when I'm on walks with Jolly, sans purse. We used to have this not so attractive leash bag from Outward Hound, but come on, we are sophisticated, stylish people here (plus it's old and tarnished and wouldn't fit.)
I tried making my own case, but that was doomed to fail from the start because I can't sew. I put a word out on Etsy that I was looking to buy, but I needed something fast! Yesterday when I woke up, I tossed my phone into the front chest pocket of my shirt (it's really the boy's, but I hijacked it.) We went outside, and Jolly pooed, so when I bent down to pick it up, out popped my phone onto the pavement, luckily not in the poo, but it was enough to fear for my pretty phone's life! That's when I decided something had to be done!

I went to Radio Shack, and I found a camera case that fit perfectly. Perfectly, as though it were made for it, except not. For only $6.99. Score.


I went home and I was like, gee, how am I going to attach this thing to the leash? I called the boy, who didn't pick up, to ask if we had any carabiners laying around, and I found several, but I attached it in this weird knotty position, not good at all. So when the boy came home, I asked him to reconfigure it, and of course he did it way more efficiently than I, in half the time, with half the supplies. He used the S-Biner I found burried in a junk bin (a purchase, he told me to tell you, that I had once scowled at because I didn't see its purpose for a boy who never went backpacking anymore.)


There you have it, my custom (sort of) iPhone leash bag. (And you can also see my DIY-ed poo bag holder, using simply a hair tie to keep it in place on the leash! [Edit: I was also instructed to add that the hair tie was also the boy's doing, not mine.])

becoming fall

It was a gorgeous day today, sunny and not too hot or cold. In the evening, Jolly and I walked to the esplanade, but before we got going, I had to run back upstairs to grab a sweatshirt. It was freezing! I sat down on a bench overlooking the East River, but we had to go before too long because my nose started tingling. At least Jolly got some exercise, and she is now asleep beside me on the couch. I'm exhausted, too! Here are a few pictures from today.

shoot me

A bunch of us are going to see The Dark Night when it opens at midnight on July 18th. I bought tickets on Fandango a few days ago. Soon after, I realized that I was planning to visit my aunt, uncle and cousins at their vacation home on Fire Island on Thursday and Friday. I was, that is, so long as Jolly got the external fixators off her leg today. It's been over 8 weeks since her surgery and we went in for x-rays and to see if she can get them off. I was really looking forward to going to Fire Island. Figures that I can still go to The Dark Knight now, since Jolly now has to have the fixators on for another 4 whole weeks. I should have known I wouldn't get to Fire Island when I had more than one thing to do that day.
I am absolutely devastated. I am so tired of this ordeal with my dog, I want it to be over with. She hasn't been allowed to run around since last September. She's only a year and a half old, we're talking half her life. It will have been nearly a year before she can really run again.
The good news, strange news, is that the doctor said she can have short runs now. That's never been allowed before. He doesn't mean full-speed run, but a canter, and only briefly. So I'm thinking if she's allowed to do that at 8 weeks, maybe in 4 more weeks, she really will be able to run around again like normal.
The worse news is this puts my vacation to Maine on very rocky ground. We're going to have to talk about this a lot.
So sad. I need a big piece of chocolate cake.