Mornin Girl - Tallulah's first year with us

 

The dog in the photo above is terrified.  I know this dogs expression and body language now.    She has anxiety.  And she has no idea what happened to her family.   Her name was Pantera, Spanish for panther.  She was abandoned at a kill shelter in San Antonio, Texas.    Our fourteen year black lab had just passed on.   We were doing a rescue dog search one week later.   Our house was empty without a dog.  We looked at several dogs online.   We put in several requests for adoptions.   And this was the first one that answered us.  

It's been a long year.   We renamed her Tallulah.  She moved into our home with much anxiety and energy.  Two weeks after bringing her home last November she darted out of our side door and was hit by a car in front of our home.  After two surgeries, having a leg amputated, and many many dollars she returned home to us and recuperated for the next eight weeks.  She was sedated and sleeping on our couch most of that time.  So we did not really get to know her true personality even after sharing our home with her for ten weeks. 

The two photos above are from her return home after the first emergency pet er visit.  There is still a lot of fear in  eyes.  She is in a strange house, in pain, and no idea what is going on.   But she did recover and won over our hearts completely.  We would not trade her for anything..

My blogs are usually travel blogs.  And although we were still under the influence of Covid-19 for another year this year we did take two vacations.  And Tallulah learned to travel with us.  At home Tallulah proved to be a watch dog.  The minute she goes outside the door she goes on duty, barking, growling and all the neighbors and anyone within eye sight to stay out of her yard and away from her house.  She can not relax when out in the yard.  He ears are up at attention.  Her tail is up in the air and not wagging.  And she is watching everything around her.  If you knock on our door or come into our house she is in defense mode until you win her over.  So travelling with her was a major concern for us.  We had no idea how she would react to a different house and setting.  We were concerned how she would behave in a new neighborhood.  Here she is at home.   She is not relaxed outside.  She is one guard duty.  

We rented a beach house this past summer on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  It is one of our favorite vacation destinations.   Our previous dog, Delilah, loved the beach and going to beach house each year.   But how would the guard dog Tallulah react was our question.  We rented a house with handicap ramps so she would not have any issues climbing the tall steps on Outer Banks homes with only three legs.   She was well behaved in the car on the drive down the North Carolina.  When we arrived we had problems getting her to walk up the handicap ramps.  And once inside the house she took some time to sniff around the property and then she completely relaxed.  She was not on guard duty.  She was not snarling out of the windows at the neighbors.   She just completely relaxed.   She wa not working.  She was on vacation.

Tallulah relaxing on the porch of the beach house watching the lake across the street .

We were amazed with her behavior while on vacation in May.  In September we took a second holiday and drove to New Hampshire, another favorite vacation spot.  We rented a cabin in the woods.  It was very secluded and comfortable.  We relaxed in the wooded development and so did Tallulah once more.  She loved the cabin.  She loved walking down the dirt roads and sniffing all the natural scents around her.   The only time she was agitated or excited was one afternoon when a group of wild turkeys walked across our yard.  She was very curious and wanted to know what those big birds were doing in the yard.  But for the most part she took a vacation from her guard duties and had a wonderful relaxed vacation.  

Here she is below completely relaxed on the couch in the cabin

Although she looks like a black lab she is in reality a Patterdale Terrier/Black Lab mix.  Her attitude is pure terrier so we basically have a fifty pound terrier to control and handle,  But she is all heart and we love her so much.  She has spent the past year stealing our hearts and making her home with us.

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I call her my Mornin' Girl and sing to her the old song from the 70's Mornin' Girl each morning.  And then our new day begins.

As we start a new year with her our only wish is to have many more trips around the sun with her.  We had Delilah for twelve years and she died at age fourteen.   May we have just as many or more with Tallulah.  We live in any area named Carney.  We call her Tallulah Countess of Carney.  And she truly is the Countess.

Beware Bond.  The Patterdale is on guard duty.

Paris - Being A Novice Traveler in 2000

 People who know me from Facebook or other online sites just assume I have always been a traveler. I have posted hundreds of travel photos.  I talk about travel a lot.  If you look up my hobbies it will say photography and travel.  But to many friends surprise I never traveled abroad until the year 2000 when I was 48 years old.   I grew up with fantasies of travel.  It was always something I wanted to do but it was always of my reach.  I traveled through the movies.  At the age of ten I saw my first James Bond, Dr No movie and was amazed at all of the exotic locations that were thousands of miles from my small town in Maryland.  

Yes, that's me in the photo above standing spell bound at my first look at the Eiffel Tower in 2000.   I was so enthralled I was not even aware my photo was being taken.  I had to keep reminding myself I was really in Paris.   I was really in France.  It did not seem possible.  If anyone had asked me where would you like to travel I would have said Paris.   It was always a dream destination.   We were offered French or Spanish in high school.  There was no choice for me.  It had to be French.   If a movie was about France I wanted to see it.  If you asked me what was my favorite childhood movie starring Judy Garland was my answer would have been Gay Purr-ee.  Never would I have said The Wizard of Oz.  It was set in Kansas not Paris.  And the Wizard of Oz co starred Ray Bolger not Robert Goulet as in Gay Purr-ee.  But that's another story.  

The sign said Modern Hotel. But novice traveler here had no idea what the two stars meant. I thought it was just a decoration on the sign. Nope. It was a two star rated hotel on a kind of run down street. This my was my view from the hotel window. There was no Eiffel Tower or Arc de Triomphe any where in site. But there was a rather ratty looking bed in a dismal room that I planned to be in as little as possible so it did not really matter. And yes if you look closely I was wearing some really ugly glasses in 2000.

I did not have a cell at this time. I did not have a digital camera. No computer. I had no way to make contact other than a phone in case of an emergency. And this was not a bad thing. My photos were awful. I really had a lot to learn about travel photography. My photos were developed when I got home and were also digitized on a disc for me. But the photo quality was terrible on the digital disc. But looking back at the photos now the memories are very vivid and that's what it's all about really. Traveling. Making memories. Writing a travel diary. 

I got to see a lot.  I was a true tourist.  

I saw the Statue of Liberty in Paris.

The Sacre Couer

And the Venus de Milo of course.  I felt just like Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face.

Arc de Triomphe

If you could pose by it I have a photo of it.  

I learned to take better photos.  In 2002 I joined the Virtual Tourist online group.  I learned to write travel advice there.   And I learned a lot about taking travel photos from the many great photographer there.  But there is something special about being a first time novice traveler.  I learned a lot from that experience also. 

I guess you noticed there are no photos of my ex included here.  And that is by choice.  As Bogart said in Casablance "We'll always have Paris." but in this blog in my best Bogart voice it should be "I'll always have Paris."

I never got to Jim Morrison's grave on this visit.  That had to wait for my next visit this time with my husband Mark.  And I can say this time,  he and I will always have Paris.    

Odd Travel Moments - A Young Girl With A Bird On Her Boob In Lisbon

This photo was taken in 2015 and for some reason I am just now writing about it all these years later . And I don't know how I missed posting this. Mark and I were with our friend Gillian on holiday in Lisbon. Our last day there we were having lunch in an outdoor restaurant and noticed this girl with a bird hanging on her shoulder. At first we thought it was a dead bird which we found a bit odd. But then it moved. She was wearing a live bird on her blouse. It was just sitting there and not bothering to fly away. I love odd travel moments like this.

Mark and I have known our friend Gillian for almost 14 years now. We are more family than we are just friends. Gillian visits us often. And we travel together frequently. She makes frequent guest appearances in blogs because when we are all together trouble usually ensues. I am not sure why. Perhaps it's because we tend to drink a bit when we are all together. Gillian will deny this of course. But trust me. It's a fact. From time to time she and I remember this girl. We always say she is part of a novel that should be written. Or we say that one of us really needs to write a blog about it. But it has not happened until tonight. Gillian, her time in the spot light has arrived. I hope I do her proud.  

Times are tough.   To complain about it makes you look juvenile.  Everyone, world wide, knows times are bad. There is nothing you can say about it that everyone doesn't already realize for themselves.   We are sharing this pandemic world wide.   When 400,000 people have died in your country it seems selfish and callous to say how much you miss travel. Or it seems insensitive to say I wish I could go out to my pub.   And then it really seems childish to complain that you have nothing to write about in your travel blog.  There are far more serious things to be concerned about.   I talked to two good friends today and both told me they have tested positive for COVID.   That's very serious.  I prayed for them both tonight.  I can't sleep.   Stress has robbed me of sleep for weeks now.   So while I sit here fighting insomnia the unfinished blog about the girl with bird on her boob came to mind this evening.

Mark and I love Lisbon.   It was never a place on our bucket list to visit.  But once we arrived there it captured our imagination. We have now been to Portugal twice and would love to again.   We have some travel friends who live in Lisbon that we enjoy visiting.  

Gillian, Mark and I with our friends Miguel and Gloria from Lisbon.

And the wines in Portugal are some of the best in the world.  The food is very good also, 

 And then there is the mesmerizing Fado music that we learned to love.  Having some wine and listening to Fado music is one of our favorite experiences when we visit Portugal.

Back alley out door Fado music bar in Lisbon

Young girl singing the melancholy Fado music

And yet the girl with the bird on her boob seems to be my one haunting memory.  When I think of my time in Lisbon I almost always go back to that last day and seeing her.  It was odd.  This was to be our last day in Lisbon.   We were to leave for the airport in the morning to bid goodbye to Gillian and start our flight home.   But we wanted a good meal and a few laughs on our last day.   We really wanted something that we would be able to remember and talk about for years to come.  And there she was.  Leaning against a wall behind our table.  An attractive young girl with a bird sitting on her breast.  It caught my attention and then Gillian saw it also.  We tapped Mark and motioned for him  to turn around and look behind himself and then he too saw what we saw.  There was no point trying to explain it to him.  It was easier just to tell him to look.  So we all looked.

  Our first thought was why does this girl have a dead bird attached to her blouse.  So we started making up reasons why the bird was attached to her.  None of them made any sense at all but it didn't matter.   We were just confused.  And then the birds head moved.  It was alive!  Then we wondered why and how she had attached it to her blouse.  Was she cruel and stapled it to her shirt?  No, the birds foot moved and it repositioned itself a little.  It was just sitting there hanging on to her blouse.  And it never left her or flew away.  Finally she pet its head, took it off of her blouse  and put it in a small box.  Then she went inside the restaurant and to our surprise was working there as a waitress and was going on her shift.  She handed the box to a waiter who was going off shift and he kept it for her.   It almost felt like Woody Allen should be narrating this in one of movies set in Europe.  I could almost hear his voice introducing the girl as the main character in his movie and her love interest who shared the bird with her.  And then suddenly everything changed.  Again Gillian and I noticed something else odd and we were transported from the world of Woody Allen characters to a John Waters movie.  Just across the street from where we were sitting we saw a man, a true John Waters character. He was standing by a wall relieving himself right in eyesite of our table.  Well if it was a Woody Allen character we would say relieving.  But this had turned into a John Waters movie so this man was pissing against the wall. Directly in front of us.   Did I take a photo?  Of course I did.

I knew I would be telling this story one day.  And I knew I needed an ending.  And this man provided the ending for me.  So now in January 2021 when I am stuck home quarantining from the pandemic and fighting with stress and insomnia I finally am writing this blog from the summer of 2015.   You never know how a story will end.  I assumed the girl with the bird would be the entire story.   And then man started urinating.  So there's the end of the story.

When this mess we are in is over we will travel again.  And we will see more strange things happening around us.  And yes, I will document them with photos and tell you all about them in due time.