Had an old friend over for dinner and we watched some games, then as soon as he left, Walt showed up and we listened to music and chatted for a few hours before he left. Woke up in the chair and decided to take some pics. Here is the Lily:
I say the Lily because she is so god damned homely it reminds me of the Kramer. Regardless, there has never been anything on this planet that I have loved more than that homely little dog. She’s just the best, and I am so used to having her around that 90% of the time she is on my lap, I at some point look down and think to myself “Hey-when did you get here?” And then, if for some reason she isn’t on my lap, I yell for her until she is. Just, hands down, the most awesome dog on the planet.
And so you all don’t bitch, here is the only picture of Rosie I could get tonight. She’s a JRT, and when she doesn’t want her picture taken, well, she just isn’t going to have her damned picture taken, and you humans better just figure that out:
If I ever win the lottery, I am going to have a double king size bed with Egyptian cotton high count sheets and lots of pillows and just a big dog pile of warm, clean, snoring dogs all around the place, with some cats on pillows overlooking the situation. When I have panic attacks (which are few and far between these days, praise FSM), I always lie under the covers with Lily and imagine the big happy dogpile.
She really is homely but beautiful at the same time, isn’t she?
BillinGlendaleCA
Good pics, John.
Amir Khalid
A lovely picture of Rosie’s ass.
JordanRules
Yay!! I missed pics of the pups. No disrespect to Steve.
Rosie is a boss! She just aint gonna be bothered with this bullshit. Float on girl.
NotMax
No offense intended, but will never understand people who let pets on to the bed.
Boundaries.
I don’t sleep in their pet bed; they’d better not sleep in mine.
recurvata
“Homely but beautiful”. Yes she is. It’s true that dogs take after their owners (although my dog is better looking than me).
YellowJournalism
Lily!!
It’s nice that you have such a comfortin image to help with your anxiety. I’ve had my anxiety attacks under control since May, and it’s amazing how good it feels not to live each day with the weight of doom crushing down on me. At my lowest point, I was in constant physical pain (back and chest) and would have panic attacks two to four times a day. These weren’t just little moments of worry, either. They were prolonged stretches of true terror where I would honestly think I was needing an ambulance and that I would die any second, even as another rational part of my brain told me that wasn’t true.
It’s amazing what our minds do to our bodies.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Having two girls myself, photographing them always produces a good number of ass shots.
Bill E Pilgrim
I don’t know John, somehow when you’re reporting how one of them intentionally tripped you so you ended up falling naked into the refrigerator with one foot stuck in a bucket of water, a blurry, dark, demonic red-eye snapshot of the culprit was the perfect accompaniment. Bright, focused, well-composed images, well it’s just not the same thing. So you know, don’t learn too much.
J R in WV
There are no homely dogs, that aren’t chihuahuas … well, there are, but Lily isn’t one of them. Your dogs are pretty dogs, just like your cats.
Whoa, it’s snowing here! and Cold!
fuckwit
That second picture looks like a self-portrait drawing of Allie Brosh from “Hyperbole and a Half”. It almost needs a caption: “parp?”
Montarvillois
Perhaps a 6/10 for beauty but over the top for unswerving love.
raven
@NotMax: Ha, the ill-fated addition we are hoping to build was motivated by us wanting a bed big enough for all of us!
raven
How bout them Buckeyes!!!!!!!!!!
SEC
SEC
SEC
JPL
It’s always nice to see Lily and Rosie pictures. Someday you’ll have to take a family photo you piled on the bed.
@fuckwit: You’re right!
JPL
@raven: I’m sorry to hear about your wife and hopefully physical therapy can alleviate some of the pain. I’m still disappointed that Mizzou didn’t win.
raven
@JPL: I have my doubts that PT will solve bone growing in the spinal canal but we’ll see what the doc says.
I’m going to Phillips this afternoon to se my Illini play Auburn in basketball. I got a floor seat for face value last night and I’m expecting a very light house for this tilt. Parking should be good.
TriassicSands
To call Lily “homely” is being generous, but the measure of our companion animals is not in their physical beauty. In more important respects I have no doubt that little Lily more than makes up for what she lacks in looks. Fortunately, she can’t read, so she won’t get a big head from all the gushing a certain human does about her.
Betty Cracker
I think Lily is gorgeous. From the hind end, Rosie reminds me of the dog in the Grinch. Speaking of which, I’m gonna be suspected of Grinchism if I don’t get the damn tree and decorations up. It’s been so warm (even by FL standards) that I haven’t felt Christmassy. But now that an SEC team is back in the national title hunt, it seems more like the holidays.
WereBear
@NotMax: You see a clear demarcation between “people” and “pets.”
Some of us do not.
Keith G
@raven: At the highest levels, ya better have a defense. Sigh.
Keith G
.
The South shall rise again?
Lurker
Lily is adorable and she adores you. The pic of Rosie’s hindquarters made me laugh. Where was your feline overlord when those pics were taken? BTW, your photographic skills are improving. I guess you finally bought real lightbulbs?
WereBear
For the record, Lily is not homely at all. She is adorable!
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Oh, you are missing out on one of life’s great joys. Cats are the bestest hot water bottles.
I think Lily is just plain beautiful. Rosie’s butt ain’t bad either.
Ash Can
Lily is adorable. And I love the shot of Rosie’s butt.
Scott S.
Lily is not ugly at all. Not even a little bit.
Josie
Lily is not homely. Her sweetness shines through and makes her pretty. Love the butt picture. My Teddi used to head for the door if I brought out the evil camera. I have a number of pictures of her rapidly disappearing butt. I think she connected the camera flash with lightning and thunder, which she hated.
geg6
WTF Cole? Lily is gorgeous, just sweet and pretty as can be. And Rosie’s butt is pretty sweet too.
I think my doggies are the prettiest doggies in the whole world, even if I may see them with too much love to see them clearly.
And anyone who doesn’t allow their pets in to their beds is really missing out. My Koda slept all curled up against me last night. It was the coldest night of the season (so far) and I was all toasty warm. And got to wake up to see her beautiful face on the pillow next to me, all bright eyed and sweetly watching me sleep. How can your heart NOT warm up to that?
Pogonip
Lily’s not all that ugly. How many of us look good staring straight into the camera in a driver’s-license photo? She’s your generic medium-size, medium-color dawg. Nothing wrong with that and she’s a darn sight better looking than a pathetic AKC freak.
Pogonip
@WereBear: That’s interesting. Can you explain a little further about how you see pets?
Over on Naked Capitalism, you can see a pet who is either having a grand time racing through the snow, or beating feet to get back into the warm house. Either way it’s cute.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL:
I’m not. It is nice to see that the universe still obeys a few of the laws of nature. :-( Oh well, after last year, Mizzou gave us something to dream about.
John, Lily is not homely, that’s a mirror you are looking in.
And to give you a full and complete sense of inadequacy, I just found out via LGM that Kenny Rogers (yes, that Kenny Rogers) is one HELL of a photographer.
Damn.
WereBear
Sure.
Western society, from Biblical injunctions to “rule the earth” to Descartes’ “oh, animals aren’t in pain, that’s just a reflex” have been all about trying to draw bright lines between humans and our close mammal cousins.
Since childhood, I have seen dogs and cats and monkeys and horses and all those higher mammals we depend upon and make friends with and yes, even eat… they are not that different from us. How can they be?
We came from them. We co-evolved with them. We share up to 97% of our DNA with them.
So I love animals and recognize our differences… kind of the way I make friends with people who are different from me. My cats might be a bit more different than my friends who like country music… but not enough to interfere with any friendship!
WaterGIrl
Cole, lily is a beautiful, sweet girl. I can’t fathom how you can look at Lily and think she is ugly, or even homely.
I was just thinking of you guys the other day (as I was wiping the mud from my maniac’s feet) how you say “who’s the best doggie, who’s the best doggie” until Lily gets the zooms and runs all over the house like a crazy girl. Every morning.
Do you still do that? I sure hope so. That would be doggie heaven, I think, to start every day like that.
Woodrowfan
Lily is a sweetie! She’s not ugly at all, she’s a cutie.
Woke up this am and it’;s COLD out, so all three dogs were under the covers curled up in a big pile. ahhh.. puppy pile.
kindness
Awww look at Lily’s eyes. That isn’t homely John, that’s love (and a lil scared but I’m pushing love, it’s my meme today).
@NotMax: I don’t know, there’s a middle ground. My dogs don’t sleep on the bed but they get up on it when I call them. The cats…well, the cats do what ever they damn well please.
WereBear
They honestly cannot help it.
Dogs are told, by their instincts, “Listen to the Big Dog, and you’ll be fine.” This is remarkably easy to adapt to modern life if we do it right.
Cats are told, by their instincts, “Do what worked in the desert.” In the home, they stubbornly climb things, and create outposts, and stalk things. Properly handled, this is also easy to handle.
Properly handled.
AdamK
Lily looks all velvety.
chrome agnomen
gawd, you’re pathetic.
Karon
She really is lovely and you are so lucky to have each other!
Aurona
I know I’m late to this party because I was studying for a final (ugh), but Lily is beautiful. The reason she is beautiful is all that inside stuff she’s got going on as a companion animal. And — she is very similar looking to my Kali, who is an 18-lb.light brown Puggle/Jack Russel mix. Its those googly eyes that do it for me, and she is the perfect companion to my 8 year old Lab, Gracie. There is nothing better than an interspecies home, is there? They are absolutely life saving.
phoebes-in-santa fe
Lily is a lovely dog. Why on earth would you think she was ugly?
schrodinger's cat
You are being unfair, Lily is a petite pretty lady.
ThresherK
Maybe it’s that big dog show that was on TV recently with all those purebreds groomed to the Nth degree and trained to look perfect.
Only then I might say “Lily’s not as attractive as terrier”. However, I don’t see any homely.
And our family had a black lab-Braird mix who looked like he had catfish whiskers. Goofy, for sure.
SG
Lily is beautiful. Such an embodiment of love as she couldn’t be anything but beautiful.
Elizabelle
Lily is valiant and just perfect.
Rosie is valiant and looks like she’s lost weight, from the butt-pic. Plz be sure to tell her that.
Elizabelle
@Aurona:
Good luck with your final.
Jebediah, RBG
@geg6:
Stuff like that is such a wonderful treat!
And let me add to the “Lily is too cute!” chorus. She’s adorable, and it isn’t her fault the camera doesn’t always find her most flattering angle.
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
Glad it works out for you, and do not in any way begrudge your enjoyment.
The multiple scars (don’t mean mental scars, but visible physical scars) I carry from having been bitten and clawed by cats since I was a child – with no provocation whatsoever on my part – point me on another path. Cats will launch themselves from across the room at me when I merely step in, and ’twas ever thus. Not every single time, but more often than not.
Evelyn
Lily looks so pretty!
Anne Laurie
John, Lily is “homely” in the original sense of the word: “Of a simple or unpretentious nature; plain: homely truths; Characteristic of the home or of home life: homely skills”. She has a beautiful soul, and her body is well-designed for her career as a lapdog & love-sharer; ergo, in all the best senses, she is efficiently lovely!
E
Traveled to the vet today with my girlfriend and her 13 year-old Boston terrier. It was in some kind of permanent seizure. My first experience with euthanizing a pet — my own have always died on their own, or were put down by my parents while I was away. Terrible.
bystander
@E:
It is a difficult experience, and one I’ve had for every companion animal with whom I’ve shared my life. But, here’s the thing… After so many years of companionship, they deserve an easy death at the hands of compassionate providers, and in the comfort of my arms. To the extent that smell or sound might still be present for them as they slip the divide, they will have my scent and the sound of my voice affirming that I loved them as they begin that journey. For me, there is no other alternative. It is what they are owed,
bystander
I dunno, Cole. Lily’s pretty cute. But, I wonder… Are your practicing to perfect the skill of the “mug shot”?
John Cole
@E: The hardest thing I ever had to do, even harder than burying Tunch, was putting down my mother’s cat while my mom was away on vacation. Mouse (the cat) had been a stray who adopted us, and we named her Mouse because she could only squeak and not meow. She was a natural huntress, and a lithe and beautiful thing who looked like the cat equivalent of a ballerina.
My mom had never had a cat (we had had cats before, but she had never had a cat really take to her) adopt her before, as mom always had been a dog person her whole life. But Mouse just took to my mom and would spend every night on her lap, and every day outside roaming the plain.
Long story short, she was with us for a decade or more, and developed cancer in her old age. She was on the decline, and my parents had to go on vacation, so I stayed at the house and one morning found Mouse just lying on the floor, immobile, and in terrible pain. I scooped her up and took her to the vet- my buddy Harry, and he euthanized her and I took her home and buried her in the back yard under the pine trees. I cried so much I had to pull over three times on the ten minute ride home.
After I buried her, I went to the creek and got a flatstone, scrubbed it, and then painted “Mouse Cole, a Good Friend” with the dates she was with us on it (I forget them now), and then shellacked it and put it on her grave. It’s still there.
Then, after couple beers, I summed up the strength to call mom and ruin her vacation.
meepers
@WereBear: I lubs you.
meepers
@John Cole: And I lubs you too.