Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays!

Happy Birthday, Tomokee!

Tomokee recently had a birthday. He's four years old now. He's still a loon, but a much more obedient loon!

Baylands walk

It was a gorgeous day last Saturday, and we hadn't taken Tomokee on any walks outside of the normal walking areas, so we decided to take him on a stroll along the Baylands preserve. The geese and waterfowl were all out and about and Tomokee enjoyed himself thoroughly, as he always does.

BFFs

Tomokee enjoyed a play date last night with Agave, one of his best friends forever. Here they are taking a break on our back patio

Tomokee in Carmel

Last weekend was one of those Carmel-By-the-Sea weekends. I love Carmel. Tomokee loves Carmel. Here is enjoying a walk in the Mission Trail Nature Preserve.
Our next hike was in Garland Ranch Regional Park, where Tomokee can go leashless. Yay!

Of course, every dog must have his day on the beach.

Finally, we outfitted T-dog with a brand new collar from Diggidy Dog.

Tomokee and cats

Tomokee LOVES cats. Actually, we're not sure if he just loves cats, or he just doesn't know what to make of them. When he sees one, as long as it's not running, he will just stare and stare in a frozen posture. It's actually difficult to pull him away and continue the walk. Here he is "interacting" with Beau from the neighborhood.

Here, he's staring at Athens, also from the neighborhood, who is retreating behind the car.

Golden Gate Park

We decided to make a trip up to San Francisco and take Tomokee through Golden Gate Park. It's not an off-leash park, but it's still plenty of fun. There are lots of dogs, ducks, seagulls, and other life forms.
Here's Tomokee on the shore of Stow Lake. (I'm always amazed that his rear end does not touch the ground when he sits)

Here he is sitting in front of a tea house structure also on the shore of Stow Lake.

Tomokee as fashion model

And here is Tomokee, sporting a lovely wool hand knitted and felted tote, stylishly worn as a messenger bag.

I finished this knitted project and persuaded Tomokee to model it for my knitting blog.

Tomokee as Curtis Sliwa

We've posted this photo of Tomokee before, but we turned into a sign for our recent garden party to discourage people from walking into the house from the patio because we left Tomokee inside for part of the time. We think he looks like a more colorfully dressed Curtis Sliwa.

Since we're doing dog-in-hat photos, I thought I'd take a photo with yet another hat. We're not sure who he looks like here.

They're Italian, you know

We've always had ergonomic issues with Tomokee's food and water bowls. (That would be human ergonomic issues - not canine ones). The water bowl is too hard to hold and balance without sloshing when it's full. Tomokee is a big-time drinker, so we always fill it almost to the brim. The food bowl is hard to pick up from floor. Last weekend, we were in the Lake Tahoe area, and I went shopping at Dog.Dog.Cat, a fun pet food and supply store. They had these cool bowls on sale. The cutouts make them easy to pick up and carry. They're made in Italy, and anything made in Italy is always cool looking.
Here are Tomokee's old bowls.

Adoptiversary

Last week was Tomokee's third adoptiversary, which is just an excuse to make him wear another of my vintage hats for a photo shoot. This one is a vintage tam o'shanter.

Scenes from Carmel Valley and Carmel

On our recent visit to Carmel, we went on a hike in Garland Ranch in Carmel Valley. After that, we enjoyed a leisurely lunch at the Corkscrew Cafe. The cafe is located next to the Georis Winery tasting room and gift shop. The gift shop has a very eclectic selection of merchandise, including the Complete Petrosexual book. I can buy this used for a penny on Amazon, but B.E. won't allow it because he thinks it might give me ideas.

As usual, we stayed at the ever-so-pet-friendly Cypress Inn in Carmel. Here are four whippets lounging in their library. I believe their names are Archer, Buddy, Adam, and Sydney. I don't know which one is which.

Scenes from Cannery Row

We made a trip to Carmel-by-the-Sea this past weekend -- it's one of my favorite places on the planet. We first stopped off in Monterey and took a walk along the Fisherman's Wharf/Cannery Row walking/biking path and also had a nice lunch at the Trailside Cafe and Coffee House. The weather was just perfect and he water was just blue, blue, blue. The above photos were taken at various spots on the waterfront.

The Great Doggie Easter Egg Hunt of 2009

Once again, we went with Tomokee to the local doggie Easter egg hunt, benefiting the Palo Alto Animal services, and sponsored by our local Five Paw Bakery. Tomokee is a pro at this, since this is his third annual visit. This time, we decided to do a video -- seeing as this is a good geek opportunity to play with equipment and software.

My only objection to the video is that I look like an elderly person having balance issues. It must be due to the style (or lack thereof) of my pants.

Scenes from the dog park

The weather's been great -- it was time to take Tomokee (Mr. Loud) to the dog park.

Snow dog

We went on a snow shoeing trip up to the Lake Tahoe area, and we hiked the Castle Peak trail up to Castle Pass. This is from the same view as our summer hike, but now it's covered in snow.

Tomokee loves the snow -- here he is playing in the North Tahoe regional park, where we did a shorter snow shoeing trek the day before.

Sitting Pretty

We here at Chez Tomokee have been boosting the economy (someone's got to do it!) by buying a lot of new furniture to replace aging furniture. One of the pieces we are replacing is the hide-a-bed in the family room. We are replacing it for several reasons.
(1) We really don't need a hide-a-bed.
(2) It's just so OHBU (Old, Heavy, Big, and Ugly)
(3) It's never been very comfortable.
(4) Tomokee uses it as his primary sitting post in the family room, throws his ball at it, jumps onto and off of it, and has basically trashed it to the point that it needs to be burned.

Since we are replacing it, I wanted to find a new chair for Tomokee to use. There are lots of dog sofas out there, but they cost just as much as an inexpensive human armchair. It just happened that we found this inexpensive $99.99 new-not-donated armchair from the local GW of Los Altos, which is our local upscale Goodwill store. Tomokee seems to like it -- we put lots of stuff on the hide-a-bed to prevent him from using it and encourage him to try the new chair.

Another beach photo

The beach in January in Carmel-By-the-Sea was the prettiest I've ever seen it. Tomokee, as usual, is enjoying his beach time.

Carmel Day Trip -- The One True Ring Found!

We took a day trip to Carmel-By-The-Sea for reasons that will become apparent, infra.

We first took T-dog to the beach, where he romped with other 4-legs and spent quality time with Betty while she worked on yet another knitting project (as shown here):





Notice the dog is, once again, blessing Betty with his Ass (I & II).

We then had a nice lunch and drug the hound around doing various shopping duties and also collected a wedding band we found on the beach during a previous visit to Carmel. It stayed with the Carmel PD (in the tender care of Carmel PSO Hidalgo), but no one claimed it. The pictures are reproduced below so they might be linked to a Craigslist lost&found posting. If you can tell us the inscription inside the ring, we'll work with you to return it.

























It's clearly a wedding band for a large man's hand. If it's yours, send email to:

found_ring (at) audiocentraal (dot) com

Whilst shopping, I was startled to see this fine item for sale at a local high-end furnishings store:



We have dubbed this piece, "the lamp of many testicles."

Good luck with that, Spongebob.

Another day, another hat

Lately, Tomokee has not experienced any blog-worthy events in his life. However, we have had friends and acquaintances tell us how much they enjoy the photos of Tomokee with these strange hats. I have a growing collection of vintage hats, so I think I will try to take more photos of Tomokee wearing them. This one must be from the sixties, I think. It's paisley, dahling.