A Doggie Bag to Remember

Happy
Oh! Hot Diggity,
Dog Ziggity Boom,
Whatcha Do to Me Day!

(My Mondays' blogs were

formally known as

"Dog Day Monday," but due to all the frozen feathers flying in my neck of the woods, changing things up seemed only right and, quite frankly, I was tahrrred (and feathered?) of referring to the first day of the work week as such. So, I’ve determined the new and improved nom de plume (Perpetually adhered to the bird "hair" theme, aren’t I? ***starts singing*** Get down, get down!), Oh! Hot Diggety, etc., to be the for-the-time-being better way to fly and, heck, I do simply love Perry Como anyway, and now I can count on hearing him sing in my head As the Keyboard and I Turn every Monday.)

Photo credit: Millie Mott

"I'm gonna buy me a dog,

'Cause I need a friend, now,

Yeah-yeah.

Yeah, boop-boop,

sh-bop-bop, ram-a-lam.

I'm gonna buy me a dog."
–Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart

WHICH BRINGS ME TO the kibble of this blog:

Photo credit: Vibeke Aagaard Sorensen

My Most Memorable Doggie Bag

IF YOU COULD befriend and do lunch with any celebrity, past or present, who would it be? Mine most assuredly WOULDN'T be Anthony Bourdain. He seems like a great person and all, but you never know what that guy’s going to put in his mouth. Yes, without any uncertainty, I would invite my best friend (even if she be that for only this one-time lunch) in all of the galaxy, America’s sweetest heart, and my idol and hero:

Ms. Gilda Radner.

WE WOULD TALK and laugh over tuna

(We share the same "eats" affinity.)

and it would all be good. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Gilda was the nicest person that ever lived. For today’s Oh! Hot Diggity, she left us with this:

Photo credit: Millie Mott

"I think dogs are
the most amazing creatures;
they give unconditional love.
For me they are
the role model for being alive."

GILDA, EVERYDAY YOU still sparkle! Thank you for forever reminding me to unwaveringly cut people slack, always knowing that their unfriendliness, or case of grumblies, or preoccupations neither show who they really are, nor are necessarily about me.

Yay!

I say YAY, again!
EVERYDAY WE can all

sparkle–

and it doesn’t even require us to break a sweat!
The mere thought of it makes me

Glad all over!

Hmm-sigh...
***rearranges in chair***
I feel a morph coming on.
Yep.
I was right.
This is definitely turning into
a Tori and Dean kind of day.
***grabs remote
and begins scavenging Oxygen
for brain-to-mush REALITY***

THREE WORDS:
"I like birds."
–Victoria Davey Spelling

For this day’s sake, let’s make that bird dog.

Make haste to be kind,
Sparkle Farkle~~~~~*

P.S.

EW!
This can’t possibly be right!

RIP, my Mollo and Drea.

This Ought to Put Me in the Doghouse

"IT’S TOO BAD LASSIE didn’t know how to ice skate, because then if she was in Holland on vacation in winter and someone said ‘Lassie, go skate for help,’ she could do it." –Jack Handey

Happy

Jack Handey Friday,
people!

ARE YOU SITTING down? I’m about to admit to something I’ve never before said out loud. I hope I don’t incite a riot, or that the hand of God breaks through the clouds to hurl a lightening bolt at me. Here goes: Call me un-American, but I never appreciated Lassie the way all the other kids did, glued to their TV sets whenever the theme music started, indicating someone was about to meet their Maker, unless, of course, CBS’ I’m-looking-perpetually-fresh-from-the-doggie-beauty-parlor-coiffed-even-though-I-live-and-breath-farm-and-should-be-covered-in-smudges-and-burdock collie could come to their rescue. YEP. The dog just plain got on my last nerve, not to mention Jeff Miller and Timmy Martin. Out of the whole lot, I guess Ruth Martin was okay. But she did seem much happier after becoming an astronaut.

Time for a

A SparkleFarkle Lassie Short Story

by Yours Tah-rully

THINKING ABOUT THE TIME Timmy was stuck in the well, Lassie asks herself if she’d ever go through that ordeal again. "When Hell freezes over," she growls under her dog breath. Then, mistaking the lake for just that, she watches and waits for it to turn into one BIG ice cube, full-knowing she’ll never be able to shake the good Samaritan infused in her. With a smitch of time on her paws, Lassie turns her collar to the cold as her dog mind begins to wander... What ever happened to Mr. Petrie?... Wouldn’t two tin cans and a string work just as well as that archaic phone the Martin’s have?... Where in the heck is Calverton, anyway?...

Why couldn't I have been

Larry Mondello’s
dog?...

WITH THOUGHTS OF LARRY lingering,
Lassie suddenly craves an apple to munch.

She hopes Hell doesn’t freeze over before she finds one.

HOW VERY odd. All this critical Lassie-speak has got me feeling pretty lucky. Maybe I should do something else I’ve never done before: buy a lottery ticket! If I do take that plunge, just to keep this blog-feeling alive, I best go with these numbers: 98-81304. Give up?

SIX WORDS:
Lassie’s Gramps' truck license plate number

HMM. WITH NEW YEARS EVE BEING nearly straight away, now seems like the perfect time to consider renewing a resolution I made last year:

Wag more, bark less.

Who knows, it might make for a shinier coat in 2009.

Stay close,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

RIP, my Mollo and Drea

Peppermint Twist

KUDOS TO ANYONE who can sport an overloaded backpack while navigating a unicycle --in the snow, no less– because, LO AND BEHOLD! That’s exactly the Kodak moment I had the opportunity to cast my peepers on as I headed to the Trader Joe’s, nestled in a cozy, little neighborhood a hop-skip-and-a-jump

(unless you’re riding a unicycle)

away from my house, where I was about to
pick up our traditional holiday stash of

Candy Cane
Joe-Joe’s,

definitely Christmas slathered between two rich, dark cocoa wafers. (And, yes. I am still Queen of the Run-on Sentence.) Plus, anything that lists "candy cane crush" as one of it’s top ten ingredients is a definite "go" in my book!

FIVE WORDS: Get 'em. Got 'em. Good!

CLUTCHING MY FOUR boxes of
peppermint sandwich cookies, as

I waited my turn in the check-out

line, found me singing along with

Annette Funicello
in my head:

"Saturday night at the high school dance,
A fellow comes in wearing baggy pants.
He starts to sing like a wounded hound,
And the gals all scream and gather ‘round:
Bow-wow! Bow-wow!
Jo-Jo the dog face boy!
Bow-wow! Bow-wow!
Jo-Jo the Dog-faced boy!!"

THANK GOD Annette was a knock-out.

STILL IN LINE, I had time to take a ride on the Wayback Machine, that on which thoughts of Christmas and Miss Funicello (and, most recently, Candy Cane Joe-Joe’s) usually take me:

IT WAS AS CLOSE AS WALT DISNEY would ever get to a musical Moulin Rouge make-over. Okay. Okay. So it was merely a holiday film soaked in color and cheesy goodness, and, come on, you’ve got to admit the March of the Wooden Soldiers is always fun, right?

REALLY? You've got to be kidding me! Seriously, you have no idea??? Think Ms. Funicello sans Avalon, or Anka for that matter, in Walt’s 1960s Christmastime movie faintly rendering Victor Herbert’s operetta. Hmm. You still have that blank "I-haven’t-got-a-clue-but-you-can-pass-me-the-box-of-Joe-Joe's-if-indeed-you-feel-the-need-to-go-on-about-this" look on your face. Alrighty. Sprinkle the whole works with a generous heapin’ helpin’ of 60s throb,

Photo credit: Peter Stackpole
The Sandman

HOLD IT!!! That might be Yours Truly scaling center, nearly to the top of Tommy Sands’ stage! Nah. Mom wouldn’t have let this then too-young cat (Meow!) out of the basket that easily, no matter how fierce my hormones were running.

NIL? Nada? Nothing?

OKAY. IT LOOKS LIKE I’M GOING TO give you this one.
Think of it as an smitch-early Christmas present:

Babes in Toyland!

I WAS JUST SEVEN years old when Disney had me immediately latching onto it-- hook, line, and sinker! But, who cares about Tom the Piper’s Son (Tommy Sands) romancing Mary Quite Contrary (Annette Funicello), and the evil miser Barnaby (Ray Bolger) trying to steal Tom’s thunder? Credit where credit is due: Disney’s Master Baiter, Bill Thomas, is the one who snagged my attention. Before I go on, please take a few seconds to get your mind out of the gutter. ***folds arms across chest, impatiently taps toe, and rolls eyes in a "you’re-going-to-be-sorry-when-you-get-the-real-gist-of-this" way*** Thomas was the Costumer (actually nominated for an Academy Award for Babes in Toyland’s Costume Design), so that means, at least for me, he’s the ultimate hero of this holiday spectacular! The overloaded-backpacked unicyclist in the snow! YES, YES: The one in charge of the shoes!!! And, by God, they were incredible! Laying my eyes on Annette’s slippered tootsies in this movie was my first

Close Encounter of the Third Kind–

Those high heels of hers were out of this world!

Created by Milena Canonero
Very Marie Antoinette-y!

YEP. WHILE OTHER female No. 1 Mouseketeer fans were dreaming they were Annette, I actually wanted to be her feet! Puppet (my daughter) and I are going to see about renting Babes in Toyland tomorrow. If we can, I shall be re-entering, and introducing to her, a little piece of Heaven that Walt Disney once afforded me.

TO THE WISE: If the shoe fits,
FIVE (more) WORDS: put the other one on.

***crooning like Frank Sinatra***
Shoe be do be do,
do doo de de la...
Da da da da da,
Shoe da da de da...
Hum, hum, hum, hum, hum. Hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, shoe...
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

PS. Did you know

Ann Jillian
got her acting start in Babes?

She played

Little Bo Peep.

AT MR. DISNEY'S URGING, she changed her name from Ann Jura Nauseda to Ann Jillian, as her real name was too long for the credits listing. Yes, the truth be told: Mr. Disney gave her a stage name, but she only got to wear flats in the movie. Raw deal, Ann, raw deal.

RIP, My Mollo and Drea.