Monday, December 22, 2014

A Lovely and Loving Weekend



Friday Kitten and I drove down to Poet’s place in SC.  On the drive we listened to an episode of On Being that featured Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor who is 6’1”, has tattoos and pricings and used to be a stand-up comic.  She is really fun, down-to-earth yet wise, self-deprecating, and really exemplifies Christianity at its best: charity, tolerance, and forgiveness.  Kitten really liked her – as did I.  My thing is, I’m less interested in a person’s particular religion as I am in the spiritual, ethical, and wisdom qualities of that person, be they Christian or Muslim or Buddhist or Pagan or atheist.  But it was particularly nice this time of year to hear from somebody who really does exemplify the best of Christian values (not the Religious Right’s talking points, ignorance, xenophobia, and prejudices – or the crass commercialism of overly-capitalized, consumer culture).

Friday evening, we went out to a beer tasting and then had a great home-cooked meal w/ Poet’s parents, and settled-in to watch some Monty Python before I fell asleep on the couch pretty early.

Saturday was Twisted Toyland in Atlanta w/ the pack.  Our Alpha was back in town.  Which I guess I should explain, since I’m not sure it I’ve mentioned it on here – but the quick synopsis is: Recently, Sir Loki divorced, took a new job in DC, and moved up there w/ his new boyfriend.  He’s still the Alpha, we still belong to him, but the pack is now stretched out from Atlanta through North Carolina to DC… so getting us all together is likely going to prove more difficult in 2015.  We’re still in the process of figuring out how best to make this work…

After getting to spend time w/ pack-mates and family, the next best part of Twisted Toyland was that Ma’am let me put on my puppy gear.  Yay!!!  It felt so wonderful to be out in public, on-leash and in my suit, hood, and indefinitely-borrowed harness.  That really does wonders for my spirit, and I left Twisted feeling like a million bucks.  (Of course, there were also four fairly strong run-and-cokes involved.)  I’ll post some pictures as soon as I get them.

Saturday night we got to relax w/ the pack at Gwynn and Bishop’s Safe Haven.  There were some gifts exchanged.  Two were particularly noteworthy:  Bishop got to present Gwynn with her official pack vest.  Also, the pack commissioned from yours truly an anthropomorphic pack portrait which we gave to our Sir as a Christmas/moving-away/housewarming present.  Pictured left-to-right: Gwynn, Sir Loki, Bishop, Hunter, Shdwkitten, and Emrys.


Sunday was the winter solstice… and wedding day for pack-mates Gwynn and Bishop!  Their hand-fasting was a really lovely eclectic Celtic/Pagan/Leather-pup mix that was just tonally perfect.  I think most of us got a little teary eyed.  Congrats and best wishes again to Gwynn and Bishop.  We love you two.  And their “something borrowed” was our Treehouse’s Tree of Life banner which was also the backdrop in our wedding and they got to use it as their alter-cloth.  That made me smile even more.

So after spiritual wisdom/humor and beer Friday, dawning pup-gear and giving gifts Saturday, and then helping two of our favorite puppies get hitched Sunday you would think my weekend couldn’t get any better and I couldn’t get any higher… but I had one more cool event in store.  My Owner’s ex-boyfriend Pirate (that’s his nickname, Pirate) was back in town, and we got to meet-up for dinner at our favorite sushi place on our drive back home.  Well, Pirate wrote a children’s book and I did the illustrations for the second edition – which is now out, and he gave me a copy Sunday.  I am so pleased with how the illustrations came out.  Love it!  So that was the cherry on top of my very full, very uplifting, very fun weekend.

Everybody have a very merry Christma-Hanu-Kwanza-Yule! 

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