another entry about my dogs

Blerg.

This weekend was suppose to be a beautiful affair. Poster show. Dinner with friends. Gorgeous weather. A short trip home to Rochester to visit my family, aunt and cousin and the usual suspects at Gold Rush. But as John Lennon said, "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

On Friday, I rushed home from work, pedaling as fast as I could without breaking too much of a sweat. If I could walk the dogs in record time, I might have been able to make it to Northeast by six with a quick trip to the grocery store. So I leashed the pups and we did our usual dance down the stairs—all ten of our legs trying not to miss a step. I couldn't see anything was wrong until we were three houses down.

Etta laid down in the grass. I smiled, assuming she was being her usual petulant self, and kneeled down to pet her exposed belly. But it wasn't soft and warm. It bulged and trembled. The pet medical dictionary definition of "bloat" flashed before my eyes.

Xrays, blood tests and urinalysis could not pin down why six-pound Etta's stomach had expanded. Why her pulse was weak. Why she was in so much pain. Pain killers got us through Friday night, but we had to return to the vet Saturday in the morning because she was dehydrated. Her appetite is still off and on, but she's back to barking at the neighbors, cuddling and begging for treats.

After the vet closed on Friday, Etta and I traveled the half a mile to Hang It to greet the coworkers and friends who promised to see the opening of Bark at Art. We weren't the prettiest couple there. I did not have the chance to change out of my biking clothes and she was heavily sedated. But we received a great amount of compliments on the behalf of the poster Jared A. May and I designed. We saw many people carrying around our yellow paper. My ears burned as I overheard people say the "yellow wiener dog poster" was their favorite.

Word is we sold very well, but you can still get a copy of the poster at Hang It until September 10th. Jared and I plan on taking photos this week so expect a new poster in my work section soon.

After the second trip to the vet, Etta, Arlie and I did manage to get to Rochester. And I couldn't forget my Polaroid Super Shooter (circa 1971) to document:

Etta relaxes on a trunk while my family and I clean up my grandmother's Gold Rush booth in Oronoco, MN. My grandmother's antique business is so antique, she does not have a website. Do look for Lantern Antiques off Hwy 52 in Pine Island, MN though. It's in an impressive pre-Civil War home. So impressive, Bon Jovi once stopped their tour bus there to get a photo. That photo is inside the album "Slippery When Wet". Or at least, that's how the story goes.

My dad turned on the light when I was loading this pack of film into the camera, so I punished him with this photo. We were busy hauling the antique furniture and drinking "real beer" as my uncle Bryce calls it. I believe it was a Newcastle. Yup, that's what passes for fancy in this part of the state.

My aunt Nancy and cousin John agreed to model in front of my childhood home. Note the new "Victorian Velvet" paint on the house. Pretty risqué for a town without any stoplights.

Arlie learns how to be still for a camera with the temperament of a classical painter. Where he stands is where I learned to ride a bike, roller skate and back a car up while texting. Darn kids.

Sure beats Instagram, right?

a vacation, a mandolin and a poster

It's been a challenging, but rewarding year so far. It's been pitches, posters, Jennie.com and the upcoming Hormel 2012 campaign that have afforded me opportunities to have my voice heard and listened to at my job. So when my boyfriend flew back to Minnesota for his birthday, I took a few days off to ignore my cell phone, email and social media.

It was a relaxing, sweltering and fun week off. We took his spirited 82-year-old Aunt Birgit to a Twins game, where she watched the game and Sanden and I failed to get on the jumbotron. Reinacting every meal I ate in kindergarden, I pinched my nose and tried raw food at The Ecopolitan. We got dolled up to see Dolly Parton at Mystic Lake Casino. She still dances as much as an AARP member can across stage and plays the banjo, autoharp, guitar, flute, saxophone and piano. She inspired me so much that I decided to pick up a new hobby:

I impuslively purchased a lovely and moderately priced mandolin from Twin Town Guitars. But not without signing up for lessons with the very talented and lovely Brianna Lane, of course. She already has me cutting my nails short, practicing scales and picking my way through "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?" and "Down In The Valley to Pray". If I wasn't fighting a nasty cold, I would share a video of my progress so far.

And while I may have gotten a few days off of work, progress on the poster Jared A. May and I are designing for Bark at Art could not be haulted. This week we put in the final touches and sent the files off to the ever-bearded Erik Hamline. Erik is an amazing and patient screen printer who I recommend to you for all your poster and invite needs. His design skills humble me every time I get the opportunity to work with him.

Make sure you come to Bark at Art on August 19th, 7-10pm at Gallery 122 and see all of the work by many talented local designers. And you will have to in order to see the whole poster or wait until it's debuted in my "work" section:

bark at art, a.k.a. hot dog

This summer is what future historians may refer to as my Thought-Living-In-An-Old-House-In-Uptown-Was-Cute Period, ya know, in that gorgeous war-era apartment on Grand with all hardwood floors, a butter yellow kitchen and no air conditioning. The only way to spend a heat wave like this, in an apartment like this, is sweaty and technically unproductive. And despite averaging 50 hour work weeks since May, Jared A. May and I decided we would take on this:

Okay, so it's not really a surprise that I would want to do this poster show. I'm a proud owner of two miniature dachshunds. See this adorable photo taken this weekend (while we were enjoying air conditioning):

In the last five years, I've made a conscious decision to be aware of how my actions affect others, animals and our environment. Part of that was to ensure that I adopted pets in need. Arlie (the red in the back) came into my possession through a family who realized too late that they could not take care of him. Etta (the black-and-tan dapple doe-eyes in front) was a puppy mill victim saved by the wonderful Coast to Coast Dachshund Rescue. Considering my experiences, it wasn't hard to volunteer to help an organization like The Pet Project with Bark at Art (100% of door donations and 80% of poster sales will benefit them):

The Pet Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works to provide pet food and basic supplies to pets whose owners are struggling financially. The Pet Project also provides connections to basic veterinary care and provides information on finding pet-friendly housing. For more information on The Pet Project please visit thepetprojectmn.org.

I can't imagine being unable to afford my personal mascots. And despite this heat, I've spent a great deal of the last week in front of a cheap oscillating fan and iMac trying to perfect the face of our project.

 

Our concept isn't ready yet, but we're both energetic about the possibilities. The talented Erik Hamline has agreed to print with us again. We hope to raise a lot of money to help people in need keep the pets they need.

my life as daria

Back in February, I had a great idea for a theme party: analog. The desire to throw this party came from two places. First, my small town Republican upbringing had kept a Sansui* VHS player in my possession for approximately a decade too long. And second, the longest Minnesotan winter of my life left me secluded in Nordeast Minneapolis and made me pine for the faces of friends I had barely seen since the first snow. So I bought fancy cheese from Surdyk's, baked a vegetarian lasagna and ordered my best pals to pilfer their parental's stash for home movies and TV specials with commercials from the 80's and 90's.

I took this assignment very seriously and traveled 83 miles south myself. I found a cassette circa 2002 containing both Daria movies taped off The N (the cassette also had amazing clips from Degrassi, a Jason Mraz music video and some knock off TRL "shout outs" from Canadians). This was my prized find from the whole experience, besides the Mark Twain claymation cartoons.

Fast-forward to this weekend, I find myself unable to join my friends as they take a day trip to the Kinnikinnick River, my boyfriend working overtime covering the Royal's visit to Los Angeles and the heat keeping me trapped next to two panting dachshunds and a Holmes tower fan. I worked a great deal on a new poster for Bark at Art, but I thought I should leave something for my partner, Jared A. May, to do, so I popped in the Daria tape and started to reminisce.

I related to Daria far too much as a teenager: too bookish, too honest and completely invisible to everyone in Pine Island, MN. I definitely carried the complex. I often drew the characters in the margins of my notebooks, but after the show ended, didn't think much about it. Until the series re-released in May 2010 on DVD, when I took on the personal goal of remaking the characters to fit the 21st Century:

Daria was as far as I got. But the narcissism of the millenial culture (was Daria a millenial? Technically, yes) drove me to be far more productive in making Daria caricatures of myself and my friends.

 

So more caricatures are in the works. I'm wish-listing the box set of Daria DVDs on Amazon and am generally accepting my childhood exclusion as a positive experience on my adulthood. As most would agree, it does get better. And those torturous days of being too smart for my own good did pay off. At least in entertaining my friends.

*Just kidding, a Republican upbringing would never allow for me to buy a Japanese product.