Hi everybody! Daisy Jones-Klein here, reporting from sunny
and kinda cold Santa Fe. I know I haven’t exactly been the most prolific
dogblogger lately, but the holiday season and upcoming New Year tend to put me
in a reflective and sharing mood.
Santa Fe is a special place around the holidays. As the days
get shorter, nighttime temperatures dip below freezing more and more regularly. The drought, so persistent and threatening for several years, has eased up some, and the summer rains have turned into winter snows. The aspens higher up in the mountains have lost their autumnal blaze of color,
and now offer space for the snow to turn the hillsides white.
We’ve had a few snowfalls already this year. I love our
walks in the snow. Sometimes it’s up past my knees (and the knees of the lady
holding our address marker!), making it a little tougher for us low-riders to
be nimble. But fresh snow is like a mysterious white blanket over
everything, making us sniff and guess at what lies beneath. And we
get to see the tracks of all the critters that sneak around when I’m not
looking: mostly deer and bunnies and birds, but occasionally some bigger and
scarier beasts. But I usually keep Dad on a short leash; he’s safer that way.
As the holidays approach, the pace of activity around town slows, and decorating, entertaining,
and comradery move to center stage. In the Plaza, the physical and spiritual
heart of The City Different, lights
go up the day after Thanksgiving, marking the start of the season.
And on Christmas Eve, everyone heads out for the walk on
Canyon Road. Long a Santa Fe tradition, tens of thousands of folks turn out to
walk up and down the narrow street that’s home to over 100 galleries. But this
is an evening of fellowship and good cheer, not commerce. Thousands of faralitos, those sand-filled bags with
votive candles, line the streets and walkways and rooftops. Shopkeepers offer hot apple cider and biscochitos
to passersby, and street musicians provide a background of music. Small
bonfires, or luminarias as they’re
called here, help warm cold hands and toes, and provide light for the carolers.
Looking back over the year, we reflect on both changes and
things that remain the same.
- Did you hear the one about a Jew, a Hindu, and an Elvis Impersonator? They all piled into a pink Cadillac convertible in Las Vegas, and then Elvis drove them right into his wedding chapel and got them all married up. TRUE DAT! Congratulations, Matt and Suj! Check them out at http://mattandsuj.com/.
- And just last week, two dear friends, together for 20 years, decided to get married. Because now, they could.
- Our good neighbor down the street is Cuban-born, and came to the US in the early 1960s. Now, more than fifty years later, her two homelands just might learn how to get along. As every Rescue Dog can understand, sometimes even countries need a second chance to get it right.
- But we’ve also lost a few friends over the year, some two-legged and others four. They are missed. And while those voids are not easily filled, we’ve had some new friends come into our lives, reawakening us to new possibilities in each dawning day.
As for your Faithful Correspondent, I can report that things are mostly the same here. Yes, it's still good to be Daisy. I still haven’t been eaten by coyotes, extending my personal
best by yet another year. And it’s now been nine years with my Forever Peeps,
also a personal best. I’ve ended the year with the same number of teeth I had
at the beginning; I had a few nice stays at Camp Barkaway; and I only got tricked
a few times into taking a shower. All good stuff!
And professionally, even though I consider myself a
semi-retired pup, I still reign as the Internet’s Favorite Dogblogger! Check it out here. It’s Readers like you who make it all possible. (Well, plus my Peeps who work
the keyboard.)
And we JRTs are still as cute as all get-out. FUN FACT: If
you Google "lovable Jack Russell Terrier", in quotes, you get 75,900
results. Dang, that’s a lot of cute doggies! But if you then change “lovable” to
“unlovable” and search again, the Google tells you “No results found.” So for
you scorekeepers out there, it’s 75,900 to zip. Try to top that, you pesky cats
(20,900 to 232), or poodles (3,610 to 2), and even YOU, Taylor Swift (7,720 to 1). Surely, the Internets have spoken.
And speaking of cute
doggies, I’ve discovered I have a near-twin, a Doppelganger from Down Under! On
Christmas Eve, my Peeps were down at the Plaza and met a couple from Australia.
They’d been in the US for a few years, and had come to visit Santa Fe with
their JRT. Like Yours Truly, this one was smooth-haired, brown-faced, and
uber-hyper. Très chic! But get this … when asked what her name was, they said she was Daisy! Really, what are the odds?
But as you can see below, there are
some key differences.
The Original!!!
Daisy II’s tail is a little long for my preference, but live and let live, I say. And she seems to be more vertically inclined
than moi, perhaps an age-related phenomenon. Also, her big brown spot is
more to her left side than her right, like mine. Maybe that’s because she hails from below the Equator? (And thinking out loud here, do Australian JRTs spin
counter-clockwise when they’re curling up for a nap?)
Very Happy Holidays to
everyone, whether you’re celebrating Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, or
Festivus for the Rest of Us. And now let us welcome the New Year, full of
things that have never been. May your trips to the vet be few, may the coyotes
keep their distance, may the bellyrubs be plentiful, and may there be plenty of
plates to lick. And even if you’re finding bunny-catching to be just a bit harder
this year than last, may giving chase always be joyful.
Daisy Jones-Klein, and her
Peeps
Santa Fe, New Mexico
December 2014
