[nagdu] progress with newest boxer/future service dog

Sat Jan 10 14:59:09 UTC 2009

hi linda,

My newest boxer here, the one i mentioned pulling out of newark nj- 
well he is so funny...
he recently discovered some of the stuffed elmos (out of the rotating dog toy boxes)

for last few days he grabs them and goes nuts throwing them to himself, catching them and growling at them while his
big undocked tail wags maddly from his up in the air butt!

he likes the spanish elmo (sings and talks sesame street theme song and basic words)
and the alphabet song elmo...

right now he just pulled off my slipper and is licking my right foot as i type in my recliner...

he seems to just live to play and be affectionate...

I am sure he knows I saved him from hell on earth...

seems its never too late to have a happy puppyhood!

take care
bunny

From: lindagwizdak at peoplepc.comTo: bunnydavidson at live.comSubject: Re: HiDate: Fri, 9 Jan 2009 10:43:52 -0800

Hi Bunny,
I like to use acrylics when I paint.  It is bright like oils but I like that it dries pretty fast and I can fix a mistake with the brush.  I also don't like the turpentine you have to use with oils and the fumes - these trigger migraine headaches!  Acrylics have no smell and are water based.  I've painted on fabrics and they don't wash out once the paint has dried well.  I paint wearing magnifying glasses with my nose close to my work.  I can do larger work without the glasses.  I have been drawing since I was three years old!

My twin also draws and colors with markers.  She's visually impaired as well.  Her work looks like cartoons and she draws pictures of kids and pets, houses, beaches with nice sunsets over the water - California scenes! I also have a younger sister who is sighted.  She also does art and she paints in mostly oils and some watercolors and pastels. She does barns, cows, and mainly horses.  She has a website with all her work.  You might like to visit the site and it's www.katedardine.com.  I have a watercolor of a yellow Lab she saw at a horse show and took a picture of it. She paints from pictures mostly.  My other sister and I draw from our heads without a picture.  The picture I sent you is one of the rare ones I do from a picture.  I took that picture while on a walk when I lived in Ramona.

That professor of yours sounded like an idiot. Maybe they would have been happier teaching drafting instead!  I took drafting in school and it is very particular in how it is done - exact measurements, perfect circles done with a template or a compass.  Even your lines have to be to specification along with which lead you use.  Art is very different.  Sure, you learn certain tecniques in how to get different affects.  But art is so different and individual to the artist.  Don't let that idiot stop you.  Just do something and let it please YOU!  Go for it!!

I don't know about where to kayak in the Montpelier area.  There are rivers and ponds, Lake Champlain near Burlington. Go on the Montpelier website and I think they have a section of recreation opportunities in the area. Just Google "Montpelier, VT" and you'll get it.

That's too bad about you maybe losing your farm.  There are many nice places in Vermont where you aren't so isolated.  My favorite place in Montpelier is "The Meadows" section of town.  Yoou can easily walk to downtown from there. That area is right near Hubbard Park, a really nice wooked park with walking trails where people can cross-country ski in the winter.  It is really hilly there.  I will have to get used to walking hills again - been a "flatlander" for too long!  I left Montpelier in 1981 after I graduated from Goddard College in Plainfield, VT.

I really like Central Vermont.  Frank tells me that Burlington is really nice as well.  There's an airport there to connect to New York.  The snow there is more of the wet kind because of the nearness to Lake Champlain.  Montpelier is drier and less ice because there are only a few relatively small rivers there.

Sure, I'd love to have you visit once I'm settled in.  I want to try to rent a house where I'll have a yard for dogs to play in.  Landon would like your dog - he LOVES other dogs!

Take care.

Regards,

Linda and Landon

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Bunny Davidson 
To: linda san fran CA doglist 
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2009 9:41 AM
Subject: RE: Hi
hi linda! wow, girl you are something else!  did i mention i hold my bfa in fine art (textile design) ? I am amazed and awed by your painting...   was that acrylic or oil?how are you able to paint and barely see?   I never had much confidence in my painting, had a professor at college ruin that for me. but i do like crafts, esp. pottery, jewelry, and of course fiber arts (i spin weave knit, dye and felt using fiber raised on my farm) your info on montpelier sounds inviting, I hope you wouldnt mind if i came to visit you sometime once your settled in.I havent spent time there since high school age. I have been having a bit of a hard time holding onto my farm with downturn of economy (lost lots of $ late 2000 and again this year -bad investments)I talked to my investment guy recently and the realator too, i am hoping to fix cosmetics here and sell in 18-24 months if market eases up.it is my hope to find somewhere not so isolated yet with beauty and nature, woods, and water nearby- i know burlington (lake champlaine) has that stuff even if i move to rental. is there water/lakes near montpelier?  i do like to swim and kayak when i can. well ive got to get going. my butt is feeling cement like sitting here too long, Photo links below, - what i put those dogs thru!!! hugs to you and landon,bunny , big, lady, sugar ray, chloe & co.http://s252.photobucket.com/albums/hh31/THATBUNNY/dogs/?action=view&current=ladybug.jpg http://s252.photobucket.com/albums/hh31/THATBUNNY/dogs/?action=view&current=b4-1.jpg http://s252.photobucket.com/albums/hh31/THATBUNNY/dogs/?action=view&current=dec2208sugarstormchairpixs061.jpg  

From: lindagwizdak at peoplepc.comTo: bunnydavidson at live.comSubject: Re: HiDate: Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:59:26 -0800

Hi Bunny - Happy New Year!

Franklin and I did have oportunities to be together but he wanted to have kids and I didn't.  I also wasn't ready for a relationship either.  He met his wife at a party at my place - they married in 1975.  I was still in Boston and Franklin and his new wife moved back to Franklin's native Montpelier.  They got a house and remained childless for many years.  I moved to Montpelier in '77 and spent alot of time with both of them.  They finally had their two girls in the '80s.

Then Franklin suffered some bad health issues and his wife was tired of the married life.  The kids were almost grown by then and the wife divorced Franklin.  She moved to another state with a new boyfriend and Franklin lost the house and is now in Senior/Disabled HUD housing (he hates it!!!).  In the late '80s, my sister and I moved to San Diego.  Over all those years apart, Franklin and I have remained in touch with each other.  I lost touch with the wife.  The girls are now grown and living on their own in other states.

I'd been dating a guy here for the last five years and that has fallen apart.  Two years ago, Franklin proposed marriage to me and we were engaged for a short time.  I really wasn't ready to commit because of my attachment to the guy I was dating even though he really wasn't the right man for me.  Franklin never gave up on me and this past summer, I realized that it was Franklin who was really the right guy for me.  He waited for me to be ready for him!  He was the patient one!  I broke up with the guy I was seeing here.  I realized that I wouldn't be happy with him but I would be happy with Franklin.  So, we began making our plans to be together - we were tired of a long distance relationship.  Thank God for Verizon!!!!  We talk almost every day for free!  But that doesn't take the place of being face to face and doing things together.

I have been unemployed for the last 20 years here - San Diego isn't very open to hiring the blind here.  During the last two years, I took some job search classes and became job ready which I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do if I moved to Vermont and married Franklin two years ago.  So, things happen for a reason.  I am now ready to make the move and finally have me and Franklin together.

Yeah, it's been a long round about journey for both him and me, but we know that things happened as they did for a reason.  My plan is to have my sister and I move to Montpelier next summer.  Franklin and I will be able to really date and spend time together before we re-commit and get married.  We both know that we will get married, but now with being in the same town we can do it right!  My sister will then move into a Senior/Disabled HUD building where some friends live.

Franklin and I can talk for hours on the phone.  We share the same values and enjoy our involvement in progressive politics and the NFB.  He is the Vermont State NFB President that I referred you to a couple of months ago.  He works for a disability agency in Montpelier and he works on their legislation before the State House.  I used to do that kind of work with him back in our Boston days in the '70s.

I also found that there's a big craft/artist community in Montpelier.  I paint and I do crafts - mostly yarn crafts.  I like to paint landscapes that I make up in my head - rural landscapes.  I haven't painted for several years now because I don't have the place to set up and paint.  So, I've been just doing crocheting and other crafts at the Blind Community Center here in San Diego.  I made a bunch of hats and scarves for our big fundraiser at Christmas time.  I was an art major in college and I still know how to paint no matter how long I'm away from it!  I look forward for Franklin and me having a house where I'll have room to set up my easel and paints.  I look forward to a change in my life with my doing my art and, hopefully, getting a parttime job as a receptionist somewhere in Montpelier.

Oh yeah, I know where the National Life Insurance building is in Montpelier.  They shoot off fireworks from there for First Night, the New Years Eve celebration.  I used to live on Main Street near State Street.  My building used to be the old Cross Bakery building.  In 1980, there was a huge liquor store fire next door to my building and the owner decided to tear down the whole block to create the Center City center that is there now.  I know aboout the busses there, too.  I was there two years ago when I got engaged.  Montpelier still has the same things that I liked about it in the '70s - only better now!  There's alot to do there now with art, theater, a senior center, concerts in the churches.  There's lots of places and offices who could use receptionists as well.  I think I'll do well there.

I have alot of family in New England - New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.  My sister and I will make the family in all of the New England states except for Maine.  My coousins have gotten married and have had their kids who I've never met.  It will be nioce to meet them all.  I also still have friends in Boston.  It's so nice that New England is small enough to visit people.  The states in the West are so huge that you have to fly to get anywhere in a reasonable time frame.

You have a Happy New Year and Landon sends wags to your pups!  Landon would LOVE to play with them!  He loves other dogs.

Attached is a picture of one of my paintings.  I did this one from a picture I took in Ramona, CA.  I was looking west on Boundary Street in Ramona.  It's a dirt road with sheep farms on both sides of the street.

Cheers,

Linda

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Bunny Davidson 
To: linda san fran CA doglist 
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 8:25 AM
Subject: RE: Hi
WOW! TALK ABOUT BEING PATIENT! WAITING SINCE 72! WOOOWIE LADY, THAT'S ALONG WAIT TO BE TOGETHER! HOPE YOU HAVE A SETTLING IN PARTY!  YOU BOTH DESERVE A REAL FUN ONE.  YES MONTPELIER HAS BUSSES AND STUFF, I GREW UP NOT FAR FROM THERE (AN HOUR AWAY) ONE OF OUR FAMILY FRIENDS WORKED AT THE NATIONAL LIFE INS. CO. WHERE WE ATTENDED MANY OF THEIR HOLIDAY PARTIES (I WAS A KID, CUPCAKES YIPPIE)...  WHERE I AM BUSES ARE LIMITED . ALTHOUGHT WE DO HAVE THE "MOOVER" ALL PAINTED LIKE B&W COWS AND THEY ARE FREE TO RIDE... THEY GO TO MT SNOW SKI AREA, AROUND THE SOUROUNDING TOWNS AND THEN A COUPLE TIMES A DAY TO BRATTLEBORO.  THANK GOD I DRIVE, DONT KNOW IF I COULD DEAL WITH GROCERIES ON A BUS- I HAVE DIFFICULTY CARRYING THINGS.  WELL IM OFF TO DO SOME STUFF HERE BEFORE MORE SNOW COMES TONIGHT. HUGSB 

From: lindagwizdak at peoplepc.comTo: bunnydavidson at live.comSubject: HiDate: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 11:45:00 -0800

Hi Bunny,
I'll be moving to Montpelier.  My sister and I will most likely rent an apartment together with my Section-8.  My boyfriend is in another HUD building and his apartment is too small for another person and all my stuff.

We will eventually move in together and my sister will move to a HUD building where we have friends - then there'll just be my boyfriend, me, and Landon.  My boyfriend is Franklin and he is visually impaired.  We've known each other since 1972 and we worked together and spent alot of time together.  Now, we'll finally be together!

So, Franklin doiesn't drive - we do take the bus to whereever we want to go!

Take care,

Linda

It’s the same Hotmail®. If by “same” you mean up to 70% faster. Get your account now. 

Life on your PC is safer, easier, and more enjoyable with Windows Vista®. See how 
_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™ Hotmail®: Chat. Store. Share. Do more with mail. 
http://windowslive.com/howitworks?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t1_hm_justgotbetter_howitworks_012009