Oh! Joe! (Banana Joe)

Miss Boogie just had to post, today. She's so excited about Banana Joe's win, Best in Show, at  Wesminister!

What a handsome dog!

After all her years of struggling to gain Affenpinscher Recognition, "I am not at all a terrier. I am not at all a poodle mix!" Miss Boogie is over the moon with joy.

She is not simply elated that such a handsome dog won, but also that Joe's handler, Ernesto Lara, recognized and spoke so eloquently of the Affenpinscher's innate character and comic wit. 

“This isn’t a breed you train. He’s like a human. You befriend him.” said Lara. “He knows when it’s showtime.”  

 “Like any comedian, when he’s in a situation, he doesn’t think it’s funny,” Lara said. “Once you live with one, you know that’s the standard. They need a comic seriousness.”  

Well, yes, as if any underdog group didn't develop a comic sensibility!  (Just ask the Moms.)

Miss Boogie thrilled at Judge Michael Dougherty's remarks about Banana Joe's  physique. 

 “He has the muscle tone of a big dog,” said Dougherty.

At last! Miss Boogie can hear the crumbling of the "wimpy" stereotypes. At last the recognition for generations of courageous ratting!

"Oh, Joe! My hero!"

What's this? While I've been faithfully typing up Miss Boogie's post someone has booked a flight on my credit card to the Netherlands! Miss Boogie!

P.S. Thanks to the New York Times for the wonderful quotes.

Round on both ends, Hi in the middle

     This is a wonderful time of year for Miss Boogie, watching her favorite team and enjoying a few sips of brew.
     "Miss Boogie! You haven't been drinking from my glass have you?"

     The Mom really shouldn't put her glass on the floor. Better be cute.

     "Aren't you clever, Miss Boogie! Okay, have a sip."

 Go Bucks!

Diary of an Artist's Retreat, Part III

Miss Boogie, Minimalist

  As Miss Boogie reported last week, an artist’s retreat is anything but peaceful. The Mom seems to be in some sort of creative frenzy. Not only is she storming ahead on her screenplay, but also she is painting furiously. Which is altogether new for the Mom, at least in Miss Boogie’s lifetime. It seems the Mom painted in college in the remote past, but hasn’t really painted since.

  The Mom has been using Miss Boogie as a model to refresh her technique. The Mom has decided to paint Miss Boogie in the style of some of her favorite painters. Since last week, the Mom has painted Miss Boogie in the style of Picasso,

Miss Boogie in the style of Picasso

 Miro,

Miss Boogie in the style of Miro

Modigliani,

Miss Boogie in the style of Modigliani

and Mondrian.

sketch for Miss Boogie Sleeping in the Sun in the style of Mondrian

So far Miss Boogie's favorite style is early nieceling.

Miss Boogie, Early Nieceling

Diary of an Artist's Retreat, Part II

    Miss Boogie loves being an artist-in-residence, though technically the Mom is the artist. Miss Boogie must sit in all those tiring poses while the Mom sketches her. Miss Boogie says, "It is more difficult being a Muse than one might imagine."

After she worked all day, the Mom took Miss Boogie into Coloma to Easy Street. It’s a very nice bar and grill on the main street near the movie theater. (Boogie noticed that the movie theater will give you popcorn for 50 cents, if you bring your own bucket. She hopes to go back there before the residency is up. She is looking for a bucket.) They, Easy Street not the movie theater, have Bell’s on tap. It is Berrien County. 

    The Mom and Miss Boogie sat at the bar. The Mom had an “Easy Street,” wheat and struck up a conversation with the bartender, Amanda. Turns out Amanda, who looks about 24, is 34 and has five kids. The oldest is 17. The Mom was flabbergasted. “Yup, that’s what the winters here will do to you.” Amanda said.

    Amanda had just planted a lilac bush in her yard. She said lilacs were her favorite, so there was an instant bond with the Mom. The smell of lilacs reminds Amanda of her grandmother. Amanda’s eleven-year-old daughter wants to know how soon the bush will be beautiful. “When God lets it have time to grow.” Amanda said. “Everything happens for a reason in its own time.” The Mom thought she heard Amanda’s grandmother, or maybe her own.

    Amanda had lots of great tips for spending time in Southwest Michigan, especially food tips. Her mother-in-law runs a restaurant in Keeler called Keeler’s Keg and Kitchen. They’re famous for their pizza, but Amanda says the Keeler Prime Sandwich, au jus, with green pepper (mango as they call them in Indiana) on a homemade roll is the best. The Mom took the challenge and wrote down the directions because the best Italian roast beef and mango ever is still at Art’s Pizza in Anderson, Indiana. 

 

Miss Boogie was licking her dainty lips over the Italian roast beef when she heard the best news of all.

    If you follow Friday Road south, out of Coloma, go under the freeway, about half a mile, next to the Contessa Winery, there’s a  chocolate shop (Vineyards Gourmet) with truffles and hand-dipped chocolates made from all the native fruits of Michigan and their newest creation, chocolate covered bacon! Miss Boogie’s tiny pink tongue was curled all the way over her tiny black nose, and she was in a tap dancing rapture that would make a Sufi swoon.

Diary of an Artist's Retreat

  

    Miss Boogie is fond of pie. 

    She has been on retreat with the 2^nd Mom at Blueberry View for not quite two days. Already they have found two bakeries. Miss Boogie has observed that there are certain necessities for the writer on retreat—baked goods, homemade soup and a bottle (perhaps two) of white wine. Miss Boogie volunteered to taste the baked goods to determine if they were fit for the Mom. The Mom trusts Miss Boogie’s palate. 

    Miss Boogie found Alinda’s pies at Bob’s Barn Farm Market and Bakery to be especially good. Alinda, though she goes by Lyn here because people are confused when she says, “Alinda.” They think she is saying, “a Linda,” which makes no sense if you think about it. It’s like “the Donald,” but nobody else would go by such a name. Oh, well, maybe “the” Moms. Anyway, Alinda specializes in pies from fruits native to Michigan. The Bob’s is located in a blueberry field, after all.

    Miss Boogie has already reviewed the cherry and blueberry. Tomorrow she will try the peach, and on Thursday she hopes to sample the pineapple upside-down pie. Though she doesn’t believe that pineapple is a native Michigan fruit, Miss Boogie trusts Alinda’s fine arts of pastry.

    Miss Boogie has also observed that as with other sports requiring stamina, carbo-loading and energy snacking are important in long-distance writing—novels, screenplays and anything with a deadline. The Mom bought a bag of apricot kipfels, at the Golden Brown Bakery in South Haven, that Miss Boogie keeps hiding, (“No, no!” Miss Boogie insists. “Write ‘moving.’”) in order to provide the Mom appropriate breaks in her long stretches of sitting at the computer. “Miss Boogie, where are the cookies?” 

Proper hydration is also essential for the writer. Miss Boogie makes certain the Mom has plenty of fluids.

 

Which is easy since they are in the heart of Michigan wine country.

    A mason jar of lilacs awaited Miss Boogie and the 2^nd  Mom when they arrived at Blueberry View Retreat. It was an omen. Lilacs are the Mom’s favorite flower. She misses them in Virginia. They have difficulty, as does nearly everyone, surviving the hot summers. Lilacs fill the spring countryside of Michigan, however, and the Mom had imagined gathering huge bouquets at the "midnight" florist.

In truth nearly everyone has several overloaded bushes in their yard and gladly let her have as many arms full as she liked.

    Miss Boogie is happy to report that the Mom is actually working. In the first two days she has written 18 scenes for her screenplay, made 5 new drawings, and carefully taken down dictation for 2 new Adventures of Miss Boogie.

    Whew. The Mom deserves a nap.

 

Miss Boogie's Adventures Part V

Miss Boogie has just returned from a fabulous week at Rehoboth Beach. She loves the boardwalk and sincerely hopes the “dog months” will be extended at least through May 1^st. April through October is far too long to be denied boardwalk and beach privileges. Miss Boogie finds the city commissioners to be rather speciest in their regulations.

Miss Boogie is a sun-worshiper. She gets it honestly enough from her first Mom, a sun-worshiper of the highest order, who oiled and foiled and broiled her way from precisely 10 a.m. to precisely 2 p.m., at Herring Cove or Race Point Beach every day of an entire Provincetown season. The first Mom once unfolded a webbed, aluminum beach chair in the middle of the backyard on Arden Road in the middle of January. It was a particularly bright day—there being half a foot of snow on the ground reflecting, blindingly, the sun in the cloudless sky.

The Mom, suffering she claimed from SAD, sat in the chair in her down jacket, khakis and boots with a two-foot mirror balanced on her knees to reflect even more rays to her upturned face and hands. Miss Boogie sat rapturously on the foot of the lawn chair.

Miss Boogie takes the sun quite regularly on the Clintonville Beach, as the back yard at Arden Road has often been called. She has her own sunglasses. They are actually the tanning bed glasses of the first Mom, but with their elastic band, and tiny dark lenses, they fit Miss Boogie’s small face perfectly. 

Lest you think I could make these things up, I’ve added photos this time from Miss Boogie’s album. Miss Boogie has quite an album. Both Moms once taught at the notorious Hasket Hall, home of The OSU department of photography and cinema. 

Miss Boogie with the 1st Mom and pal, Pepper, at the Clintonville Beach in January

Miss Boogie with Aunt Donna at the Clintonville Beach

The first Mom, a photographer, taught photography, and the second Mom, a filmmaker, taught, well, filmmaking. And so Miss Boogie roamed the studios, darkrooms and edit suites of Hasket Hall quite freely, attending classes and critiques, editing into the wee hours, meeting guest artists. (Miss Boogie confesses that picking up William Wegman, the great photographer of the noble Weimaraner, Man Ray, at the airport was a highlight. Though she wished Mr. Wegman had at least brought Fay Ray with him.) That is, when there was a Hasket Hall and a department of photography. The department of photography and cinema having been disbanded in a dramatic downsizing of the arts, after some gibberish about the arts not funding themselves like football and the “left-wing faculty.” But that is definitely another story.

When Miss Boogie wasn’t sitting for a photograph, or hanging by the snack machines in the basement, conning some starving student out of a cheese cracker or peanut M & M, she was helping hang a show or, her favorite, attending an opening in the Silver Image Gallery. Miss Boogie loved openings. She loved to wear her red bandana and prance in stylishly, fashionably late. If everyone was already there, talking and drinking, she could make her way directly to the hors d’ oeuvres’ table without anyone making a fuss. 

There were always tasty bits on the floor around the table. She quite preferred the faculty receptions to the student ones. Though she is fond of chips and pizza and corn curls and she adores students and finds them so smart, when they laugh and applaud and toss crisps for her to catch mid-air, her schooled palate appreciates the shrimp, pate, and cheeses that fall from the plates of the wine-sipping faculty even more. 

 Miss Boogie’s eye is as discerning as her tongue—one might call her an art hound. She had her portrait made with and has been photographed by the best. She has kept an album of her favorites. The first Mom, Uncle Chick, Uncle Lloyd, Aunt Susan Mabel, Ardine, Fred, James all became rather famous in their own ways. Miss Boogie likes to remember their promising beginnings, and to remember that she knew them when—rather like Gertrude Stein—when she was the doyenne of Hasket Hall.

Miss Boogie's March Madness

Miss Boogie regrets that she has not had time to keep up with her blog adventures lately. It is March. She has been very busy following her team.

 

 Go Bucks!

Whew! That's a lot of work for a such a little dog. Miss Boogie could use a lager.

Miss Boogie will be returning soon with a new adventure.

Miss Boogie's Adventures Part IV

  
Miss Boogie rarely sleeps on the floor. She prefers the waterbed, the chair in the window or the sofa, except in the morning when the sun streams through the picture window. Then Miss Boogie sleeps in the exact center of the sunbeam curled like a ball of wool, moustache like tufts spiked in all directions. “Which end is her head?” “What do you mean end?”

 

Miss Boogie’s name was not always Miss Boogie. Apart from the name the first owners gave her, the ones who left her in the dumpster, and called her “Muffy” or “Fluffy” or “Buffy” or something she can’t quite remember; she has had several names. The first person who took her in, the famous political activist, sailor, and wearer of black before it was fashionable because it didn’t show dirt and made doing her laundry easier, Aunt Direen, named her Miller after an ex-girlfriend. Calling a fluff ball “Miller,” however, seemed too formal, and “Millie” was too sissy for such an independent spirit and too confusing for the grandmothers.

You see, the second Mom called the first Mom “Millie” because her name was Molnar which is Hungarian for miller, and “Millie” was short for that miller—the Hungarian miller, not the ex-girlfriend Miller. But Millie wasn’t the first Mom’s real name and nobody else called her that, except the second Mom’s mother because she thought it was a real name, or at least a real nickname.

One Thanksgiving when the first Mom’s mother was visiting, the second Mom’s mother telephoned to check some sizes before doing her Christmas shopping. After pleasant hello’s, the second Mom’s mother asked the first Mom’s mother, “What size feet does Millie have?” 

Well, she meant what size feet does the person called Millie have, but the first Mom’s mother thought she meant what size feet did the fluff ball called Millie have so she said, “Why, I don’t know exactly. Very small, though.” 

Small was not the second Mom’s mother’s recollection of the first Mom’s foot size, so she tried a different approach. “What size shoe does she wear?” The first Mom’s mother now thought that the second Mom’s mother was batty, but she tried to answer politely. “I don’t think she wears shoes.” “Doesn’t wear shoes! Don’t her feet get cold?” “I don’t know. I never thought about it.” At which point the second Mom’s mother thought the first Mom’s mother must be absolutely batty not to have thought about her own daughter’s shoeless feet, but she responded politely, “Well, I guess I won’t get her slippers for Christmas.” And she hung up. 

Ever after, the two Mom’s called their mothers the Bats. “Who’s on the phone?” “It’s the Bat for you.” “Hi, Mom.” And Miss Boogie went through a name change.

(In fact one of Miss Boogie’s Aunts, Chris or Donna or Bell or maybe Aunt Susan, brought her a beautiful pair of red cowboy boots as a memento of a trip West. Alas, like most high-heeled shoes, they were difficult to walk in, so she could only wear them around the house—mostly she wore them on Fridays to watch “Dallas.”)

Miss Boogie’s Aunt Donna tried calling her “Brillo.” She could resemble a used Brillo pad, during the shape shifting stage just before rust sets in, but it wasn’t the perfect name—too scratchy. No. She needed something that captured her spirit, her capacity for pure joy. Then one day it happened.

The Moms were listening to a Lily Tomlin album. Lily was doing a character named, “Sister Boogie Woman.” Sister Boogie Woman was describing the life affirming qualities of “boogie.” She advised two seniors in a nursing home, who were forbidden to close the door for some moments of private intimacy, to “boogie with the door open!”

The Moms looked at each other, jumped up shrieking with joy. That was it! Muffy, Buffy, Fluffy, Miller, Millie, Brillo was Boogie personified... er, incarnate—a cotton wool on stilts who sang for chocolate, tap-danced with wild abandon on a vinyl chair, threw herself with kisses into the arms of friends and strangers, and always boogied with the door open. 

Miss Boogie's Adventures Part III

As we learned in the last installment, Miss Boogie is fond of Christmas, and has discovered ways of snatching rich treats like entire sticks of butter or whole boxes of truffles while no one is watching. Next to Christmas, and truffles, Miss Boogie likes Easter.

While the people are eating ham and potatoes and Heavenly Hash, Miss Boogie can hide an entire basket of chocolate eggs. 

 

 

With any luck at all the people won’t find most of them. When they do find one randomly, they often foolishly blame some strange rabbit. “Oh look, babe, there’s a chocolate egg in the couch cushion.” “That bad Easter Bunny. I thought we had found them all.”

Months later Miss Boogie can retrieve a chocolate malto-milk egg from behind the refrigerator or under the lazy-boy or pushed between the frame and mattress at the foot of the waterbed. You’d be surprised how well they keep there if you push them down in the corner fold of the plastic out of reach of the covers. It’s important to keep them out of the sheets. Otherwise, when the Moms change the sheets they find lots of hidden Boogie bounty, like whole Oreos, milk-bones and French fries. “Oh my god! How did this French fry get here?” “This is disgusting. Miss Boogie!” Miss Boogie usually hides under the dresser whenever the Moms change the sheets. Just in case.

On Halloween Miss Boogie likes to dress punk to try to scare the children. If she is successful, they will drop their treat bags; and she can grab a Snickers or Tootsie-Roll or two.

 

Sometimes she just tags along behind with her own treat bag. The children can barely see to walk, so they never realize she’s behind them. Since Halloween is a big block party on Arden Road [it’s known throughout the city as the best haul; kids come from across town to parade up and down the two blocks of goblin gold coast and drag home pillowcases heavy with of the mother lode of Halloween candy], no one notices a strange, very short kid with furry legs.

 

“That’s a great costume, kid. Must be hard on your knees.” Miss Boogie just nods.

Miss Boogie’s people order pizza and wait with their bowl of candy outside in the drive, laughing and drinking red wine with the neighbors. They don’t even realize she’s gone. For Miss Boogie, Halloween is a triple treat.

 
PS

Dear Readers,

I have had several people e-mail me about chocolate and dogs. I do know that chocolate is very bad for dogs. PLEASE DO NOT LET YOUR DOG EAT CHOCOLATE. I love dogs and would not want any dog to be harmed by eating chocolate. I do not know why Miss Boogie is "chocolate tolerant." For some unknown reason, she is able to eat chocolate and other very rich people food without harm. Perhaps her early life in the dumpster prepared her. This is not the usual case for dogs, but Miss Boogie is not a usual dog.

Sincerely,

Miss Boogie's Second Mom

This is Miss Boogie

 

This is Miss Boogie.

Miss Boogie lives with her people in a metal house in Clintonville. It suits her. She was found in a metal dumpster on the edge of German Village. Since she was a foundling, her family tree was very difficult to trace.  She is small, six pounds, with long spindly legs. She is ten inches high. Her ears are floppy but not long, and her fur, well her kinkily soft fur sticks out all over like an un-waxed moustache.

Miss Boogie has great distain for those who think she is a poodle mix. Miss Boogie is not at all a poodle. She is not at all a terrier. After much research, Miss Boogie, determined that she was an affenpinscher.  She saw one on a dog chart in the veterinarian’s office and looked it up in the dictionary. “(af-en-pin-scher) n. Ger. Any of a breed of small, black dog with moustache like tufts.” Since she could not prove the noun, Miss Boogie decided she was the adjective, “of or having the qualities of affenpinscher.” She was found in German Village, after all.

Most people have never seen an affenpinscher. Hardly anyone knows what an affenpinscher is. Even the vet didn’t know her breed and mistakenly wrote “poodle-mix” on her card. She is not fond of the vet.

Miss Boogie is a source of much amusement to people on the street who sometimes point and laugh. “What is that, Harriet, a rat?” “No, Howard! Rats don’t wear collars.” Miss Boogie just bounces right by. “Our rat does,” chirp her people. “She’s quite tame. Would you like to hear her sing?”  “Sing Boogie.” And she sings in her purest descant soprano.

Miss Boogie’s people don’t much care what her breeding is. They love her character. It isn’t simply her moustache like tufts, or her spindly legs, or even the small, pink tongue that curls up over her nose at the mention of chocolate. It’s her joie de vivre. It’s the quality of “boogie” which brought about her name.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Everything about Miss Boogie is unusual. Her people live in a metal house, Lustron. They say it’s made of melted down airplanes and tanks from World War II baked with enamel. Very durable. Fireproof. All the pictures are hung with magnets, like on a refrigerator door.  Miss Boogie’s people always laugh when telephone solicitors try to sell them aluminum siding.  “Ha, ha, ha, Miss Boogie, what do you think of that! They want us to put cheap aluminum over our indestructible steel.” Imagine what Miss Boogie’s people say about vinyl siding.

Lustron suits Miss Boogie. She was found, after all in a steel dumpster. More than that, hardly anyone has heard of Lustron. Hardly anyone has heard of an affenpinscher. Hardly any affenpinschers live in a Lustron house with two moms. Miss Boogie is pleased with her situation.

 

Miss Boogie stories and images copyright 2011 Linda R. Thornburg. All Rights Reserved.