Dogs and Cups and Festive Eggplants

I’ve been a tad frustrated since I moved to Salem that I see way fewer pets when I’m out garaging. But I think I may have discovered the secret: you have to go garaging with at least two friends you made at the dog park for all the dogs to appear! Yup, piled into the car with Edward and Zoe’s Aunty Judy and Aunty Toni (your pets have aunties, don’t they??) and off we went, meeting dogs all along the way. Alas, some of my pictures didn’t turn out to be usable, like the lovely huge hound at our first stop and his little brother, some kind of poodly mix who had been rescued from a bad place and weighed only five pounds when he arrived. He’s still wary of strangers but up to a much healthier 17 pounds, and agreed he was a very lucky boy. I spent fifty cents at their sale on a Fisher Price Humpty Dumpty pull toy for my children’s literature room. He was quite, quite dirty

but nothing a little soap and water couldn’t cure.  I thought he looked quite relieved to get his face washed.

Then we ran across Josie

who is another dog park aficionado. Didn’t get the names of these sweeties

but the first two had a lot to say for themselves. Then in keeping with the dog theme of the day, we ran across a hotdog hat, which Judy kindly modeled (being our hat specialist).

The lady having the sale (yes, the one laughing in the background) said it was odd – everyone was picking up that hat but for some reason no one was buying it.

Can’t imagine why.

I did buy some Christmas ornaments there though. Really like the colors.

Though…don’t the purple ones look just like little eggplants? Such a festive vegie!

Toni and her dog Xanny have been doing quite a bit of hiking lately, and I got to give them a little backpack we found that’s perfect for carrying water and a handful of dog food. This is Xanny at the park.

She’s waiting for Zoe to drop her ball and give her a chance at it.

As if.

The backpack sale also yielded a cup and saucer that match a coffee pot bought I bought back in 2009. Winfield China, Dragon Flower pattern.

I ended up spending a whole three bucks for about $40 worth of merchandise. As far as I’m concerned, that’s more like winning a lottery than winning a lottery! And the time with friends? Yup…priceless!