Last week, I took care of my granddog Remington – we call her “Remy” – while my daughter and her family were on vacation.
I have nine grandchildren, but only one granddog. So Remy – who joined our family almost three years before my first grandson was born – is very special to me.
Here are a few photos of Remy I’ve taken over the years – beginning with a couple of adorable pictures of her as a puppy:
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Here are a few photos of Remy with her aunt Lily – who we said goodbye to earlier this year:
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I hope Remy will be with us for many years to come. And so do my daughter’s three boys, who have never known a world that doesn’t include Remy:
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I was very pleased when M’s catchy little 1979 record, “Pop Music” popped up on the Sirius/XM “First Wave” channel while I was driving in my car a few days ago. Click here to watch the official “Pop Music” music video.
I was even more pleased when “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” – Human League’s y-u-g-e 1983 hit – followed “Pop Music.”
Listening to your radio just doesn’t get any better than that, boys and girls!
Click here to watch the offical “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” music video.
Click here to buy the extended album version of the record from Amazon.
Today, you're invited to join me and Lily (my sweetheart of a yellow Lab) on one of our recent Cape Cod walks.
Walkin' canes are optional – I don't need one yet, but you may – but hats are mandatory because we all need to minimize our UV exposure . . . right?
The first part of walk is along Scarsdale Road, a quiet residential street in Dennis Village, Massachusetts. Lily takes the lead – this will be my view of her for most of the walk:
The most notable building on Scarsdale Road is the Dennis Inn, which was the site of my daughter's wedding reception last September:
The older homes on Scarsdale Road are generally quite modest:
But the newer houses are large and luxurious:
These wild golden asters are in bloom on Scarsdale Road at this time of year:
Scarsdale Road deadends at Whig Strret. Lily and I will continue on a footpath through an overgrown area that my kids used to call "the jungle."
Hidden in "the jungle" is a cemetery containing the remains of a number of descendants of John Hall, who came to Dennis from Coventry, England, in 1651:
The oldest headstone in the Hall family cemetery marks the grave of Mrs. Bethiah Hall, who died in 1696.
After crossing Nobscussett Creek, the footpath takes you to the extensive grounds of the Cape Cod Center for the Arts in Dennis Village, Massachusetts, which is home to the Cape Playhouse (the oldest professional summer theatre in the United States) and the Cape Cinema (best known for its Rockwell Kent ceiling mural).
The Cape Playhouse, which seats about 365, opened for business in 1927:
Bette Davis worked as an usher at the Cape Playhouse one summer before returning the following summer to act. Other famous actors who worked at the Cape Playhouse include Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, Gregory Peck, Robert Montgomery, and Shirley Booth.
Here's the playbill from a 1981 production of "Educating Rita":
Here's the Cape Playhouse's scene shop:
That building is named after scenic designer Herbert Senn (who created more than 350 sets for the Cape Playhouse, as well as sets for Broadway and Lincoln Center productions) and his collaborator, Helen Pond:
The Cape Cinema opened in 1930:
Rockwell Kent (1882-1971) was an author and artist who is remembered mostly for his book illustrations. Here's the cover of his illustrated edition of Moby Dick that was published in 1930:
That same year, he designed a 6400-square-foot ceiling mural for the Cape Cinema that depicts the heavens and is populated by figures inspired by the constellations:
The day Lily and I took our walk, the Cape Cinema was showing Far from the Madding Crowd.
If I had been able to extend my visit by a day or two, I could have seen Love and Mercy, a biopic about Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys:
The Spinners were a Detroit group that had little commercial success until they switched from Motown to Atlantic. With the help of famed "The Sound of Philadelphia" producer Thom Bell, the group cranked out five straight gold album sin the early 1970s.
"Rubberband Man," a song about an entertainer who hooks a rubber band around his toe and plays it, was co-written by Bell and Linda Creed. It reached #1 on the Billboard R&B chart and #2 on "Hot 100" chart in 1976.
A couple of years, we rescued a very sweet female yellow Lab from the local animal shelter. We were very fortunate to visit the shelter the day she was dropped off there -- otherwise, she would have been snapped up by another family.
After considerable discussion of possible names did not result in anything resembling a consensus, we decided to keep the name she already had -- which was Lily.
There was some debate as to how to spell that name, but I insisted that Lily was the only possible spelling. It's fortunate that my view prevailed -- otherwise, this 2 or 3 lines wouldn't work quite as well.
Lily is a rather delicate-sounding name for our big lug of a dog, who weighs 60-plus pounds and moves with all the finesse of the proverbial bull in a china shop.
Lily's most notable characteristic is her unqualified goodwill. She has never met a human or a canine who wasn't her friend. (Cats? Not so much.)
Lily knows how to relax. She spends 99% of her day sleeping, and her brain obviously perceives the entire house as one big bed:
For a Lab, she's not that great a swimmer:
My daughter recently got an adorable chocolate Lab puppy named Remington (after the shotgun), and Lily and Remy are best friends:
"Pictures of Lily" was released by the Who as a single in 1967. It was a top five hit in the UK, but didn't make it into the top forty in the U.S.
It appeared on the Who's 1968 compilation album, Magic Bus, and later on the better-known compilation album Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, which was released in 1971.
The Who's bass player, John Entwhistle, once explained the meaning of "Pictures of Lily" thusly: "It's all about wanking." Indeed. (Entwhistle contributed the distinctive French horn solo to "Pictures of Lily.")
(That's it for this post. "He really phoned in that one," I hear one of you saying. Yes, I did -- didn't I? I've got a lot of stuff going on right now, boys and girls, and while I will NEVER miss a 2 or 3 lines deadline, I'm not going to kid you -- not every post can be above average. Posting a bunch of dog pictures was easy to do, and I knew it would please all my dog-loving female readers -- and since that is pretty much the only kind of readers I've got, that's what I did. So take it or leave it. Anyone who's unhappy can get a full refund of the subscription price.)
Here's "Pictures of Lily":
Click below if you'd like to buy the song from Amazon:
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