An old friend, P. J. Hammer,
dropped by today and left a kindly and uplifting message
for me.

This is the sort of thing that can feed upon itself and
give one hope that all is not for naught. It is always
inspiring to hear from people for whom one has respect
and admiration.

Thank you Pete.

Thank you ever so much for your kind words.
Much appreciated.

- gwen

The Kindness of Water


Pencil in my life with gentle strokes,
In water colours of pale blues, and tawny yellows.
I'll pencil in your life with watery memories
Of all the good times we both knew.
Use an eraser, while I forgive that I forgot
That you have loved, and that I have too.
And when we meet again, at the end of some
Train of thought, we will smile to one another.
Let us pencil in our memories,
With kindness and forethought.



(c)Gwen Beauregard - 2010 - All Rights Reserved

THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

This looks much better animated. It will have to do.

It's always both a pleasure and a little surprising to me when
I am visited by my StumbleUpon acquaintances, some of whom have
become something of cherished friends over the years. My cup
runneth over, all the way down my bib. Dribble, dribble. Good
to the last drop.

It's not that I've done a whole bunch of promotions of COLD PRESS
since most often I tend to forget that I even have a weblog. Then
someone will come along and remind me. It gives me a rare
opportunity to scribble something inane and move it a bit forward,
if only by half measures.

I tend to feed off of other people's energies which revitalizes
my own. As such, I thank everyone who drops in to take a sneak
peak at what COLD PRESS is.

I get a natural "high" on people, I've never needed any other drug.

There isn't really that much here that can't be found on my
StumbleUpon pages. The wheels of the gods grind slowly - but
they do grind.

Gwen Beauregard

CHANGES

I have no idea how this is going to work.
I am confused.

BLOGGING FEAR

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Whenever I'm afraid, I think of Guillaume Apollinaire
who wrote:

Merlin motioned, "Come to the edge."

But they held back and said, "It's dangerous."

He beckoned, "Come to the edge."

And they said, "We may fall."

Then he commanded, "Come to the edge!"

So, they went to the edge and he pushed them...
And they flew.

Well, that's just about how I am feeling right now.
I don't know where I am going just yet, but I am at the edge,
trying something new. Maybe I'll fall. But then, maybe I'll fly.
I won't know until I try. The only difference is that I don't
have a Merlin to push me, I'm pushing myself.

Posted by Gwen Beauregard at 5/15/2004 08:20:00 PM

THE JURY

Shall I compare life to a deep regret,
A flower that blooms, or one that fades away?
Or should it most effectively be set
As a trial which lingers day by day?

The world is but a courtroom life creates;
Where weary wanderers plot their common case;
Where will is judge and conscience often dies
And decisions are made at a hurried pace.

But life enthralls a greater deal than this.
For is it not our goals and attitudes
Which brings us to our day's enlightened bliss
And makes us wiser in the fortunes viewed?

If jurors of our cases we could be
Then surely life's fulfillment we could see.



(c)Gwen Beauregard - 1956 - All Rights Reserved

FROM MY DESK

I tell you, these weblogs are not for
the squeamish. Not for nothing that this
rank amateur has not worked Cold Press I & II
since 2004-2009. It is now 2011.

Who actually reads these things anyway? (Me?)

It seems to me that most people, outside the
professional bloggers who write *serious* stuff,
are more likely to read themselves than to read other
people. That's been my personal experience of things
as they are.

I think it requires a bit of mashochism or conversely
narcissism, or a bit of both, to even begin to
entertain the thought that anybody ought to give a
hoot what one thinks, or does, or says and still take
oneself seriously.

I do not.

I learned far more than I ever wished to learn via
Stumbling into and onto StumbleUpon in the intervening
years between 2007 and 2011 about the good, the bad and
the ugly side of *blogging* in general.

Anathema to my personal friends and nothing short of
hideous to any members of my extended family who look
aghast at such matters as blogging and bloggers.

Smartly, none of them do it. "We don't like blogs and
especially don't like bloggers." "They aren't *real*"
Such public displays of hubris is unseemly.

I must therefore have loads of hubris to spare, and not
a little exhibitionism thrown in for good measure.

Wonder how long I can keep this up?

Making an appointment tomorrow to see my Analyst.

Could be far more productive.

Quotes

~*~*~*~


Time wounds all heels
and not a few bloggers too.

~ Gwen Beauregard


~*~*~*~

SANDY CLAWS IS COMING TO TOWN

I saw Sandy Claws and his reindeer passing overhead the last couple of nights, so you'd better be good, better be nice or he won't be passing your house any time soon. I'll pray for you. ;)

To each and all,

A healthy, happy, peaceful, joyous HOLIDAY SEASON!

Be well
Keep safe
Live lightly

And remember to always hold your pets close and your family even closer.

Kindest regards,

Gwen

HETH'S HIGHLAND LAD, a.k.a. "Laddie"

Originally, this Blog was called: "Lad A Dog". It struck to me that I would have to play secretary to my own dog, so I changed it.

It worked out quite nicely since Laddie declined the offer of the responsibility of having to write nonsense. He said that I could do that without any help at all as I do it so often.

Laddie is, as you might have guessed from his photograph, is a West Highland White Terror - oops!- I mean Terrier. [Small joke.] He has been a Service Dog for eight of his eleven years. He is also a Velcro Dog ... we are a Team and wherever I am, there he is. I am god; he is dog. That's the deal. It's always been that way with every dog I've owned, trained, worked with throughout my life.

I tell people that a dog is a dog until he bites you, then he is Mister Dog .

After the sudden death of the dog I'd owned before Laddie came into my life, everybody kept asking me, who had never been long without dogs and cats, if I was going to get another dog. "Not unless it weighs under two ounces," I joked.

It took another two years and an awful lot of research to narrow down a list of possible breeders and breeds that would be right for another canine companion, and for me.

A friend of mine had owned Westies and kept telling me how much fun" they were. I met my friend's Westie and took her out for walkies and examined Daisy very closely. I noticed her eyes. Something was not right. I brought her back to her home and informed my girlfriend, who herself could barely see as she was close to 90 years old herself, that she had better get Daisy to her Veterinarian immediately as I suspected that what I was looking at was cataracts. She hadn't noticed, but took Daisy back to her Breeder who had his Vet check her out and sure enough, she underwent eye surgery the following day and Daisy returned home about a month later, with clear eyes and in perfect health. Sadly, my friend died a few months later and Daisy was returned to her original breeder.

I had fallen for Daisy, which rather narrowed my list of a possible new companion to that one breed.

Laddie was from a litter of pups and I chose him basically for two reasons:

1) sound health, and 2) no less important, his temperament.

I hadn't wanted a male puppy as most of my dogs had been female, but he was the one.

I knew he was going to be 'a dog with a job', as were all my dogs, so he had to have an incorruptible temperament and be a follower, not a leader. There's only room for one of those in my life with dogs, and I am it. So while he was not 'showy', and maybe a little larger than the other pups, we actually chose each other.

It was the best choice I've ever made concerning dogs. He is spectacular in every way imaginable and a few I had never imagined. That's saying a whole lot because I've owned some superb and magnificent dogs in my life.

IT'S EASIER TO REPLACE POLITICIANS THAN HOUSE KEYS

Not much moves faster than the political landscape anywhere. No less so than right here in Canada. Prime Minister Harper paid his visit to the Governor General and got his prorogation to send all the parliamentarians on a long vacation while tempers hopefully cool down at least while Santa Claus is in town. What I'd like to know is, why in the world are we paying them for not being at work? It's not like everyone caught a really bad flu and decided it was safer for the country not to infect the spoil sports who would rather see their government at work in the House of Commons where they can usually be seen yelling and screaming epithets and insults back and forth across the isle.

Never mind. It is all very wearisome at the least and I just hear the word 'politics' and my head falls down onto my chest and my eyes suddenly snap shut and I am suddenly somnolent. Before I had time to take a really long, hot bath and maybe begin re-reading DeMille's Gold Coast I'd read in 1991, why two anticipated events happened: I lost my Member of Parliament who just happened to be the Leader of the Opposition, Stephane Dion, whose only sin I ever saw up close and personal is that he has an uncanny resemblance to the Dormouse at Alison in Wonderland's Tea Party. He's gone. The Right Honorable was a university professor before he became leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, now fasterthanyoucanreadthis he has been replaced by an even more patrician ivory tower professor whom the political cartoonists are going to have a field day with once he takes his proper seat in the House of Commons come January. Michael Ignatieff is the elitist of the Elite. Haven't a clue why people think that Stephen Harper looks somehow spooky and untrustworthy. To me Ignatieff is the spook behind the door. Those eyebrows just have to go, Sir. Both of them.

Ach...I'm tired. Wish I had not started this. Sort of. I'll take up the gauntlet
the next time I drop in. I'll get to those eyebrows and all the rest of it.

In the meantime I have to figure out what I'm going to do about all the various keys I lost somewhere between Saturday's trip to the grocery store and home. That's much more interesting a situation than any politician's self-inflicted fate. Politicians seem to be more easily replaced than a whole bunch of keys none of which have duplicates.

OH CANADA!

What an amazing turn of events. Here we are, arguably one of the very best countries in the world to live in. And what are we doing to it? Or, more to the point what is our Federal Government doing with it? Fighting with each other like small schoolyard bullies to see who is going to be Top Dog! It's pure madness.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, having called an illegal election which no one wanted just a little over a month ago at a cost to the taxpayers of millions of dollars at a critical time when the world is in economic crisis having been narrowly re-elected by a negligible 34% of the population to yet another minority government, has now created another artificial crisis with the ramifications being that Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is gleefully going for his jugular and has set in motion a very bizarre situation in which the Liberals, headed by a hugely unpopular and outgoing Stephanne Dion, the New Democratic Party headed by Jack Layton, and - wait for it, here comes the clincher - the Separatist leader of the Bloc Nationale, that wily fox, Gilles Duceppe whose sole function in life is to see to the dismantling of Canada as we know it, have conspired to form a coalition to bring down Harper's government.

Machiavelli would be proud! If it weren't so pathetic it would be farcical. Now everybody is furious, not least we, the Canadian people. Governer General Mikael Jean who was on a European trip, to lend further intrigue, just happens to be married to a man who was in tight with the Quebec Separatists in another life. Makes for some interesting times. Jean has cut short her trip and is on her way back to Ottawa in time to be served with the request for dissolution of Parliament on Monday. It gets better since she is going to be stuck with Hobson's Choice. Nice going!

One way or the other, we could very well be headed into another Federal Election while the ink hasn't even dried on the last one we just had. Further, Quebec is in the middle of an election and we are headed to the Polls on December 8th.

What's the problem, you may well ask? Wish I had a simple answer. It's about the economy, stupid! Economy, economy, economy...have I said it enough? ECONOMY! Well, the problem is that those Simple Serpents in Ottawa couldn't hold their noses long enough to find a loop hole wider than a barn door to step through to blast Stephen Harper's planned budget right out of the drink. Come to think of it, what are they drinking in the House of Commons these days? It isn't water.

This is a constitutional problem since that coalition that is seeking to become a triumvate Opposition Party opens up the the prospect of Duceppe's Bloc Nationale sovereignist party laying the stinkingest sulfuric rotten egg ever laid on an unsuspecting Canadian population. How sweet, the tail is going to wag the dog!

Only in Canada? Pity.

A CONVERSATION WITH GOD

A CONVERSATION WITH GOD

"Hello, God. Are you there? I need to talk to you." Silence. I hear the sound
of nothing until suddenly a voice booms out, "I'm here. What is it you wish
to talk to me about, my child?"

"I can't see you. Can you come a little closer, please?" The Voice, unnmistakably
sonorous seems to be coming from everywhere and I sort of take a backward step
being careful not to step back into an abyss from which there may be no return.
"I'm terribly busy right now, can it wait?"

"Well, actually, uh--no," I whisper back. "Uh, uh--I'm not alone. I brought
Gabriel with me." I'm gaining strength in that knowledge. "Uh, I'm here to
sue you."

The Voice lets out something akin to a clash of thunder, "Sue me? Did you say,
"sue me?"

"Well actually, I did say that alright. Gabriel here is carrying a Writ of
Habeus Corpus to serve upon you, God."

"GABRIEL? Which Gabriel are you talking about?" I'm guessing that we now have
his full attention. "Surely you don't mean my Gabriel?"

"Uh huh. The same. The winged one. Michael didn't want any part of this, so I
enveigled Gabriel to stand in for him. Gabriel delivers the Writ into the hands
of God while I stand there shuffling my feet which have developed an awful and
sudden itchy feeling. I stare blankly straight ahead me looking neither up nor
down nor side to side.

The Voice falls silent for a moment and then brightly asks what I'd hoped he'd
ask, "Why are you suing me?"

Somehow he doesn't look quite as I might have imagined, he's a lot shorter than
I thought, not much taller than I am which is saying a lot. He certainly doesn't
have a long flowing white beard, or long shoulder length hair. I don't think he
eats much either, he appears thinner and more fragile, maybe even a little
vulnerable, all things considered, as I cannot help but lift my face towards
The Voice which is now coming straight in front of me.

I squint to protect my eyes from the blinding white light of his presence. I can't
find a trace of wrinkle anywhere. Those paintings? They have it all wrong. I had
thought he would be old and crinkly and instead he looks decidedly ageless. But
the eyes. That's all there is to him. Eyes. Like water over the finest cut
diamonds any earthly humanoid ever uncovered. They are unhooded, and fathomless
in their depth.

He wasn't so much looking at me as through me as if I were the apparition.
Gabriel nudges me in the ribs. I'd almost forgotten what we came for.

"Yes, well, I'm suing you--uh--ahem--on behalf of all of us mortals who
labour on down on earth."

"WRIT?" The Voice booms back. "Writ? I don't know anything about "Writs", only
about 'It Is Written". I gave you a lot of those. Didn't you read them?"

"That's the problem," I continue patiently. There are too many of them. And
now everybody is fighting with everybody else something fierce. They contain
nothing but a lot of "Thou Shalt Nots". What were you thinking when you wrote
all of those?"

I see that God is looking somewhat pensive, so I continue. "Couldn't you have
written more "Thou Shalts" instead? Put more positives into your orders?
They are so negative."

"There might be something to what you say," The Voice softens. "But is that
reason enough to sue me?" he asks. "Give me a for instance..."

I don't miss a beat, Gabriel is rolling his eyes so far back I can only see
their whites, I catch him by his sleeve before he faints, "Yes, well it's about
Noah; you know, The Flood...", I trail off.

"That was a long time ago." The Voice bounces back at me. "Surely you must
have read your history. I didn't mean to go overboard. But in the end it was
all to the good, wouldn't you say?"

"I wouldn't," I replied flatly, "but are you designing to do it all over again?
I mean The Flood thing? Have you seen the weather we've been having down on earth?
It's beginning to look like deja vu all over again. It's god-awful, if you'll
pardon the expression." I offer.

"I think I have to go now, my child. These are very weighty issues." The Voice
is receding...

"Now just hang on a minute, I'm not nearly done yet. I've only just begun. What
about the children? Don't you love your children down on earth?" I think I've got
him on a touchy subject. I know how much he loves little children.

God let's out the longest, most tired sigh I've ever heard echo anywhere at any time.
"Ah, yes. I know. The children...." He gets a faraway look in his eyes. But he is
listening intently to some distant memory.

I persist, "Millions upon millions of little children everywhere on earth are sick,
starving, motherless, fatherless, homeless, and dying like flies all over the place.
Isn't there something you can do about them? I mean we're already dealing with
Tsunamis, and earthquakes, and the weather everywhere has is totally out of control.
People everywhere are dying from disease and starvation because of this crazy climate
we are experiencing. That's why I'm thinking that maybe it's by your Design. That
you have some Plan and it isn't looking at all good. That's why I mentioned Noah and
The Flood. But the children, that's a whole other matter and there's no one to speak
for them. There's such a feeling of hopelessness down on earth. Your people are
warring with each other and it's awfully scary, they don't seem to be thinking of
the children at all. Doesn't that bother you?" I'm now all over the place with this
and I don't think he'll do anything about any of it unless I launch my Class Action
Suit and at least get him to show Cause as to why he has chosen to mismanage his
creation down on earth.

God is thinking deeply on what I have just said, "Yes. I hear you," he responds gravely,
"It makes me feel very sad too. It's not at all the way I planned it, not at all."

The Voice is so soft now that I have to strain to hear him. "Is there anything else
you want to say right now or can we take these very serious matters up later while
I study your Writ in greater detail? We can talk again - soon. Soon..."

The Voice trails off and suddenly he is gone.

Gabriel nods his head towards me and whispers in my ear, "I think it's time we go.
We can come back another time."

Thus ended my first conversation with God as it had begun.