Eulogy to our Fibi- one dog's life

Whether the spelling is this way or another Fibi didn't really care. She was with us from the end of 2000. Born and raised in Costa Rica she was fast and alert, brave and smart, an excellent jumper and as stubborn as a mule. When I first tried to put a leash on her to take her for a walk she glued her legs in the floor and refused to move. I spoke to her softly; I spoke with all my authority voice. I tried to bribe her with smelly salami…nothing. She just set there in the center of my bedroom and wouldn't move. I had to leave. I put the salami in front of her and left home for about four hours. When I came back I found her in the same position, the salami untouched. I gave up, took the leash off her and immediately the salami disappeared within her and she left the room waving her tail up victoriously and went to her business.

  We had to send her to school for 6 weeks to learn how to accept the leash and ever since she came back from school basically trained but still with her free, brave, loyal spirit,

we were together.

Now she is gone.

She took care of Bell our late old Coli dog and when Bell was gone Fibi was so depressed she didn't smile. Her tail went between her back legs, she hardly ate and…there came Lulu the next love of her life.

 When Rony left home to UBC, Fibi set in front of the gate every day at three pm waiting for the school bus. When no Rony came of the bus she howled a bit and came back home sad and depressed. It went on like this for three month.  Then Rony came home for vacation and somehow Fibi understood.

Now she is gone

While walking in the neighborhood with Maribel and lulu a vicious giant German shepherd charge in for an attack Fibi got tensed then Maribel unleashed her and in a counter attack she fought against twice her size dog and sent him away wailing with a torn ear. They were never attacked again.

 In 2008 we left Costa Rica with both Lulu and Fibi on the same flight and came to live in San Diego. By this time we already knew Fibi will take it hard since she was of those stable, changes hate persons. It took her some time but she adapted well to the totally different life in an ocean side- desert weather of San Diego area. She did it for us and for Lulu and she was happy. We were too. Fibi and Lulu made a home for us wherever we went.

And now both are gone… left… 

 I came home today walking from the car towards the back door looking to the garden gate expecting to see her standing there looking at me with blind eyes and still know me. It's been a long time now since she wiggled her tail with joy, not that she ever was a great wiggler, but she stopped completely after Lulu left, and of course she wasn't there. She will never again be there… I try hard to remove this kind of instinctive notions from my mind as soon as they are coming in.

Fibe, I was left behind with a nagging question was I right to make this decision of ending your life since it is an irreversible decision? You are silent as always…

We love you; we always have and forever will. It was a privilege to have you in our life it was joy and happiness and since I don't intend to have another dog to replace you, there will never be such unending unconditional love like yours to me.

  

Plumeria and sunshiny days candles

As I said in my end of May candles' posts in my Etsy's shop at:

 https://www.etsy.com/shop/BusyBeeArtBoutique

It was a gloomy dump rainy day and I all I could think of where the humble small Plumeria trees in side street in Tel Aviv in summer, their yellowish white crown of soft, gentle flowers and their wonderful scent adorning the deep blue Mediterranean sky.

 

I had to think it and make these candles in order to be absolutely sure that the warm days of late spring and then summer will really reach here in south east Pennsylvania eventually where my home is now,  and I will be saved from the misery of getting used to cold days even when May is aging towards June.

So  blue sky,  sunshine and Plumeria are all invested in these candles in colors, scents and all the rest.

 They were like a sort of prayer because today, sunshine and warmth are here and…that is what I wanted for now. 

This should be illegal!

The last 48 hours were a total nightmare…well the most part of them.  Due to the fact that I really want my Etsy's shop to be a success I am trying many things. Against some of my best friends' advice almost against my own instinct I went again into trying a campaign for "Likes" on Facebook. Someone from Etsy offered a free way to get as many Likes as possible for free. You just have to click and sign in to a site named "shareyt.com", redeem some coupons and go for it. The minute I signed in I knew I made a mistake. The ads came in from the sides from the top and bottom moving toward the center covering parts of the page, moving, jumping, and changing. All this gave me an immediate headache. You couldn't know what you are clicking on and after awhile I stopped, closed the page and went outside for some fresh air.

 When I felt better after making a final decision not to attempt anymore free campaigns and to think of other ways to promote my shop and make more sales I set down in front of my laptop and my eyes blackened.

 Whatever page I opened be it Etsy, Pinterest, Facebook or Flickre, wherever I turned in my well known, favorite sites I was attacked, violently by all sorts of ads from cockroaches running around to fat naked ladies illustrated, from Asian girls to Wallmart, I left my desk in tears, sweating and helpless. 

Maybe it's only me who gets so frustrated because I feel so helpless if my computer  all of a sudden gets crazy, maybe I am too sensitive to disgusting ugly and violent ads but I really do think this kind of commerce should be illegal.

I did my best to try and reverse it…nothing. "My best" isn't much so I gave up and first thing in the morning I took my laptop into the nearest Best Buy store straight to the Geek squad. It took the nice young guy there 5 minutes to block the ads from attacking me. Puffff a relief sigh. I am back home again and ready for my normal life.

Some middle of the week 's thoughts I wanted to share

I am a butterfly drunk with life. 

I don´t know where to soar,

but I won´t allow life to clip my colorful wings.

When I am down and troubled I go back to my bedside table where my most most favorite books are. They might not be the best I have ever read (and I have read many) definitely not the most "important" ones but each and every one of them are of the finest literature ever written and they are my best loyal friends.

During my first weeks in Pennsylvania when I had my worst experience of trying to acclimatize my old bones to the "coldest spring in years", 

the small animals of "The wind in the willows" by Kenneth Graham have come to my rescue as I dived into their burrows and tunnels taking their courage in the enduring the cold harsh winter with their humble means

as an example to follow and with them, with all my heart, greeting the spring with joy and appreciation, very quickly I found the willows all over, putting on their yellowish green dresses and dancing in the chilly wind.

                                                                    

And then I made these:

In the passing weeks of ugly, unthinkable, terror attacks all around the world and close to home in Boston I couldn't stay away from "King Matt the First"

and the greatness of humanity whom  Korczac

 is such a symbol of, and whom together with millions lives were so shamelessly wasted, and still stands as beacon of hope  as opposed to the low and yet lower that people of this world can get. 

http://korczak.com/Biography/kap-1who.htm

http://korczak.com/Biography/kap-3.htm

http://korczak.com/Biography/kap-38.htm

And so I turned from the CNN newsroom went outside, drank all the beauty

                                                                  and made these:

A wonderful spring Friday, free of charge for everyone to enjoy

Today, not as early as I planed, but still early I went for my Friday grocery shopping to the New Eastern Market of York.  I am telling you grocery shopping in the markets is making the experience so much more pleasant, rewording and interesting. So much more … well this is going to be my way. Local produce, local vendors, fresh, intimate, personal… local, local, local… it is like coming back home to what used to be good (not the bad, sad stuff)

This is the first real spring day for me this year. It's like going from sad to happy , as my four years old grandson expresses it:

 From gloomy cold, depressing winter to this splendid fresh, clear joyful day free of charge, from sunrise to sunset.

I simply try to soak it all in: the beauty of the blooms, the colorful fresh leaves on all waking  the trees,  all the sounds and smells and smiles and energy of all the bees, the birds, the people, , the rivers and the hills, the blue sky above and the beautiful mother earth all around.

 And from fear it will all go away too quickly I bring it in

Makes it out and trying to preserve it as long as possible

                                                         Have a great weekend

Back to work! Yeyyyyyy!

I am very happy to announce that I am back in my studio, back with my waxes and dyes, and fragrances and already thinking seriously about new challenges, new ways of expression, new horizons.

 After going through a big change in my life of moving from sunny wonderful southern California to wintry, bleakly cold yet exciting in all the new adventures and beauties I have to discover, Pennsylvania, , I am slowly but surely settling down and finding my place, my space.

In the last seventeen years we have lived in ultimate weather. At first in the central valleys of Costa Rica and than in Southern California so weather-wise we went low but we have already seen the great compensation in living in the vicinity of the biggest most wonderful cities in the U.S, surrounding by historic marks, older cities and towns, really big old trees, great rivers,

all range of unknown birds and, forests, in short, a lot to explore.

So we will get some warmer clothes and get used to the cold, in the end summer will come to us if not sooner, later and we have still to expect the explosion of bloom around us.

There are so many things yet to learn and we do learn new things every day. Have you ever heard of "Onion Snow"? Well apparently the snow we got a week ago was that kind of snow.

According to my Google search:

 "Onion snow" is a regional term used primarily in the state of Pennsylvania, referring colloquially to the final snowfall before the end of the winter season. Some sources indicate that the onion snow typically occurs after the traditional time for planting spring onions, while others state that onion snow is an indicator of when the appropriate time has arisen to plant onions. In either case, onion snow is defined as a light snow that melts quickly. This regional expression is said to originate from the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch culture and language."

So there you are, it is time to plant some onions already as well as to go watch the Cherry trees blooming in Washington D.C. It is time to go in a sunny warmer day with an opened roof in the Audi to learn some incredible chapter in the American history about the Gettysburg address of the great Abraham Lincoln in the place where it was given,

where everyone live with the big words, beliefs and sacrifices every day year after year, because all the ghosts will never let anyone forget.

And so with the "onion snow" still in my aching bones

and the Cherry blossom yet to come one of these days,

I am cooking and pouring my latest

 candles.