Dog Sitting the Dobermans in Centerport

These are two wonderful Dobermans that I dog sat for a week while their parents went to California.  Most of my friends were skeptical about their behavior since this breed of dogs has a poor reputation, but I have to say they were fun, smart and quiet unless someone came to the door.

This was the hottest week ever, some days were over 100 degrees with a topper of 102!  I set up some watercolors in the sun room, but it was like a green house, really hot.

I decided to bring a notebook with me so that I could answer the question,"What did you do for a whole week with the dogs?"

 They are always in motion when awake, so I could only sketch them while the snuggled in their "doughnuts."

 Louise the female, a rescue, and a sweetheart.

Roo-Roo the huge male, and a very smart doggie.  I taught him to fetch and stay, drop the toy and to wait until I picked it up and threw it, before he went for it.

While I was there I was able to read the complete book by Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 1974.  While raising two children, and working full time, I didn't have the opportunity to read much, except magazines.

I am catching up with the classics that I missed.

 a colored pencil sketch in the notebook, looking out of the sun room windows.

 The scene.

 Roo-Roo would sit next to me while I read.

 One of the characters in the book is Phaedrus, the counterpart for Socrates in a play written by Plato of the same name.  I found myself looking at an 8 foot by 4 foot fish print that was behind the Steinway piano, and talking to it after  a few days, a-la the pig in Lord of the Flies.  Phaedrus actually translates from the Greek as "Wolf,"   but the big fish would do.

 There was a Weber grill outside.  I went on Google and found the directions for

 this charcoal starter, which worked really well.  The key was rolling up newspaper and making a ring out of it instead of just pushing paper into the tin and then layering the charcoal pieces on top.

 The sausage, zucchini, summer squash, fingerling potato, onion shish-ka-bobs.

Perk's Port

All in all a great week for dog sitting, painting, reading, cooking,  and sketching.