Support Your Local PBS Station!!!

I've been watching PBS forever -- haven't you? I know, I know, some folks think this is strictly a high brow thing to do, like yachting or joining the Junior League. Well, maybe other folks don't watch PBS the way I do. I started watching PBS when it featured the indomitable Julia Child -- and not because she made a first rate coq au vin. I watched her because I was nine years old and she talked funny. I had a secret private my very own TV and I was the only one in the house who could get the "UHF" stations and so I watched. I watched Julia and Big Bird. I watched Alistair Cooke and there was nothing high brow about it.

PBS took me to China and Alaska, it explained things the president said and it brought me Kukla, Fran and Ollie. I LOVED Kukla, Fran and Ollie.

And so I do this tiny little thing of donating to their Action Auction. The thing I have in abundance are doggie accoutrements -- a bed, a carry-bag, a water bowl, a collar and leash. This year the bed is paisley. Pink. And green. Last year it was red plaid.

Isn't the bed cute?

It's even cuter with Talia in it... but I draw the line at donating Talia. She's mine all mine.


See, the stuff I watch on PBS isn't high brow at all. In fact, I watch a lot of dumb stuff -- bad mysteries, old movies, woodworkers, seamstresses, painters. I once spent an entire rainy Saturday watching ANNE OF GREEN GABLES from beginning to end. The wonderful thing about donating to our local PBS is that when I am watching my favorites (or parking my grandson in front of Big Bird exactly the way I once parked his father, my son, in front of Big Bird) I don't feel one bit guilty the way I would if I didn't offer up so much as one thin dime.

Talia likes donating to PBS too -- she'll gladly trade in this bed and settle instead for a place on my bed. It's big of her.

So what's your favorite can't miss PBS show?

Vote for Talia!!!!

Bissell Sweeper is looking for a new "Spokespet" and Talia wants to win! Vote over there>>>>


That is Talia, above and featured on the right>>>>, on the tattered blue chair. If ever there was a dog in need of a sweeper to pick up the white hair trail she leaves behind it is Talia. Oh, but she is such a dear thing it is really hard to mind a few million dog hairs here and there.
(Talia's not so fond of visitors -- particularly not cute besweatered ones like the spring-footed Miss Lucy.)

Talia is a rescue puppy acquired entirely by accident, as most rescue puppies are. I was at the vet's office with a foster dog when I happened to admire a deeply cute fuzzy puppy in the waiting room. I mentioned to his owner howe much I'd always wanted a long-haired pup just his size. The owner said she was supposed to have gotten only the one... but she couldn't leave the runt behind. From her coat she withdrew the very tiny sibling of the fuzzy dog I'd been admiring. "The conditions they were living in were criminal. No shelter, not even a blanket to lay on in all this snow."


She said there was another puppy left... in need of a home...

"I'll take it," I said, on the spot, sight unseen.

We made arrangements -- the puppies were owned and neglected by a co-worker of her husband. The transfer was made and I brought her home two days later.

Talia was then five months old, completely unsocialized, untrained, undisciplined. All she had going for her was cute, which goes a long way. The first night I brought her home she sat on my lap for four hours while the foster dog and my own dog took turns sniffing her. All over, back and forth, sniff, sniff, sniff. She has been my constant companion ever since.

Don't let the hard luck story fool you -- she's working it for all she's worth -- for all the steak and snuggles she can get her paws on.


What she most reminds me of now is a joyful three-year-old child. Talia spins and dips and twirls. She seemingly giggles. She snaps at the cat so's the cat will smack back -- it's a game they play. Talia really is a rags-to-richs girl and now she wants to be the Spokespet for a vacuum cleaner company -- makes sense to me.

Talia needs your vote -- the first listing on the right features a highlighted (purple) link to vote for Talia -- just click the link and vote for Talia.