I design posters for the Seattle live music venue El Corazon. Here are some of them.
My wife Kari and I just went to South Africa. Here is what we saw in totally random order 'cause I'm selectively lazy. Meaning that I have the energy to travel to Africa, live out in the wild with the animals for a week, travel to Cape Town and take thousands of photos along the way (scratch that last one actually,Kari actually took ALL of the pictures and uploaded them to Flickr), But, I don't have the time or energy to write a blog post about everything that we experienced. And, since they say " a picture is worth a thousand words" I figure these photos are the equivalent of a Russian novel.
So, please take a look and feel free to ask me any questions about any of these and I'll fill you in.
So, I get this call from my wife while I was at work today. She tells me that our good, longtime friends Dan and Julie's Saint Bernard "Saint" died in his sleep in their bedroom this morning. Dan was hoping that I could come and bury his dog for him as he and his wife (both in their late 40s and early 50s) were so distraught that they couldn't do it themselves. I suggested that they call Animal Control and have them take his body, cremate it and return his ashes. But, they were having no part of that. They wanted him buried in their backyard next to their duck pond. So, I told them that my wife's cousin Casey and I would do it.
My
wife and I then did a little research to see what it takes to legally
and safely bury a dog of this size (over 150 lbs.). We found that you
should wrap them in plastic and put them into a wood or steel box and
them bury them at least 2 feet below ground. I had no idea where to get
a box of that size so I called a pet cemetary in Kent and got a quote
of $120 for a sealed dog coffin that would hold a dog of Saint's size.
So, I jumped in the car and drove all the way to Kent to pick it up.
When I get there the guy greets me by telling me that he had made a
mistake and that he was out of the coffin he had quoted me. All he had
was the "next one up" which was a far superior coffin than the one he
had quoted me. What a bastard! Casket salesmen are the scum of the
earth. I remember a similar thing happening when my mom was taking care
of my grandfathers' funeral arrangements. But, I digress and I am
trying to get this out of my system.
So, I pay the extra $80 and take the coffin home.
Casey shows up at my house a little later and he and I head over to Dan and Julie's house. We get there and Julie's in the other bedroom depressed and sleeping and we could tell that Dan was out of his mind with grief. So, I tell him to let us go into the bedroom where Saint is, close the door and let us take care of him. One good thing about the casket salesman was that he gave me all of the instructions for how to handle this situation. Julie had wrapped him in a sheet already, but we had to unwrap him to see how he was laid out. It was so horrible to see his poor lifeless body there like that. We put on our latex gloves and rolled Saint onto his back. We then had to "massage" his limbs to be able to fold him into a sort of fetal position so that we could fit him in the coffin. He was totally stiff. We managed to get him into the coffin along with his favorite toy and get it sealed. Casey and I then carried the 150+ lb. casket to the backyard and began digging our 4 foot long by 2 foot wide by 4 foot deep hole in the hot, hot late afternoon sun. Eventually the hole was big enough and we gently laid the casket into it.
I went inside and got Dan to say his final goodbyes. Dan collected some flowers from his garden that Saint used to like to pee on and threw them in on top of the casket, He then shoveled the first shovelful of dirt and walked away sadly. Casey and I quickly replaced the soil and packed the sod on top.
Dan then insisted on taking Casey and I to dinner where he spoke fondly of all the good times he had had with his pal Saint. He was a good dog. As horrible as it was to do, I am glad that I could be there for my friend.
on posters.