About 2 or 3 months ago I had worked with a rep down in TX, San Antonio to be exact, and we were discussing how her 11 year old daughter had been begging for a dog since she was like 2 or 3. Marion, the rep, had an older son who was moved out and so her daughter was an "only child" and Marion was beginning to feel twinges of "maybe we should get her a dog". This poor kid, she was so adorable, for the past number of years she had been studying about different dog types and how to train them and she had gone to vet appts with every family member and friend who had a dog and went to the vet. She's this adorable little girl with these little glasses and every picture Marion showed me of Abbi was Abbi hugging a dog. I told Marion she and her husband must be the meanest parents on earth :) Marion said she agreed with that statement :).....
There was another rep travelling with us too and we were both talking about our dogs - I ended up sending Marion a picture of my dog because she thought Abbi would think Cal was adorable (of course! ) and sure enough, when Abbi saw picts of Calvin she was just out of her mind with desire :)! Honest to goodness. Marion called me about a week or so later and asked me for the name of Calvin's breeder. I gave it to her and haven't thought about it since.
Friday, I had an e-mail from Marion and a message from Janet who is the breeder we got Calvin from. They were both asking me to go to Burr Ridge to take a look at puppies that were born and will be ready to go to homes the end of July. I couldn't say no....
And to make matters worse - I brought with me the biggest puppy sucker every - Pat.... Ok, I admit, I was pretty much gone as well..... We had to be there for like 10 a.m. so we could take a look. We were a little late, but it was so hard to leave once we got there. There were so cute and squirmy and they were all yelling for us to pick them up and hold them and then once we did they would just kiss and kiss us and climb all over. It was too cute! Brought back memories of when Bailey was a cute little puppy among all those other puppies -- and we didn't know how clueless she was -- but I do specifically remember how cute she was :)
This is puppy now...
This is puppy in a few years...
Which one is cuter? And the answer is not "the one on the left" - this is said to Karl....:)
We got back home around 12:30ish and I had to run to an appt and then, I had been reminded by a phone call the evening before, that my friend Kim and I had tickets to the Joshua Bell concert at Ravinia. It was was of those things where I knew we had tickets sometime around now, but wasn't thinking of the exact date so I was a little surprised when Mirabelle, the restaurant at Ravinia where we had reservations, called to remind me about Saturday evening. But I was ready to go and so Kim and I met up and then hitched a ride together over to snobby Highland Park where we were shoved around in a fancy buffet line at Mirabelle and inadvertantly trampled by frail, bony little old women with wrist armors-worth of gold bangly bracelets and husbands in tow with their fancy Hugo Boss pants hitched up to their eyebrows saying "Oy, Greta, I need another gin and tonic to go with my salade!" (yes they said it with an "e" -- I heard it). Those people in Highland Park are ferocious and quite pretentious.... I was surprised that this was the first summer they offered a new restaurant offereing completely "Kosher" food -- it took them that long when they're supported in full by the Goldsteins and the Wisemanns? Seriously - I'd have been all over that one a long time ago!
But - the good news is - we now know that summer is official because we've seen this scene....
So here's a little piece of outdoor concert history.... If you'll take a look at the little table below - its probably something that you'll see, at least all over the U.S. at outdoor picnics and other places where dining in the green is sheik. This table is actually called a "Ravinia table" as it was invented by Ravinia-nites at Ravinia. Its just this small, collapsible table that is easy to carry and light weight but sturdy and pretty big sized. Cool piece of trivia, huh? Aren't you glad you waded through all that puppy stuff to get to here?
And here are a few shots of good old Joshua Bell playing. We were disappointed that he only played one section of the concert at the end and the rest of the concert was played by the Jacobs School of Music. They were a great orchestra, mind you, but I paid the money to see Bell! Go figure. At least we got a little payback when he finished the Opus by Bruch and everyone applauded so much that he ended up coming out and doing 3 additional numbers. Only one was just him playing the violin and then he did the others with the orchestra.
And so I give you a few little patriotic tidbits from the concert....
Bailey? Clueless? She HATES you.
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