Dogs are the best people.

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"Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.'

Mark Twain.

Found this article on the Fox news website today. What a feel good story, it just had to be passed on. Sometimes it seems that I whine on and on about Tampa and the nutty things that happen here, but finally, a story which shows there are kind and good people here, not to mention amazing dogs.


PORT TAMPA, Fla. — Yolanda Segovia heard a knock on her door one morning, just before 8 a.m.

Her neighbor was on the porch, with a dog and a story.
Stacey Savige had found the little dog in front of an elementary school. He wasn't very big, looked like some sort of terrier. Burrs clung to his belly. His honey fur was caked in mud. He didn't have a collar. Stacey had taken him to the vet and he didn't have a chip, either.

Now Stacey had to go to work. Could Yolanda keep him?


"You can leave the dog here," Yolanda told Stacey. "But just for today."
They took photos of the dog and made a FOUND flier. Stacey ran off 4,000 color copies. She and Yolanda stuffed mailboxes, put ads on Craigslist.

Her 10-year-old, Azaiah, decided to call the dog RaeLee, pronounced "Riley." He said he had heard it on TV. All afternoon, he walked the dog, threw the ball, laughed while the dog licked his face. "Don't fall in love with him," Yolanda kept warning.
Her elder son, Christian, 21, watched through the window. Christian has Down syndrome and an array of other ailments. He has had heart surgery, a kidney transplant. He can't speak or bathe himself.

On Saturday, Azaiah went to his dad's house. Christian retreated to his room to watch a Barney video. The dog dozed beside him.

Yolanda had just stepped onto her porch to water the plants when the dog flung himself into the screen door, barking madly. As she opened the door, the dog sprinted across the living room, into the boys' room.

Yolanda screamed. Christian was slumped over, his body writhing in a seizure, blood streaming from his nose and mouth. The dog ran to the boy, still yelping. But as soon as Yolanda bent to cradle her son, the dog went silent.

"If he hadn't come to get me," Yolanda told Stacey later, "the neurologist said Christian would have choked on his own blood and died." Since no one had claimed the dog, Yolanda decided to keep him.

Stacey got a call the next morning. A man named Randy had recognized his lost dog and called the number on the flier. Stacey sobbed. She had been working so hard to find the dog's owner. Now that he had found her, everything seemed wrong.

Randy Cliff, 34, is an unemployed plumber who lives six blocks from Yolanda with his wife, their four children and infant granddaughter. He said he had been searching for Odie for more than a week. Stacey told him, "That dog saved my friend's son."

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When the van pulled up outside Yolanda's house, the dog raced out and jumped into Randy's arms. Randy buried his face in his dog's soft fur. Azaiah stood on the porch, crying. "We're going to miss you," he called. As Randy remembers it, he looked at the boy. He saw Christian's frightened face in the window. "Is that your brother?" he asked. Azaiah nodded.

Randy set the dog by Azaiah's feet. "Maybe Odie was supposed to find you," Randy said. "Maybe you should keep him."

Information from: St. Petersburg Times,
http://tampabay.com .

Tissue anyone?
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Near this spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, and all the Virtues of Man, without his Vices. This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery if inscribed over human ashes, is but a just tribute to the Memory of Boatswain, a Dog. ~George Gordon, Lord Byron, "Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog"


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Ikea comes to Tampa and other craziness.

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Ikea has just opened up a huge store in Tampa, the first one here in fact. The Colonel and I trotted off there today to have a look around but did not get to do much of that. The place was brimming with the bewildered herd. The hordes were attired in the normal Tampa wardrobe of tight T-shirt and shorts. The weather here is exceedingly hot but please make an effort people. My natural coloured linen dress and gold jewellery, (well gold plated anyway), looked a bit too fancy for that crowd but one will continue to gad about looking fancy rather than blah, as long as one still has the will to live that is.

Trying to walk around in there was no fun, shoulder to shoulder with the sweaty hoi polloi and hardly any room to move. Stuff that, we gave up and went to the cafe.

Princess cake.

The Ikea Swedish cafe is such a cute concept, a little Oasis in the midst of all the mad shoppers. We got to feast on Swedish meatballs and the tastiest dainty European delicacies. Called 'Princess Cakes' or Frodinge, they were fancy treats fit for a Princess, or a Countess. Wrapped in Marzipan, with jam and creme centres, they reminded me of cakes once eaten in Vienna. A touch of Europe in Tampa, it was lovely.

Scrumptious!

Later on I had coffee with my Aussie friend Andrea and heard a few stories that made me nearly burst into a conniption fit. On a recent date with a local man, she had an altercation about, of all things, Tasmania. The guy insisted that Tasmania was not a part of Australia. Andrea has lived in Tasmania, and being an Aussie, it does give her opinion some credence on the matter. When she corrected him, the fellow insisted she was wrong and he was right. Refusing to back down she averred in the strongest manner that it was all one country. He was offended at being corrected. That's just plain silly.

The insanity does not stop there my friend, she also had an experience when working as a nanny where the child's school teacher taught the class that Sydney was the Capital of Australia. Andrea sent the child back to school with the correct information, only to have the teacher send her a note stating that the Capital was Sydney and that she did not know what she was talking about! Such an ortund statement from someone who most likely, no more than likely, has never even been downunder. Unfathomable.

We all make mistakes but to to be so offhand and rude to someone, to be such a know it all when one really knows very little indeed is such bad form. Shame on you lady.

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Lastisse Results.

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An earlier post discussed my experiment with the drug Latisse, to find out if the claims of longer, darker and fuller lashes could be true. Indeed they were!

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A few months later, my eyelashes have been transformed from short, straight, stubby, pathetic little things, to long, dark and lush ones. They even curl up at the ends, never had that before. It's rather nice.

Post Latisse lashes, with mascara.

The eyelashes are much darker at the base, some are dark from base to tip, but mostly the same problem as before endures, blonde tips. Perhaps it was too much to expect those pesky colourless ends to be banished. One still must wear mascara, but now it's worth it. Lazy as one may be, seeing the full lashes at their best after a couple of waves of the magic wand is well worth the trouble and of course, the inevitable smudging. I seem to be particularly adept at ending up with panda eyes at the end of the day. Am I just a singularly grotty bogan or is this a common problem?

EXTREME close up! Please excuse my bloodshot eye.

There is some slight discolouration across the top of my eyelids, a stated possible side effect. It looks like eyeliner to me and therefore saves the trouble of actually applying real eyeliner. Tidy.

Should anyone be considering Latisse, it WILL grow lashes. The $120.00 USD price tag is high, but as far as I'm concerned it's worth every cent just to transform this Countess from a frowzy housefrau with stumpy, bland eyelashes into someone who looks like they stole a Drag Queens' fake ones. Don't you just love that darhlings?

Rupaul with some lovely lashes. Why do all the really pretty girls have to be men?

You may have the universe if I may have Italy

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Cover illustration from 'A Rather Curious Engagement'

While reading a book titled, 'A Rather Curious Engagement' by C.A Belmond, I was delighted to see a part of it was set at a Castle on Lake Como. My mind started wandering and I began dreaming about Lake Como yet again.

Thus the inspiration for this post, the purpose of which is to allow me to indulge in my meandering daydreams of Italy and to look at some lovely pictures of the place. Perhaps I can stimulate you to indulge in some delicious day dreams to far off places of your own?

The Pantheon, Rome.

There are many beautiful places around the globe, but for me, and there is some bias on my part, nothing else comes close to Italy.

Como is where my Aunt and Cousins live and where my dad grew up. Lake Como is an oneric place of serenity and elegance.

Despite a very embarrassing incident, walking around for hours with a long piece of toilet paper sticking out of the top of my jeans, I would live there in a heartbeat.

The Roman Senator Pliny the Younger (A.D.61-115) was born in Como. He had two villa's there, one named Comedy, the other Tragedy, what a lucky bugger.

A prolific writer he even produced a ghost story. Interest in the Paranormal seems to be a fairly modern attraction, but Pliny's story shows that even thousands of years ago people were fascinated and frightened by ghosts. What a lot of fun, I can't resist putting the story up here for people who love a good fright, albeit an ancient one, to read.

An Ancient Ghost Story by Pliny the Younger.

There was in Athens a house, spacious and open, but with an infamous reputation, as if filled with pestilence. For in the dead of night, a noise like the clashing of iron could be heard. And if one listened carefully, it sounded like the rattling of chains. At first the noise seemed to be at a distance, but then it would approach, nearer, nearer, nearer. Suddenly a phantom would appear, an old man, pale and emaciated, with a long beard, and hair that appeared driven by the wind. The fetters on his feet and hands rattled as he moved them. Any dwellers in the house passed sleepless nights under the most dismal terrors imaginable. The nights without rest led them to a kind of madness, and as the horrors in their minds increased, onto a path toward death. Even in the daytime--when the phantom did not appear--the memory of the nightmare was so strong that it still passed before their eyes. The terror remained when the cause of it was gone. Damned as uninhabitable, the house was at last deserted, left to the spectral monster. But in hope that some tenant might be found who was unaware of the malevolence within it, the house was posted for rent or sale. It happened that a philosopher named Athenodorus came to Athens at that time. Reading the posted bill, he discovered the dwelling's price. The extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion, yet when he heard the whole story, he was not in the least put off. Indeed, he was eager to take the place. And did so immediately. As evening drew near, Athenodorus had a couch prepared for him in the front section of the house. He asked for a light and his writing materials, then dismissed his retainers. To keep his mind from being distracted by vain terrors of imaginary noises and apparitions, he directed all his energy toward his writing. For a time the night was silent. Then came the rattling of fetters. Athenodorus neither lifted up his eyes, nor laid down his pen. Instead he closed his ears by concentrating on his work. But the noise increased and advanced closer till it seemed to be at the door, and at last in the very chamber. Athenodorus looked round and saw the apparition exactly as it had been described to him. It stood before him, beckoning with one finger. Athenodorus made a sign with his hand that the visitor should wait a little, and bent over his work. The ghost, however, shook the chains over the philosopher's head, beckoning as before. Athenodorus now took up his lamp and followed. The ghost moved slowly, as if held back by his chains. Once it reached the courtyard, it suddenly vanished. Athenodorus, now deserted, carefully marked the spot with a handful of grass and leaves. The next day he asked the magistrate to have the spot dug up. There they found--intertwined with chains--the bones that were all that remained of a body that had long lain in the ground. Carefully, the skeletal relics were collected and given proper burial, at public expense. The tortured ancient was at rest. And the house in Athens was haunted no more.

Venice is another city brimming with a true nimiety of beauty. 'The fairytale city of the heart' (Lord Byron) is truly an exotic dream of wild and effulgent imaginings.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand; I saw from out the wave of her structure's rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble pines, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles." --Lord Byron, Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 1)

Cafe Florian in the very heart of San Marco is my choice for the best coffee house anywhere. Sure it costs around $16.00 AUD for a cup of hot chocolate, but one is paying for so much more than that. The view of St. Marks Square, the place Napoleon called, 'The most beautiful drawing room in Europe', not to mention that sumptuous surroundings of the cafe itself.

Florian opened in 1720. Many people far grander than the Countess, (who only has delusions of grandeur) have visited there. Such an illustrious list of patrons that includes, Goethe, Casanova, Lord Byron, Marcel Proust, Charles Dickens and me!

Now I am not trying to be overly harsh but the likes of these great authors would never have frequented the cafe at Broady plaza, or even Gloria Jean's at Highpoint. Not trying to be overly picky, just saying. ;) Of course at Broady plaza I was able to get coffee and cake for under 6 bucks. The downside was the scenery. No visual feast to indolently gaze on at Broady. More like an endless parade of bogans and assorted ruffians as well as the odd kid getting 'rolled' for their mobile phone.

With architecture inspired by Constantinople, the brightly coloured Venetian palazzo's loom like sugary confections next to the glistening water. Just to walk down the ancient calles is to step back in time and to be overwhelmed by the hundreds of years of history that city is saturated in.

Lion at the Arsenale

In the Tuscan region I loved the small towns that are still surrounded by the medieval walls built to protect them long before Italy was unified. To be in a city like Sienna or San Giminigano, which to a large degree looks just as it would have in Medieval times is such a delight. Not only that, I found a fabulous little cake shop tucked away in a small cobbled street that had the best Rum Baba's in the world. Canoli's and Sicilian Doughnuts, oh my the Italians do desert like no one else.

The hospital in Pisa

Sienna

Duomo and Giotto's bell tower in Florence.

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." --Orson Welles

Title Quote by Giuseppe Verdi

Pictures my own.

Feral freeding fenzy

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No reader, the title of this post does not refer to the conduct often witnessed during sale time at Dimmy's and Forges in Footscray, but rather to the host of animals that come and eat the cat food left out each night for my favourite Ferals, and a couple of gourmet cat chow loving Wilds.

Robert Mugabe was the first on the scene. Once the word got out, Dame Judi Dench the Racoon and Barry the Opossum started showing up for little Bobby Mugabe's left overs.

Robert Mugabe hiding from the Papparazzi.

The kitty brood has grown. Danny Quinn soon started showing up. The ginger cat was named after the character on BBC's 'Primeval' played by Jason Flemying. Both are gingers, a bit 'rough' looking, (that's the lite way to say a bit ugly), and both are very plucky characters indeed.
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Jason Flemyng/Danny Quinn.

Image from http://www.contactmusic.com/photos.nsf/main/jason_flemyng_5091750

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There's a plucky chap!

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The feral Danny Quinn, looking directly into the camera, he's got pluck!

Recently it was thought Mugabe had done himself a mischief as a black cat was out the front, with a missing ear. The name change from Mugabe to Chopper was considered. It turns about little Bobby is running around with both ears intact and the unfortunate earless feline is a new addition to the fold.

The new cat is camera shy, but we are calling him Gorgeous George, from the character in 'Snatch' of that name. Both are a bit mashed up and would appear to be fighters!

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Gorgeous George, too ashamed of his looks to show his face for the camera.

All things bright and beautiful all creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful the Lord He made them all.

Cane toads however, will be chased off with a broom and beaten mercilessly when caught.

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Aussie Invasion!

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Look out Florida, more expats are flooding in, Lil' Lynnie has landed in Orlando and has started working at Disney.

Lynnie outside her apartment complex.

Many years ago, The Countess taught an intelligent, and ever so funny, (with a dark humour that is such a favourite with me) pupil called Lynda, 11th grade English. The class drove me to insanity, but I met Lynnie then. She and I stayed friends after she finished school and over the years, she has grown into more and more of a wonderful human being. While I have morphed into a sorry old bag. Sad, but true.

I went to Orlando yesterday and picked Lynnie up from the Disney complex where she now lives. What a fantastic place, so lovely and clean, so Disney. Young people from around the world all milling about, waiting for the free Disney bus to wherever they need to go. Such an amazing adventure to be on. How I would love to have done the same thing at her age, only I would have been kicked out on some technicality. It seems people can be terminated for breaking a plethora of rules. Adhd girl here has a bit of trouble following rules sometimes. Oh well!

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We went to The Cheesecake factory at Millenia Mall. The Mall was so beautiful and posh, put Highpoint to shame it did. The Cheesecake Factory is a favourite haunt of ours.

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OOH la la

My fish and chips, (they were really fries) left me feeling a bit off though, hope they didn't drop them on the floor then scoop them up and stick them on my plate or something like that. One hears such horror stories all the time.

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Hey love, watch out for sunburn!

When Lynnie visited the US last year she stayed with the Colonel and I in Tampa and we had such a fun time. Going about and pointing out the fashion faux pas of others. It is always so uplifting to be able to laugh at oneself, but at others, even more so. :)

Millenia Mall

We then went to the shopping treasure trove that is the Premium Outlet Mall in Orlando, plenty of bargains are to be had. Dior, Marni, all the super sleek labels have outlets. There was a Tod's patent leather bag for around $300.00, retail price on it was over $1,000. It was bright orange leather though, so even had I been able to afford it, no thanks. A Tod's G-bag is the object of my lust at the moment. Sadly, no heavily discounted one's were available, not even for me to paw over and dream about owning.

Tod's G-Bag

For some reason, they build sprawling outdoor Malls here in hot and humid Florida. The weather yesterday was in the 30's, but when the humidity is included the 'feels like' index goes over 40 degrees Celcious. Not sure why but more than 5 minutes walking around in that and the Countess feels the overwhelming impulse to throw up. How unladylike, not to mention it's a serious curtailing of one's shopping trip.


So glad Lynnie is in the USA, hope to spend more time with her before leaving Florida for good at the end of the year.

Carol Brodies hit or miss

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The Carol Brodie Drusy ring was so highly anticipated by many Brodie fans. Unfortunately, some were very disappointed with the rings received, myself included sadly. That is the way things go when something is organic and rough. Some pieces will be stunning, other's lacklustre.
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Having seen some of the nicer, darker pieces shown during the presentation on Hsn.com, my insipid light ones were less than scintillating and such a let down.

From the reviews on Hsn for the ring, it seems many other's felt the same.

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Extremely Poor Quality / Gracie, FL 8/1/2009 The amethyst stones were not only color enhanced but the color was actually coming off when I touched it. It is such a shame because the agate part of the ring is beautiful, if I keep this ring at all it will be for beautiful color and striations on the agate portion because the amethyst top part of the ring is horrible.
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My own review,

Dull / Christina, FL 7/29/2009 I went up a size thanks to the advice offered by the Presenter and I am very glad for that. The ring is disappointing. I ordered two and had hoped that at least one of them would be a nice dark purple colour. Both are a really washed out, insipid light hue and to me just lack something. One ring has dark bits on it that just look like I have dirt on my ring. It was just luck of the draw as to which individual piece one received, I was unlucky, twice.
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While others were fortunate enough to receive some of the nicer offerings available.
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AMAZING / Michelle, CA 7/31/2009 I LOVE IT!!! This ring is so worth the price and when I received it and opened the box, I literally said "oooooohhhhh" out loud. It is even more gorgeous when you get it home. The price is unbelievable! I have seen rings like this in Southern California boutiques and they cost triple the price. Buy it, you won''t regret it!
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Thanks for rubbing it in lady.

Some people ordered several rings, just to pick out the one they wanted. It seems so wrong, kind of greedy and selfish, but only if I had done the same, perhaps my time would be spent writing glowing reviews rather than bitter complaining!

Ordered 4, Kept 2 and the 2 are Out of this World / Carmela 8/4/2009 I bought 4 b/c of the product. Each are different, and some are tighter on than others. If I got just the 2 I am returning, I would have been disappointed. But the 2 I am keeping are beautiful and a bargain. One is deep purple and more round, the other light purple, more sparkly and retangular. The coolness of the agate bands feels so nice, esp on a warm summer day. Better feel than my metal bands. I would recommend that buyers ask customer service to exchange for free and try again. Love!!

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Yes I get it, that it's an individual piece, no two are alike and despite some people who are happy with their rings patronisingly pointing this out, it does not mean that one cannot wish to have received at least one Drusy delight that was good enough to rave about.
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Better luck next time. At least my Capri rings from Brodie are spectacular.

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All reviews pilfered from Hsn.com