Sorry about the lack of content lately. My back has really been acting up and, well, that's no fun.

But I did have a good day Saturday. Theresa and Rob came up. Theresa is a very talented photographer, and she can get any animal to do almost anything for her at any time. Winston just loves her. All you have to do is say "Theresa" and his tail starts wagging. When she's here he just follows her around worshipfully. So it's only natural that she's going in the direction of pet portraiture. You can check out her work here. Anyway, she asked if she could take photos of Winston, I guess so she can show she has experience with something as large as Winston, which is not, in fact a horse ( she has lots of experience with horses). She selected a soft dark brown background for him and set up all of her stuff.

Meanwhile Rob spent the whole time, God bless him, de-bugging / de-fragging/ un-crimping/ straightening out our computer at home....

I don't know how it ever gets into these states, because I don't know anything about programming. I never know what I'm supposed to download. I'm afraid of any screen I haven't seen before. The Hub came home and went to type up an invoice. "Wow!" he said, "What happened to the computer? It's really fast now."

"Rob." I said.

"Ah. I should have known."

I guess computers respond to Rob the way animals respond to Theresa.

Anyway, after Winston's glamour shots, we moved on to photographing the parakeets. These were the first birds that Theresa had worked with, but she knew all about how to pose them, and light them, etc. She does so much research with everything she ever gets involved in! She cleverly took the parakeet gym, which is something both birds are familiar with, and clamped it to a stand she had brought with her. I told her where the parakeets were likely to perch on it so she could set her focus before the actual birds appeared on the scene. I took Blondie, the calm one, out first and let her hop onto the gym, where she perched in her usual spot and looked around at the lights, etc. Then I got Dagwood situated - he's usually calm as long as he can see Blondie. We were afraid that it would be one flash then the parakeets would fly off and we'd have to a) find them and b) get them re-situated. But, surprisingly, they sat there, merely flapping their wings a little each time the flash went off, so Theresa was able to get several pictures of them as well.

After the shoot she got to know the birds a little better - as you can imagine, they loved her too. "Oh! Hot parakeet feet!" she said. It's true, their feet are warm when they've been active.

Afterwards we all went to dinner at that venerable County institution Harry's Main Street Grill. It used to be Harry's Lunch....and way before that, I think it was like Harry's hot dog cart or something. When I was in high school, back in the prehistoric '80's, it was a run down eatery from the '60's with a lunch counter, truly alarming decor, and awesome diner type food. They had fabulous hot dogs, which you could get with or without the house chili, and huge plates of to-die-for fries which they served with vinegar or ketchup - whatever you wanted. Everybody everywhere always liked Harry's. It was comfortably down market, affordable, with good coffee ( I'm told. I don't drink coffee myself) Also, they never looked at the high school or college kids, or the nominal street people like they were trash. You came in and sat down and if you were a paying customer you got treated like a paying customer - the same thing couldn't be said for all, or even really most, businesses in town in those days. I'm not sure I've ever had anything except a hot dog at Harry's, except for the fish or possibly a special.

Anyway, sometime when I was up in Massachusetts, the place underwent an enormous renovation. No more lunch counter, an expanded menu with bistro type food on it, stained glass, outdoor seating, updated uniforms for the staff. I admit, at first I was horrified. Then I went there just for the novelty of ordering a glass of Chardonnay at Harry's. Then I saw that they kept all the old favorites and stuck them on the back of the menu. So I got a hot dog and a huge plate of fries with vinegar..... I have to say it was decidedly weird to drink a glass of Chardonnay with that!

Anyway, on the back of their menu it lists the hot dog "with chili" I think is an extra .50 "With sauerkraut - $75.00!!!" it says.

"What's that all about?" Rob asked.

"Oh, it's a joke. The family who established this place, and who still run it....I'm pretty sure they're Greek. They came up here into the County with all these old Germans. You know. German-American farmers will put sauerkraut on anything that isn't moving fast enough to avoid it. I think they were pretty horrified by sauerkraut. After all, these people have always been able to cook."

I spoke with a little bit of a forked tongue, since I'm as much from German farmers as I am from anything else, and I've been known to serve sauerkraut with stuff that other people think is inappropriate - such as my Thanksgiving turkey.

Harry's is actually most famous for their cole slaw, which is, really very good. It's creamy and nicely spiced with little bits of carrot in there. People come and get the cole slaw just for parties or holiday dinners. Alas, I can't eat it at all - I can't eat any raw cabbage. It causes me personal problems of most unmentionable sort. So I'm stuck with sauerkraut. Good thing I don't want it on my hot dog.

Anyway, I can't wait to see the photos. I'll let you know how they turned out.