Chronicles of Cardigan's Top 11 Most Ridiculous Posts of 2013

Ridiculous meaning most-viewed/read/scanned/gawked at - minus two Blogger how-to's (here and here), a theme park pet care review, and a giveaway. Because, zzzzzz. (No really, none of that stuff is ridiculous; it just gets googled a lot. Which means that today, it is boring and irrelevant. ;)

A preface poem: Your eyes are like paper, and these posts are like glue. When you read them, don't get too close, lest you wind up in the emergency room...like these poor people who may or may not have gotten accidentally glued to things! (Maybe I should've just said they'd get stuck on you. Oh, never mind!) ☺

And, here you go: my 2013 reader favorites (in ascending order)!

11. Dwayne's World Presents: Bohemian Dog Rhapsody (a song parody)

Yes, I dared to go there. It was the hardest post (creatively) I've ever written (laid in my brain percolating for months). And, dang it, if I didn't use ShamWow in a sentence! Pepto Bismol too! Holy cow, what a wacky post!

10. 10 (Previously Unpublished) Reasons Why My Dogs Are Strange

There might be screaming. Crazy@ss baboon screaming. :D

9. 5 Less Obvious Reasons Why I'm Thankful for My Dogs (and How You Can #ShakeItForward)

If you think you might have just seen this one, you're right. It's less than a month old. Wow. What's even better than it making the list, though, is that Iams (for whom I wrote the post, so people would watch a funny dog video, and then for every view up to 500,000, Iams would donate a bowl of food to feed a shelter pet) recently met their goal! Half a million meals are on their way to dogs and cats across the US!

8. National Buffoon's Animal House, With a Side of Bacon

I don't have a clue how this post was borne of my brain. All I did was find a couple of cheap, bacon-patterned neck ties at Target, and the next thing I knew, my dogs were pledging a fraternity. I Smelta Pie, no less.

7. What if LOL Cats Were LOL Cicadas?

You know? I thought I was on to something with this one, but, turns out, people don't really care much for LOL cicadas. I have no idea why. Oh, and there's a really important message about shelter pets in this post. Really and truly, there is.

6. Blogger-to-Blogger Grammar Tips: How to Avoid Homonym Hades (Illustrated With Funny Pet Photos)

In hind sight, I might have been temporarily nuts for publishing a grammar guide (because when one ventures down that road, one better make darn sure one hasn't screwed up one's own grammar, lest one gets a reputation for being a blithering knitwit nitwit). Oh well! (Psst. You'll let me know in comments if I did {screw up my own grammar}, right? Please.)

5. Beer Bottle Cap Pet ID Tags, plus TAKE THE QUIZ on Dogs + Beer in Pop Culture!

So, there's the part at the beginning where I review the Guinness Extra Stout bottle cap tag I got for my kitten, Bobby Flay O'Fish, but then it veers off into dogs and beer, with a pop trivia quiz (that people can still take) at the end. ahem.

4. I Took My Dogs Into Tiffany & Co., and Why This Is Important to Me

This post is two years old, and I was NOT expecting it to be here. But while I've got your attention, have you seen the one where I take the dogs into a Tiffany's at my local dog-friendly mall? Just to say we did it?

3. I Would Do Anything for a Ball, But I Won't Do That

Wherein I test my dogs' aptitude for fetching a tennis ball. The results were shocking...and breathtakingly adorable.

2. 13 Things (besides obscenities) to Not Name Your Dog

Trust me; just don't do it. ANY of it! ☺

1. The Unbearable Cuteness of Being Free

Independence Day like you've never, ever seen it! ♥♥♥

1,000 thank you's for being the best readers a slightly deranged girl could ask for!

To Be Honest, My Childhood Dreams Involved Being a Vet, not Getting Adopted in My 40s

Well, who dreams of that (getting adopted in their 40s)?! Not me.

No, when I was a kid - like plenty of other little animal-loving people - when I wasn't staging elaborate drama productions with my pet Siamese cat and 376 (named) stuffed animals - I hunted for toads...and wanted to grow up to be a veterinarian.

Hey, Mom said we get to do blood and gore today!

We look like we beat up a jar of grape jelly, you fur-brain. 

Or a zoo keeper.

Or (briefly) Hayley Mills in the (1965) Disney movie That Darn Cat!.

Of course, I also wanted to have 12 kids and live on a farm. And on that farm, I'd have every kind of farm animal imaginable.

As pets.

moo.*

bleat.
(Rare Welsh Longwool Butt-Head Ram)

And all 14 of us (humans) would greet each day with bated breath, frolicking with the animals in the fields, milking cows and making homemade ice cream and apple pies. ;)

But, back to that vet thing. Yeah, so I had lofty aspirations, but then I got distracted, and fell in a hole...left my homework on the kitchen table...joined the YMCA...threw my shoulder out...burned dinner (to the 10th power)...saw some Corgis running in a field...had a joyous out-of-body experience...drove the wrong way down a one-way street...used explicit language...with my kids in the car...

And, well, you know, I never became a vet.

Thass kewl.

But, a few years ago (after many years of waiting for the right time), I got two Corgis - I believe you know their names. Thankfully, they got along (mostly) with my herd of rescue cats.

Then, a few months later (because I was desperate to to share them with the world), I logged into Blogger and created The Chronicles of Cardigan.

'Member when we looked like this???
(snapshot via Wayback Machine)

And then, while still a struggling new pet blog author, I found myself at a blogging conference (called BlogPaws), from which I gained a few (cherished) blogging friends, had loads of fun with the dogs, and (notably, among several pet brands represented) exchanged cards with Jane, a producer for Petfinder.com ("...the searchable database for hundreds of thousands of adoptable pets from more than 14,000 adoption groups from across the U.S., Canada and Mexico...").

I might have mentioned them (Petfinder) in a few of my blog posts in the years since that day. OK, so I've mentioned them (along with a few homeless pets available for adoption) in like 19 separate blog posts (before today). (All because of that simple card swap with Jane at BlogPaws in 2011, which got me on a partner list, and afforded me advance notice of Petfinder programs.) I consider it (helping Petfinder help animals find forever homes [and they have helped more than 20,000 of them since 1996]) a privilege. Especially since I'm free to "help" in such a delightfully (offbeat and sometimes odd) creative way!

We went.

So, a couple months ago, when Petfinder announced they were looking for 10 bloggers (with a demonstrated dedication to helping animals in need) to "adopt" (read: honor with a $200 Visa gift card [to offset conference costs], a private lunch with Petfinder's editorial and PR team, a sneak peak at Petfinder's upcoming Summer campaign, and some cool new Petfinder branded goodies) during this year's BlogPaws, I nearly broke my good typing hand filling out the contest application!

And when I learned that I was selected to be one of the 10 bloggers "adopted" at BlogPaws?? It was, well, like a dream. And yet, I couldn't have dreamed it in my wildest childhood dreams (as those - along with being a vet - mostly involved Pop Rocks and Shaun Cassidy).

Funny, how dreams work like that. ;-)



Hmm, you know, the only thing missing from that blog bling up there is a Tiffany-blue box.
Petfinder probably doesn't have those, though. Nope.
But, you know what they do have, that's even better??
Well, I'll tell you:

This gorgeous senior Siamese girl named Tiffany, in front of a Tiffany-blue background!

Precious Tiffany is an adoptable cat in Germantown, MD.

Did you know that you can search for pets (among other ways) by name at Petfinder? Yep, and as of this moment, there are 118 (cats and dogs) named Tiffany waiting to find their forever homes!

*****

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some toads to hunt (love those warty buggers), elaborate animal productions to stage (how do you think I come up with half of the stuff I write?), mouths to feed and pies to bake (not).

Click here to read the official "Adopted Blogger" article - including a complete list of winning blogs and a group photo - at Petfinder.com. 

* Prop product placement credit: Dewi's cow catbell was generously donated to me (at BlogPaws 2013) by the talented Debbie G., aka Glogirly, owner of both the award-winning cat blog of the same name, and Glogirly Design, where, if you hire her, she will pimp your blog (or business cards, logo, etc.) like nobody's bizness. (And by pimp, I mean customize with class, yo.)

Coming up next...Lots more photos and captions from Jon Farleigh and Dewi's (plus select cats') "veterinary infirmary" and "farm animal" photo shoots!



Note: Petfinder did not, nor will they ever, compensate me for mentioning them on this blog. I do it for the animals, and because it's so FLIPPING FUN!

Dewi and Tiffany Go Together Like Hooterville and Manhattan

But make no mistake - they DO go together!

Anyone remember the old TV comedy Green Acres?
(It's from the mid-60s, but still popular in reruns.)

Green Acres Theme, Short

Click arrow for 16 seconds of theme song.

Well, it was the first thing I thought of when I envisioned Dewi's debut at Tiffany & Co. (In case you're new to this blog, I took Jon Farleigh into the Tiffany at our local dog-friendly mall and promised that on my return trip to pick up some cleaned jewelry, I'd take Dewi along.) Naturally, as I cast the characters of the future blog post in my head, Dewi (my goofy, herding inferno) had to be Eddie Albert's character, Oliver (who longed for the land and fresh air of Hooterville), and Tiffany was going to be his high-maintenance, Manhattan shop-a-holic wife, Lisa, played by Eva Gabor.

It was going to be the perfect post! Dewi and Tiffany going at it to the lyrics from the Green Acres song. Move over "Biscuits at Tiffany's"!

But then, last Sunday afternoon, I took Dewi to Tiffany. And just as I was certain he'd plow through the counters (and human legs) like a bull in a china shop, the unimaginable happened.

Oooh, shiny things.

Look, mama! Pretty shiny things!

And, before I could say "in your dreams," Dewi had an entourage of adoring sales associates bearing biscuits. He was in doggie heaven, complete with a Tiffany-blue box and red satin ribbon.

I was too stunned to take a picture, but the whole scene went down just off camera, here.

Then, still on his cookie high, Dewi imagined himself in a diamond-studded leather collar...

Diamonds are a dog's best friend???
(Okay, so I made that last line up, but he WAS checking himself out in the mirror!)

Poor Jon Farleigh had to wait outside.

What am I, chopped liver?

Until he got to go in...

Who's chopped  liver now?

Good thing I can't afford to go back in; I think the free biscuits and lavished attention are going to their Corgi heads. So much for Green Acres. :)

*****

Here are a few more photos of the mall - just for fun!

Checking out the HUGE tree

I told you it was huge.

Dewi would rather drink straight from the spigot.

This little guy's doting person told us he's a Corgi x Pit Bull mix. Such a cutie!

I just noticed that dog in the background. Looks like he'd spotted us. ;)

And as we were leaving, we observed this meeting...

Pit Bull meets baby yellow Lab

Couldn't you just die?! :)

*****

Have gobs of fun this weekend!

Dog Mall (with a Tiffany & Co.) Photo Dump

As promised, here are a few other photos of Jon Farleigh and Dewi at Stony Point Fashion Park, Richmond, Virginia's dog-friendly open-air shopping mall. 

Note: The dogs have been to this mall many times, but most of these photos were taken last Spring. Sometime in the future (when I'm not walking both dogs, managing kids and trying to take pictures at the same time), I'll get some shots of the actual grounds and store fronts.

Let's go in!

Pretty Aprons

Bye, Anthropologie.

Pee Mail

Puppy Meeting
(A terrier and a red merle Aussie)

The terrier's people told us she was very submissive. :)

Not all the stores are as fancy as Tiffany and Louis Vuitton, but all the store
fronts are outside.  

Must've seen a hot babe.

Finishing his yummy cookie.

A new Frenchie friend (That's spilled water on the ground, not pee, I think.)

Let's check out Dick's Sporting Goods.

Dick's was boring today; let's go home.

I think this is our car, Dad.

Loaded in and ready for takeoff.

ZZZZzzzzzz

'Til next time....

:)

Tiffany & Co. at the 'Dog Mall' - Revisited

Seems yesterday's post about Jon Farleigh having biscuits at Tiffany's struck a chord. Some readers expressed a similar obsession fondness for the jewelry icon, the film, the novella and/or stores that allow dogs*; while others just turned green with envy. Yep. (sad) :)

Soooooo, today, because writing yesterday's post and then reading and reflecting on all the comments has made it impossible for me to think about anything else (well, that and I've been obsessively humming Moon River out loud all day), I've decided to write a second post about Tiffany. Yay!

Is this a girly store?

Except this one - in honor of Jon Farleigh, who is a MALE dog (and probably couldn't care less about Tiffany, and can't even see in shades of blue) - is going to be less "girly." Here you go.

'Manly' Facts about Tiffany & Co. (from Wikipedia):

• Each year Tiffany & Co. creates a new Vince Lombardi Trophy, the award given to the NFL team that wins the Super Bowl that year.
• In 1877, an insignia that would become the famous New York Yankees "NY" logo was struck on a medal of honor by Tiffany & Co. and issued to the first NYC police officer shot in the line of duty. The Yankees adopted the logo in 1909.

(Note to any men who are reading this and who have a significant other who likes shiny "girly" things: If you get her something from Tiffany, it will be like she is wearing a little piece of the Lombardi trophy. Where do you think the term "trophy" wife/girlfriend came from? Here is the online catalog. You're welcome.)  

*The name of the "dog mall" is Stony Point Fashion Park and it's in Richmond, Virginia.

Incidentally, I hadn't really planned to do a post about my return trip to Tiffany with Dewi, but since Taryn at A Tail of Two Cardis has been so encouraging, I think I will. And it's going to be so much fun! (hee hee)

I have lots of photos of both Jon Farleigh and Dewi at the "dog mall." Come back tomorrow to see them!