The Daily Delaney

It's a new day in Austin. The sun just came up in the window, taking the place of a bright morning star. Gabi is at school, looking perfectly perfect.  Lindsey is doing yoga in a 105 degree sweatbox, discovering what's possible.  I have the house to myself.  Almost. There's a big black dog on a round brown bed in the corner and another one, a little  older and a little stiffer, upstairs. There are two cats coming repeatedly in and out of the bathroom window, because they can. And I'm thinking about this guy in the picture above. His name was Bill Brown. The smile on his face says it all. For all the years I've know her, he was my friend Brenda's constant companion. In the car, at the dojo, sitting under a bench near the Wild Rose, Bill was always around. He'd sit at the edge of the mat at the Dojo, yearning to come out and play but he knew he wasn't supposed to, so he'd put his paws over the edge and just inch his nose out a tiny bit, trying to ge...

Okay, so I love animals. I love their energy, their honesty, their directness, their sincerity. I love that they tell you what they want and when they don't get it, they find something just as interesting to want just as much. I love that they figure out how to get us to do things. I love that we think that WE train THEM. I love that they don't hold grudges unless someone beats it into them. I love that they know when we need to get up and refuse to give up until we get out of the damned bed... at least my cats do. I hardly ever do jewelry pieces that are simply "an animal" ... even if i do do something like a lion or a wolf, the beast blurs the line between animal and human. Like in any good cartoon, I think the difference between people and critters isn't much at all once you get past the whole consonant and opposable thumb thing. So when i do find a cool animal pin or scrap of one, I try to do a piece where you have a person relating to an animal, like this on...