At home in Syracuse: Why I’m sick of winter 2015

Happy home, home on the range on Monday, March 2, 2015? Not really. Allow me to explain, from the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. I took the liberty of using my iPad Air for the first Photo 101 essay to lay out the extent of my discontent. Topic: Home. Still surrounded…

Snow four dogs high

Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle’s got to walk. No matter how high the snow gets in our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. On this weekend morning, the extreme cold of this February being a bit less crushing, my dear wife Karen joined us on the two-block loop to nearby Norwood Park. I asked her to…

A Valentine’s Day story about a dog and a bird

My Valentine’s Day started with an Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle clamor. Bed to floor to French doors to bed to my face. Get. Up. Da! I know the language of our beloved 4-year-old rescue mutt well. The 7:30 a.m. door-open resulted in a quicker exit than usual, and Ellie B scampered haphazardly around the…

So about this Syracuse snow

I know the snow that’s fallen in the last three or four days cannot compare to the way in which my blogging friends Ann Koplow and Austin Hodgens in Boston and Bangor have been blasted this winter. And besides, our winter-of-2014-15 fate had been relatively tame except for some early December storms until now. But…

Ellie B and I are the only ones who give a hoot

Walking with Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle through a winter snow in our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood’s nearby Norwood Park, we noticed something sitting on a backyard post just past a fence separating us and it. I pulled Ellie B through the snow to the fence to better see the bird. Ellie B pulled…

The muddy prints of a 4-year-old

Somebody young was traipsing through the muddy backyard of our home in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood during this holiday week and then heard visitors arrive inside. They wanted in. Badly. But they couldn’t quite figure out how to work the tricky handle of the French door. We did not have a toddler visiting…

Yes, Santa did

My dear wife Karen outdid herself this year. From the grandest gift to the simplest gift, she knows how to make everybody in the house happy. I think so. Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle thinks so. Daughter Elisabeth and boyfriend George thought so as we enjoyed family time for Christmas Eve last night. Son Daryl…

The corner is long … and dark

We passed the Winter Solstice mark Sunday here in the Northern Hemisphere, officially moving into the fourth season, the coldest season. The darkest season. We are gaining light. That corner is always turned on the solstice, designating the day when the tilt of the earth begins to move us more prominently toward the sun for…

If you buy Barb Taub’s books, you’ll help homeless pets

Barb Taub used to write a column over here in the United States. Now she lives on the other side of the big pond, where she’s a novelist, and a blogger on WordPress. Her words are eye-catching to me. On Dec. 4, she wrote a piece titled “Tap-Dancing on a Wire,” with the sub-head “If…

Snow in the Syracuse backyard? Ellie B digs it

As I’ve written about the snow piling up around our Little Bitty the past few days here in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood, somebody asked me in a comment about the reaction of Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle. Well, Diana, I do believe you will be able to see for yourself. Not one of…