Around Town Sunday Funday: Bike Ride With Fry and Mr. Tuvok

I'm pretty weirded out by these 65 degree days in February, particularly less then a week after a big snow storm, but at least it's nice biking weather.  We took Fry and Mr. Tuvok for a bike ride in down town Jersey City.  This was Mr. Tuvok's first bike ride and he did very well (though he's not a fan of pot holes.)

We made a pit stop for burgers, fries, and bubble tea, 

and discovered that Fry does not like french fries!!!!

but Mr. Tuvok does!

Who would have thought.

Kitschmas Cat Skirt-A Vintage Outfit Post (And Some New Holiday Sweaters)

I've written may  times before about how much I love seasonal and Holiday dressing.  It saddens me that Christmas dressing such a fun and stylish part of mid-century Holidays

has in the 21st century turned into an ugly sweater joke.  Personally I'll never be convinced that the right festive sweater, or dress, or skirt isn't perfectly lovely.  Which brings me to the subject of todays post.   My new Christmas skirt from my favorite vintage reproduction designers, Girl in a Whirl, with just the right mix of mid century holiday cheer and Christmas kitsch this is my dream Holiday skirt. 

 I have quite a few vintage, and vintage inspired, clothing items with dogs on them, including my pug and poodle skirt from Girl in A Whirl, but I'm a proud cat mom too and my vintage wardrobe was lacking feline elements.   Inspired by mid century cat themed Christmas illustrations:


  

and vintage Christmas circle skirts:

which where indeed a thing.   (In fact the inventor or the poodle skirt, Juli Lynne Charlot, actually got her start not with her famous canines, they came later, but with a Christmas themed skirt she fashioned for a Holiday party.) I asked Girl In A Whirl to make me a Christmas cat skirt.  I left the design up to her but asked that the cat be white, both because it would show up nicely on the green fabric of the skirt and because our youngest kitty spot is a lovely snow white shade:

Well as always she did a fabulous job and the skirt is just Christmas perfection.

Cute, festive, and delightfully kitschy.

I've been wearing it a lot this December and it is such a fun and festive outfit.

I paired the skirt with a red lurex wrap top from Freddies of Pinewood, red and green bakelite bangles and a sparkly novelty Holiday brooch from Luxulite:

Feeling you just cant have too much Christmas in an outfit I also added candy cane striped earrings from Luxulite and a Christmas Headband from Chatter Blossom, and oh red gloves too.

My apologies for the hideous backgrounds, my urban neighborhood might be dreary but hey at least my clothes are pretty.



Like all of my Girl In a Whirl skirts this one is really comfortable and easy to wear, its practical for biking and walking and with thick tights layered underneath keeps me warm.

 I'm not the only one with new Christmas clothes though, this Sunday we saw Star Wars: Rogue One, yes I cheated on Star Trek and yes I really loved the movie, it is by far my favorite Star Wars film.  After the movie we went to the Pet Valu and there last two  holiday sweaters where 50% off and the perfect size for  Fry and Tuvok.

Happy Holidays! 

PS-Poor Ping (black pug) has bronchitis again and any good thoughts are appreciated.

We Met Santa!

This weekend we met Santa!

Sadly he didn't arrive in a cool 1950s car.  He was at the Staten Island Pet Smart.

First we visited Grandpa in Bay Ridge

We didn't bring Bob because we know he is not too crazy about his Uncle Rocco, not pictured, a puggle.  After visiting Grandpa we drove through Staten Island to see the big guy, sadly the NJ pet smart has stopped having a live Santa and our local pet store that used to do photos closed.  So Pet Smart it was, and it was packed!  The line wrapped around the store and I was reminded of my favorite Christmas Story, Santa Land Diaries by David Sedaris, if you haven't read or listened to it you must!   Here is the link to the transcript and recording.

Anyway, I was relived we hadn't brought Bob because he would never have tolerated the line and there was a huge pet adoption event too, I was glad about that because we where able to make a donation.  The line was filled with cute dogs so it was fun.

My favorite was a tiny chihuahua puppy, you can barely see him on his mom's shoulder here:

I got to hold him and should have taken a photo then but I was seriously overwhelmed!  He was so tiny and cute.  He weighed 1.5 lbs and was 14 weeks old.  He made Tuvok look huge.  His mom said he should get to be between 3.5 and 4 lbs fully grown which is a healthy weight for a chihuahua, I've done research.  Why anyone on Earth would want an even smaller dog is beyond me but they do!  Someday I will have a chihuahua from a reputable Chihuahua club of America breeder.   

Anyway we finally reached the end of the line and there was Santa.  Santa was very nice but the photo elf was kind of rude.  

The pictures I too with my phone where better then the pet smart digital downloads and they didn't even give you a print out!  That really dissapointed me because I have all the old Santa photos with our past pets displayed in the house.  Here is a photo of our rescue pug Bingo form eight years ago.  We adopted him after moving to NJ.  He had cancer and was incontinent and had to use a stroller but he lived almost two years!  He was such a sweet old guy.

 I really wanted to be able to display Santa photos  of Weasley Fry and Tuvok on our mantle along with our old dogs.  Oh well. 

Happy Holidays!

Around Town: Fry's Trip to the Jersey City Holiday Market

Living  in the city as we do holiday markets are a big thing.  We used to go into Manhattan to the Union Square Holiday Market, but now there is no need too.  As legions of New Yorkers have been priced out of Manhattan and the boroughs, they have crossed the river to NJ and Jersey City, where we live, is becoming the 6th borough.  This has meant a glut of new restaurants and stores and events.  One cool new thing is Project Market,  a bi-monthly outdoor market with food vendors and artists.  

This past weekend Project Market had their biggest market of the year, the Holiday market.  We biked down town with Fry in his basket to check it out.  Fry is currently our best bicycling dog and I really should have gotten a picture of him on the bike.   (Incidentally we have been seriously considering going car free which would mean investing in some different pet bike trailers for the other dogs.  We rarely drive and I love the idea of being car free, except for occasional rentals, if we can figure out how to manage it. Luckily we are two blocks from our vet.  Not only is biking it better for the environment, it saves money, and is great exercises.  My husband is really passionate about biking.)

Fry after his  bike ride.

The market was pretty big and Fry was maybe a little overwhelmed.

We tried S'mores hot chocolate with a gingersnap cookie rim and fried Wisconsin cheese curds.   I didn't get a picture of the curds but they were delicious.

There were tons of stands, more then I could photograph:

My favorite stand was unsurprisingly, the vintage one.  They had a cute collection of vintage valentine cards:

 and some fun poodle things,   I bought the 1950s poodle book ends.

The one thing the market was missing was dog treats!  I was pretty disapointed.  We made it up to Fry by giving him part of a donut from the Italian bakery, so he was happy.

All in all we had a great time at the market, and I love my new book ends.

Happy Halloween (and Some Not so Happy Things with Fry)

We have an apple TV with a link to our cloud and the screen saver runs family pictures.   I was watching many pictures of Tubby and Norbert on previous Halloweens scroll buy, pictures like this one.

I was really missing boys but it was such fun to take pictures of our current babies this Halloween weekend.

They really enjoyed this years pumpkin

We  put cat treats in the pumpkin as well, but Spot was the only one of the four cats that was interested.

However, I do have some not so good news.  On Saturday we discovered a small hard lump on Fry's lower muzzle near his bottom lip.  We went to the vet but could not see our regular vet.  We had to see a vet I don't particularly like, perhaps through no fault of her own she diagnosed Norbert's nasal cancer so I may have a bias against her.  Anyway, she thought Fry's lump was suggestive of a mast cell tumor a type of cancer common in pugs.  Tubby had one, but when he was 9  and Fry is only 2!  She did a fine needle aspiration and we get the result back Monday and I am already making an appointment with  my favorite vet.    If it's cancerous he will require surgery with wide margins which might be tricky on his face.  The good news is we have excellent insurance, Pet's Best, so we can get him the best care.   Still, we could really use some positive thoughts.