Category Archives: Big Stone Gap

Little Brown Jug

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The weekly guest blog from Jack

Wendy has blogged more than once about the particularities of living above the bookstore and the overlap between our personal lives and our bookstore lives. To be honest we don’t see a division – the bookstore is a big part of our lives and it’s hard to imagine living any other way now.

Having someone walk in when we’ve forgotten to lock the door and we’re eating breakfast or dinner at the bookstore table is only a problem when we have to grab the dogs before they make the dash for freedom – or we’re not exactly dressed for the occasion.

But there’s coziness about all this that we haven’t really touched on before and it struck me anew just a few mornings ago in the form of our ‘the little brown jug’, or to be precise our ‘little brown sugar bowl’.

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Most mornings I wander sleepily down to the shop accompanied by dogs and cats to our little downstairs semi-kitchen to set up the coffee, switch on the lap-top and examine the breakfast options (for humans and animals). On this particular morning my eyes focused on the sugar bowl in all its familiarity and I was suddenly struck by the power of objects to give us context and comfort.

That humble brown bowl talks to me without words. It says “how did you sleep?” and “what do you have planned today?” and “we all live here together and that’s most satisfying.”

Ah – satisfying! That’s the word I was looking for. It is satisfying to wake up surrounded by a movable feast downstairs with some immovable objects in it. The little brown sugar bowl (and some of its friends) give us that.

My friend Elissa Shoots Kittens and Paraplegic Puppies

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elissa kissing dachshundThis is my friend Elissa. Yeah, she kisses dogs on the mouth. She does other weird things too, like shoot paraplegic dogs and little baby kittens. But it’s okay. She’s a photographer. And a dachshund rescuer. She rescues them and puts them in unspeakable costumes.

dachshund wig As you can see, Elissa has an evil streak. I have solid proof. Elissa is a dog rescuer, and Jack and I are dachshung frogcat rescuers. Because most of getting an animal re-homed hinges on the right person seeing that they’re available and adorable, we need constant photos taken of our winsome wee kitties.

Elissa takes most of them. You can see dozens on our bookshop FB page “Tales of the Lonesome Pine LLC.” She also did the official portraits of our staff cats Beulah and Val-Kyttie (on the right).

valkyttie suspicionbeulah Elissa has a way of getting to the core of the animals–or indeed of any photographic subject. She photographed the cover for the large print edition of Little Bookstore. She took my author photo. But the girl can just get silly, too. Because when I asked her to post “eye-catching, adorable” FB pics of our latest fosters, this is what she shot. Go ahead; post a caption. Everyone else did.

crotch kitten

I love Elissa; who couldn’t adore a woman who takes in a paralyzed dog and shoots it? (That’s her Queen Bee dachshund, Nellie, in the wings; that pic went viral on social media in 2012 as “Why you don’t just Euthanize a Special Needs Dog.”)

nellie wings

Still, she can be a little bit insane sometimes. Comes of being blonde, I suppose…

nell hound

Editor’s note: If you want to see more of Elissa’s animal photography, she has a page called Elp6n on Facebook.