The Red Chair Sleeper...

[Larry note: We're taking this Monday holiday off at Readlarrypowell.com, but we're monitoring emails and trying to make sense of the world. It's Washington's birthday so around sunset my foundingspouse Martha and I, in our best white dress wigs and post-Colonial garments, will join others at the Trinity River Bottoms Pageant of Patriotism and Legends and perform our traditional reenactment of George Washington explaining to his wife why he cut down the cherry tree in their front yard. Or, we could have some of our history mixed up. And some of that preceding scenario may be fiction. Enjoy your holiday whether you're at work, whether you're a teacher on an in-service day or somebody who just wanted to have a Monday layabout session. God bless America and her Americans. That is our Readlarrypowell.com staff impersonator, Inky, the Cocker Laureate of Texas, giving us his impression of Martha Washington listening to George explain the cherry tree incident.]
From the weekend:
If you’re seeing this wonderful bit of art, two things may have happened:
(1) We’ve started our holiday weekend at Readlarrypowell.com and/or
(2) You are into your holiday weekend.
We decided to simultaneously demonstrate how artistic my giftedspouse Martha is while suggesting that we could use some more actual photos of slumbering dogs, cats and other critters for our weekend feature, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap.  (Send your fotos and nominee info to [email protected]. FYI: We have a service that tracks cities and countries from which we are clicked and it shows this weekend feature is read around the world. So, yeah, we’ll take pictures from anywhere and show off critters to people around the world.)
You might wonder just what is in this Red Chair.
That is Porche, our model dog -- and I use the term “model dog” not as an assessment of behavior but in recognition of her ability to present a striking pose while walking, doing a runway trot or sleeping.
Martha created this after catching Porche Noel in a genuine canine slumber in one of our living room chairs. The chair is actually black, but Martha is a sucker for anything red except politics and my nose.
Speaking of red noses, Porche got her name because she showed up on our front porch at Christmas. Porch. Noel. See? 
She was limping, one of her 3 legs wasn't working and she was starved so cruelly that her ribs were showing -- only one ear would stand up and I don’t know if that’s because it was weak from lack of food or if, even in a crisis, Porche is studiously cute. 
She was clearly the victim of some sort of battering or attack. 
She was so thin she squeezed through the front gate bars on our porch, ate the feral cat food -- all of it -- and then could not squeeze out again even though she was not keen on being around any humans. She was desperate to escape until more food appeared.
Then she decided to stay.
That was just before Christmas in 2009. By the time we got her healthy nobody we knew wanted her and, besides, she was home.
She’s calmed down since then -- in the early going she was a sincerely food aggressive, jumpy dog. Not pleasant at all to human or animals. 
And she couldn’t bark. She could only rasp. (That’s a recent photo of her after she was awakened while snoozing on the back of a living room chair.)
She would stand at the back fence and rasp vigorously at the neighbors who, trying not to hurt her feelings, would turn away to hide their shoulder-shaking guffaws. Seriously, what else are you going to do when you encounter a vigorous tailwagger with one up ear, one down ear and a bark that sounds like she’s been up drinking whisky and smoking cigars during an all-night poker game in a flu ward. 
Yes, those are her two ears peeking over the arm of the chair. She’s out like a light. 
That second picture was taken recently after she was awakened while snoozing as she balanced on the back of a living room chair. Learned that from one of our cats.
How did we get Porche Noel? Sheer luck.
But we must cite a question once asked by movie great Ernest P. Worrell as he pulled a Jack Russell named Rimshot out of a trash can in the movie Ernest Scared Stupid. He asked, “What kind of person would throw away a perfectly good dog?”
The other possibility is Porche wasn’t thrown away -- she escaped. Noble heart, clever mind, adorable lifelong rasp. She sleeps easily at night -- I hope the person who mistreated her hasn't had a wink since Christmas 2009.
[To nominate your sleeping dog, napping cat or snoozing beast of any type for our weekend feature, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap, send photo and info to [email protected]. We’re proud to use your photos as demonstrations that give hope to the world’s insomniacs. And, yes, Porche sleeps in the family bed. She’s the one who gets a pillow and doesn’t snore.]
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