EDITION OF WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2019 [PetPowellPress] We’ll get to “Rainbow Vomit” and dogs, plus “National Senior Citizens Day” in a moment. First this:
In a rare episode of clear-thinking, I’m going to dedicate this day’s typing for animals to all the people who adopted one during the Clear the Shelters Weekend — wait, that’s not all.
It’s also dedicated to all the people who adopted animals without having to have a public relations campaign, to all the people who found an animal in need and gave it a home, to all the people who opened their hearts to help animals by fostering, donating, rescuing or just flat loving. That cover the bases?
If that sounds sappy, let me just suggest that while we’re all happily enjoying the 
companionship and counsel of our animals at this moment, as soon as those shelter cages were empty, the plague of free-roaming idiots in our greater metrosprawl already was figuring out how to unload animals at the nearest shelter. "Hell, there's room now," they might say. These don’t care/so what people — wake their hearts. Every day. Don’t wait until next year. Gin up the interest 365, you know? (Read about this girl Angel a few paragraphs from now.)
We should be grateful, I guess, that people take unwanted animals to a shelter instead of dropping them off on a big parking lot or in the river bottoms under those string-art bridges in downtown Dallas.
That’s a photo of some local crank with 
Deputy Chief Kittie Leigh Johnson and a wander-up ex-street dog named Porche Noel — and that’s the cover of our next rock album Pixilated On The Prairie (the trio performs with one guitar, a drum powered by a wagging tail and a gentle purr as background music. Or we might make it the photo on our new book Pixilation Perspiration Nation: The Mystery of The Human Condition in a Texas Summer. That other photo is Porche demonstrating that she knows how to do a mind meld with a human.
OK, on with the show.
SOMETHING COLORFUL
FOR SPCA SUPPORTERS
I’m about to type a sentence that I never expected to type: The SPCA of Texas is teaming up with Rainbow Vomit. 
[LARRY ASIDE: With my limited imagination, I’d never have thought of the phrase “rainbow vomit” even though I had two little brothers and a set of boy twins — not to suggest little boys might eat too many popsicles at one sitting.]
Yes, I’m attuned to the keyboard and not the camera. But the Rainbow Vomit people have a handle on the photography and in this two-day event Aug. 24-25 you can bring your dog to the “immersive art” studios and take fantastic photos — an example of a warm-up act would be that girl Princess, an SPCA dog who was involved in “modeling” duty to promote the event. FYI: Rainbow Vomit is at 3609 Parry Ave., “right off the DART” across the street from “historic Fair Park.”
Tickets are $25 per human, $15 per child and $15 per dog — you get 45 minutes to shoot away and you can have six dogs at a time in the immersive studio. There’s a Pro Pup Package if you want more time and want to bring in professional gear. The news release says, “Twenty percent of all proceeds from this special two-day 
event will benefit the SPCA of Texas.” (Tickets are at rainbowvomit.com/tickets and you can see more about this event at spca.org — more animals, too.)
Dogs have to be at least 4 months old, spayed/neutered, friendly around people and other dogs, flea and tick free, current with vaccinations and they’ve got to be on a leash at all times.
In case you specialize in photographing Earhounds, I’ve taken the liberty of noting that the SPCA currently has at least one available and he’s right on the minimum age limit: Aiden (42017455), a German Shepherd Mix who is 4 months old and has a championship set of ears.
NATIONAL SENIOR CITIZENS DAY:
OPERATION KINDNESS HAS A PLAN
The famed no-kill animal shelter in Carrollton, Operation Kindness, for National Senior 
Citizens Day, has scheduled a week-long adoption event from Friday the 16th through Friday the 23rd and celebrates senior dogs with an adoption fee reduced to $99. Senior dog? For OK’s event, a “senior dog” is six years old or older.
As OK notes, wonderful older dogs are often ignored because of their age. As readlarrypowell.com notes, older dogs make great companions and they’re beyond the puppy stage. Plus they’ve been around long enough to develop some smarts in dealing with humans. When OK announced this event, there were 8 seniors available — could be more by now.
You see the photo of Shamus and Sophie — they are, respectively 11 and 10. And they’re bonded and have to be adopted together. The news release says, “Because these two are attached at the hip, OK has waived the adoption fee for them completely. They love to cuddle, love pets and belly rubs, and adore their morning and afternoon walks.”
Who else was available as of the writing of the news release? Eight-year-old Chihuahua mix James Earl Bones; 7-year-old Chihuahua mix Mr. Wright; 6-year-old Boxer mix Paula, and Rex, also a Chihuahua mix — wait, a check of the OK Facebook page shows Rex’s adoption and departure photo!
As you may suspect, they all get high ratings for personality and loveable attitudes. Wait, some more from that list have been adopted. Go to the operationkindness.org site to keep up with the available seniors. Paula the Boxer Mix may have extra facets to her personality. Her bio reads that she is “extremely laid back and adores lounging around the house. While she loves sleeping on the couch, she also loves her 
walks and enjoys car rides.” Wait: Paula may also have been adopted — this is the OK Facebook photo of Paula relaxing at a foster’s home during a “respite” from the shelter.
[LARRY ASIDE: So, yes, August 21 is National Senior Citizens Day. Celebrate carefully, of course. I kid you creaky oldsters — stop telling me how great vinyl was and how much smarter you kids from the 1960s were. By cracky.]
THE BIG EVENT
OUT AT THE LAKE
You can pre-register right now for the Saturday, 
Sept. 7, Strut Your Mutt event benefitting the Humane Society of Cedar Creek Lake, the only animal shelter in the world with a Tool, Texas, location. (Click on the art to make it grow like a Great Dane puppy.)
How’d we learn about this event?
Got a note from the always-hustling-for-animals Sydney Busch of Friends of the Animals at Cedar Creek Lake. The Friends will have a booth at the event. You can stop by and say hello to the people who run the world’s most successful spay/neuter clinic at Gun Barrel City, Texas.
[LARRY ASIDE: I was reading the poster and saw that when you register on the day of the event, you get a dog bandana and either a free soft drink or “free beer” and the next line reads “PLEASE NOTE: 1 DOG PER ADULT.” That’ll keep people from showing up with a handful of dogs and trying to score a free six-pack.]
CONTEMPLATIONS
A DOG WITH AN HAPPY FACE; GETTIN’ OUTTA DODGE; THE BIG BURGER
When I was doing research for the opening item about Rainbow Vomit and the SPCA of Texas, I looked at the adoptables on the SPCA website and found this adorable photo of Angel (41588066), a 44-pound girl who is just over 3 years old. Look at that beauty — she’s got missing an eye and she’s deaf and she’s adorable and happy. 
She’d improve anybody’s life, don’t you think? What a privilege to love that dog Angel. And, because we’re pro-cat at readlarrypowell.com, we'll cite that beautiful SPCA cat is Lucy (41476885), just under a year old, described as “small” — she also sounds very human in her bio which reads, “Dislikes: Having lots of visitors! They make me want to hide.” …
GETTIN’ OUTTA DODGE? You know how bad animals have it in Dallas and North Texas? There are entire organizations that have been created just to get animals out of the vicinity to some place “safe” where they can find homes. (Society for Companion Animals, for example, flies ‘em, and Humane Tomorrow’s Love on Wheels drives ‘em.) Kind of a shame to think that an area with this many millions of people can’t find good homes for unwanted animals. But bless those people to work hard to keep the animals moving toward home!
Maybe Uber's new offices and all those new Toyota folks can help boost the goodness ratings for animal care around here.
BURGER NEWS? So I saw writer Sarah Blaskovich's story in The Big Paper Downtown about this “giant cheeseburger” for sale now at Slater’s 50/50. Says it’s so big it is “served on an entire loaf of King’s Hawaiian bread.” Hah. Sarah wasn't around "way back then," but from the ‘40s through the ‘60s in Texarkana, there was a spot called Guy’s Orange Stand where you could order a Texas Burger or Texas Cheeseburger as big around as a tire and nearly as thick. The cafe was about 2 blocks inside Texas, just west of the Texas/Arkansas state line intersection with U.S. Highway 82. All tourists passing through had the opportunity to see the sign that said something like “Avoid home cookin’! Eat at Guy’s! Home of the Texasburger!” Owner Guy Glover put it on the menu back in the 1940s. It was so big it could serve four adults and came on a specially baked GIANT hamburger bun. So, as the song suggests, “Everything old is new and fried again.” Sorry — I couldn’t find a photo of Guy’s Texas Cheese Burger. Nobody knew it was a historic menu item until just this very moment.
— Offer advice or recipes by clicking on ‘comment’ below or emailing [email protected] where we don’t eat meat but we do enjoy tofu and veggie burgers. —-
