Winners And Losers! A Tale of Shoes And Coconut.

    
    (Updated Below [Wednesday])

    Last night, we were invited to a friends' house for dinner. After a day of romping in the park with her dog friends, walking around the hill and a lovely lunch of organic, holistic dog food, we left (we thought) a thoroughly exhausted, spent and happy Husky at home.
   One of Patsys' favorite spots in our house is under our bed... go figure. She likes it there, so when we went out, that's where she was holed up. All closet doors were closed. I thought everything was safe since dogs do not have opposable thumbs and last time I heard, they weren't able to open closets.
   The picture above is what I found when we returned home. Patsy, under the bed with a pair of shoes. Not just shoes, but really, really, really good shoes. Shoes that had been in Vogue. I don't have any other shoes that have been in Vogue since they don't usually feature knee-high rubber boots, Keds, and the sort of walking boots I usually wear around here. So I really, really liked these shoes. This is what they look like now.

  

    I want to make things perfectly clear. I'm far from a Fashionista. It's not that I don't love cool shoes and a hot purse. I know my Manolos from my Jimmy Choos, but face it, I live in Sonoma. On a hill with a one lane road, no street lights, a variety of varmints and things that go "Screech!" in the night. It is a very rural setting. Sonoma may be a destination for fine dining and fancy swanning and boutique wine tasting, but for most of us who live here, it's jeans and boots and barn jackets. It is, make no mistake about the fancy labels... the country.
   Living here, I rarely get a chance to dress up. Even when I lived in LA, it's a fairly casual town and living at the beach, I once attended a wedding where the groom wore flip flops. I do however have some "Good Stuff".
 I don't get to wear it much, but I can dream, can't I? We actually attended a black tie wedding this last weekend. I wore an evening gown, Alan a tux . It was fun to get all dressed up for an evening dining and dancing, in a tent with chandeliers, on a hilltop overlooking a vineyard. So I keep my treasures, "just in case," safely tucked away in my shoe boxes in the bottom of my closet, and I keep my closet doors closed because I wouldn't want Patsy the Wonder Husky getting into them now, would I?
   I never dreamed she was so clever, so cunning, such a little sneak. Evidently she loves a good shoe as much as Carrie Bradshaw, except I never saw Carrie chew the heels off of hers.

   Patsy and I have made up. She is no longer in the doghouse... or under the bed and definitely not in my closet. We bought some kiddie-proofers for the closet doors this afternoon and tomorrow I will go down and visit our local Gepetto who has worked miracles with "Patsy Damage" before. I've got my fingers crossed.
   Ok, so much for me. I am The Loser in todays' story, so then who is The Winner???
     We had a re-drawing on our Tropical Traditions Organic Shredded Coconut  and the winner is Susan Young!!
    Thanks so much to all the great folks at Tropical Traditions who made this possible.
    Update #1 :
  It's obvious for Patsy, that a guilty conscience seems to be no problem.