Jackie Q. Green

Last night I heard the sad news that our beloved family pet, Jackie Q. Green, has passed away. Apparently her health has been deteriorating the past couple months & was battling bouts of blindness. Although I wasn’t completely shocked about the news, as the dog was over 10 years old & I saw her health deteriorating, it is still sad to hear. In her honor I figure I’ll write a nice blog about how she became a member of our family & how she got her name.

I still remember as if it were yesterday when she became a welcome member of the family. It was March 1995 & it was also my father’s birthday. My friend, Courtney, & I were going to hang out & I still needed to get my father a birthday present. Courtney comes to my house & in her arms is this adorable puppy. According to Courtney, she found the dog abandoned on the side of the road & she almost ran it over. There was no identification on the dog & we had no idea who it belonged to, but she & I asked various neighbors if they recognized the dog or whom they thought it might belong to. Despite our efforts, we were unable to locate an owner for this dog. Since both our families had dogs already, we never considered keeping the dog. However, my dad had caught a glimpse of the dog & he took a liking to her. Long story short, he decided to take the dog & she became a birthday present to my father from Courtney & myself.

As for the dog’s name, my father is a fan of the Rolling Stones & his favorite song is “Jumping Jack Flash”. Coincidently, that song was playing on the radio when he took the dog in. He decided if the dog were a boy its name would be Jack & if it were a girl the name would be Jackie. Since the dog happened to be a girl, the name for the dog was Jackie. As for the “Q. Green” portion of the dog’s name, that was added about 8 years later, when I began working for UCP. At UCP I had a photo album on my desk & the very first picture was of our dog. She was dressed in a cute Halloween costume. Anyway, one of the disabled clients, named Tracey, would always love to look at my photos & she loved looking at the pictures of Jackie. Tracey liked the name, Jackie, as it was the same name as one of her friends & she was amazed a dog & a person could have the same name. To differentiate between her friend & my dog, she added the initial “Q” (as Q is the first letter of my last name) & then later she added “Green” as the color green was her favorite color & mine as well. Anyway, Tracey just loved to talk about “Jackie Q. Green & could not get enough of the many photos of my dog. As a surprise for Tracey & the other clients at UCP, I had my Mother bring Jackie to my workplace to visit the clients. Needless to say, Tracey & all the clients LOVED seeing Jackie just as much as Jackie LOVED all the extra attention & for the remainder of my time at UCP. I was always asked when I could bring Jackie Q. Green to visit again.

There are many other stories I could tell, but I think the important thing is that Jackie had a nice life & she was lucky to be found by a family who loved her so much. I’ll definitely miss her & she’ll definitely live on in my memories & my blogs.

R.I.P. Jackie Q. Green *March 1995 to September 2006*

Already September?

Where has this summer gone? I guess there is truth in the statement, "Time flys when you're having fun" & I'll say this truly has been a great summer because I seemed to do so much & experience new & exciting things. For example, I've partied it up & I've traveled to new places such as Delaware & New York city as well as discovered new places in Pennsylvania.

I'd say the party season started on May 26th where my friend, Allison, would host one of her many themed partys. The theme of this party was Las Vegas & gambling. She made her house into a little makeshift casino where we'd all play various casino & card games. We all had $10.00 worth of change that we gambled. With the help of my friend, Adam, I was able to break even & win 70 cents extra. I feel so rich LOL. Allison's Casino party was followed up with Rebeccca's B-day party on 06-24-06 in which she had a pirate theme. Sadly it was pouring down rain that evening & we were stuck to confines of her house, but everyone had a great time & nobody had to walk the plank LOL. Next up was Allison's "Sex on the Beach Party" on 07/01/06. NO, it wasn't a bunch of people having orgies or anything like that. That was the name of the specialty drink served at the party & eveyone was decked out in their tropical best : ). On 07/08/06, I'd celebrate my 29th B-day a little early with 26 of my closest frineds. It was so great to know that so many people were there to celebrate my 29th year of life. The following month, I'd celebrate Adam's B-day on 08/05/06. The theme of his party was "Film Noir" & everyone was decked out in black & white & helped themselves to what seemed like an unlimited amount of alcohol LOL. Finally on 08/12/06, we'd all celebrate Daniel's B-day. There was not theme to this party, but to just chill out & drink beers. This weekend, Allison is having a "Labor Day Cookout" in which I plan on attending & I think that will probably do it with partys for a while, but knowing my friends & I, I'm sure we'll find a reason to get together & throw a party.

As for my travels, As I had mentioned in a previous blog, I am currently in a long distance relationship & with that being the case I've been doing some traveling to this person's home state of Delaware. Prior to meeting my significant other, I had never really been to DE except passing through to go to the "Bodyworlds" exhibit in Philadelphia in 04/06. Although my significant other lives in a rather developed part of DE, I will say that I loved when we went to Winterthur Estate on our first date & I do hope we get to explore more of DE, but I've been told there isn't much to DE to see & that could be why we've been traveling to ohter places. For example, we spent a day exploring Philidelphia & taking in all the sights & sounds. Although I had been there before in 04/06, I only went to the Franklin Institute to see Bodyworlds & didn't get to explore much else. Anyway, Philidelphia was a nice city. That same weekend we explored my significant other's hometown & saw Washington's crossing. A few weeks ago, we went to New York City. In my 29 years of life I have NEVER been to NY & I was totally excited about it. I'll say it was definitely an experience. We spent much of our day exploring Times Square & Later went on top of the Empire State Building.

* I wish I knew how to post pictures on this blog because I took many great photos from both the partys & from my travels*

All in all, I had an enjoyable summer & with how much fun I was having I hadly knew it's now September & summer will be comming to an end. Before I end this blog, I also want to mention all the other times I've hung out with my friends throughout the summer, whether is was having dinner out, painting ceramics, or chilling at the malls everything helped make this summer one I thoroughly enjoyed & I wouldn't have it any other way.