Tu B'Av & All Different Kinds Of Love, Including Puppy Love

In short, Tu B'Av is the Rabbinic Valentine's Day, which comes after Tisha B'Av (the fast of the fifth month, after Tzom HaChodesh Tammuz—not, as it formerly was, for the "god" [dybuk] Tammuz), and before Yom Kippur and Asara b'Tevet). The rabbis decided that after two months with fasts and before Yom Kippur, a yom l'simcha was needed—including for, I suppose, pets and their feeling-much-better-after-breaking-the-fast owners—of course, making pets fast would be wrong.

As on Valentine's Day, the theme on Tu B'Av is ahavah (love)—of which there are different kinds, with three words for the main kinds in Biblical Hebrew, including "ahavah". Puppies—including adult puppies (dogs) like Reilly and Camille—show ahavah, including for each other and for their masters—and masters' families!

Reilly and Camille, yesh lahen ahavah l'echad achar—after all, e.g., to clean out each other's ears takes ahavah rabah v'g'dolah.

So does playing as roughly as Reilly and Camille do! 

So does napping together and (and as demonstrated with close ups included) inadvertently forming a heart shape and sleeping side by side!

Ying & Yang—i.e., Reilly and Camille. For Example...

1. Both are indeed color contrasts—Reilly is an Offwhite Apricot Maltipoo with angel-wing markings, and Camille is a Apricot Maltipoo with fox-like markings and some white hairs.
2. Reilly is the balance of introverted "Momma", and Camille is the balance of extroverted "Mimi".
3. Reilly is a "Polar Bear Face", and Camille is a "Teddy Bear Face".
4. Cam is more of a foodie and water drinker than Ri.
5. Reilly is bigger than Camille, whom can jump higher due to her small size.
6. Cam usually leads the trouble of going upstairs when she's not supposed to do so, and she won't stay on the bed during naptime. Reilly, on the other hand, usually leads the trouble of barking (as she did while I typed)  and bursting out the back door to eat mulch, poop, and sticks.
7. Reilly is a Patrilineal Maltese (Patrilinealtese?) and a Matrilineal MaltiJew (and you can definitely see what I did there in terms of the talking about the Matrilineal Poo[dle]), whereas Camille is a Patrilineal Maltipoo and a Matrilineal Toy Poodle. Thus, she's a MaltiJew on her dad's side. Meanwhile, Reilly's "Momma" identifies more with her Jewish heritage (and Reilly was even named in a shiyum shel haminhag Ashkenazi), whereas Camille's "Mimi" identifies with her more-remote French heritage (Incidentally, at the reunion, I found that the DeBoys are of Jewish heritage, anyway—not to mention that "Mimi" inadvertently named Camille Dominique after Great-Great-Granddad's paternal grandmother!)
8.  Cam dreads the sound of recycling and garbage trucks, whereas Reilly dreads the sound of a neighbor's macho Corvette.

By the way, blogging about Reilly and Camille provides useful writing practice—if only "Momma"/"Auntie Nicole" could become a full-time writer and stay home with her "kalvbat" and maybe babysit Cam during the day as well as become an analyst-commentator in addition to an author!

Originally On LinkedIn:

One of the common sentiments that I read and hear people express is that the journalism field—from the "mainstream media" to the "right-wing blogs"—are increasingly becoming unprofessional and more driven by celebrity status and entertainment than actual journalism. I myself can see this, even when I read the conspiracy theories about—for example—Seth Rich and Justice Antonin Scalia being murdered by, respectively, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama operatives. There are also commentators and analysts whom are driven more by celebrity status and entertainment that professionalism, and even commentators and analysts have a responsibility to be as objective and driven by the truth as possible—and one example whom I (and others) see as preferring to be a celebrity and showmaster is Sean Hannity, whom would rather promote particularly-Anti-Semitic and criminal businessman Donald Trump than call out Donald Trump's instances of racism (including the racism directed at President Obama, whom he claims was born in Kenya), ableism (including at Sergei Kovaleski), xenophobia (including at Mexico-born-and-naturalized-American Jorge Ramos), misogyny (including at Megyn Kelly, and at his daughter Ivanka and ex wife Ivanka—one of whom he stated that he would date were she not his daughter, and the other one whom he raped and later extorted into retracting her testimony in "Trump v. Trump"), and Anti Semitism (including at Julia Ioffe, the Republican Jewish Coalition, and even his own in-law son, Jared Kushner).

Other fields are just as increasingly unprofessional as the journalism field—among them are the academia, medical, and even law-enforcement and criminal-justice fields, with those like notorious Anti Semites such as the took-a-long-time-to-fire Joy Karenga, nurses whom take sexually-explicit pictures of unconscious patients, and the late Lieutenant Joe Gliniewicz and the should-be-under-investigation-for-perjury-and-evidence-tampering Jose Baez.

The unprofessionalism in all fields, meanwhile, is sadly a symptom of the morally- and ethically-declining American culture—with comorbid symptoms such as a declining work ethic and abuses of LinkedIn, which will become a de-facto social-networking site unless Microsoft and LinkedIn work to restore LinkedIn to its original purpose in the same way that, for example, Fox News had to fire Roger Ailes and restructure the Fox News hierarchy in order to start rebalancing and rectifying the unfairness in which the "fair and balanced" news channel has increasingly engaged.

Incidentally, the same United States that is returning to the production and consumption of organic foods, a balance of modern and ancient medicine, and the use of natural and organic hygiene and house-cleaning products is more willing to restore and maintain its physical health than its moral, ethical, and professional health—as has been since in cases such as the class-action-lawsuit case against the "non-GMO" Naked Juice, which actually fraudulently marketed their GMO-laden products as never having had GMOS in them.

Camille Knows That She's Cute, And...

She actually cooperated for a few pictures this time.

By the way, who needs dog-odorant when she has her cousin cleaning her armpits? Incidentally, Camille and Reilly really are cousins: Reilly's mom, Apple, is the grandaunt of Tootsie, Camille's (and Shelby's) mom (Thus, Reilly lives with one cousin and lives a few houses up from another.).

The Quirky Girls—i.e., Camille And Reilly

Camille and Reilly have their lovable quirks, as each dog (whether a puppy or an adult puppy) has his or her unique quirks and shares universally-canine quirks with his or her canine compadres. Even last night, for example, Reilly came over to my computer to get scritches three times when she sensed that I was in a bad-enough mood as was the case (Long story!). She also, within this week, demonstrated once again that she has her equivalent-to-human-toddler defiant side—for example, she petulantly growled at me when I asked her to move onto another side of the bed for a minute (and I need to, God willing record an instance of that one time). Meanwhile, she continues to love her belly rubs, and even tapped her paw on my head when I paused in rubbing her belly at one point.

As for Camille, she has picked up Reilly's quirk of turning away from the camera when she is tired. By the way, patient Reilly—even though she gave me a "I'm frustrated" or "C'mon; I want to go 'night nights'" look—waited for me to wrap up my day again last night.

On A Lighter Note: Camille The Consummate Foodie & Midair Jumps

As one can see, Camille loves her "num-nums" and is impatient enough to beg, claw "Mom-Mom"'s legs, and even jump. Meanwhile, as in these pictures from a while back, the girls are napping after a good walk and other morning-routine activities—including engaging in the consummate-foodie routine, which can wear Cam out :-). 

Case In Point: Trying To Get Camille Up To See the Rain

When the rain began pouring today, I tried to get Camille up to see the rain—since Ri and Cam could sit in their beds on the table and window watch, when the sofa was leaned against the table. Poor Camille was begging to get up there when I asked if Reilly and Camille what was out there and if they wanted to see the rain. Sadly, my Cerebral Palsy rendered—and renders—getting Camille up on the table nearly to entirely impossible.