i was at the vet the other day with all three of the knuckleheads, for their yearly check-ups. my vet happens to be a friend of mine, which is a good thing. i highly recommend that you befriend a vet if you have animals. anyway, as the vet was doing black lab selah's exam, she asked what "selah" means and how selah got her name.
now, anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that i love word etymologies. i gave the vet the short answer right then and there, but later i went home, did a little bit of research and emailed her a big, long answer. because that's how i am.
so, back to selah and her name. first off, it's pronounced "SAY-luh." and second off, i didn't name her. selah came into my world about 3 years ago, when her then-owner decided to move to hawai'i. at the time, hawai'i didn't have rabies on any of the islands and therefore had a six-month quarantine for all visiting animals. selah's owner decided not to put her through that, and a friend of a friend mentioned that selah needed a good home. so that's how i got her.
her previous owner is some combination of an old testament scholar and a yoga master. "selah" is a word that appears in the old testatment a lot, and it appears to indicate a pause or stillness. that's the short answer i gave the vet.
the longer answer is that "selah" ("celah") comes from the hebrew word "calah," which means "to hang," and implies hanging a weight for measure, like in a balance. "selah" came to mean "weigh," as in "weigh someone's words," or, basically, that we should measure or value what has been said. that's why so many old testament verses end with it: "Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah." (Psalms 4:4).
i'm no biblical scholar, but i find this pretty fascinating.
it's a great name for a great dog -- unusual, meaningful, and, in selah's case, fitting.
so, how'd you decide on a name for your dog(s) or cat(s)?
i have a tendency to latch on to the winsome and whimsical, when it comes to folk art. i've mentioned a guy called 
for the two years or so (or maybe more, memory fails me), tart has carried these super awesome paper maché animals by 
ok, so what is the point? the point is that a paper maché moose is now mine, all mine, in one of the best surprises ever pulled off in the history of surprises. (i don't like surprises, really, and i'm a bit difficult to surprise; thus the praise for this one.) the moose that is mine is one i have been eyeing for a little while, complete with polka-dot antlers and delicious-looking green moose food. i love it! LOVE.
you can't really tell from the photos, but it's about four feet wide from antler to antler, and probably two feet from antler tip to chin. this is not it's final hanging place, but it will do for today. or maybe a few days.
i've been thinking about breaking her of this. then, the other day, i came across an entry about these boiled wool dog balls on 
case in point: irish setter.
for as long as i can remember, i have been a fan of folk art. i think what i like best about it is the ’self-taught’ aspect. i love that it’s a genre where people who sort of don’t know what they’re doing (in comparison, i guess, to fine artists, and i know that this is not always the case) — and therefore have almost no pretenses or expectations – just go for it and make art. these people are like me. i mostly don’t know what i’m doing. i put paint on a canvas and shape it into a dog.
