The Rose Bowl is in Pasadena, California. It is a stadium that hosts the granddaddy of all post-season collegiate football games in the USA. The game takes place on New Year’s Day. It is preceded by the Rose Bowl Parade, a spectacular assemblage of marching bands and floats made from real flowers.

I never missed the parade or game on TV when I was growing up in Minnesota. They were as integral to New Year’s Day as turkey to Thanksgiving. I remember when the University of Minnesota Gophers won a national championship in the Rose Bowl. That was when I regarded sports figures as heroes well beyond flaws and outright shame.

I think fans across the country had a hard time reconciling a championship football team called the Gophers. If you lived in rural Minnesota you would not have given it a second thought.

And a gopher for a mascot is clearly a lot safer than a tiger, the latter being the case in my former high school. Perhaps there should be a tiger mascot recall. Sports would be a lot less scandalous if more top athletes had nicknames like Gopher. Who would have an affair with a Gopher? Gopher Woods. It has a different ring.

Living in rural Minnesota also meant living in the midst of frigidly cold winter. Our living room where my family gathered in front of the TV was warmed by an oil burning stove.

We were also warmed by what passed for winter in Pasadena on the TV screen. It would have begged for shorts, t-shirts and beachwear by Canadian tourists making them easily identifiable by the shivering locals.

It would be many years before I visited California and when I did, I was living in Canada. I have never been there on New Year’s Day, or early in the year like now, nor in Pasadena. It all still remains for me as a picture on a TV screen, a kind of “California Dreaming” on a winter’s day.

So what is wrong with this picture? Our dog Tipper went to Pasadena. Without us. She left in early February for two weeks. It was part working holiday because she was a model in an international grooming competition entered by our local groomer from the Pampered Puppy.

Tipper did not really have to exert any effort. She only had to stand still and look blonde and beautiful for the judges as can be seen below. The groomer and her accompanying family pampered Tipper and looked after her every need. Except when they  were at Disneyland and she was in dog day care on site. Not a problem because it is the happiest place in the world. Such is our dog’s life.

In a kind of California dreaming way, I thought maybe the stylist who cuts my hair, an award winner in Canada, might invite me to be a grooming model for her next competition. If not California, then maybe it would be somewhere in Canada written about in song.

Unfortunately “Alberta Bound” came immediately to mind. Although a well-recognized Canadian ballad, it served only to remind me of my current status in comparison to the good fortunes of my dog.

Tipper’s coat is considerably more luxurious and abundant than my hair which I gather is of some importance for being picked as a grooming model. My stylist once suggested a particular conditioner for me, adding a polite and discrete aside that it contained a thickening agent. As a grooming model I am a quick trim.

Tipper has just returned from her adventure. She apparently had a wonderful time, attracting attention everywhere she went like a princess at Disneyland.

She caught the eyes of a couple of world class groomers because of her fine coat. One used Tipper as a model in a grooming seminar. The other, also a judge at the competition, gave our groomer an impromptu tutorial with Tipper on advancing her technique.

All of this is quite remarkable and among Tipper's peak experiences. Those experiences include having had a litter of eight. Mary has re-posted her essay on the event to go along with my essay.

Such a large litter is the stuff of reality TV and cable news where ordinary people become celebrities of sorts. I apparently have a celebrity sleeping at my feet. She is probably dreaming about her next travel adventure as an international model. Ordinary dogs dream about chasing rabbits. Wherever her next destination, I bet it will be somewhere I have never been.  

© C O P Y R I G H T   2 0 0 9.  Gary Holdgrafer ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.