HOLLY NADLER

508-274-2329

(hollynadler@gmail.com)

I’m writing this on a dreary Wednesday morning when you can hear the rain on the roof but not on the ground where it thuds silently on mud and other forms of slush. I pull the covers from my eyes to find myself being stared at by a black and white creature with pointy ears and a squashed-in face. “Oh no, I’ve got a dog?” I say out loud. If it weren’t for dogs, those of us who work at home on a day like this would never need to push and pry feet wrapped in thermal socks into those rubber boots the English call wellies. We’d stay indoors, make hot chocolate, get our work done, maybe run the yoga DVD for some of the easier routines, see what looks good in the pile of library books — maybe the new Jonathan Kellerman? — and run an episode or two of the second season of Dexter (he’s still a serial killer but such an endearing one!)

But no, if you’ve got a dog on a rainy day in February, you’re obliged to bundle up as if you’re part of the 106thst Infantry Division in the Battle of the Bulge. You won’t have Germans shooting at you, but you will be trudging through mud and snowdrifts around haunted, frozen trees.

But I hadn’t meant to write today about the Battle of the Bulge, but about dogs. I ran into Lisa Vanderhoop last weekend, the Aquinnah photographer who does those great sea dog calendars. She gave me a copy of the 2011 model and I can’t get past the creature right on the cover. He looks like one of those 1950s shag rugs, this one maybe originally Navajo white, but badly in need of a steam cleaning. In the center of the tangled mess of brown and beige strands a tongue and nose thrusts out, so you know it’s a dog. I’m guessing he performs with a Rasta band. Turns out he’s Enzo, an Italian sheepdog breed called Bergamasco. For the calendar’s February photograph, I’m staring at three King Charles puppies huddled together on State Beach in Oak Bluffs, the two bigger ones touching noses over the white face of a little round-eyed, button-nosed angel. For December you’ll see seven black Lab pups on Menemsha Pond. A portrait like that looks completely spontaneous, but I know from talks with Lisa that it requires hours of lining up the babies — all from the same litter — with their new owners who work to get them settled and staring forward. On Lisa’s call, the humans disperse, and sometimes the dogs stay put, mostly not. Mostly the dog owners need hot rum toddies after photo shoots such as that one.

Okay, no more dog stories for a while. I do need eventually to tell you about the evening in Paris when Huxley almost got himself (and us by association) arrested as we stood, innocently enough one rainy night, under the Cartier awning where the Rue de Rennes runs into the Boulevard St. Germaine. Well, he did nip a little boy (no blood, no broken skin), but I’m telling you this kid was asking for it. To be continued.

This just in from Ann Smith, director of the Featherstone Center for the Arts: They’re celebrating Featherstone’s 15th anniversary. To kick off its gallery show season, Featherstone will display artwork from its own permanent art collection featuring Island artists Allen Whiting, Gretchen Feldman, Ellen McCluskey, John Holladay, Dawn Greeley, Scott Campbell and many more. The opening reception will be Sunday, Feb. 13 from 4 to 6 p.m. and the show will continue each day from 12 to 4 p.m. through February 23.

The following message is dispatched from Mimi Davisson: The Oak Bluffs Democratic town committee will hold its annual meeting and caucus on Saturday, Feb. 12, at the Oak Bluffs senior center, 21 Wamsutta avenue, at 9 a.m. All registered Democrats in Oak Bluffs are invited.

The annual meeting will be brief (a lovely word). The main part of the agenda is to elect new officers and a chairman. The chairman will then convene the caucus, which will also be brief. Elected delegates will attend the state convention on Saturday, June 4 at the Tsongas Center at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. After that the meeting will be adjourned (an even lovelier word). For more information please call Bill Stafursky, treasurer of the town committee, at 508-693-1656, or e-mail him at stafurskyob@yahoo.com.

Another important bulletin from the center for Adult and Community Education: On Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. there will be a free seminar in honor of Black History Month. The event will include a talk about the current situation in Haiti by historian Sharilyn Geistfeld, an update on the PeaceQuilts project and a reading of Louise Bennett poetry by Marie Reid. It all takes place at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.

And finally this from the Oak Bluffs Library: On Saturday, Feb. 5, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., a valentine craft day will take place. Make your own valentine cards. Drop in at the children’s room to participate. The crafts are for all ages. There is no charge.