Category Archives: Za

Za Photos : Muddy Buddy

This photo is of Buttercup, AKA Butter, Butters, Buddy, Mr. Buttercup, Bubs, Cutterbut and probably a lot more than a handful of other names. He is our dog, we got him, or rather he got us, in 2015 from the North Shore Animal Shelter in Salem, MA. Colleen and the kids wanted a dog, I did not. Poop, fur, stink was my mantra. Colleen and I had a beautiful Golden Retriever, Ginger, for 12 years, so I knew what it took to take care of a dog and I didn’t want to take on that responsibility again, especially because at that point I was sill working a ton of hours. However, after much badgering and reassurances from the kids of how they would help in caring for a dog, I gave in; after all I was out voted 3 to 1.

It was decided that we would get a dog from a shelter. The other prerequisite that I had was that we would name the dog Butter. Why? I’m not really sure, except that I wanted his name to be food related and who doesn’t like butter?

Off we went to the shelter to see what they had. There were several dogs looking for the right family, one of them was this happy, energetic, cute, slanty-eyed mutt, he already had the name Buttercup. We were all, including me, immediately smitten. We walked him around the grounds of the shelter and decided he was the dog for us. Shelters don’t just let you come in and grab a dog and go, there is a vetting process that you have to go through, which took 3 days. When we went to pick him up, the staff had us wait in a room away from where the dogs were kept and they brought him to us. When he came into the room he made a bee-line to me, jumping and wiggling right onto my lap, keep in mind he is not a lap dog. So much for the “poop, fur, stink” mantra, I was done, he was ours.

As for this photo, which I took in October of 2020, my brother-in-law and great friend Dan and I went for a moderate hike near Squam Lake in Holderness, NH. A good excuse for getting us and Buttercup out for a while before watching football, drinking beer and grilling some meat. As part of this particular trail there are some elevated platforms to get you over the wet and muddy areas. Butter, with his dog common sense, decided he wanted to jump in, so he did, no hesitation, just jumped right into the muck. This photo as well as the few others below are from that day and show the dirty dog results.

After he jumped in, in an effort to clean off some of the muck, Dan and I spent the next hour or so trying to get him to jump into the lake. It was a futile effort, he dove for the mud, but had no interest in the lake. We where traveling in Dan’s almost new, very clean truck, so as much of the muck that we could clean off beforehand the better. We ended up having to hose him and Dan’s truck’s floor mats down when we got back to our shared vacation home in Moultonborough, NH.

Muddy Buddy

The above photo of Buttercup was enlarged and hung at Za soon after I took it. He enjoyed his mud bath a lot more than Dan and I enjoyed cleaning up after it. Whenever I look at this photo it brings a smile to my face, so the clean up was worth it.

Buttercup is a bit older now, he still sometimes shows his puppy spunkiness, but for the most part he’s chill. Most days he gets out for a couple of miles walk, he is a great companion.

He loves the kids and I, but he is in love with Colleen, he follows her around the house, lies down in the office when she working. He gets up when she does, I could be up for hours and he won’t show his face until Colleen does. I get it, she is quite lovable.

This probably doesn’t need to be said, but the kids never did live up to their promises of taking care of the dog, no surprises there. They do give him lots of love, however rarely do they walk him and have never cleaned the yard of poop.

Za Photos: Under the Zakim.

I am an avid photo taker, not a photographer. I take lots of photos, some of them have come out pretty good; with the amount of photos I take, I’m bound to get a few good ones. Over the years and throughout our travels I have always made it a point to take photos. Since cellphones have had decent cameras they have been my go to and only camera.

All of the photos on the walls of Za, with the exception of 2 photos of windjammer sailboats hung in the men’s room, are photos that I took with whatever cellphone I had at the time. The 2 windjammer photos were taken from an old 35mil camera of mine, back in the 90’s, before the prevalence of cellphone cameras.

My plan is to share some of these images on this blog, telling you a bit about each photo along the way.

Under the Zakim.

While working at EVOO and Za in Kendall Square I would fit some exercise into my schedule by either going to the gym located upstairs from the restaurants or weather permitting I would go for a run. One of my favorite running routes was to head out from EVOO through east Cambridge, Cambridge Crossing, under the Zakim Bridge, across the Charles River locks, through the North End, Faneuil Hall, City Hall, down Cambridge Street and over the Longfellow Bridge back to EVOO.

It’s a great route, Past an awesome skate park, along the Charles, next to the Gahden, looking out on Boston Harbor, past the old Houlihan’s space, where Colleen and I met in 1984. Past the Bostonian Hotel where I worked from ’87 to 97′. There’s a lot of things to look throughout this route including a bunch of American and personal history.

Taking photos during a run was not a one-off thing, you will see in future blog posts about Za photos. I would often stop mid-run to take a photo, there are several other running photos that have made the cut to be hung on the walls of Za. If I saw something that caught my eye, thinking it was cool or that I thought would make a nice photo, I stopped took a quick photo an moved on.

This photo of the Zakim Bridge was taken in August of 2019 and is one of those that I thought, hey this looks cool, so I stopped and took a picture. This photo has also made the rounds. I first had a canvas enlargement made for Za Arlington. we need something on the wall in the men’s room. I also had a copy made for home, to hang in one of our guest bedrooms. I then had a very large canvas made 30×48 and hung it at Za Cambridge for about 5 years until we closed that location. Now the very large canvas hangs in Za Arlington.