Lara and Zara embracing Adagio

A few days ago, Phillip, a fellow blogger and british gentleman (Chronicle of a Croydon Boy} wrote an enthusiastic post about the belgian singer Lara Fabian, in which he expressed his love and admiration for the way she performed the song 'Caruso'.

Well, I had noticed her long before Phillip . It was after watching some videos with her performance of the song based on 'Adagio' by Tomaso Albinoni.

'Adagio' is a well known , fine classical piece of music. Dramatic lyrics have been attached to it to enable also vocalists to perform this gem. If you look it up in YouTube you'll see that italian young singers got hold of it and won't let it go. They appear with it in some sort of talent TV contest named "Amici di Maria de Filippi (friends of Maria....) , with a jury and an audience which consists of young people, friends of the contestants.

Watching the young singers on "Amici ...." perform 'Adagio' can be frustrating; their voice is not ripe enough to handle such an intricate musical piece , and they lack confidence on the stage .
( Very nice try , though, of the finalists of the italian talent TV show Amici of recent years: Rita Comisi, Giulia Ottonello, Nicola Gargaglia ..).

....And then I came upon Lara Fabian. The way she sings and moves in all her live appearances, is hypnotizing. She's got it all: a great voice, a beautiful face, a perfect body, and.. plenty of talent. She's multilingual (french, italian, english) and is considered Star in Europe. There's also Zara, a singer of russian descent - good voice , gracious figure , nice performance. Still , Lara is the Best.

The Siberian Chihuahua

What an adorable little creature in the hands of the young girl! It's a siberian chihuahua. According to the girl's story, it was brought to her by her uncle directly from Siberia and is considered the best breed .

[ Oh Siberia, that's a place! By the way, I read the other day an interview with Miss Siberia in the Softpedia. The interviewer concludes his article with a compliment to the Beauty Queen: "She's refreshing like ice and hot as hell", he writes. Well, one could say about Siberia "....refreshing like ice and cold as hell". Not that I was there personally; it's general knowledge. I wish I could visit the place someday in the future, especially for Lake Baikal, the oldest , the deepest, the clearest of the lakes in the world - a miracle of Nature , subject of poets, artists, musicians and scientists].

At my request, the girl handed over the tiny, smooth Chih to me to keep it in my arms for a while; it was quiet, even indifferent, and that surprised me a little as I knew the chihuahuas were very temperamental and also jealous when their owner talked to a stranger. It appears that it has been undergoing daily gentle , but firm training to prevent bad behaviour such as : barking at people, jumping on people & furniture, racing from room to room, urinating on the rug , etc.. The chihuahuas tend to be dominant , so the earlier training begins, the better.
Anyway, it was sheer pleasure to hold it in my arms and caress its velvety skin.

I suppose with proper training the Chih makes a wonderful pet: sweet, friendly and very loyal. I would sure like to own a Chih that looks like the one in the picture , but I'll probably have to find myself first an uncle with siberian connections.