Month: October 2016

Ad in the Personals Section

I think I’m going take out an ad in the newspaper. We moved out here a year ago and for the first eight months we spent every free moment house hunting. Then when we found a house we really liked, the next four months were spent moving in and making it ours. Now that we are all moved in and winter is coming, there isn’t much to do. Not to mention our work schedules are polar opposites, I work days and he works nights, I get up shortly after he gets home and he goes to work shortly after I get off work. The only evenings we have together are on his days off, which rotate every week, and weekends together happen only every six weeks. That leaves me alone most of the time.

I could take a class, but the last class I took was a yoga class and I turned that into competitive yoga trying to beat everyone else time. So much for relaxing and breathing, I don’t seem to play well with others. I could take up shopping, but then I would need to get a part time job to pay for the shopping. I could take up drinking, oh wait I already do drink, oops.

Hence my reason for the ad in the paper.

I think I’ll start off with:

Wanted: A friend.

“Woman in search of a friend who likes to get up early to greet each day. Someone who has weekends open and likes to explore new and old places. The friend needs to have a warped sense of humor; be able to poke fun at themselves as much as everyone else. The friend can’t take the world too seriously; enjoy life lightly. There are two very important prerequisites: the friend must like wine and dogs, drinking wine, talking wine and trying new wines. The friend must like dogs and all that comes with dogs; dog hair, dog drool and dog kisses.

The friend must like outdoors, hiking and odd adventures. A friend that likes pedicures, shopping and lunch out is an added bonus. Age is not an issue, the friend can be any age over twenty-one, (sorry must be legal drinking age).

Interested parties apply here.”

Hiking at Fort Steilacoom

Today we went on a quick hike at Fort Steilacoom. The place is a bit deceiving at first glance. As we pulled into the parking lot I was disappointed. There were baseball diamonds, soccer fields, a playground and a paved walking trail. I thought here we go again, another boring “unscenic” walking path. Where were the vistas?

We walked along on the path and noticed some people off in the distance that were not on the paved path. We cut across the field and found some dirt trails that led us off into the woods. The deeper we got into the woods, the more serene and beautiful it got.

We plan on going back in the future to do more extensive exploring.

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The Word on the Street

I like to think that I am in tune with the local inhabitants here and well versed in the street slang. I hear what is being said about us among the locals and it’s not pretty. In fact, it’s downright degrading.

Every morning I get up at four am feed Orso and take him for a walk. It’s always dark on our first walk of the day and normally no one else is about. We do run into the creatures of the night, deer, raccoons and rabbits, all of which cause Orso to stand up straight, lunge at the interloper and bark loudly. Each time he does this, I usually have to have my shoulder put back in place after being yanked sharply. I truly believe my left arm is two inches longer than my right arm.

And every time he barks loudly at 4 in the morning, I whisper sharply to him, “Shh, people are sleeping, shh.”

I’ve been working hard with Orso to just ignore the offending creature; may it be deer or rabbit. He still stiffens his body and gives a halfhearted leap when he spots a rabbit, but he is doing better at not barking. He looks at me right after he lunges at a rabbit to say, “look I’m trying, but it’s not fair, chasing rabbits is what I do.”

Well now that I have gotten Orso to not give chase, the offending rabbit doesn’t move. The other day we were on our morning constitutional when on our return Orso’s ears when stiff and erect, giving me warning that there was something was ahead. Sure enough about twenty-five feet ahead of us on the same side of the street, was a rabbit just sitting there watching our approach. As we got closer, Orso got more alert and readied himself for the attack. Still the rabbit just sat there, not moving.

I decided that the better decision was to cross the street hoping to avoid a trip to the emergency room and an Aflac claim. The stupid rabbit did not move, just sat there waiting motionless, taunting Orso. Even as we drew closer and were directly across from the rabbit, the rabbit didn’t move, just watched us walk on by.

Yeah, I hear the word on the street, “The short human won’t let the giant brown menace chase us, we’re good.”

Do you have any idea how degrading it is to not be feared by rabbits? What a bunch of punks.