Tag: humor

Exercising With Your Dogs

You hear it all the time; get more exercise in by walking your dog. It’s supposed to be a win-win situation. The dog benefits by getting needed exercise, stays slimmer and burns off energy. You are moving more working your muscles and getting your heart rate up also staying slimmer and wears you out. Of course we all know how well my walks with dogs go in the morning. My heart rate definitely raises and I work lots of muscles, upper body and locked legs doing the “no, no, no” extensions when confronted with wildlife.

Yesterday in a further attempt to get back in shape after three surgeries in a twelve month period, I decided to start doing Yoga at home. I loaded the Yoga DVD in the DVD player, pushed the coffee table out of the way, unrolled my yoga mat and sat down for the opening breathing exercises. I was immediately face to face with Charlie who wanted to help me by sticking his nose right in my face to make sure I was breathing correctly. I pushed him away but he pushed right back and got even closer. He was determined to help me breathe. I tried to ignore him and stood up to move to the next series of moves. I dropped to plank and Charlie dropped down right next to me too. I sank into cobra pose and Charlie scooted closer. I moved into downward dog and Charlie rolled over onto his back right underneath me and whacked my face with his paw in an attempt to get me to pet him.

This was turning into more effort to avoid him than in doing the yoga moves. Cat/cow was equally a challenge because now Orso had decided that watching Charlie annoy me to distraction looked like lots of fun and jumped off the bed to come and join in helping me exercise. As I arched my back for cow and looked up I got a great big wet slobbery kiss from Orso right in the face. Yuck! That almost caused me to drop on the floor and squish Charlie who was still underneath me being a huge pain in my backside. I pushed Orso aside, tried to move into child’s pose and ended up putting my knees on Charlie’s tail. It did not make him happy. He jumped up causing me to jerk and lose my balance falling over into the coffee table, cracking my elbow on the table’s edge.

That definitely got my heart rate up.

Summer is Here Now but Just Wait

We’re having the usual August heat wave, which seems so much more miserable because this summer we have been very lucky to have had very pleasant temperatures in the eighties instead of the usual nineties. But just in case we’re feeling sorry for ourselves and wishing for some cooler temperatures I just want to remind everyone of what is coming sooner than we want.

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Charlie Always on the Hunt

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Just saying, it may be hot now but way too soon it will be cold and miserable.

Monday

Can I please just go back to bed and pull the covers over my head? It started yesterday when we came home around 12:30 and backed into the driveway. I pushed the transmitter button for the garage door operator and nothing happened. I pushed it again, still nothing, so I pushed the remote on my key ring thinking the battery must be dead. Nope, the door didn’t budge. Mitch got out of the car and walked up to the keypad on the garage and punched in the code, nothing. It finally dawned on me there was no power. The electricity was out, it was working just fine when I left to go get Mitch, the sky was perfectly clear no storms, so what had happened?

We walked in the house and sure enough the house had no power too, duh. That meant no air conditioning either. Super. We had friends coming over for dinner at 4pm, no power meant no stove, no lights and no dinner. We called around to make sure we weren’t alone in our misery and found out that a huge dead tree at the other end of the lake decided to fall over and take out the power lines with it. Everyone on our side of the lake from one end to the other had no power. Perfect just perfect. Power and Light crews were on the way, but I wasn’t sure if and when we would get power back on. I called our friends to ask if I could move the party and all the food to their house if the power didn’t come back soon enough. The power was restored about 2pm so we were back in business. I reset the clocks and figured we were good to go. Dinner was great and I totally forgot about the power outage.

Guess what, forgetting the power outage came back to haunt me this morning. When I walked into the kitchen to feed the dogs and check on the coffee pot I noticed that it had already filled the pot instead of just starting to brew and it dawned on me that I had forgotten to reset the clock when I went around resetting everything else, so it started brewing two hours earlier. I quickly reset the time so that won’t happen again and went about feeding the dogs. I took Mitch to work, walked the dogs and got ready for work myself. I walked into the kitchen to fill my thermos and saw the coffee maker was off. I put my hands around the carafe which was still warm but not hot. That’s when it dawned on me that when I reset the clock I forgot to reset the heating time. It has a two, three or four hour on timer and when the power is off it resets to two hours, thus making my coffee lukewarm and I hate lukewarm coffee. I had to fill the measuring cup with coffee and heat it in the microwave before filling the thermos. Microwaved coffee is not so tasty, but I can’t go without my coffee.

I thought, “Please nothing else can go wrong, pretty please.” I took the dogs outside for one last pee break before heading off to work and standing there as big as you please in the neighbor’s yard was a very large deer. The two charged off in hot pursuit, with me yelling, “No, no, no, get back here right now!” That took five minutes to get them back in the yard and in the house. I was not pleased at all. I grabbed two rawhide chews and marched into the living room to hand the chews out and get my stuff. Now I’m running behind and Orso is still pumped up about deer chasing and reaches up to snatch the chew from my hand and missed biting down on my thumb.

I am not holding out much hope for the rest of my day.

Tis the Season

I should have seen it coming. It is that time of the year. Sudden intense storms that blow out of nowhere, with little warning and leave vast destruction in its wake. Yesterday was one of those days. Beautiful morning, cool temperature partly cloudy skies and a nice breeze, a perfect day for yard work and a DIY home improvement project. We had the whole day planned out. Mitch would go rent a jack hammer to dig out holes in the shelf rock under one of the bedrooms on the old side of the house and I would go to the grocery store then come home and mow.

First off I misunderstood where he was going to rent the jack hammer. I thought he said Lowe’s, so I figured he could drop me off at Sam’s Club across the street rent the jack hammer then come back and get me, killing an extra trip for me. But no, he said Home Depot, not even close to where Sam’s is. Strike one against me for the morning. I caused him to have to drive farther out of his way to take me to Sam’s then on to Home Depot then back to pick me up. He didn’t bother to correct me until we were getting off the highway at the exit, so by then it was too late to correct the misunderstanding. It didn’t end up saving any time for either of us, because I had to wait about a half hour for him to come back and get me. The only upside was the looks on people’s faces walking past me standing in front of Sam’s with a cart full of food.

After coming home and unloading food and jack hammer I buzzed off to the grocery store leaving Mitch to attack rock to his heart’s content. I came home and unloaded groceries, made sure Mitch hadn’t jack hammered off one of his toes, changed my clothes and took the dogs outside to commence yard work. I dragged the mower out of the shed ducking for cover because of the growing wasp nest in the door. I keep forgetting that it’s there until I have to mow, then I’m rudely reminded of it when the wasps buzz bomb my head. I pushed the mower down to the driveway, grabbed the gas can and filled the mower. I pulled the cord and the mower started right off then promptly died. I pulled the cord again and again, now the mower wouldn’t even try to start. I thought great, not now, not today.

I was already hot and tired from cutting limbs from bushes and it was 11:30 so I thought it was a perfect time to take a break, eat some lunch then ask Mitch start the mower for me. I walked back in the house to see how much he had accomplished. He had punched out two holes each about a foot and a half square. It was slow going, Mitch had to break up the rock in big chunks, lift the large rocks out of the hole then use a shovel to scoop up the dirt and smaller rocks out of the holes and into a bucket. He then had to carry the bucket outside and down the steps to the trash dumpster. Hard heavy work and he still had many more holes to dig. I suggested breaking for lunch, but he said no he wasn’t ready. I said that I couldn’t get the mower to start and asked that he start it for me, but I was tired and wanted a diet coke and just sit for a minute. Strike number two, since I stopped to take a break, in essence I made him stop what he was doing too. He quickly reheated a leftover steak while I ate a salad and drank my diet coke.

When I was done, he followed me out to the mower. I pulled the cord just to check; it started right up, then died and wouldn’t start again. Mitch pulled and pulled but nothing happened. He told me to push it into the garage so he could work on it. I could tell by his expression, it wasn’t going well. Strike number three, I told him not to worry about the mower that I could do something else and he could go back to jack hammering. He looked at me with that look and I saw the first signs of “Mitch Fit Warning”. I offered again that he could stop taking the mower apart and I would do something else. That’s when I saw the “Mitch Fit Warning, Imminent”. The look that says “take cover things are about to starting flying or get broken”.

He looked at me and said very slowly, “Go find something else to do, right now.” Here it comes “Mitch Fit Imminent” is getting ready to strike and I didn’t want to be in the path of that storm. This had all signs of a major event. He had rented a jack hammer, paying an hourly rate to get grueling back breaking work down and I had just halted the process in order to fix the mower. This wasn’t going to be pretty at all.

So I grabbed the dogs and beat a hasty retreat. An hour later he walked into the house and said, “I got it running for now so go mow right now before it stops.” Thank god we had rocks he could break.

The Silence was Deafening

Every morning I head out on the morning walk with the dogs around 4:30 give or take ten minutes. It’s always dark, with some mornings darker than others depending on the time of year, starry skies or cloud cover. We’re usually alone except for the occasional critter of the night still out foraging, raccoons, possums and deer. When we run across any or all of these critters the morning walk gets very interesting, usually with me hanging on for dear life and yelling “NO NO NO!” The main purpose of the morning walk is to burn off energy and the morning poop, the dogs not me, so the dogs can make it until we get home for lunch to let them out. It’s not a very long walk, about twenty minutes tops.

I am always on high alert walking in the dark, watching and listening for any unusual movement or noise that doesn’t belong there. I’ve been surprised too many times with wild animals, people that are not normally out that early (and are drunk) and a naked man (not a pretty sight). This morning the dogs and I had gone to the distance limit of the walk and turned around to head back so I can jump in the shower and get ready for work. Then I noticed the quiet. I stopped and stood still for a few minutes and just listened. Nothing, no sound at all. The birds hadn’t started their morning calls; there was absolutely no wind not one leaf was moving, no traffic noise, nothing, for that moment in time there was just absolute silence.

For some people this might have been very disconcerting, the feeling of being all alone, but for me it was perfect, the most peaceful moment in time. Just the dogs and me all alone in the dark standing in the middle of the road, soaking up the quiet. In this crazy hectic rush world where everyone wants something to happen instantaneously, hearing nothing was very relaxing and calming. All of my rush mode was gone for a moment, I even forgot what day it was. Then a rabbit ran across the road and I became the boat anchor I was meant to be trying to slow down two dogs, weighing in at one hundred seventy eight pounds and definitely with much more muscle mass than me.

Now I remember, it’s Monday!

Poison Ivy One – Susan Zero

Could someone please explain something to me? What on earth could possibly be the benefit of poison ivy? It grows prolifically, withstands floods and extreme drought and can live despite me spraying it with even the most concentrated herbicide I can find on the base of the plant for five minutes. I find this noxious weed all over my yard every time I turn around. I will be weeding away and reach down to pull a weed and there it is, suddenly visible waggling its leaves at me, taunting me, saying “Come on grab hold, I got something for you. I have a really bad rash just waiting for you. Come on pull me.”

As you might have guessed I am one of the eighty-five percent of people out there that has allergic reactions to urushiol, the clear liquid sap in the plant. I even get the rash from the dogs after they’ve run through the miserable plant. Poison ivy doesn’t bother the dogs, just lays a urushiol sappy coating on their coats, waiting for me to pet them and spread it all over me. I went online to research poison ivy, to try and determine what possible benefit there is to the plant and could only find a brief reference to “some animals eat the leaves and some birds eat the berries”. Come on what self-respecting animal would eat the leaves or bird would eat the berries? I know better, no one knows what purpose poison ivy serves, but they can’t put “I don’t have a clue as to why this plant is on this earth” so the vague catch phrase “some animals eat the leaves and some birds eat the berries” is inserted. Probably because I am the only dummy to ask what purpose does this vicious plant serves?

Look at all of the other creatures and plants, large and small, out there. They all serve a purpose; big fish eat smaller fish and so on. Some are pretty gross such as maggots. Maggots are fly larvae that eat decaying flesh so the world isn’t a stinky rotting mess, even as gross as they are maggots do serve a purpose. The thorns on a blackberry bramble are super unpleasant but the thorns keep a creature from stripping the plant of its fruit in one sitting, leaving fruit for other animals. But what purpose does poison ivy serve?

Could poison ivy be the invention of the Calamine Lotion people? Maybe that’s it, somebody sitting in a marketing meeting comes up with the idea, “What if we invent a plant that makes people itch? Then we advertise that Calamine Lotion is great for relieving the itch from poison ivy.” Then the little lab people go invent poison ivy and use a crop duster to spread the seeds. Pure genius. That has to be it; it’s the only plausible explanation. Why on earth would Mother Nature make such an evil nasty plant? Mother Nature is the great keeper of natural order. Surely she wouldn’t play such a cruel joke on the human race.

Maybe that’s it; it was a joke that got out of hand. I don’t know, but I know one thing for sure, poison ivy is out to get me. It’s stalking me, everywhere I go, there it is growing away happy and healthy, laughing at me when I walk the dogs, tempting them to come and rub up against the leaves.

Maybe I should buy stock in Calamine Lotion.

The Future Looks Bleak

Back in April I wrote about “The House that Nobody Loves”, an abandoned house that sits overgrown with weeds and tree saplings growing out of the gutters. Bushes are growing up the side of the house and working their way under the shingles. The house has fallen in disrepair waiting lonely for someone to love it again. Well today as I drove past it, I noticed something new in the front yard. A giant backhoe was parked waiting patiently for someone to come and start it up. Next to the backhoe sits an equally large dump bucket, according to Mitch, but I think it looks like a giant pair of grabbers. Grabbers with huge fingers ready to rip through the failing roof and rip it apart.

It looks like the end of the little abandoned house is eminent. I understand the need to tear down the little house because it now looks like a blight on the street overgrown with weeds and broken shingles, but a part of me is a little sad for the house and the memories it holds. I think about the ghosts that walk the floorboards from room to room, retracing the steps of children running through the house playing tag. Memories of a mother and a father hugging and loving the children, making them eat their vegetables and tucking them in bed at night. I can only imagine the love and tenderness that once flowed through the walls of the house.

Maybe I’m way off base, maybe there was no love in the house and that’s why it sits empty. Maybe, but I would rather like to think that the house was loved and that someone besides me will shed a tear when it is finally torn down.

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Who Turned the Clock Back to Monday?

What happened to Wednesday? I woke up Wednesday morning and could have sworn it was Monday by the days’ events. We woke up to thunderstorms and heavy rain, a good thing for us but our “water dogs” don’t like getting their heads wet making the morning walk more of a morning “drag”. After I took Mitch to work the rain had stopped so I thought the walk would be a breeze. Wrong.

As the dogs and I rounded a curve in the road I noticed the road ahead didn’t look quite right in the dark, then I realized that two very large limbs of a tree had broken in the storm and were laying across the power lines overhead causing the power lines to sag almost to the ground. I stood there looking at the distance between the power lines and tree limbs wondering if we should turn around and change direction or walk under the sagging power lines and tree limbs to continue on our route. The power lines hadn’t broken yet and there was no snapping or crackling so I decided to take the plunge. Yes I know that walking under the limbs and power lines is not a wise decision and there was a chance that the tree limbs could completely break off and crush us or the power lines could come loose and electrocute us, but turning back and changing directions meant I would have to walk past the neighborhood nudist’s house. So I considered the lesser of two evils and decided that being crushed to death or electrocuted was more appealing. I ducked and ran the dogs under the low hanging canopy of leaves and branches. Once on the other side I figured I shouldn’t tempt fate again by walking back through on our return which meant now I had to walk past the neighborhood nudist’s house on the way home. Oh joy. The nudist is a man who one summer came out every morning I walked the dogs in the predawn, nude to water his flowers or get his paper. Believe me it was not a pretty site.

We walked down the hill and turned the corner to continue on our walk toward “perv lane” when I noticed there was something small and white in the road ahead of us. The dogs immediately went on high alert and I tightened my hold on the leashes. Then the little white object stood up and started walking, but not away from us, no, the little animal was coming straight at us. It was a tiny white kitten left out in the storm and he wanted somebody to save him. My heart went out to the little guy and under different circumstances I would have snatched him up and taken him home, but there I was trying to hold one hundred and seventy pounds of teeth back from an early morning snack. I stood in the middle of the street saying, NO to both the dogs and the tiny kitten. No to the dogs telling them they couldn’t have fun with it and no to the kitten telling him to please walk away and live another day. For once in their lives both dogs actually listened to me and just stood very still and watched the kitten walk toward us. I think they couldn’t believe that the tiny animal had the audacity to come so close.

The kitten stopped about four feet away and just looked at us, then sort of side stepped giving me enough room to walk around him dragging the dogs with me. Orso kept looking back as I tried to put some distance between us and the poor little guy. I looked back and saw him start to follow us. My heart started to sink thinking that this was not going to turn out well. After a few steps the kitten turned around. Whew, I figured we dodged a bullet and headed toward the last leg of our walk, “perv lane”.

I fervently hoped that the storms had kept the nudist inside as we got closer to his house. Luckily no nudist but I did see the cable line hanging from the pole to the ground in front of his house. That explained why we had no cable television that morning. Finally arriving home all three of us intact I figured we were pretty lucky. I didn’t get us crushed or electrocuted, a kitten didn’t get eaten and I didn’t have to have my eyes burned out of my head seeing a very unattractive naked man. Bonus.

Our Vacation

We took a much needed vacation last week. I have cheated Mitch out of a proper vacation on the last three out of four vacations we had scheduled. All three vacations I had scheduled surgeries. One bunionectomy so I would look good in shoes, a bilateral mastectomy because I got stupid breast cancer and the reconstruction of the mastectomy so I would look somewhat normal in clothes again. So I decided that regardless of anything else, I was going to take Mitch on vacation, anywhere he wanted to go. He and I deserved that.

We had decided that we would drive to Washington State and go wine tasting in the Yakima Valley. Well fate has a sense of humor. The week before we were to leave, Murphy decided to come and stay as a houseguest for a few days. That Monday afternoon Mitch called me at work to inform me that the microwave went out. The really nice three year old microwave died. Yippee! Thursday Mitch called me again at work to relate the story on how the outside faucet disintegrated when he started hooking up the really cool soaker hose system he made. I am going to have to stop answering my phone at work. Sunday was the final blow. I took Mitch to work as usual, came back did my usual Sunday morning stuff and waited for Mitch to call for his ride home. I loaded up the dogs in the station wagon, climbed in and put the key in the ignition and turned the key. Nothing, nada, zilch. The car was dead as a door nail. This meant that I had to unload the dogs, take them back in the house, fix them kongs stuffed with carrots to keep them occupied and jump in the firebird to go get Mitch. Mitch diagnosed the car and determined that we needed a new starter. Someone was trying to tell me something.

Mitch installed the new microwave, a much cheaper not as nice microwave without a hitch. Something went right for once. The new faucet took three trips to the hardware store and one afternoon to install. The starter for the car took two trips to the auto parts store (one to buy the starter and one to take it back) and an online order to get the right starter for our old station wagon. It seems our vintage car also has special vintage general motors parts. After I added up the costs of the new “fun” stuff, I decided that we should stay a little closer to home for our vacation.

Second choice was a trip to Texas. We drove to San Antonio for the River Walk and the Alamo. We both have been there, but it was decades ago and decided that it would be a nice place to go in the spring. The River Walk was beautiful and peaceful even with all of the people there. Down along the River Walk, there were cool breezes and shade, making the stroll very pleasant. Dinner was at a very nice restaurant. Very nice, meaning the steaks started at thirty five dollars and the wine list started at sixty dollars a bottle. I kept a straight face while the steward pointed out the better selections at three hundred and fifty dollars and up. I was pretty proud of Mitch and myself for not dropping our jaws and saying something totally inappropriate. We settled on a nice half bottle of wine saying that we couldn’t drink a whole bottle. The steaks were done to perfection and the wine was very good. A wonderful dinner and one we won’t be repeating anytime soon.

After spending two days at San Antonio playing total tourists, we headed up to Fredericksburg, Texas, the heart of the Texas hill country wine area. You know me I am not going to pass up wine tasting if at all possible. We found out Texas is number five after California, New York, Oregon and Washington in wine production and sales. Plus because of the size of Texas there are so many microclimates and soil types that the same grape planted in one area will taste totally different in a different region.

It’s a good thing that Mitch was the designated driver and adult because I was like a kid in a candy store. I wanted to stop at every one of the wineries I saw. Mitch being the adult and not totally feeding my wine habit stopped at a few. I tasted many wines and even brought a few bottles home.

I got to find my vice, wine tasting, so next up was feeding Mitch’s vice, history. There is a National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg and Mitch wanted to go so we did. I should have paid more attention when the nice lady explained that the tickets were good for two days and that we could come and go in the museum multiple times. The tickets also included the Admiral Nimitz Museum, Pacific Combat Zone, Japanese Garden of Peace Memorial Courtyard and Plaza of the Presidents. The first museum, George H.W. Bush Gallery was huge. I had no idea how much time, effort and money had gone into the museum. There was so much detail and photos throughout; there were even planes and a jeep in the museum. It was Mitch’s turn to be the kid in the candy store. I wandered around and looked at the photos, read some of the stories, but he was totally enthralled absorbing everything he could.

Three hours into the museum and only about two thirds of the way through, I was getting a bit antsy. I wanted to be outside in the fresh air, taking pictures and people watching, but I controlled myself and acted like an adult. I kept reminding myself this was also Mitch’s vacation and I had my turn, now it was his turn. Sometimes it sucks to be grownup. It took us four and a half hours to get through the first museum. I felt like I was back in school. I couldn’t wait to get outside. Poor Mitch, by the end of the tour I almost dragged him out.

On our way back north we wanted to stop at this huge outlet mall in Gainesville that Mitch had gone to about twenty five years ago. The mall he remembered was huge with so many stores and the parking lot was filled with cars making it difficult finding a parking spot. So we stopped in Gainesville and checked into a hotel for the night, planning on doing some serious shopping in the morning. After breakfast I asked the front desk clerk if there was a map of the outlet mall so we could chart our shopping trip for expediency. She looked at me and said that almost all of the store fronts were empty that there were only about six shops still open. We couldn’t believe it so we walked over ourselves, just to see. It was like a ghost town, store after store front empty. This would be a great place to shoot a zombie apocalypse movie. What a disappointment. There was nothing left to do but hop in the car and head home.

After we got home, the really fun stuff started, unloading the car, getting the dogs out of hock, washing all of the clothes we wore and putting everything back on hangers that we didn’t wear, because I am a firm believer in over packing. Of course the yard has gone to seed and needs to be mowed and the weeds are planning a coup on tomato plants. I wonder why we came back.

Happy Mother’s Day

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and to all the mothers out there Happy Mother’s Day. But I don’t think that it is really any more special than any other day. Don’t get me wrong, I think that motherhood is the most wonderful experience in the world. But reserving just one day to thank someone who made you what you are seems a bit underwhelming. Of course in my case, maybe I should change it from Mother’s Day to “Thank God My Children Survived Day”.

Raising children to be self-sufficient, productive adults is a noble achievement and I think I did an okay job. Nobody went to prison and none of them is on the dole. So I did okay, I certainly was not a perfect mother. I lied to my children when the need arose, such as when they were little and wanted candy out of the gumball machines. I told them that the writing on the front of the machines said, “Out of Order”. I sounded so sad and sincere, that it worked every time until they learned to read.

I bullied and terrified them telling them that I was an apprentice working on my mastership to be the meanest mom in the world and I was very close to getting my degree. I told them that I had eyes in the back of my head and could hear a pin drop three blocks away, so they better watch what they said and did. I dealt out justice swiftly, I never once said, “Wait ‘til your father gets home.” I let them play and get scraped knees and elbows. I let them fall down and helped them get back up so that they could fall down again. I told them to rub some dirt on it and get back out there.

I taught them to never be cruel to animals and other children, but at the same time I told them to never back down from a fight. Stand tall, be honest and treat people the way you want to be treated and it will all work out in the end. I told them that the only job they had in this world was to go to school and get good grades. A’s and maybe a B, but nothing less and there better be a really good reason that there was a B. Then we would work on the problem class until we solved the problems. I expected excellence out of them, mediocre was not acceptable. There is nothing wrong with not succeeding, but there is no excuse for not trying, that is the true failure.

As they grew older and started thinking about life, careers and families of their own, I told them that I didn’t care what they did or how much money they made, but to make sure they chose to do something they really loved doing. Because whatever they decided on, they would be doing it for a long time and if they didn’t love it then they would be unhappy for a very long time. I taught them that family is important but not at the expense of self.

I did what I did as a mother not because I wanted accolades or to be their friend. I told them that often, “I am your mother, not your friend, you have enough friends. I am here to guide you, to teach you and to make you into a worthwhile human being. You don’t have to like it or me, but you will do what I say, because I am your mother.”

Cruel wasn’t I?