Tag: satire

Munchies for Each Season

My dogs are the Euell Gibbons of the canine world.  For those of us old enough to remember seeing Euell Gibbons on television in the 1960’s extolling the virtues of eating natural foods, like pine needles, yum, you can relate.  My dogs are living proof that they can pick up and eat just about anything that drops from trees or grows out of the ground. 

In the spring when berries are growing, we can’t walk under a Mulberry tree without stopping and eating mulberries off the ground.  Mitch and I will stop and pick ripe mulberries off of the lower branches and feed the dogs.  Charlie who is way too smart for his own good will jump up and grab at the branches to pull down to his level and jerk leaves and berries off to scarf down.  The same thing goes with blackberries.  There is a wild blackberry bush growing along side the road on our and we have to stop and dine on blackberries.  AJ who has watched Charlie with his snatch and grab routine has started to reach up and grab at the ripe blackberries still on the bush, both AJ and Charlie are unmindful of the thorns.  We’re just not fast enough picking the berries and doling out to each dog fairly.  Of course they don’t care about fair, we’re talking stomachs here and stomachs always come first.

Summertime brings grasses.  Not everyday lawn grass, oh no, they prefer ornamental grasses.  The big bladed pampas type grasses.  Orso even ate one of my plants to the ground and killed, a hardy grass that the co-worker who gave it to me said can’t be killed.  Surprise!  All three will stand and graze on ornamental grasses just like a herd of goats if we would let them.  One of the neighbors dug up all of their pampas grass plants, seven of them, and replanted them across the road from their house in front of the ravine, I guess to block the view.  Anyway, Orso believes this to be his personal salad buffet line.  As we walk by everyday, he will do a quick dine and dash, grabbing some of the long coarse blades and chew them as he walks with us.  Quite the multi-tasker. 

With the fall comes acorns, and they can’t get enough acorns.  Mitch can stand and shell acorns all day long for both AJ and Charlie.  Orso loves crunching the acorns, but only likes the shells and if fuzzy caps are on the acorns, that’s a bonus.  We have both tried to give him acorn meat and he just spits it out. And goes after the shells we’ve discarded on the ground.  There is nothing more frustrating walking the dogs than being jerked backwards as they stop and grab acorns off the road.  I see rotator cuff surgery in my future.  Orso now will grab three or four acorns in his mouth at a time, crunch on one and stuff the extra ones in his jowls to bring home for a later snack.  Do you have any idea how much fun it is to step barefoot on a piece of acorn shell?

Winter means hackberries.  After all of the trees are dormant and no grass is left to graze on, the dogs have resorted to eating the berries that have fallen off of the multitude of hackberry trees on our property.  The hackberry trees have these small hard dark berries that fall in the winter, for the birds and squirrels to eat when food is scarce I suppose, and the dogs have decided that these little berries are awesome.  They stop and eat them and won’t come when called, not that they really need an excuse to ignore me anyway.  I’ve considered cutting down every hackberry tree we own.

It’s nice to know that with each season, our dogs can find sustenance even without their Science Diet.

Summer and Cicadas

The sound of the Cicada serenade conjures up images of sitting on the porch with friends and family sipping a cold drink, enjoying the summertime evenings.  (For most people) that is.  Not me.  The sound of Cicadas mean a totally different summer ritual. 

I walk the dogs every morning at 4:30 while it’s still dark.  Yes I know at 4:30 it’s dark, but there’s a reason I mention that it’s dark.  And you’re wondering what walking the dogs at 4:30 has to do with Cicadas, well let me explain. 

I discovered quite by accident and pure disgust by the way that my dogs love to eat Cicadas.  One early morning I was walking Buddy, our yellow lab, when all of a sudden he jerked the leash toward something large on the ground and grabbed it in his mouth and chomped down.  As he snatched it up in his mouth, I heard this sound that sounded like a thousand bees buzzing at once then crunch.  As I realized what Buddy had just eaten, my stomach turned over and I thought for a second that I was going to vomit.  I thought for sure that he would spit the bug out, because it had to taste absolutely nasty.  Obviously not, he loved the taste.

After many Cicadas had been consumed by Buddy, I started to lose the queasy feeling every time he ate one and actually started to help him find them.  We currently have three dogs, and all of them love the taste of Cicadas.  So every morning on our walks, as we get close to street lights, I start walking around in circles looking for Cicadas resting on the street so the dogs can eat a bug.  Charlie gets really excited and watches me for any telltale sign of a Cicada so he can rush over and snatch it up before AJ can get to it.

Thank god no one else walks at the same time in the morning, because anyone that watched us would think I was totally nuts.

Summer Sizzles

It’s been as hot a summer as it was as cold a winter last winter, comparatively.  I’ve discovered that I don’t handle the heat as well as in the past.  I’ve never handled the cold well though.  There was a ton of snow and the cold lingered on and wouldn’t go away.  Even the dogs got tired of the cold and lingering snow.  We couldn’t wait for summer, everyone kept saying, “I promise not to complain when it gets hot.” 

We didn’t get to enjoy spring this year.  It was short lived and not very pleasant weather wise.  Too much rain each time it rained.  And I realized the other day that the year is half over and another winter is coming.  We could use some rain and hopefully the heat wave will subside a bit, but I’m not ready for winter.  And as far as I’m concerned, fall can wait a bit before it shows up.  The days move too fast.  At work each day you can’t wait til quitin’ time, one day closer to Friday and on Friday you can’t wait til it’s Saturday.  A never ending cycle.  I found myself wishing my life away.  And I’m too old to be wishing away what time’s left.  (I’m not that old, but too old to be wishing it away.)

So even though it’s hotter than hades right now, I’m not wishing for winter.

The Great Bathroom Remodel (formerly known as The Gutting of the Bathroom)

So many weeks have passed since we started the Great Bathroom Remodel.  It is now the middle of July and we started in April.  And to think that I was so sure with the two of us on vacation together we could knock out the demolition and renovation in one week, maybe two tops.  Silly me.  You can tell I have never been involved in such a huge undertaking.  I guess I really do live in a fantasy world. 

Demolition is over and rebuilding is underway.  There have been interruptions galore.  One week in the heat to replace the brake lines in the station wagon.  A few days here and there to help friends work on their cars.  Mitch just can’t say no.  Not to mention one huge temper tirade.  I thought that was the end right then and there.

The floor is tiled, the bath tub has been installed and most of the sheetrock has been hung.  Mitch is busy sanding the sheetrock as I write this.  He even has the floor to ceiling medicine closet built.  He wired the lights that will go over mirrors, cut the holes that will hold the mirrors and has plumbed all the water lines and drains for the sinks and tub.

I bought the wall paint and primer and am ready to start as soon as all the sheetrock has been hung and sanded.  The hold up now is the staining of the cabinets.  I had one cabinet stained, but because of the heat and humidity it didn’t turn out well.  The surface of the cabinet doors had dust and grit embedded in the stain.  So we had to bring them inside to the basement where it is much cooler than the garage and re-stain after sanding off all of the gritty stain.  I just love to redo everything I’ve already done.  But even in the basement with the air conditioner running, the stain is slow in drying.  We have to have the one cabinet that will go over the toilet done and in place before he can hang the last of the sheetrock.  I have two cabinets left to stain.  At this rate, I might be done staining by the second coming.

We decided on recessed lighting but haven’t found any we like yet  We haven’t picked out the counter top for the floor cabinet.  We haven’t even gone to look at anything yet.  And there’s the matter of the shower door / curtain.  We can’t decide which way to go.  Shower door or shower curtain.  Any suggestions? 

We’re still married, though at times it’s been close.

The Gutting of the Bathroom Day 15

Day 15 I had to go to the doctor’s office today for a tetanus shot.  I woke up this morning to a red itchy rash on both arms and put two and two together.  I know it doesn’t sound like the two are linked, but on day one I cut my arm on the house.  I didn’t think much of it at the time, cleaned up the blood and put a band aid on the cut.  For days I carried sheet rock, old boards and other various dirty things to the car dump.  The same thing happened to Mitch last year, that’s the only reason I even thought about it.  About two weeks after he had worked on the exhaust system underneath the El Camino, rolling around in dirt and rust where he scratched up his arms pretty good, he broke out in a red itchy rash and his joints started aching.  He went to the doctor’s office and yes he needed a tetanus shot.  My last one was fourteen years ago, so I was due.

This day turned into one step forward, ten back.  I had ordered lights for the mirrors online and went they arrived, the lights were way too big and had cloth shades.  Nowhere on the web site did it describe the shades as cloth.  Cloth won’t work in a humid environment.  I returned them to the home improvement store and found out I didn’t all of the necessary paperwork.  That meant a trip home to print out some shipping confirmation that had a barcode on it so that the same store that I ordered from could read and then authorize a return.  Isn’t technology great?

Meanwhile, Mitch is diligently trying to measure, cut and lay the underlayment so that he can tile the floor, but things didn’t go so well.  A couple of catastrophes interrupted that.  A flat tire and a tire store that can’t even look at the tire for 2 hours in order to determine if it can be repaired or if a new tire is needed. 

I’m trying to get all of the errands done, take back lights, buy new lights, stain for the cabinets, dirt and tomato plants for the garden, (and get them in the ground) because it’s time to plant.  Oh and don’t forget doctor’s appointment.  All of this and be done and cleaned up in time for a retirement, birthday and welcome home party this afternoon.  Our friends like to multi-task too.

At least we’re still married.

The Gutting of the Bathroom Day Six

Day Six scraping the ceiling didn’t go so good.  Imagine that.  Because of the confined space, the bathroom had extra thick popcorn texture sprayed on it.  Scraping the ceiling is one of those projects where the doing doesn’t sound so back until you actually start the doing.  Then you remember that it really sucks, but once you start scraping, there’s no stopping, you have to finish the whole room. 

After I had finished, Mitch looked at the ceiling and pointed out a spot that he thought still had a little too much texture.  I wasn’t so sure, but thought that I would see if I could get a little more off.  I got a little more off alright, the sheetrock was too wet and I scraped off the texture all the way to brown paper.  And it wasn’t a little spot that came off, no I scraped off a big honkin strip of sheetrock.  Thinking there was nothing else to do, I started stripping off all of the sheetrock top, really soaking the textured paint.   What a mess.

Now not only have I scraped off too much, but I have a big horrible mess on the ceiling and on the floor.  Mitch tried to come in and help, but he quickly lost patience and fled to the garage to pull nails out of the salvaged boards.  Therapy I think.

The ceiling has to dry, then we’ll smear sheetrock mud over the whole ceiling, after that we can texture the ceiling again.  Just what we wanted to do, right.  I’ll let you know tomorrow if we’re still married.