Tag: women

One of Those Days

We all have them; you know those days where you are better off staying in bed. Some of us have multiple days in a row where everything you touch goes way wrong. And then there is me. When I have one of those days or multiple days that go bad, it usually means I have maimed myself in some sort of fashion, and holding true to history, I’ve done it again.

Yesterday, I was sharpening my boning knife on the sharpening stone using deliberate circles like my dad taught me. I held the knife at about a forty-five-degree angle to the stone going in a counter-clockwise motion. Flipping the knife over I repeated the process only going in a clockwise motion, when the knife slipped and sliced into my right thumb. The good news is that I got the knife good and sharp. The bad news is that I bled all over the kitchen.

Today I put a bottom round roast in the crockpot to cook all day for dinner. The roast was so tender by the time dinner rolled around that it was falling apart in the crockpot as I was dishing it up to put it on the platter. I used a large fork and spatula to try and get it out of the crockpot when it broke apart, with part of the meat plopping back into the crockpot and splashing a small piece of cooked hot onion to wrap around my little finger and another piece of onion stuck to the left side of my hand below the thumb I tried to amputate yesterday.

I ran to the sink and turned on the cold water, pulling the onion off of my finger and let the words fly. Who would think a hot cooked onion would stick like glue and burn the daylights out of you. I actually have blisters on my little finger and a long red streak on the other side of my hand. I thought that using the crockpot would make my life easier not help me meet my deductible for the year.

Needless to say, I am not looking forward to tomorrow.

My Neighbor is Trying to Kill Me

Honestly, I am starting to believe that behind that sweet smiling generous face lurks a serial killer. This is probably why two other houses have recently gone on the market and I didn’t see the owners move out. All of a sudden the houses were just empty. She killed them. And she kills in the most insidious way, she will never get caught. It started out so innocuously, she offered to give me a couple of her Azalea bushes because she has too many. Sounds innocent enough right? Wrong, once she gets you in her yard, the evil begins.

She picks out a large mature Azalea bush and says how about this one? You think, wow a full grown bush, this will look great in my yard. So you say sure, that is so nice, thank you. Then you have to dig it up, not easy, after that you have to carry the full grown bush to the truck, remember it is a full grown bush and the roots are covered in about five pounds of dirt. After you place it in the truck and turn to say thank you, she says in a super sweet voice, oh I have more for you. You can’t leave with just one.

The first plant transplant excursion with her netted me four mature Azalea bushes, three Foxglove plants and one large fern. That’s how she sucks you in. She gives you a reasonable amount of plants to whet your appetite. Just like a crack dealer. The second plant transplant excursion she had me dig up four more large Azalea bushes and a sickly Rhododendron. One of the Azaleas was so large we had to get her husband to help lift it up in the truck.

She caught me on Monday and told me that according to the Almanac, Tuesday was the day to move plants and she had another Azalea to give me. Stupid me, I fell for it again. I got over there and she had me dig up eight Azaleas, one more Rhododendron and two very large Barberry bushes, resplendent with a ton of small sharp thorns. That was so much fun, I think I left a pint of blood in her dirt. Maybe that was the whole ploy, get me to bleed in her dirt and fertilize the soil. She wanted to give me three more extra-large Azaleas and two seven-foot-tall Rhododendrons, but I begged off by saying we should wait until the rainy season when the soil is easier to dig in. Maybe by then she will have forgotten or I’ll be dead from her generosity and it won’t matter.

I am going to have to up my game if I’m going to survive and expose her for the evil wicked woman that she is. Giving away extra plants in an evil ruse to make my yard lush and beautiful. Such evilness. Well I’m on to her game now and I’m eating my Wheaties, so I can dig with the best of them.

Sunday Poetry

Light Steps

Tiptoeing across the room
Careful not to make a sound
Slipping out silently
Creeping down the stairs.

Stepping to the door
Turning one last time
Making sure no one is awake
To witness the escape.

Walking through the door
Softly pulling it closed
Turning around to face the unknown
Walking toward freedom.

It’s Gotta be a Record!

Maybe even a World’s Record or close to it. There should be cake to celebrate or at least wine. I started thinking back to our move out here. The dogs and I got here in August of 2015 and lived in the apartment until we bought our house and moved in the middle of March. The house is a two story with the bedrooms and wet bar on the second floor. That means at the very least I would go up and down those stairs a minimum of six times a day. One time down to feed Orso and take him for a walk, back up the stairs to shower then down again to go about my day. One time up to get a bottle of wine and down to open and drink the wine, one last time up to go to bed. I go up and down many more times than that each day, but you get the point.

Take that minimum number and multiply it by the three and a half months we’ve been in the house, that totals to over six hundred times up and down the stairs. And I haven’t fallen up or down the stairs once. That’s gotta be a record. If that doesn’t sound so awesome, then look at my history. I’ve fallen down the stairs to the old house and hit the side of the house at the bottom. I’ve fallen up the basement stairs and took the skin off my shins at the old house. I’ve fallen off the side of the road walking the dogs. I fell over a giant boulder in the middle of the road one morning walking the dogs. I got tangled up in a four-foot step ladder and fell down a hill. I have a knack for falling, either up or down, I’m an equal opportunity faller.

Come to think of it, most of my falls were at the old house. Maybe it was the house. Maybe the house had it in for me. Maybe I’m not that clumsy after all, maybe I was attacked by the old house. Well I got the last laugh, I’m not there anymore. So take that house!

In the ten months we’ve been here, I’ve only fallen twice, once at the hands of the dogs dragging me across a sidewalk to meet a new dog and once hiking when I tripped and fell over a downed tree. All in all I’ve done pretty well out here and haven’t had to go to the emergency room once, which is a good thing since I don’t know where the hospital is.

Lazy Sunday

Sunday is all about rest and relaxation. For a dog that is almost 10 years old, he is still such a puppy!

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Dog for Rent

“One very large dog for rent. Extra-large dog weighing one hundred two pounds wants playmate of equal size and temperament. Dog needs to be willing to play tag and wrestle. Has to like being chewed on. I will even supply the yard if necessary. If interested, please call.”

That is how my ad will read. I’ve decided that in order to keep Orso happy and content, I am going to rent him out as a playmate to other dogs. I’m not strong enough to really play with him. He does not have the “soft mouth” labs are famous for, he bites down hard and one of these days, I’m pretty sure he’s going to break my arm. He’s faster than I am and has learned how to whip around on me and grab whatever is closest to him, whether it’s my leg or arm.

This morning he was in a playful mood and as I reached down to push him, he turned much faster than I expected and grabbed my right forearm and bit down. At first I thought he broke it, but after I pushed back my sweatshirt, I saw the hole and blood. How he can bite through fabric and break the skin, but not the fabric always surprises me. So now I’m sporting two bruises on one side of my arm and a large puncture wound on the other.

So in order to keep me in one piece and Orso tired and happy, I need to find him a playmate. I am not ready to get another dog, so renting him out is the next best option. So what do you think, any takers?

Second Guessing

I watched one of those videos you find on Facebook that have been shared by anyone. Granted there was a disclaimer on the video telling me to have a tissue handy, so I should have known. It was one of those animal videos about a dog being rescued by a man who happened to come upon a trash bag on the side of a creek. When the man looked in the bag, it held a yellow Labrador puppy that someone had cast into the creek to drown. The video spanned the puppy’s life growing up with the man, going to ocean to play in the ocean, the man getting married, having a family and getting older with the daughter.

The video showed how the dog was thankful for being rescued and the life he had with the man. The video then went to the dog being old and in pain asking for the man to end his life. In the video the dog was saying that he was happy with his life and was thankful the man was there and with him at the end, when he was being euthanized. I knew what was coming, (not real) just inferred in the video, but it hit home hard. Having had Charlie euthanized less than three months ago, I was a blubbering mess.

I wasn’t second guessing our decision because there was no other option for us, I was second guessing my decision not to be there with Charlie at the end. I couldn’t watch AJ our black lab be euthanized when he was diagnosed with a massive tumor in his chest and couldn’t watch Charlie either. Now I wonder if I took the cowards way out. Would it have been better for Charlie if I had stayed by his side to the end? I don’t know. Mitch tells me no, that he has done it and it was very hard to watch. I know he is protecting me, but I wonder now if I did Charlie a disservice by not being there for him at a time when he needed to know he was still loved so much.

I have had friends and acquaintances tell me it is so peaceful being there with their beloved friend at the end. I watched Buddy, our first lab die gasping for breath on our kitchen floor and it wasn’t peaceful at all, it was horrible not knowing what was wrong, not knowing what to do, then all of a sudden there was nothing, he lay there so still, I looked at Mitch not understanding he had died, hoping for a miracle. I admit I don’t handle death well; I know it happens, I know we need it, but I don’t want to see it happen. Maybe that makes me a coward or a sissy, I don’t know, but I hope that Charlie knows I loved him even though I wasn’t there at the end.

Franklin Falls Snoqualmie Pass

Today we traveled to the Cascade Mountains up to Snoqualmie Pass to hike at Denny Creek. This morning was a more typical day in the Pacific Northwest, rainy and overcast with temperatures in the sixties. Up in the mountains, there is still snow at the higher elevations, even in June, go figure.

We first drove up to Snow Lake Trailhead and hiked up to see a couple of waterfalls higher up but there was still snow that high and fresh snow at 4,000 feet. So we wandered down to the Franklin Falls trailhead and hiked up to the waterfall. Orso wanted to get into the river and splash around, but the current was way too fast and hard, we would have had to chase him all the way to the ocean.

We found cabins in the woods right on the river, talk about isolated. All in all we are getting to see things we never had back in the Midwest.

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Today The Pacific Ocean

Today we drove out to the coast to let Orso play in the ocean. There were a few surfers out there trying to catch a few waves. Overall the day was beautiful, a mild breeze, partly cloudy and mild temperatures. I found some intact sand dollars and made Mitch put them in his pockets to carry for me.

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We took Orso to an inlet first to see how he would do in the ocean with the salt water.

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Then we moved to the ocean shore to explore.

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Day Trip – Mt. St. Helen’s

Today we took a day trip and drove down to Mt. St. Helen’s Visitor Centers. It was a beautiful sunny day, great for exploring and taking some photos.

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Mt. St. Helen’s western side from a distance

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A closer look at the crater

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The side of the mountains facing the blast when the volcano blew.