Tag: writing

Look Ma No Cavities

Charlie came through the dental cleaning with flying colors.  No cavities, just one cracked tooth, but our vet said it still looked healthy so he left it in.  He came out to greet me with a total lack of manners.  He jumped up on the counter pretty clumsily, still suffering from the effects of the anesthesia.  Charlie looked a little loopy, his eyes drooped slightly, but he was happy to see me, all was forgiven. 

I went to pick him up on my way home from work, so I was driving my car, a Pontiac Firebird, which normally none of the dogs get to ride in.  Besides no room for a dog, I like driving in a car with no dog hair swirling around my face, or leaving a dog hair contrail when I drive with the top down.  I put Charlie in the car hoping he’d climb in the back and lay down.  No, he wanted to hang out in my lap.  I had to remind him that he was a sixty five pound dog, not a yorkie.   

We got home just in time for dinner.  Charlie rushed into the kitchen and drank water like he’d been lost in the desert for a week.  Poor baby.  As I dragged out the dog food buckets and dog bowls, Charlie looked at me with a skeptical look, wondering if he was really going to get fed or if I was just torturing him.  He ate with gusto, as always. 

At bedtime, Charlie climbed into his round bed, snuggled down and slept like a rock all night.  All is right with the world, again.

Not A Happy Camper

Charlie is not happy with us this morning.  He didn’t get his breakfast this morning.  No carrots as treats, no fruit after our breakfast and no water.  No, we’ve not decided to save money by rotating starving a different dog each day.  Even though it may come to that if gas prices keep going up.  No, Charlie has an appointment with the vet to get his teeth cleaned this morning, so it was no food or water after midnight for Charlie.

Which sucks for us, because even though we know why he can’t have anything while the other two get to dine sumptuously on Science Diet dog food, all the water they want and the exotic carrots they devour as treats, try explaining that to a dog.  All Charlie understands is that while AJ and Orso were eating breakfast this morning, he was locked up in the bathroom with Mitch.  Some consolation prize for a hungry dog.  I could hear the angry yelps all the way from the other side of the house behind the closed doors.

The look on his face after coming back from our walk was scary when no carrots were handed out to any of the dogs.  The other two kept looking at each other then at me wondering what was up too.  But I figured it would be truly cruel to pass out treats to two and not Charlie.  It was a challenge putting the water bucket down on the floor for AJ and standing guard, hovering over the water bowl until he was finished so Charlie wouldn’t try to drink any.  After watching with a hurt look on his face, Charlie finally left the kitchen and lay down in the dining room, waiting to be forgiven for whatever he did wrong and finally get to eat.

After our breakfast was over and no one got any pineapple chunks as is the usual custom, we have labs and they eat anything, remember, Charlie gave me one last hurt look of self pity and stomped off to the bedroom.  There he curled up into a tight little ball and refused to lift his head to look at me when I tried to pet him and explain once again why he couldn’t have anything to eat or drink.  I know he doesn’t understand me or care, all he knows is that I won’t feed him.  So of course now I feel terribly guilty even though as a human being with opposable thumbs, I know that what we’re doing is the best for him.  It doesn’t help though does it? 

When I left to go to work, Charlie still refused to look at me, curled in that tight ball.  I had no idea that dogs pout.  Who knew?

Just One Glance

That’s all it takes.  One look from Orso with his head lowered and it’s GAME ON!  AJ, our eleven year old lab accepts the challenge with loads of exuberance, causing Orso, our five year old lab to reply in kind.  This sets off a charge toward each other from opposite corners of the room and at the last moment just as the two would crash into each other, both raise up on their back legs and slam into each other with a forceful chest bump.  Then they hit the floor chewing and barking at each other.  AJ will then lunge at Orso, who for some reason will back up around to the hallway or stand in the bedroom doorway and bark at AJ. 

AJ will then pretend to charge, stop short of actually connecting with Orso, then back up and bark back at Orso.  Orso will lunge back and pretend to come out of the bedroom but doesn’t.  The coward.  All the while this is going on between those two, Charlie will stand at my side and bark at me, just to let me know that AJ and Orso were behaving badly and that he had nothing to do with it.  If I don’t react and make them stop on a timely basis for Charlie, he will then join the fray, taking it out on Orso.  This causes a mass Orso attack, hair up barking, snarling and chewing.  No blood is drawn just wet slobbery necks and legs. 

Orso will escape run towards the bedroom and leap onto the bed from the doorway with Charlie in hot pursuit.  One of these days, one or both of the dogs is going to crash through the bedroom window.  On that day, we’ll have dog stew for dinner.

Today Is Not My Day

Today is just not my day.  I didn’t sleep well, even though I took a sleeping pill last night.  Maybe having a seventy nine poundLabradorlying across my legs all night had something to do with my lack of sleep.  Consequently I didn’t even make the effort to get up and walk on the treadmill.  Sometime between last night after yoga class and this morning I lost one of my rings.  I didn’t notice it until I took my rings off to put on lotion this morning.  Talk about being aware of my surroundings. 

Since I spent the morning scouring the house, my gloves and the dogs’ mouths for any trace of the missing ring, I was running a little late to work.  That was when I noticed that I was almost out of gas.  That necessitated a trip to the gas station, woohoo.  There goes another thirty dollars and I get to smell like gas all day.  What a waste of the Calvin Klein, Euphoria I dearly love.

I get to work, turn on my computer and attempt to change my voicemail recording, but kept getting an automated response saying I was entering the wrong access code.  I thought “what the..”.  That was when I noticed that the extension on the display was not mine.  My first thought was that some jackass was playing a practical joke and had switched phones.  Not funny.  I spent five minutes looking through the extension list looking for the person whose extension I had.  I found it under “W”, of course it would be “W”.  To make matters worse, it was a person who worked the parts call center.  That means my phone would ring nonstop from customers wanting to order something that I would have no idea what they were asking for or how to get it to them.  I had no idea who had my phone or if they were calling 900 numbers on my extension, oh joy.  I could hear HR calling me to the office.  And it’s not even 7am.

I think I should just throw in the towel, go home and crawl back under the covers and the seventy nine pound lab.

A Poor Lost Soul

A washing machine has mysteriously appeared in front on our little burg’s City Hall.  It showed up last week and so far no one has come to claim it.  I have to ask myself if there was some ulterior motive behind the washing machine’s sudden appearance.  Is someone trying to make a point?  Does the City need to clean its dirty laundry?  Does the City have dirty laundry?  We live in a teeny tiny city with a population of about 250, only about 122 homes.  So how much dirty laundry can we have? 

The front entrance to the parking lot at City Hall is well lit with one of those horrendously bright mercury vapor lights, so I would think that the person or persons dropping off said washing machine were well illuminated and therefore either very gutsy or complete idiots.  Or maybe they were wearing cloaking devices that shielded their identities.  I wouldn’t have the nerve or the stupidity to discard an appliance in front of a city municipality structure.  I guess my parents beat the fear of consequences too well into my hardhead growing up.  Maybe that’s the problem today, minimal or no consequences for our actions.  Sorry I almost climbed up on my soapbox.

Anyway back to the speculation about the wayward washing machine.  Could it have run away from home, tired of all the dirty clothes it had been forced day in and day out to clean; now choosing to live a life on the mean streets of our humble little burg?  Maybe it’s just waiting for the bus, even though no bus ever comes to our fair town (not counting the school bus).  Maybe the previous owners are just getting a jump on our annual City Cleanup day.  The only problem with that theory is that one of the rules of the City Cleanup is no appliances.      

Maybe I should take pictures of the washing machine and post around the city and surrounding areas to see if anyone has lost the machine and is looking for it.  Wouldn’t that be a happy ending?

Winter Wrestling

When it’s too cold to go outside to wrestle.

I’m Mad as Hell…I Just Don’t Get It

I don’t get it.  Right now I’m so mad and frustrated I’m not even sure how to write what I want to say.  I just heard on the news that there is a bill in Missouri to make it legal to shoot mountain lions.  Just because.  Now granted I haven’t read the entire bill, but there is already a law making it only legal to kill a mountain lion if it is threatening you or your livestock.  I don’t need a law for that.  Common sense says that if something, man or animal, is threatening me or my family (dogs included), I have no qualms about killing the threat.  But to just kill something for giggles and grins is totally repugnant to me. 

Why do we do this?  We build and destroy the habitat of wildlife and are then outraged when the deer eat our hostas, the raccoons tear up our trash and there are mountain lions walking through our backyard.    Why are we so myopic that the world is all about us?  I’m not a total tree hugger, but my god when do we stop and start being the caretakers and good stewards of this world?

Okay, I’ll come down off my soapbox, but I’m still pissed as hell.  I just don’t get it.

It’s a Conspiracy

My dogs are trying to kill me.  I’ve suspected this for a while now, but after our walk this morning I’m sure of it.  Yesterday, they were straining against the leash searching the dark for an unknown opportunity to jerk me around like a puppet.  This morning I saw the deer a fraction of a second before they did, but not soon enough to rein them in before AJ and Orso lunged forward to give chase.  AJ weighs in at seventy five pounds while Orso weighs a mere ninety five pounds for a combined weight of one hundred seventy pounds, just a bit more than me.  Not to mention the difference in muscle mass.  I come out the loser on both counts and they know it.  The only thing I have in my favor is opposable thumbs.

Charlie trying to get a better angle at the deer made a quick turn from being on my right to circling around behind me and lunge forward on my left, with the leash positioned perfectly behind my knees.  My only saving grace was that he bumped into the other two keeping me from crashing to ground on my butt.  They dragged me about a half of dozen steps forward before I was able to get them under control with my steely voice. I really screamed loudly enough to wake the neighborhood.  The three heathens didn’t even have the good sense to pretend to look repentant. 

I don’t understand it.  I am the bringer of food.  I take them hiking and swimming.  I’m a good time.  Why would the dogs want me dead?  Just because I make sure they get a bath every two weeks in the winter and at least weekly in the summer.  More often depending on what they smell like.  I make them behave, no chasing the cat or running up and down the neighbor’s fence taunting their dog.  I don’t let them eat the disgusting dead thing they have found.  That couldn’t be it, could it?  Surely not.  Maybe I should sleep with one eye open.

Something is Out There

I am always on alert when I walk the dogs in the mornings.  Mainly because it’s dark and I don’t want to get caught off guard when a critter moves causing the dogs to try and give chase with me as the boat anchor on the other end of the leash.  This morning though the dogs started off on high alert as soon as we walked out the door.  Charlie with his head high sniffing the air, catching the tantalizing scent of something.  Orso had his head cocked, with his ears up and turned forward listening to the predawn noises.  As we started off on the walk, Orso and Charlie were straining at the leash, pulling ahead searching the dark for the unknown threat or possible prey.  I reined them back closer to me in an effort to avoid having my shoulders dislocated while I searched the dark for movement too.  I strained to hear any sounds of a possible threat, but the wind was too strong, blowing the dead leaves and bushes all around, making it impossible for my sorry ears to pick up the sound of any imminent danger.

The dogs were keenly aware that something was out there but not sure where yet, jerking back and forward, working to pick up any clue to find the unknown early morning intruder.  Because of their actions, I started imagining what could possibly be out there, watching us.  I have a very vivid imagination and being an Underworld and True Blood fan, I came up with all sorts monsters and creatures out there in the dark waiting, watching and tracking us.  It was a toss-up between, vampires, werewolves or mountain lions.  I also threw in muggers, murderers or the random escapee from the insane asylum.  I was able to concoct a pretty good story about a harrowing encounter with a very large mountain lion during the walk.  Of course, it all worked out and now I have a pet mountain lion.  Not really, but it’s fun to pretend. 

Whatever was out there in the dark watching us, moved off because about halfway through the walk, both dogs calmed down and focused on the task at hand, finding the perfect bush to pee on.

I Got Rhythm – Not!

When I was supposed to be concentrating on my breathing and clearing my thoughts in yoga class, I started thinking about my performance or lack there of, at my last Zumba class.  I was thinking about Zumba class partially because it was on my mind and partially because I don’t dare totally relax in the breathing exercise for fear of falling asleep.  Mitch swears that I snore and even though I know I don’t snore, God forbid some fluke accident and I did maybe snore, I would be mortified.  And that would be the end of yoga.  Yoga classes twice a week and Zumba class once a week are my most recent attempt to get back in some semblance of shape.  I really love yoga class and the way I feel since starting the class last summer.  I can do a tripod again, something I hadn’t been able to do for decades.  I can’t remember the yoga name for it, but we called it a tripod in school.  A tripod is where you are on your hands and knees.  You lower your head to the mat between your hands, with your arms bent at a right angle, then bring your knees up and place them on your bent arms and balance yourself on your head and hands.  When you get really good, you can move up to a headstand, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.  Since I’ve had such great success doing yoga, I figured I’d branch out and take more challenging classes, like Zumba.  Yeah right.

I’ve had two classes so far, the first with two other women and the second was just me alone with the instructor.  I really like my instructor.  She is the sweetest person.  Young in shape and she says positive things to me.  I stood behind her off to the side so that I could watch her and myself in the mirror.  Big mistake!  I should have just watched her and not me.  Her moves were fluid and in perfect rhythm to the music, while I was stiff, graceless and behind on every move.  She would signal the upcoming move but half the time I was going the wrong direction, doing the move backwards, sideways or not at all.  Basically I suck at Zumba.  Maybe I was wearing the wrong clothes.  A baggy t-shirt and sweats are not especially sexy or hot looking when trying to dance to sultry Latin tunes.  Even the creepy old guy that came to gawk in the doorway took one look at me and ran screaming into the street.

Halfway through the class, as I was sucking air, sweating like a racehorse and becoming even more wooden in my moves, it dawned on me, maybe I should take up kickboxing.  I don’t have to be able to sway my hips in a sexy manner when doing a roundhouse kick.  I think I can do tough, because fluid and rhythm are definitely not in my body’s vocabulary.