You're an FLF

We possess the world's greatest Boxer dog.  Don't send me messages about how yours is better. I know Boxers rock the planet. But we have a Boxer that does the following:

1. Hi-fives,
2. Greets you by licking your knee, and
3. Fake snores

Yeah. You didn't read that incorrectly. The Kittie comes to me a couple of weeks ago and says, "Mom, the dog faked snored at me today."

I said, "What the hell does that mean?"

Kittie replies, "I was trying to play with him and he didn't want to and he started snoring.  What an ass, huh?"

While I didn't think she was lying to me I found it odd that the dog could do something like that, regardless of the level of righteous he is. I *can* promise you that our dog snores so loudly that he'll wake me in the master bedroom (note: tv runs all night, door closed...his sleeping self sawing a log WAKES me .....) but fake snoring seemed a stretch. Until I witnessed it.

While informing the Boxer Doggie that he was awesome (as he tried to take a nap) he looked at me and snored. I was both mystified and floored.  Could he be that smart? Could he be that snarky? Am I that annoying?

Moving on.

Hub tolerates the dog.  He FAKES that he doesn't like him very much.  He also PRETENDS he doesn't recognize the awesome. Hub enjoys asking the dog to smell his feet, complaining about the fact that the dog smells, and telling him he's a fat lazy fuck.  The latter has been shortened to FLF.  "Duke, you are an FLF." Like the dog CARES that he thinks that.  He's not fat. He is kinda lazy but if I had Duke's job I would be, too.

SO...

The other day our awesome dog was doing what he normally does (lay flat on the floor like a slug) after dinner. Hub sneered at him and said, "You are the biggest FLF I've ever seen."

Duke, without missing a beat, snored at Hub while looking him right in the eyes.

Yeah buddy.  Insult me, will you.

I told you.  Best. Boxer. Dog. Ever.

Thank You for the Opportunity

My beautiful daughter sends me a text message from school early Friday morning to tell me that one of her classmates passed away suddenly. With stricken horror I reply with "OH NO!" 

This young lady was not one of my daughter's close friends. She never came to our house or called her on the phone. But she had been in my daughter's classes. They'd passed in the halls and seen each other in the lunch room. We've all known people like that. 

The facts surrounding her death, while unclear, point toward an aneurysm. Her mother went to her room and found her daughter on the floor. They called 911 and she was gone before they got her to the hospital. (All hearsay...I truly know no facts.)

Today my daughter and her classmates are attending the funeral of a teenager. I have to separate myself from the nightmare (that can't be a strong enough word) that child's parents are enduring. 

It is not our place to question God and His plan. I know that. I am reminded in the face of a tragedy that the opportunities we are given are fleeting and all gifts. 

Last night my daughter asks if I'd make her pizza as she didn't feel very well and was hungry.  I was happy to do it.  I sat down on the floor in front of the couch after the pizza went into the oven to watch the third quarter of the Cowboys game and there on the couch, her head on a pillow leaning against my husband's lap, is my sleeping teenager. 

Thank you, God. For the opportunity to make pizza for a sleeping kid.  I'm certain with every shred of my being the moms who have lost their babies would give ANYTHING to make pizza for their sleeping child.

I woke up this morning and my first thoughts were of work and what had to be done today and my plans for dinner this evening and...... my mind wandered to this mother who woke up this morning and thought, "I bury my daughter today."

Thank you, God. For the opportunity to think only of work and food this morning.

This is the hell of peace for sure.

Strike a Manly Pose

Today Hub and I were discussing the joy we got as children when our parents received the JC Penney & Sears catalogs around Christmas time.  This is an activity that our daughter has been completely deprived of as absolutely no one sends consumers a 4" thick catalog anymore. (Or if they do I haven't seen any!) Of course, with the internet it doesn't make financial sense for a merchant to spend the time & money on an actual catalog.

But there was something amazing about getting that giant book in the mail.  As kids we would quickly skip over all the boring things and hit the toy section which was pages and pages and pages of dream fodder. Ahh.... the time spent flipping through looking at Barbie condominiums, Slinkies, Monchichis, Speak n Spells, Tinker Toys, Stretch Armstrong, jumping/bounce horses...it was wonderful.

Since I was one of four children, my mother used to allot each of us time with the catalog to avoid fighting (it didn't work) and once an large brawl broke out when one of my sisters used a pair of scissors to cut a few items out of the catalog thus keeping any of us from "picking that" for a Christmas gift.

Looking back on it now, I was so busy drooling over toys that the GOLD buried within the pages of those 1970's catalogs was lost on me.  What I wouldn't do to have JUST ONE of those entire books in my possession.....after all....what the FRAK is better than THIS:

Drought and the Foot Effect

We are in the midst of a horrific drought. The best way to exemplify this is by stating the following:

On Saturday in the wee small hours of the morning, Hub and I were awakened by rain.  And I don't mean there was some loud-ass thunderstorm going on.  I mean drizzle was hitting the windows and both of us started awake at the same time wondering what in the blue hell we were hearing.  What is that??? Is that...water????? Falling from the SKY????????

Well, on Friday the bit of rain we were going to get was nothing but a pipe-dream that the weather people said we had a 1% chance of even getting so water on the ground was something I didn't bother to think about.

My daily chores at work include running to the post office and the bank (if needed). The post office runs are usually wildly entertaining.  Just the other day I select a parking spot as close to the building as possible to avoid bursting into flames between the cool interior of the car and the building only to find that the spot I chose was in front of a broken down Bronco.  The two men trying to fix it are having a discussion as I get out of the car that went like this:

Person #1:  Look.  This cable looks like it was chewed on by a rat.
Person #2: (mildly annoyed) Yeah. I guess we need to think about doing something about the rats.

WHAT????? You *think* you should do something about the *rats*???? Blech. My guess is it's not PET rats run amuck in your garage so ....gross.

So.

I go to the bank on Friday and I select the closest spot (again) in order to avoid spontaneous combustion (again) since it is over 103 degrees (again) by noon. To my surprise there is a small pothole that is filled with....water. (!!) So I exit the vehicle jumping gracefully from the driver's seat, over the puddle, on to the curb.  I glance back as I'm walking toward the building because seeing a pool of water on the ground in Dallas is such an amazing sight, and I notice that there is a layer of scum on top of the puddle filling this pothole.  This is immediately odd to me because if you run a sprinkler here for 30 seconds you attract a flock of birds so I assume it's filth in this hole.

Banking complete, I come out and proceed to avoid this hole filled with water and stepping over it to get into the car my plant foot slips on what I assume is mud.  I catch myself and my other foot comes down in a natural reaction landing . . . square in the middle of this warm, squishy, scum-covered puddle in the pot hole.

<<insert cry of disgust>>

I have flip-flops on and as such my right foot is now drenched with I don't know what (but it is liquid). Due to the dryness we are suffering from I carry bottles of water with me. Sometimes I forget them in the car, however, and if you turn the engine (and, hence the a/c) off for 5 seconds it's 200 degrees in your car.  I sit in the driver's seat....dry foot on the floor, drenched foot dangling outside the vehicle...wishing instantly for a shower stall and Lava soap.

Instead I reach for one of the two bottles of water in my cup holders....a desperation move to get rid of whatever is currently covering my foot.....I dump the contents of the bottle and ....

My foot is now on FIRE as this is the bottle from this morning and the water inside is now approximately 400 degrees.  I yelp and the person currently exiting the bank turns and looks at me as if I am insane.

Hopefully, the boiling water killed all the germs..... as soon as I got back to the office, however, I covered the foot in hand sanitizer.

Thank you S&G

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sounds of silence

Acrimony

We're going to start today off with a photograph of me:

Now then. While driving home last night I had a neighbor whip out of her driveway without looking.  I wasn't driving very fast.  I didn't have to lock 'em up or anything.  But as she swerves around me I give a quick toot of my horn.  Apparently Kittie threw her hands up in the air or something...I can't say for sure if she did or not because I didn't see it.

I drive up to the next block, turn on our street, and then into our driveway.  As we climb out of the car this woman comes to a screeching halt at the foot of our drive, rolls her window down and screams, "What is wrong with you? What is wrong with your passenger throwing her hands up at me?" I saw red INSTANTLY. Without thinking I retort with, "Ya know what....just watch when yer backing out of your driveway and stuff like that won't happen. Better yet, get killed."  She flipped me off and drove away.

I was in the state of Cat Hiss for the rest of the night. (I must give credit where credit is due. Hub is acutely aware of the moment Cat Hiss arrives...he can see the bitch-face from a mile away....and was sweet and considerate and didn't attempt to add to it....even though I'm sure he wanted to beat me with a stick.)

It wasn't until this morning that I started to examine my behavior.  I freely admit that Wrath is my most beloved and favorite deadly sin. But perhaps it's time to rein that in.  Didn't set a terrific example for Kittie by telling this person to 'get killed'.  Yay me.

So today is day ONE of seeing how long I can go without Cat Hiss.

If you want to start betting how long this will last by all means do so. I'm at peace with that for sure.

Sometimes They Are Still Alive

I am not so much on spiders. Living in Texas does mean that we have a pretty decent population of poisonous spiders like black widows and brown recluses. I've seen those around.  The occasional tarantula rings the doorbell every now and then. (I pretend not to see them. Big, hairy, slow and methodical. Blech.) The black widows and brown recluse spiders all get a nice healthy shot of Raid when they are seen.  I don't know if I own enough Raid to kill a tarantula and, really, we see them so rarely I don't know if I could bring myself to kill one. (NOTE: If one is ever seen in the house, however, we're going to move.)

Inside the house are wolf spiders. Hub has standing orders that the wolfies are to be either left alone or they are to participate in a catch and release program. They eat bugs. We don't have any....or maybe I should say we don't have any because of the wolf spiders.  While we've seen the rather large wolfie in the house before, they are generally not too big. I have spider catching apparatus ready at all times.  One clear plastic cup.  One cardboard coaster stolen from Chili's. Place cup over spider. Slide coaster under spider. Open door. Toss spider. Since they are harmless to people, I'm actually a little tiny bit fond of them. But just a little bit.

Last night I'm standing in the kitchen banging around trying to decide what I was going to cook for dinner. Something catches my eye.  In the corner of my cabinets is an unidentified spider the size of my palm.

I'm not a shrieker. I abandoned the Silly Girl a long time ago.  However, this massive, multi-colored spider elicited a very loud, "HOLY SHIT!" I squelched the urge to run from the room.

Hub wasn't home from work yet.  Kittie & friend were sleeping (yeah at 5:30 p.m.....teenagers can fall asleep at the drop of a dime) and that was probably a good thing because Kittie would have gotten a stick and polka dotted kerchif, packed some of her belongings and carried herself right out of the house never to be heard from again if she'd seen this monster.

Fortunately, my uncle was there to rescue me.  When he heard my exclamation of an obscene nature he wandered into the kitchen.  There he finds me standing in the middle of the room, staring catatonically at this unwelcome visitor. "Wow!" he says. "What kind of spider is that?"

"I don't know. I don't care. Kill it."

He walks over and bends down to look closer and Silly Girl arrives. "NO! Don't GET NEAR IT!"

With a chuckle he says, "Ok ok ok."

"K.I.L.L. the little bastard please!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Silly Girl is starting to get panicky. I start to dig around under the sink for a can of Raid.

"Don't spray that in the kitchen!" Uncle says....he grabs a dishtowel. (I have Good Dishtowels and Bad Dishtowels.  All the Bad Dishtowels have bleach spots. He wisely chose one of those.)  Folding it in half, he makes a grab for this huge spider.  Which then LEAPS FROM HIS GRASP with amazing speed.

Some girl screamed. It might have been me.

Said spider climbs right back to where it was before and this time Uncle doesn't miss. I can hear the disgusting 'pop' of death as he closes his fist around the portion of the towel containing what I'm assuming to now be spider parts.  He turns and hands me the towel.

I take it, prepared to shake what I can into the trash and immediately set Bad Dishtowel to soak in some bleach.  "Let's look at it!" Uncle says.  I open the towel.  (Why do spiders ball themselves up when they pass. It's gross.)  We both peer inside to examine what is left of the spider and THE FRACKING THING spreads it's legs and flips back over.

Some girl starts screaming again.  Same girl throws towel onto floor and starts jumping up and down on it.

Sometimes....they are still alive.  I am NOT at  peace with that.