Mother Nature and the Damn Dogs

When Mother Nature calls I have no choice but to answer.  She came calling one minute after I left the parking lot at work. I kept going thinking it is only 10 minute drive she can wait. The surprise was on me she was not waiting.  I was doing  20 mph when I hit the kitchen and my coat was already off; I flew by the kitchen table at break neck speeds and tossed my coat on table. Before I could take another step I heard it hit the ground but my urgency kept me on my intended path to the bathroom. I came out feeling better to only find the Damn Dog gutting my coat. Seriously what happen to just pissing on the thing.

Christmas at the Zoo

The girls and I went to the Zoo tonight to enjoy the winter Christmas lights and the animals. We found the Rhino but he did look a little cold.

We found the big cats sleeping and the big boy can cuts some Zzzzzzzs.

 The snow came down and the Christmas carols played the animals where all snuggled in an the night was a winter wonderland.

Multi tasking or lunacy

I find my life is a state of trying to multi task to get through it, yet it is a state of Lunacy. Underneath I have always known that I was just a chicken with my head cut off but I failed to see this is a huge problem, it just is what it is. I'm not sure I really sat down and thought about it till Friday afternoon. Lets just say Friday was a day of hell for me. I played the game of "let me do this, but first."  This is where you head off to do something and see you have forgotten an important tool to complete your task so you go back to get said tool to only get back to where you should be to find you forgot something else. Now we have those days so we tend to rely on others to step in and help, to only find they are not going the same speed we are and we just end up repeating step one and two till we want to scream stop the world and let me off. Stop the madness! Friday was so bad for me the only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that at 2 pm I would go to the hospital and roll up my sleeve have an IV drip attached and lights out for around 2 hours.  I suffer from an iron deficiency and about once a year I go to the hospital for a round of iron infusions. They take about 2 hours out of my day and I go once a week often they last 6 to 8 weeks. For the sake of it is what it is I learned to look forward to the stress free nap that comes with this. I get liquid benadryl and it knocks me out, I can not stress over the loss of this time and the worry I am not doing something else I need to do and I can't fight it. So sit back do what I have to do and nap away.
This Friday the hospital was running a little behind so I did not get in at 2 and the waiting room was full. I sat and wiggled my leg to keep the anxiety at bay knowing that was the best I could do while I just waited the thing I have the hardest time doing. Waiting......
After 30 min the Tech came out and ask for two of us to come on back. He is the person that get us folks back, weighed put in a room, gets us drinks not alcoholic as we all wish, Now this particular time he is hurrying as he knows the  people and nurses are waiting. This is not my first rodeo so I know what to do. I filed through the first door along with the other two and wait for him. Then when he shows us through the second door I am on my way. I am not stopping and he yells after me Mrs. Y your in two. I headed for my recliner chair and I know once I am there I can relax and my nap is about to start.  I am relaxing watching this poor guy run back and forth trying to get everything for all of us and finds his way back to my room then remembers something off he goes. Then he comes back and realizes something else and off he goes again. The whole time he is smiling and making all the patients comfortable while awaiting their procedures.  When he comes back to my room I am telling him my day was quite the same as his. We laughed as we both could relate to the chicken with out a head day then we ran though some of our lunacy and laughed as he  put the blood pressure cuff on my arm. I recapped  my day expecting my blood pressure to be good as I have sat there relaxing for at least 10 min. As the machine stops and I see my pressure is off my charts I almost chocked. He told me that he will take it again and explained many things can make it high. He turns it on again and headed out the door to get me some ice water. As I felt the pressure releasing on my arm I watched the monitor  with great intensity when it stop and sounded its final results it was normal. I bust into laughter think crap I made my blood pressure hit the ceiling just recapping my horrific day.  By the time the tech came back I was laughing so hard I was crying. It took a minute to explain why I was rolling and then we both just laughed. He left feeling the great release that comes from laughing and thanked me for the laugh, I slept like a log. We must find the laughter in the Lunacy to make it through, and to my hospital tech you do make a difference to all of us who must be there when we would rather be else where

The Christmas tree is up, really up.

It seems I have lost the Christmas spirit. I hate shopping that maybe the biggest problem but surly not the only one. I use to put so much into Christmas to make sure everyone had a great Christmas one to keep cheer going far after the presents where open and Turkey consumed. I also had great joy in this. But year after year the work consumed me and no one seemed to care if the table look marvelous the tree brilliant the joy of Christmas caroling with friends, and all the old family traditions we had along with some of my new ones. The spirit seeped away year after year. Now last Christmas I thought hey I will take the kids to Disney world for Christmas and we can all have fun and I made plans and was totally looking forward to Christmas. Well any great plan can fall apart and that ours did. It was such a bad Christmas I ended up with my head in a pillow feeling sorry for myself.
Now this year I am going to try again. This time I will make it a Christmas mission. One for all of us. We will again plan a trip to Nova Scotia Canada, I am going to dog transport. We will move dogs to new foster homes and forever homes and be gone a week. It is a lot of work to get all this together and then drive 26 hours and lets not talk about dogs in hotel rooms. None of us have been there before so we will see some of the sights and meet some wonderful folks that live there. It will be an adventure and I really need to have an adventure to get me through the holidays. The kids are looking forward to an adventure and the dogs will just be the adventure. I am hoping to accomplish many things with all of this and have some much needed fun.
With all of this the kids still wanted a Christmas tree. I decided to give them one that the dogs will not piss on and I even put it at eye level. Now they are ready to shoot me but I thought it was great I even got green apple sent.

Smart ass dogs.

I know dogs are smart but I still think I can pull a fast one over on them. It mostly back fires on me but that does not stop my from trying again and again.  The Texas fly swatter is dead and gone we have tried many thing to deter the dogs from what ever they are doing that annoys the hell out of us. We have had some success with squirt bottles. They work the best when well chilled, nothing like a cold blast of water on 102 degree bare skin to make'em stop. The problem being the bottle is never in the room you are in when the damn dogs start acting up. The other day I came home and the dogs start barking and will not stop. I can not hear myself think let alone yell at them and get the girls attention who are upstairs. Mako is standing at the gate just barking his ass off. I kept yelling at him to stop and at the same time looking around the kitchen for the bottle. Of course it was in the living room and a gate between me and it. As I reached meltdown temps and could feel a full blown anxiety attack coming on I turned and cupped my hand under the water faucet and filled my palm with water and tossed the water at him. Now if you have ever tried to throw a hand full of water at any thing or any one it is like pissing in the wind. Now I am wet and pissed off, so out of sheer frustration I grabbed the bottle of dish soap and stuck it out in front of me as if I was going to squirt him with it. I swear he started to laugh at me. The look on his face said are you nuts what the hell is that, and he kept on barking. I am so frustrated now I grabbed the window cleaner as it has it is a squirt bottle, again with the what the hell look. Okay! Ass hole I know you know I won't, but let me get in that living room and get the real deal and you're toast. I dropped the bags I had in my hand and jumped the gate. He was laughing at me,I swear, as I leaped the gate. I got the water bottle and all I saw was his bare ass vanish into the dog room. Now the barking has stopped and my kids think I have lost my mind and the dog is still laughing at me. Awwwwwww quiet....... and a red face my fav.

Stamps, seems so easy.

Postal pick up where I work is at 2:30 PM, if I can remember that I need to mail something the next thing is to remember to get it to the front office to go out by 2:30. Now if I just bought a book of stamps I would not have a problem as I could just drop it off on my way coming and going to work. Buying a book of stamps would be my biggest problem, I never think about stamps till I need them. We have a mail machine that post marks company mail so it is very easy to take my money and pay for the stamp and have the mail metered and sent. I found a book a few months ago and it still had a couple of stamps left in it. I have it in the back of my mind about these stamps but have yet to find them again. I do worry I dreamt I had these stamps, as I have spent many hours over the last few months looking for them. Now for a week I have been trying to remember a bill I have to pay and keep forgetting to get it in the mail. I would pull up to the mail box and look for the damn stamps and then drive away piss off. Next morning forget about the bill until I was home and in my jammies the next night then off to my purse I would go looking for the damn stamps again. I am embarrassed to tell you just how many time I have done this on the one bill alone.  Then at work the next day look up and realized I missed the pick up time and so needless to say I opened the bill took the check out ripped it up and wrote a new check including a late fee, Now I am really pissed at myself. So I taped the bill to my computer screen so I can get it to the office tomorrow and get the thing mailed. Next day I am running my butt off and keep telling myself to make sure I get the bill to the office and mail it. The last time I told myself it was already 2:15, I grabbed my purse to get some money and run. I open my wallet and there was no money "CRAP", I started to dig in the bottom. As I creeped myself out, digging in hell knows whats in the bottom of my purse, looking for change. As I retrieved my hand it had all sorts of crumbs under my nails, I shuddered and kept digging as I was almost out of time again. I found a small hand full of coins grabbed my bill and ran. I got to the front desk and ask if I had gotten there in time as I extended my hand full of coins and crumb. I got the answer I was looking for but the eyes were on my coins. I snicked and said "If you have a hazmat suit it will be OK. Then I revealed the likely disgusting stuff that could be mixed with my coins.  We both laughed and she held open the money box for me to drop the money in and she turned for the hand sanitizer. I am real sure the receptionist will not ever want to take money from me again.

Polar Express more than a movie.

A day for all to enjoy and bring back memories.

The Pere Marquette 1225's blueprints were the prototype for the locomotive image, and its sounds were used in the 2004 film The Polar Express. This is its first year to use the 1225 Pere Marquette in  the North Polar Express in Michigan. What a wonderful way to evoke visions of days gone bye.

The girls and I wanted to do something fun without the dogs and have a day to play, hence the childhood escape back in time. Now my kids have no idea about such things but to me it was a step back to times gone bye. The times I long for, the innocence of folks the simple things in life that are missing in today's society.  When we enjoyed being with other people, the simplest thing brought such joy to all. When Christmas was a holiday not a season that starts before Halloween. People believed in the spirit of Christmas not the consumerism that has taken over our society today. I understand it, with out the constant buying and consuming of goods our country ceases to exist. But in no way do I like it. I use to only care about paying my bills and buying food to eat. Now I want just like the rest of the country but I so miss the days of need not want.  I saw something over the weekend about some folks giving thanks for what they had on Thanksgiving then on Black Friday the next day being part of a stampede looking to get the hottest bargains, just running over folks. Now I want but I can not be part of the craziness that has come over this country. So to have a day of simple pleasure was so heart warming to me it made me believe again.
The Railroad and the little village of Ashley MI out done themselves putting on this day of believing for all to see and and enjoy.  The railroad had all the traditions of riding the rails in place. The old style steam engine, what a joy to hear the whistle and hear the bell of the train. They had engineers, brakeman, conductors, ticket takers, steward, porters and the cloths to match.

 
The village of Ashley came out in full to greet all of the passages of the Polar Express. It was like stepping off the train straight into a scene from Funny Farm, where the whole town came out to put on an old fashion Norman Rockwell Christmas to help sell the Farmer's home.  The Mayor was there to greet all. The town closed down reg traffic to the center of the village to allow all to roam the streets and submerge our selves into a nostalgic past.

They even had Hobo's and their tents along the tracks for the surreal effect of the era of train travel.  Old cars, lunch in the community center, horse drawn wagons and they even came equipped with lap throws to keep your legs warm. There was a lot of attention to details that I had mostly forgotten but it soon came back.

 The citizens of Ashely put on a very nice time for all to have. Santa came and Ms Claus roamed the streets greeting all, there were Reindeer to pet and elf's that help with family photos and passed out candy canes and rang there jingle bells for all to hear. Christmas carols where heard from every where, the only thing missing was snow. 

At the end of the day we were given a small token of the day. The message was simple but heartwarming as it in fact was a day of believing.

The train drew great crowds of people at every intersection to take pictures and wave as we moved across the landscape of the county side, adding to the fun of the ride.

I would like to thank the folks of Ashely who all put on a great day for us to enjoy. And the Railroad for taking us there in such nostalgic wonder.

Can I keep blaming Old age?

When I was younger, not young, I thought being old was going to be great as I could get discounts on coffee and hotel rooms, blame stuff on my old mind and so on. Now for all intent and purposes this has been just what I thought it would be, a time in my life when I could relax and not have to be so responsible for so much. There was a time I wished to be old to get out from under the pressures that come with day to day life.  This has not happened like I thought, pressure has increased as dogs and kids have come along. But the bad memory thing has kicked in to over drive. I have to admit it did not help re-leave any of the stress but I found some comfort in the ability to forget things and have folks understand I am just old..The fact that I am becoming the butt of all the jokes one has on old folks never entered into my vision of getting old.
I bought a kindle so I can listen to books while I drive. I miss reading just no time so I though my hours of time in the car taking dogs one place or another I could use listening to books. The kids showed me how to use the kindle to check e-mails and such so it sits next to the couch and when I get home and taking a little break before jumping into the next part of my day, I use it to check my social media, e-mails etc.
I have not spent much time on the computer down stairs as of late so I have gotten myself use to using the old fingers on the screen to touch and move things around. This has been and interesting learning experience but I still have not gotten the whole texting thing or chicken pecking on the kindle.  The damn thing confuses me as I have a hell of a time spelling and the kindle wants to correct everything I type, whats up with that any way. So I type away and look up and it looks like gibberish then as I am trying to remember what I was saying and correct it, the damn thing changes it again and still don't know what I am typing, For awhile it had me believing I couldn't type, I thought my finger tips where so big I could not just hit one key. Then I figured out the thing was trying guess what I was writing and changed everything I would type. I really hate a machine that thinks it knows everything. It's like a GPS telling me to turn right when I know where I am at and I need to turn left, then it want to argue with me. 
Now the kids have it all down and keep trying to get me educated in the all the new technology.
The girls bring the lap tops to kitchen and surf the Internet while we chit chat. One of the girls ask me a question and I approached the lap top and put my finger on the screen to scroll up on it and the girls yell "what are you doing"?  I'm trying to move this damn thing up. Ma this is not a kindle it's a laptop. Now we all start laughing and the jokes kick in. That in its self is bad enough but 5 minutes later I try again and get mad because I can't just move the thing with my finger, guess old dogs just don't learn new tricks or retain the old ones,

Dead down feathers still fly.

I use to think I shared my bed with my dogs. I had a down comforter that was like sleeping in a cloud. I loved my bed and loved having the dogs in the bed with me. But I have come to learn I do not share my bed with the dogs, they let me sleep with them. Slowly they have taken over and my poor down comforter has been flattened. Those feathers just could not keep up with three washes a week. Pissed on, romped on, laid on and even shit on, just killed my comforter. 

I have tried to barricaded my room to keep the dogs out of it while I am not in the room.  But they jump, climb or hell the kids just take the gate down and let them run a muck in the room.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PUcJ20AtKc
I always use to make my bed before I left my room in the morning, I hate to get into an unmade bed. Slowly I got so tired of making my bed 5 times a day, I then dropped it to 3 times and now I just shake it out before I crawl in. Every night I find toys, crumb of some sort, dirt where they scritch the grass after they do their business and dirt cakes in their nails and paws. Most nights it's mud as the dew has started to wet the grass down when they go out for the last time before bed. They steal food and drag it down to my room and eat it in my bed. I have found Halls cough drop bags and wrappers, potato chip bags, gum (chewed) and lets not for get body waste. They love to chew the girls underwear in my bed.

  I love a cold room to sleep in so winter time is my best time of year for sleeping. I loved my down feather comforter it was so toasty warm and then add the body heat of 10 dogs and it could snow in my room and I would not feel it. The comforter has lost most of its feathers over the years and washing it 3 time a week tends to kill down feathers. I have added a blanket along with the sheet to keep warm and got bigger naked dogs to cover more of my body to stay warm. I find that I can never get everyone under the blanket at one time, there is always one in between some under some on top and the one that is always spinning gets twisted in the them. Getting them all under and settled down can take and act of God and Congress to get done. As I am trying to get one under the blanket his leg is still sticking out and the more I tug at the blankets the more the leg resist and then the dog bucks and bumps one of the others or just plain jumps on one. Then it starts a bitching match and the ones under the blanket are now on top and the one spinning is wound so tight I have to get up and untwist the blankets to get her out. Some nights this can take 15 minutes to get everyone settled. Then it takes another 15 minutes to get the heat built up enough to take the chill off. Once we are all snug as a bug in a rug and sleep has taken over, I want it to stay that way till morning. The down feathers that are left have taken on a life of their own some nights. One dog will think it hears something and bark, the others all jump in unison to take off and the blanket catch air and hovers over me as the dogs fall back to the bed and run like hell to the door. Now what ever heat we managed to make is gone and the dogs are all on heightened alert as I yell at them to get back in bed. Then the old house settles and makes a creak and we start all over again. These nights I have to get up and get sweatshirts and sweat pants on to stay warm.
As I am shaking out my bed tonight I think I will just put the sweats on because one of the kids is out and I know my feathers will hover tonight when she comes home.

Just wrap them.

Life at work has gotten pretty stressful and I feel like I am in a pressure cooker most days.  Some days more than others. So once I am in the, work like a fool mode, I really do not want to be bothered, and most definitely not by my kids who can take drama to all new levels.  Last week I am in the trenches at work when the phone call with the panicked voice of one of the girls comes in. English is the second language for the girls and when they are submerged in drama about something, Hell everything, they start talking so fast It is hard for me to jump into the conversation and pick up on the subject let alone follow it.  So far all I had gotten on the call was I left my bag at home and  I am on the bus. As my mood deteriorates I said "And what do you want me to do about it?" Ma I don't have a bra. Wow! Thanks for sharing, how did you get on the bus with out one on? As the panic rose in her voice my ability to figure out what she was talking about waned. Will you please start over and tell what is wrong? The speed at which she was explaining was as if she was a 45 record turned up to a 78. After many questions I learned she was trying to cute corners and decided to not shower two times in one day. So she skipped the morning shower left her night cloths on put a coat on, packed clean cloths and gym cloths to work out in then left them at home and got on the bus. Her choices was get off the bus and catch one going back home walk a mile home from bus stop get bag and start over. OR buy some other cloths and continue on and hope she made it to class on time. She oped to stop and buy more cloths. Money being another problem she thought she would jump off the bus run into Volunteers of America second hand store and grab something to wear. All went well till she realized they do not sell bras. She tried dollar store and still no luck. I am laughing my ass off as she tells me this.  I have not helped in any way and all I could do was laugh at her. Then she yelled " What should I do?" Now I am not only laughing I am being sarcastic when I yelled back "wrap them like we wrap Mako's ears and go to class" Click!  I guess that was not the answer she was looking for. But it did make my day better by laughing so hard at her.

My nursing skills suck

As my close rescue friends will tell you I am not good with the sick and injured dogs. I can work with them but I do much better with behavior issues.  I am not squeamish and I do not panic but I do get scared. I am always worried about keeping up with all the medical needs they will have. I worry about forgetting meds as I forget mine own a lot. I want them to be healthy and happy.   I worry about their comfort while they recuperate. It can cause me a lot of distress as I can not sit with them all day and make sure they are doing well. My nursing skills suck to say the least.
Now working with a dog that has had surgery for skin cancer  has challenged me in every way. I have put all the other dogs needs on hold as I have gone the whole 9 yards and made myself crazy taking care of this dogs needs as he continues to be himself. I really think he is in so much pain, I  feel bad and coddle him. Now Mako is or is not feeling pain, I can only imagine how I would feel and I am a wimp. Now I think he took advantage of me, that being said the little bastard has drove me nuts. I kicked all the other dogs out of my bed so I could watch him and make sure he was comfortable all night I lost sleep worrying about him. He took over the entire king size bed as I tried to not bother him. Then second night after surgery I awoke to something touching my nose. In my drug induce sleep I swatted at the thing bothering my nose and my hand hit something and sound of a plastic bowl hitting something brought me out of sleep totally and I opened my eyes and the first thing I see is Mako's nose on mine and my head is inside the damn dogs cone of shame he is wearing to keep him from pulling at his stitches. Now this is what scary movies are made of. For all the folks who sleep with their pets they know the feeling of waking up to one end or the other of the pet, shoved in their face.  The second night my dogs where not having any part of being shoved out of bed and started the whimpering whining that keeps you up all night. By the third night I needed sleep so I opened up the bed to all but Sipan to come and sleep with us. This did not fair any better for a good night sleep as there was so much grumbling going on all night long. Gerrrrrr he touched me, Gerrrr his butt is in my face, Gerrrrr I was in that spot, Gerrrr who farted, and so on as the growl's continued through the night. Hell these dogs are grouchier than I am when I need sleep. The forth night Mako went back to the couch by himself and life returned to some kind of normalcy. To keep the big dogs apart I have gated off rooms all the way through my house and one has a little door to allow the little dogs to move about with a little more freedom and keep big dog separated.

Now the stitches are gone along with the cone and we found that Mako's determination to get into things has him squeezing through the little door to get to kitchen. He can get out of his cage and his nose is always looking for food. He opens the cupboard and helps himself to what ever he finds.  He is not a counter surfer but he is a counter sweep. He just drags his nose and lips along the top edge of the counter as he walks along on his hind legs, scoffing up any little smug,crumb or sandwich he can find. He gets his spot on the couch and will chase off any of the other dogs who are on the couch no matter where they are. He just thinks its his. Now he will come up to us and try to wiggle himself between us and the couch or chair we are sitting in. He is a master at this as we are not even aware of him till his 38 lbs of flesh has taken over our spot and we are being squeezed. He is healed and I am not so worried about his surgery any more,  he is just a bigger version of a Damn dog, and sick or not they are all the same and my sanity is still in need of help.