Recycled Pillow

 

I have way too many dogs coming and going through the house to keep cute little beds or pillow for them. I have tried but the Damn dogs either mark the hell out of them or destroy them. Now I have not found one of the dogs that have loved their bed so much that they tried to recycle it. We took in a new foster recently and he came with a bed and a pillow to lie on. I put him and his things in the car and he immediately sought out the pillow and curled up on it and went to sleep. He made himself comfy and went to sleep before I put a mile behind me.  The bed was newer and nice so I put it up, to go with him when he leaves for his forever home and throwed the pillow on the floor for him.  He immediately jumps on it, curled up and made himself at home. This gave great cause for everyone else to come and check out the new guy and his pillow. He really did not appreciate all the cold noses in his face and or butt. He made it clear from the get go this was his pillow and he was not sharing.

The pillow sat in the kitchen for about a week most of that time the new guy was curled up in it.  As he became more comfortable he started to hang out in the living room with everyone else.  One night I was in the basement puttsing around and I heard some muffled commotion in the kitchen. I figured it could not be too bad as the sound was low and almost inaudible. Later I found that this was not to be. The big dogs had a gay old time tearing the thing apart.  The stuffing was everywhere, and just standing there with my mouth open was not getting the mess cleaned up so I grabbed a plastic bag and broom. I picked up as much as I could and placed the bag of remains of the pillow on the counter stoop. Swept and took the dust pan out to the curby dumpster to empty.  I came back and went straight to bed, not giving one more thought to the bag of stuffing.  Next morning I put the dogs out and got my things around to get ready for work. I let the dogs back in and started to make coffee. I turned and saw the bag sitting there.  I started to grab it to through it out when I noticed something inside that did not look like the remains of the pillow. The new guy was all curled up in the garbage bag with the remains of his pillow. He made it known he was not ready to let the pillow go so I let him stay in the bag till I had to leave for work and then I evicted him. Now it was not more the 45 minutes longer that he got to stay in the bag but that was long enough for the other damn dogs to piss on him and the bag. I was not prepared to give a dog a bath before work but choose not to try and explain why I was late.  I just said “I over slept”.

Tongue and Gums

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4nwyJd9Z7I&list=UUYtxoY-gGO9A7rHt43dTEhA

As my pack gets older the dynamics of the pack are changing, personalities have even taken a hit. The constant revolving door of dogs that come through here keep them in constant state of evolution. I have even seen the fosters change. Now that the big dogs have come into the small dog world it has been a never ending cranky, bitchy, grouchy, snarling  and snapping bunch I have ever been around. Now there is no damage to the pack just my sanity has been sent down the toilet. The big dogs love to play, but they don’t understand that the little ones are not always up to the kind of play they do.  Gideon is always ready for a hell of good romp and the more the merrier for him. So he and the two big dogs are always romping, thundering through the house and as they go they piss off someone that now is trying to chase them off but it leads to, Hey you want to play too. Now there is a pack of dogs running through the house some are mad some are playing and some are chasing the others away. One dog does not like movement so as long as no one or nothing is moving he is happy but let someone leave their seat and he starts barking, Gideon and the big dogs are just noisy with their mouths open and making all the vocal sounds they can come up with. Now Chiquita is just an older pissy dog. I feel like I can relate to that, she just bitches at everyone. She does not bite she just growls: she sounds like she is gargling with her head in a bowl of water and making bubbles at the same time she is growling. Hell she even chokes herself when she does it. Just coming into the same room she is in or getting too close will get her started. Gertrude is that and a bag a chips. She struts herself around and no one tells her what to do. She is bossy and proud of it. One of the fosters is a frustrated fun size dog. He is all of maybe 7 lbs and his little mouth can’t bite nothing and the big dogs are too tall for him to grab a tail or ears. So he just shows his itty bitty teeth and snaps at the big dog and they pay him no attention at all. It’s if he does not exist at all. I think this frustrates him even more. Now the one that kills me is the foster that has two teeth. Now he cannot keep his tongue in his mouth so for him to bare his gums and growl his tongue falls out at the same time. I have no idea what he thinks he is going to do with the tongue and gums but he gets no respect either.

It takes a little time to get everyone settled down in the evening and that is not the problem its keeping them settled down. Between three kids and 9 dogs all trying to get a spot on the couch it is damn near impossible to keep them settled. Move a leg, wag a tail and the whole settle down thing goes out the window. The diehard dogs will not move a muscle or give up their spot on the couch.  They glue themselves to their spot and the other dogs just sit on them when they are trying to re plant themselves.  Then the bitching starts. The younger dogs don’t care it’s just something fun to do. The older dogs just don’t want no part of this constant reshuffling every few minutes. Once the big dogs get down the little one try to stand their ground and keep them off. All this does is make me crazy. The big dogs just stand there and look at the snapping frustrated little dog and the tongue and gums dog as if to say “ Are you kidding me what do you think you can do.” Then they just crawl up and sit on them. It is a none stop bitch session. I just want a noise switch to turn it off. Then they can bitch and I can have peace and quiet.  That being said I am sure my kids want one when I get bitchy.

 

Airbags or not...

Life in itself is a learning experience. There is never an end to our learning throughout life.  I on the other hand resist it as much as possible.  Most things I just hate to learn. I hate to put things together with written instructions; I hate to take the time to learn new programs on the computer and hate to learn new technology. It seems the older I get the less I want to learn; I truly do not know why. I still do not know how to check my voice mail on my cell phone.  I find new things that I can do with the old things I have had for a while. My van still surprises me after all these years. 

Now a couple of years ago I just learned that the passage seat tells the passage side airbag if there is a child in the seat and shuts itself of. Not that I have small children but I do have petite kids and we always made fun of a couple of the kids that the seat thought were kids and shut itself off.  I mostly have forgotten about this feature as I have never been in an accident that the airbags went off.  It is not on my mind what so ever. The girls have all grown just enough that the seat does not confuse them with a child any more.  There is a light on the dash board that lights up when the airbag is turned off.  It is always on so I don’t pay it any attention as the light is always on. I know shame on me. But in my own defense, the reason the light is always on is my purse that sits in the front seat if no one is riding with me.  The damn thing is so big and heavy the seat thinks there is a kid in it. So I know my purse will survive the crash and the airbag won’t kill it.  I am starting to get obsessed with how much something has to weight to turn the thing off. I find myself putting extra stuff in the seat along with my purse to see if the thing will come back on. I could read the manual but that would be way too easy….   Last weekend I had to make a dog transport run to TN, VA boarder to pick up a dog.  The dog is a big PIO/Xolo mix of some kind. Now one of the girls went with me to keep me awake so I could drive down and back in 27 hours.  Now with the loss of sleep that comes with these transports I get stupid sometimes.  All was going fine and about 2 AM I decide to take a nap in a rest area. My daughter chases the dogs out of the back seat and lies down. This sends one of the dogs to the front seat to curl up and sleep. It was the new guy. Now he could not curl enough to fit in the seat so his legs hung out all over the place. I found I could not sleep because I was totally fascinated with the huge dog sitting in the front passage seat next to me. He is the goofiest guy. He is so curled and contorted in the seat his head is straight up the back of the seat his four legs appear to be sticking out every direction and he is bent right in half, and to top it off he is snoring. After a while I realize that the kid in the back seat snoring and the huge dog all over the front seat snoring is making my nap impossible. My neck hurts my back is killing me and Hell, might as well drive no chance of falling asleep. I left the car walked the dogs and then use the facilities myself, the whole while the kids in the back is still snoring.  I get in the front and the big dog gets in the front seat again and when I start the car I notice for the first time the light is not on. So get out run around the van and drag the dog out of the front seat. Now nothing happened but I am unaware the car must be in drive for the bells and whistle to start. Now the kid is up and need to run to the potty. I put the dog back in the seat and jump in and move the van closer to the building, again I notice the light is still not on. Ok, is the thing broken all together, I run around the van and got the dog out of the front seat and still nothing. I put the dog in the back my daughter comes out and off we go. No light on so now I don’t know if it works or not. Note to self, get that thing checked.  Now yesterday I come to work and I am by myself, with my purse riding shotgun and I see the light on. Well this has me all intrigued, and I am not letting go of the issue, is the seat/airbag working or not. On my way home the light is on and my purse is sitting in the seat. I get inside the garage and put it park and the light goes out.  What the Hell! Do I have gremlins?  Now this is my clue to ride the wave of insanity while I figure this mystery out. I get out and head for the house and see the dogs running crazy in the back yard and the light bulb in my head come on, and I grab the big guy and go back to the car.  I put him in the front seat, and it was not as easy this time as he thinks we are have a fun game of keep away and high hurtles over the back seat.  I finally get him in and put the damn seat belt around him to keep him in the seat while I turn the van on. NO light. Now the light bulb goes on again in my beady brain and I put the thing in drive. NO light. Ok, now I am convinced it is broken. I reach over and push the seat belt button and the dog jumps the seat and goes to the back of the van. In one swift motion I grab my purse off my shoulder and flung it in the front seat so I could turn the van off and just as my fingers hit the key the light comes on. That’s it! Now I am plain crazy and will get to the bottom of this thing if it kills me. Of course the owner’s manual is in the drawer under the seat but NO! That is way too easy to get that thing and read up on the seat/airbag. I crawled in the back and brought the dog up front. Writing about doing this is so much easier than actually doing it. Then I go through the, put the dog in the seat, take the dog out of the seat, put the bag in the seat, and take the bag out. Put the van in drive put the van in park and so on and so on and so on. Now I am out of breath and sweating like an idiot and realize the dog is so big the seat thinks he is an adult and my bag is not big enough so it thinks it is a small child and turns the airbag off.  I grab the owner’s manual and go in the house and read up on the seat/airbag; could have saved myself a lot of time and frustration if I had done it in the first place. GAWD sometimes I worry myself.

Before in another country.

Some dogs are very food motivated and will do anything for a kibble of food. Hell I have some that will sit just to lick my fingers. I am sure most folks that have pets know this motivation and it is just part of life with pets.  But when you have a child that is so food motivated it sometimes makes me scratch my head. Now she learns quick if food is involved and cannot retain nothing without an injection of food.  The rest of the family has teased her so much about this food thing she tries to never say she is hungry first. She will try to get us to say something about food first.

Over the weekend we went to the Pawlooza Dog festival in London ON.  We started out late Friday night after I got home from work. Everyone was hungry and we were running late and still had to take one of the girls to another function out of the way of our intended destination. So in these times we do the Micki D’ thing. None of us like Mac Donald’s but it fills the empty space between the navel and back bone. The first thing is they did not make my order so all I got was French fries. Now put that together with chips and it falls a little short of a healthy dinner. Now as this has happened a few times in the past because I get the food and drive then once down the road the discovery is made I hate to go back so we just make do, I don’t lean either…… , the girls knows not to say too much in these cases as it will set my bad mood off. Again the next morning is hurry, hurry ,hurry so off to Mac Donald’s we go again for breakfast.  Now seriously I am choking down this stuff but time is way more important at this point.  Lunch did not improve much as the girls went out and found hotdogs for all of us. My daughter ask me if I wanted mine with onions or without as she holds out two hotdogs. I told her did not matter, so I got the one with onions. She started eating before me and said “ Mom this is really dry” well I don’t put much thought into it as I am hungry. I took a great big mouth full and started to chew, then told her “Hell mine is crunchy”. I am not sure what happened to these hot dogs but they were not eatable and so I finished my bun with mustered and onion’s then wash it down with a bottle of water. Now that being said the foods was the only part of the day that was bad. We had a great day and all were exhausted at the end. Again we just stopped and got a bucket of chicken with all the fixings and went back to camp and ate.

The next morning we pack up and head into town to get something to eat. We have two dogs that cannot be left alone in the van as they will eat each other so having a nice sit down breakfast is out of the question.  As we are discussing our options little one pipes up “Ma I am sick of food”. What! You’re never sick of food so “Who are you and what did you do to little one”? The taunts and jeering started in, as this is something no one in the family would have ever thought she would say. This kid eats everything, literally everything. We ended up with Subway and called it good and headed for the states.

As we get into check point at the boarder I hand over all the human documents and say “this is the human papers first”. I got the look, the look that says what are you talking about. Now each of the girls have three pieces of ID’s and I have a pass port so it is a fist full of stuff I am handing him. As he sort through all of it he looks at me and ask, how we are all connected, where do we live and why did we go to Canada. I explained the foster kids in and out of the system and I am the foster parent, and I have permission to take them out of country with a letter from the local judge. We were at a dog show in London. The whole time he is looking at Gertrude standing at the window being her normal busy body dog self. Then he says “what kind of dog is that”?  Then it was all downhill after that, as I explained the whole hairless dog thing in its entirety. At one point he dropped his hands down to his lap with all the documents and just sat there hanging on to every word I had to say. We started to show him each of the dogs as they are so different and he entered into the is huge conversation about the dogs.  I started to worry as the lines grew behind us. At one point I said “Wow, all those folks behind me are going to get mad at me. He said “I don’t care I give everyone who enters USA my undivided attention and screen them thoroughly and the dog conversation continued.  He was checking out the PIO’s with such interest I thought I might have a potential adopter on my hands. Finally I pushed the paper work for the dog out the window to him and he just shook his head and said anyone that does all you do I have no worries that you take fine care of all your animals, it’s been interesting ,welcome to back to the USA and have a nice day. That had to be my most interesting border crossing I have ever had.

We barely made it out of the Port Huron area when the little one says” Mom are you hungry”? I said “No, we just ate a couple hours ago” Why? She then says “I’m hungry”. What the Hell you just told us you were sick of food a few hours ago. She said “ya Ma, but that was before in a different country. I will skip the name calling that started with the girls as they yelled at her. I just shook my head and thought how wonderful it would be at home in my laundry room, alone with a mountain of laundry and the world would make sense again.

Twilight the kitchen version.

For all the Twilight fans, I have to say in my day we loved vampires ours were on soap operas call Dark Shadows, and Barnabas Collins kept us all on the edge of our seat. We ran home from school every day to see the next episode and never cared that we missed out on some high adventure with the neighborhood kids. Now to be somewhat fair I have watched bits and pieces of the first Twilight film but could not get the whole love thing without a bite. I liked the werewolf he had some color to his skin. The movie spoof, parody is more my speed anyway. The girls are just beside themselves waiting for the next movie, and just swoon over the main character Edward Cullen, hell I had to look up his name as the girls can't even pronounce it. To say I am not a fan is an understatement. I really don't like love movies and to make one where the guy lays next to his dinner night after night without a taste, hell I would eat. The girls can watch love movies till their eyes fall out. They killed the Titanic DVD watching it so many times.

But even though they like the romance of the movie they still can find humor in our day to day life that they will relate with, to the movie. The first time the little one had a rare steak she told me it was like watching Twilight as blood and juice covered her plate. Then that lead to all the jokes one can make about a bloody steak, a vampire movie and a straw. I'll leave it at that

The girls think it is cute to drop food on the floor for the dogs. They will sit food near the edge of the counter and then bump it so it will fall on the floor, and say "oops I droped it".  I tell them to stop that becasue they will be worse than Damn Dogs. They will think we are going to feed them everytime we are in the kitchen. Well they are now listening to me. They were out in the kitchen and eating an orange. The dogs are hovering for the food to start raining down from the counter. When one of the girls puts her hand next to the edge of the counter and scraps the orange peel into her hand and lowers it just low enough that one of the dogs thought he was going to get the food before it left her hand. He jumped and grabbed the peel and she jerked her hand back, just not quick enough and the dog got her. Now I am sure it would not have been as bad as it was if she would not have jerked and then proceed to keep moving her hand up with the dog still attached. So she got a big bruise and two punctures. She yelled he bit me, and screamed then pinched the scratch and a little drop of blood came out.  She is steady yelling he bit me, he bit me; when the youngest looks at me and as serious as a child can be says “Mom she’s going to turn into a vampire now?   We all busted out laughing. I have to say it change the mood in the kitchen as we all started in with the jokes about her teeth, not to slurp when drinking from a straw, and how we will all have to lock our bedroom doors at night. 

I'm getting younger, NOT!



I am not sure when I started believing my age was 61 this past year. I have been looking forward to retirement and was getting all excited about only having 4 more years left. I set up an appointment with a retirement specialist to make sure all is on the right track. A few days before my birthday I met with the specialist to work out a retirement plan. She started in, and with in a very short time she said " I see you have 5 more years...." I did not hear another word after that and began to correct her. No I only have 4 years left. Your going to be 61 this Friday aren't you? "No" I said. I will be 62. She said Oh my we must have the wrong information on you and turned the lap top toward me, I got up close to see through the old bifocals and looked at the birth date. "Oh my GAWD" I said and started to laugh the laughter of what the hell, not the laughter of I am so embarrassed. I look at the date grabbed a pen and paper sitting on the table and immediately  started to do the math. I looked at her and said " I'm pissed, I am not even embarrassed I don't know my own age". I was so happy I only had 4 more years till I can retire and then I can do the things that mean something to me not a job that pays the bills. Crap now I have 5 more years. By the time I left the office I was so upset I went back to work and told my co-worker about the reality check I had just received. He laughed at me and said " you're the only person I know who is getting younger not older".
I got home that night and my kids started in on me about telling them I was going to be 62 instead of 61. Then one says" see I told you she was wrong" What the hell? I just hope I still have some brain cells in 5 more years or the kids are going to have to look after me.

Butt Seriously

 

Butt Seriously:  Thank you all for the Birthday wishes.

 



I am not  one to celebrate Birthdays. It is for no other reason than I just never did. My parents went on vacation the same time every year, last week of July first week of Aug. We went camping at Black Lake MI every year thought out my childhood. Now this was the best part of summer and I looked forward to this time all year long. I never gave it a second thought that my Birthday was spent camping and I never celebrated it. Swimming till I was water logged and playing on the sand hill was way more fun and totally consuming.  As I got older I never gave it much thought. I move to Florida met new friend and never thought about it after that.  After all we don’t miss what we never had. Now I am not complaining. But I have had three Birthdays in my life that I have enjoyed and this is one of them. I have no plan I am working today and my co-worker took the day off. I am sure the kids have something up their  sleeves and the Damn dogs started spreading there good cheer very early this morning.  I never knew of such out pouring of happy wishes. It is such a nice thought to think I have so many friends around the world. I am reminded how many folks have touched my life and I am better for that. I love happy and hate that I can have a day without laughter.  Now my kids may say I have many days that I don’t laugh they just don’t get to see them.  I am truly bless to have so many friends.

My very best birthday in my whole life was when I was 40 years old. I just broke up with the guy I was seeing and then had to drive 100 miles back home to cook BBQ in the back yard for my family. You might say I was not having a good day at all. Now a few weeks before this GAWD awful day my Mom and I were having a, remember when, conversation and we got on the subject of birthdays and she made a comment on all the birthday cakes she had made in her life time. Now I was obliged to tell her she never made me one and this immediately turned into the she said, I said containing all the denials and I remember statements. I knew we were not going to end this without proof, when I asked her where we were every year the first week of Aug. my whole life. As the words, on vacation, came across her lips I could see the look of  OMG on her face. We quickly moved on to another subject.

Now as I am going about getting the grill hot and getting all the prep done for the BBQ my mood was deteriorating at speeds that could not be measured by any means. My family arrive and in comes my Mom with my very first Birthday cake at the grand old age of 40.  Now I was surprised but to tell the truth it did not do much to improve my mood. I still had the Bahhh Humbugs, I put my smiley face on and started cooking. We sat on my deck to enjoy the nice summer day when my neighbor decided to show his ass and turn up the music to ear piercing levels.   As I battle to keep my mood in check my Mom signals to my brother to go get the cake. He leaves and I tell Mom lets go inside now. So we started to gather up everything when we hear this loud cussing scream and an even louder crashing thud that seemed to go on forever. We both ran to the house and there we find my brother on the landing at bottom of the three steps coming down from my kitchen, hugging the large sheet cake to his chest cussing and mad as hell. We went into action helping him up and asking what happened. As he stood up pulled the cake from his chest, I busted out laughing and reached over and ran my finger down his cake covered chest and stuck it in my mouth.  He was so mad that he looked like he might have a heart attack or something. As he tried to explained, that just as he started down the first step the cat ran between his legs and he missed the step and fell on the cake. Laughter can be such a catharsis and manic hysterical laughter just cleanses one soul. He was so worried I would be made because he destroyed my very first Birthday cake. I think he could have killed the cat without giving it a second thought he was so mad.  All I did was laugh and tell him thank you for the best Birthday ever.  I never gave the ex a second thought after that moment, and the neighbor well he did not live there much longer.  The next time I saw the cat he still had frosting on his head and that sent me right back to another round of hysterical laughter.  Mom’s arthritis is so bad now she cannot decorate cakes any more but my one and only tasted so good scraping it off my brothers shirt.