Another vet visit with Chicken Dog

 

     Gavin has a vet appointment on Thursday.  Oh, fun.  I get to take chicken dog in to the place he likes the least.  This time I have a plan on how to keep him relaxed.  I’m going to take the back massager along. 

     It will crack the staff up to see Gavin melt.  He’s normally so tense at the office that he loses enough hair to knit another dog.  He’ll still lose hair but he might not be his normal basket case self.

     He’s not going to be thrilled because I’m pretty sure they will keep him over night, remove a tooth, and clean the rest.  He hates sleepovers.  He’ll be even less happy when I tell them that while he’s out for the tooth I want them to trim back his claws. 

     Maybe I should leave the back massager with him…

Pull up your big girl panties and quit complaining

 

     I’ve heard many complaints about the security measures taken by TSA.  Personally, they don’t bother me.  Walking through a scanner is the least invasive way to ensure our safety.  I’d rather get to my destination alive, wouldn’t you?  Walk through the damned scanner instead of whining and holding up the lines. 

     How short term is your memory.  There are people out there who want to kill us.  They don’t care if we’re young, old, male, or female.  They want us dead.

     I want to live long enough to whack a few caregivers with my cane.  They can scan me, search my luggage, and pat me down all they want if it stops one person from blowing up a plane.

     Now pull up your big girl panties and quit complaining.  Go ahead, walk through the scanners, and thank your lucky stars that you ARE ALIVE.

     Maybe it is because, as a retired cop’s wife, I see the point of heightened security.  There’s a lot you can do to be more security conscious.

     It’s common sense, people.  Use it or lose it.  If you don’t have it, learn it.

     Let us not be victims in the air or on the ground.  Start at home.

     Lock your doors at night.  Heck, we lock ours in the daytime too.  Many thefts happen during the day when the homeowner is out in his/her back yard and they leave the doors unlocked.

     Ladies, when you are in the grocery store, do not leave your purse in the cart and walk away from it.  You are begging to have someone steal it or, at the very least, take your cash and credit cards.  You keep it in your hand or on your shoulder any other time, don’t you?

     Always be aware of your surroundings—look up from your fancy damned phones and pay attention.

There are no leaves in the yard

 

     AJ of AJ Wildflowers cleaned our yard today.  She did an outstanding job and I highly recommend her.  The pups had to go out twice while she worked and she was very sweet to them.  After a good butt and ear scratching from AJ, Patty has decided AJ is a friend for life and even showed off her stick ‘em up trick multiple times without a cookie reward.  Gavin too has nominated her for good friend award.  He enjoyed having his neck scratched and back rubbed.

     With all the leaves are gone I can pull the netting off the pond, clean the filters, and get it ready for winter.  The Koi will be pleased.

     I can’t tell you what a relief it is to see the yard cleared.  With all that is going on here, I didn’t have the heart or energy to do it this year.

     The next time the pups will see AJ is when there’s snow to clear from the walks.  We’ve already hired her for both our walks and the MIL’s.

I keep my Dad in my heart

 

4/8/1915-11/27/1995

 

     I could list all that my father achieved in his life and the many people he knew but that would take a book.

     Dad served in WWII and for a while afterwards was a missionary in the Philippines.

     They reactivated and stationed him in Japan in the early 1950’s.  He stayed in the military for twenty-six years and we moved to many bases throughout his career as a chaplain.  Dad had a chest full of medals (called salad.)  Sadly, I’m denied access to them so I can’t list them here.

     Upon retiring from the military, he began a ‘new’ career as an Episcopal priest.  We moved a couple more times.

     I have very few pictures of him and those that I have I treasure.

     Although you are gone for fifteen years now, I always keep you in my heart, Pop.

Luddite vs. technophile in the dog world

 

     Patty is a Luddite while Gavin is a technophile.  Gavin loves the electric back massager, nail grinder, and whipped cream shot from a can.  Patty, on the other hand, hides when we turn on the back massager and nail grinder.  She’s not very sure she cares for the can that shoots whipped cream.

     You can blame Linda of Crone and Bear it  for me trying this.  Both dogs had their introduction to canned whipped cream after we had our pecan pie.  Their reactions were clearly opposite.

     Gavin leapt about scolding and begging for more after the first blast.  “Wow.  That stuff comes out of a can?  Hit me with your best shot.”

     Patty’s was clearly a low-tech approach.  “Don’t point that thing at me just let the white stuff drop on the floor mom.  I’ll get it from there.”

     I doubled over in the giggles shouting ‘food fight’ sending blasts of whipped cream streaming into the dogs’ mouths.  We managed to annoy DH who was trying to watch TV but the pups and I were having a good time.  Sometimes DH can be an old stick in the mud.

The psycho Target lady is back

 

     I hated those commercials last year and this year’s are worse.  In general, I’m not fond of Christmas commercials but psycho lady must go.  She completely creeps me out.  If she lived in my neighborhood, I’d probably suffer with nightmares or rather, in my case, daymares.  I’d lock my doors when she was active and never offer her coffee—she’s very hyperactive as it is.

     Other commercials that bug me are those car commercials.  Tell me, how often do people give each other cars for Christmas? 

     Gentlemen, the push is on to have you buy the little woman jewelry.  Hang on to those receipts so she can return whatever you bought.  DH doesn’t buy me jewelry unless I’m with him because he knows I am very fussy about it.

     Lest we forget, there are the little kiddies to remember.  All the commercials are screaming buy them expensive electronics.  They even have pricey electronics for toddlers.  Oh, come on!  Toddlers are happiest with the box the electronics come in or with a kitchen pot and a spoon to bang it.  Save yourselves some bucks people.

Simplicity is key

 

     I have a pecan pie cooling on the back porch.  There’s nothing like making a pie for a mere two people and the second person is not DH.  DH can’t eat pecan pie but G can and she loves mine.  I wouldn’t have made the pie except she asked me to and she bought the corn syrup to make sure I got the hint.  I’m hoping she’ll give DH a slice of her pumpkin pie so he’s happy too. 

     I don’t do much for Thanksgiving other than make us a good dinner.  Personally, I’d rather go out somewhere and let someone else do the work.  However, since DH prefers staying home that’s what we do.  At least I keep it simple so I don’t have a lot of work to do.

     I hope you all have a nice Thanksgiving!

Blucigs, love them, but would love them more if everything wasn’t on backorder

 

     I have concluded that I do love my blucigs.  The only problem I have with them is that they are so backordered on everything that it takes forever for an order to go through.  (Be ready to wait if you plan to order from them.)

     DH likes his blucigs too.  For someone with MS, who tends to drop things a lot, they are much safer than a real cigarette.  Having no more burn holes in his clothing and chair makes me very happy.

     I also love the fact that the house smells better with him smoking blucigs instead of two packs of cigarettes a day, which is what he was up to with all the stress over his mom.

     Speaking of her…His mother is still in the nursing home although they almost sent her back to the funny farm.  They’ve discovered that it pays to make certain she gets her meds.

Staying positive in a negative world

 

     Staying positive is not an easy thing to do today when all you hear about on the news or read in the newspaper is the bad stuff.  Yes, there are bad people out there in the world, nasty people who enjoy causing pain and suffering.  There are greedy people who have no hearts.

     However, there are good people out there too, generous and giving people.  Wouldn’t it be great if we heard more about them?  I could stand seeing the headlines shout about more good stuff for a change.  Maybe if the crap stuff that people do went from front-page news to a minor paragraph on page ten, or a short blurb on the TV news, fewer thrill seekers would be vying for their fifteen minutes of fame.

     Give me less Hollywood idiocy and show me true good acts and kindnesses.  I do not care which star is screwing which, nor do I give a darn about the so-called reality shows where backbiting is the norm. 

     Give me real heroes and fewer lunatics and for crying out loud, if the politician can’t keep it in his pants quickly get him out of office and don’t tell me about it day after day after day for months.  Once is enough.

 

Check out lines need warning lights

 

     I’ve stated many times in my blog that I hate shopping.  It’s true I do.  I hate going to stores and shopping for things.  I hate grocery shopping so much that I have six months worth of meats delivered to my house so I can cut back on the time I spend in a grocery store.

     Speaking of grocery stores and shopping there.  I think there should be a flashing warning light on check out lines where someone has fifty million coupons.  I want to get in the store do my shopping and get the hell out thank you very much.  I do not want to stand in line for twenty minutes having my frozen foods thaw while the idiot in front of me, who has handed the clerk a pile of coupons that equals the height of the Empire State building, saves fifteen dollars.

     Warn me and let me go to another line.  If you are the clerk and you know this person always hands you a chit load of coupons, hit the light switch and turn on that flashing light that says ‘warning coupon shopper ahead, you may be delayed.’ 

     If you are that person with the coupon fetish, do not wait until I’ve emptied the entire contents of my cart onto the conveyer, and then whip out that mountain of coupons and hand them to the clerk.  Please, I beg you, as I push my cart into the line, tell me you have the equivalent of the entire encyclopedia Britannica in coupons in your purse.  I will go to another line.  You won’t have me behind you moaning and banging my head on the shopping cart while the clerk scans each coupon.

Back to the cold weather exercise

 

     It was cold outside today.  It was a good time to get a few things done inside.  I cleared out a lot of the clutter that had developed in the back bedroom, due to laziness on my part, when it came to taking things to the attic.  It’s not an easy staircase to maneuver while carrying things.  Therefore, I tended to drop things in the bedroom while promising myself I’d haul them to the attic later.  

     Now I can get at my exercise equipment again.  With the cold weather coming, it is a good thing.  I can spend a half hour a day on my weights and exercise ball no problem now.  There’s even a nice CD player in there to play some hard rocking exercise music.

     After all, at my age it’s difficult to keep the muffin top and bat wings at bay so proper exercise is important.  Once the cold weather sets in G and I can’t take our weekly one-mile walks, which helped. 

     As I said in another post, I wear flip-flops all the time.  When I went in for a stress test, I wore them and the doctor thought I should change into sneakers.  I told him I would be fine and much to his surprise I was.

If life gives you melons, you may be dyslexic.

 

     With everything slamming down upon us all at once, the holidays, memories of family deaths in Novembers and Decembers past, and DH’s mother so ill it’s not easy to make lemonade. 

     However, we do try.  Yesterday we were lucky to have sun and reasonable temperatures for this time of year.  I had some time to play with the dogs and DH even joined in a bit.  I cooked DH one of his favorite dinners, oven fried chicken and fragrant rice.  We even had fresh papaya for dessert.

     They moved his mother from the hospital back to the nursing home in the afternoon.  We aren’t certain that it was wise but we’ll see how it goes.  DH feels that disagreeing with the doctors doesn’t help her.  However, if they screw up they will have to deal with me and not DH.  He’s too easygoing.

     The nursing home remembers our last run in and I have no doubt that’s why they quickly sent my MIL to the hospital this time.  They don’t want me to come in loaded for bear again.