Sign On. . . Sign Off

I know better than to talk about religion, yet here I go.

A minister friend once reassured me in my stumbling faith, “Would you really want a God you could understand?” I “got” that.  If we are so sure we know what God thinks, that puts Her/Him on our level and that’s waaaay too scary to contemplate.  God’s gotta be smarter than that.

What I don’t get are people who are so certain they have all the answers that they use their religion as a club.  I mean that both ways, as in, “I’m part of this group and I’m going to beat you upside the head with it.“

Now that you know my point of reference, I have to tell you that I am baffled at some of the displays of religious fervor that I see here in the South.  That is saying something, considering that my own first cousin had a neon “Jesus Died Here” sign in her front yard.

For instance, in the soda shop we frequent because it uses my favorite kind of finely crushed ice in its Diet Cokes, hangs a framed dollar bill bearing Jesus’ face instead of George Washington’s, right by the cash register and the tip jar.  What, pray tell, is the message there?

On our ride to the beach, we travel along a street of beautiful old historic homes in one of the small towns on our route.  One has had a very large wooden JESUS LOVES YOU sign in the front yard for years. Does having that sign there help the neighbors feel the love?

Further along the route is a big truck with a sign board on the side.  The top line features a message that Jesus saves and beneath it,  Storage lockers, $1.  It makes for a fascinating mental image if you think about it.

When I was about ten years old,  Congress added “…under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.   I remember feeling confused, not because I didn’t believe in God, but because we were learning about how our forefathers left England in search of religious freedom…including the right to have no religion.  Adding those words to the pledge didn’t make me feel more patriotic or more Christian.  Not then, not now.

Back to our last trip to the beach:

When I couldn’t find a radio station that wasn’t political and/or religious,  I simply stuck in a CD.  The Jesus fish on business ads and company trucks?   I don’t play Go Fish when I need a plumber.  The church sign denouncing Halloween as a day for worshiping Satan?  No surprise there.

It takes a lot to stop me in my tracks, but in a strip mall, between TJMaxx and Lowe’s Foods,  a shop sign hawking nail care, belts, wigs, cosmetics,  jewelry, hair extensions, purses, and more, gobsmacked me.

What th’. . . ?

I had to make a U-turn to look again at their sequential signs:

The next message featured a pink, sparkly JESUS is the answer, but was too light to photograph.

Next messages announced that they offered GIFT CARDS and Layaway.

Ah, the choices. . . !  Need some place to keep it all?

I know where you can rent a storage locker for a buck.

Film at 11? I Don’t Think So!

My husband has a gazillion golf stories.   Are all golfers crazy or does he simply have a knack for finding them?

For a time, he wrote about some of these codgers.  He says he’s writing these stories  for his grandkids.  It’s better that they hear about these guys through Granddad’s filter.  Had they met them in person, they’d be able to sell new cuss words on the playground for other kids’ lunch money.

Over the weekend, Dearly Beloved and our son and daughter-in-law played golf at the beach. Because Son knows his dad’s golf swing better than anyone, DB asked him to watch and see if he could detect any problem with his swing.  Son went one better;  he produced a video camera and made a movie of his dad’s golf moves, pointing out any problem he saw.

It was not the first time someone had done so.  Here is DB’s story of another golf video, filmed by a crusty character I never met, an old coot named Joe.

JOE

I don’t think Joe was particularly liked by anyone who took him seriously. I liked him.  He was like a character from a Runyon story.  It was best to treasure what there was of him.  And there always seemed to be more

Joe’s biggest admirer was himself. He was always talking about the number of U. S. Opens he claimed to have played in, his rounds with Clayton Heafner, playing pro golf in the old days.  Once I was listening to a call in radio show and Joe had called in and was claiming how he had coached Raymond Floyd on putting (“The grip is in the last 3 fingers of the left hand.  Stroke the top half of the ball with an upward motion.  Do that and you can putt on asphalt.”).  According to Joe, Raymond’s father had asked Joe.  I was at The Masters one year and there was Joe sitting in a golf cart under the Oak Tree on the course side of the ropes.  He called me over and introduced me to a distinguished gentleman who was in the cart with him.  “I want you to meet George Low.”

I have no idea if he was the George Low of putter fame, but it sure seemed so at that moment.

Joe hung out at an old driving range that had hard red dirt and crab grass.  In those days the range was close to nothing, yet there was always a steady stream of customers hitting balls, having clubs worked on by the owner or sitting around drinking soft drinks and telling lies.  Joe was in is element.  He would give lessons occasionally to those who could tolerate him, or didn’t know better.

He could be unmerciful in his criticism.  One hot summer day, there was a young man who appeared to have driven out from town on his lunch break.  He got out of his BMW, took off his tie, bought two large buckets and went through them.  We didn’t pay much attention to him other than wondering why he was hitting in a dress shirt in 90 plus degree heat.  It was perfectly OK to hit shirtless.   I guess we assumed he was on a mission to get better quick before some business outing.  Joe was at the other end of the range finishing a lesson.  After the young man hit both buckets, he came inside where Joe was having a soft drink and asked Joe, “Will you help me with my golf swing?”

Joe incredulously rasped, “Golf swing!  You ain’t got no #*#* golf swing.  You should quit now!”

Joe didn’t give him a lesson.

After I’d known Joe awhile, he and I somehow agreed that he would give me 5 lessons for $100 and include a video of the final lesson.  The finished product, as Joe described it.  It was great fun.  He had me hitting 4 irons over a telephone pole that was much too close for comfort, swinging a wedge through high weeds using just my left side, bottles under my feet, towels under my armpits, chipping countless 9 irons range basket high to stop at a line he made in the dirt, etc.   His main theme was “hit it slow”.  He delighted in a mid iron that carried the full distance and only then slowly fell to the left.

The day for the final product came.  When I showed up, Joe proudly presented the video camera.  In a box.  He had just bought it.  He said he was counting on me to figure how to work it. I had never used one before but together we figured it out.  He was real proud. At the moment we got it to work, there is a picture of him with his big nose against the camera, eyes almost crossed, saying, “Yessir, she’s working real good, nice and slow.” He then stepped back from the camera, and pointed to the exact spot where he wanted me to hit.  The next scene on the video is Joe unmoving except for looking around in circles unleashing a string of profanities, “We ain’t got no #*#* golf balls.”

Well, we got some balls and a week or so later I went by and Joe presented me the video.  Shortly thereafter Joe died.  I had 2 more copies made and gave one to the guys at the driving range and the other to his very nice family at his funeral.

Decades later, I don’t know if any of Joe’s stories were true.

But it doesn’t matter.                                                                                                             © 2008

I never met Joe, but I saw that video more times than I cared to, not for the golf swing, because DB was an incidental character.  Much of it consisted of Joe wandering up to the camera, so near the lens that his nostril hairs were in full bloom.  “Yep, she’s working now.”

Since DB has been watching Son’s video on his computer, I have not had to watch.  I hear Son’s voice calmly pointing out the good, the bad, and the ugly.

DB was thrilled, so pleased that he wants me to buy a camera and go out  on the course with him to video his game, so he can watch  later to see whether or not  he’s “fixing” the problems that Son detected.

Did you get that?  He wants me to follow him around, filming his golf  game.

Just shoot me now.

Lighten Up!

Halloween in our beach-house-not-on-the-beach neighborhood is just plain weeny.   On our street, only one house even plunked a pumpkin out on the porch.  It’s pretty dead around here.

The “youngsters” in this part of the ‘hood are the newly retired.  When “walkers” sometimes refers to the three- or four-wheeler kind and folks are pushing 70, 80,  and even 90, no one expects Trick or Treaters to come calling.

The giant bag of Halloween candies I purchased in Charlotte before I knew where we’d be on Halloween remains on the dining room table there.  It never occurred to me to bring it to the beach.   That means I’ll probably have to eat it all myself.

When the doorbell rang about 7:30, I’d even forgotten it WAS Halloween, so when I looked out and saw three kids, I panicked.

Why was the porch light on?  Dearly Beloved is a switch flicker,  a one-man light show. Mornings, he’ll walk into the kitchen and turn on every light, saying, “Let’s get a little light on the subject.” Burns my biscuits.  I don’t like to show the whites of my eyes until after three cups of coffee.  Anyway, my point is, he had turned the porch light on for no good reason other than to “Let there be light.”  An invitation to the mosquitoes and tree frogs, maybe.

The Trick or Treaters standing at our front door saw it as a neon sign indicating “TREATS!!!  TREATS!!!”

These were, I would guess, pre-teens.   Two girls and a boy.  No costumes, just big expectations.  I think the pillowcases they carried were king-sized.  If I’d brought my candy stash, I could have given them handfuls, but I had nothing.  What now?  RUN!

“Who was at the front door?” DB asked when I jumped the dog gate into the kitchen and flattened myself against the wall.

The doorbell rang a second time.

“Trick or Treaters!” I gasped, in the same voice I’d probably use to announce, “Guys in ski masks carrying AK-47’s!”

He looked unfazed.  “What do you have for them?”

What do I have for them???  Oh yeah, I remember now. . . the promise to love, honor, and have candy on hand for Trick or Treaters.

He climbed over the gate and went to open the front door.   (Hey, the granddog puppy and Miss Piggy are here; the gate STAYS! There’s white carpet on the other side.)

“Hold on a minute,” he told the kids. “She’s looking.” He came back into the kitchen, expectantly.

“Bananas? We have three.”

“NO!” he answered,  horrified at the suggestion.  “We can’t give Trick or Treaters bananas.”

“Unpopped microwave popcorn?  Quarters?”

“Get three singles and we’ll give them each a dollar,” Mr. Big said, but neither of us had any ones.  I had a twenty.  Would they have change?

I opened the pantry again and found a box of Sweet and Salty granola bars.  Cashew!  There were exactly three bars inside.  DB headed back to the front door and dropped one into each cavernous pillowcase.

The girls seemed quite pleased, but I’m not sure about the boy.   When DB asked him how he got lucky enough to be traveling with two girls, he didn’t answer.  One of the girls quickly explained, “Little brother!”

Good.  She could take his bar away from him.

As soon as the kids headed back to the street, I told DB, “Quick!  Turn off the porch light!”

He said… in all seriousness…  “No, we don’t want to turn the light off yet.  There may be more Trick or Treaters.”

Sure.  Wonder if they’d rather have canned tomato soup or bran muffin mix.

Bless his heart, I didn’t realize what a young-at-heart guy he really was.  He must have been “in character” for Halloween.  I’m guessing The Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.

Wasn’t he the one without a brain?

Encore for the Birthday Boy

This is an old post I wrote about Grandson #2, who is nine years old this week.

Birthday boy, soccer shark, and wonderful grandson!

He’s the kid who, although small for his age as a tot, babbled baby talk in a Rod Stewart voice that most guys manage only after years of too much booze and cigarettes.   An ingenious little rascal, his escape tactics forced his parents to devise a top for his crib to keep him from climbing out before he could even walk. Otherwise, HE was the thing that went BUMP in the night!

He’s fearless, funny, and FUN.  A good week for him is one without stitches.  There are so many stories. . . !  This one I’m repeating because it’s one I’ll never forget!

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GRANDPARENTS:  Forget the American Express card, just don’t leave home without at least two spare diapers or underwear changes if you take the little cuties on an outing.  Ignore any parental assurance of potty training graduation.  (Think of it like menopause; one can never be sure that a hot flash won’t surface. )  Personally, after this harrowing experience, I plan to continue this cautionary practice until the grands have drivers’ licenses and can drive themselves home to change their own poopy pants.

I am the voice of experience.

Once, several years ago on a visit to Indiana,  Dearly Beloved and I took the two grandsons to the Children’s Museum.   We planned to make a day of it, starting on the third floor of the Slinky-like building and working our way down and around its spiral ramps, checking out every exhibit.  Although we started out together, their  dissimilar interests meant we needed to separate to divide and conquer, so DB took Older Brother into the space exhibit while Little Brother pulled me toward the carousel.

Lifting LB onto the hobby horse put his bottom at (my) nose level and I was assaulted with irrefutable evidence we needed to be somewhere else.  He protested innocence, but I pulled him off the horse and toward the bathroom in what I thought was a precautionary gesture.   I was mistaken.  Precaution had left the building.

For one thing, this potty-trained, mommy-certified two-year-old was, suspiciously, wearing a diaper under his shorts.   That wasn’t gas assaulting my nostrils.  Houston, we’d had lift-off.

Crisis at 10:30 am:  no spare diaper.

I cleaned him with wet tissues and redressed him with his little shorts, commando-style.  I had no choice.  Without the diaper to hold them up,  the pants kept sliding down his skinny little behind and made walking difficult for him and cracked up the people behind us.   I lifted him  just in time for a fresh  nasal assault which sent ice water through my veins.  Brown alert!  Brown alert!

We rushed over to a crowded seating area in search of a mommy with a large stroller and a kid larger than infant size.  Spotting a live one, I shoved a dollar in her face and begged to buy a diaper.  She pulled one out of her stash and Little Bro Grandson and I were soon in the restroom to re-arm or, more accurately, re-butt. He was back in the saddle again.

Even with the diaper padding, his shorts  simply wouldn’t stay up.  ”His favorites,”  my daughter had told me, in apology for their faded appearance.  She hadn’t mentioned the spent elastic in the waistband.

Back to the area with benches, this time in seach of a grandmotherly type with a large purse.  There is always one around.  Sometimes I AM that person, but that day I carried only a small shoulder bag. The grandmother I zeroed in on did indeed have a safety pin and wouldn’t accept the dollar I waved at her.  The pin  was huge… large enough to hold an amorous Scottsman’s kilt closed, and certainly strong enough to hold up a little boy’s pants.

We had been there over an hour and had spent most of the time keeping HIM from being an exhibit, but still there were warnings of a gas leak.  Now this kid has a voice like a fog horn;  he could have evacuated that entire building with a good shriek, but he was decidedly mute about needing to use the bathroom.  He probably didn’t want to miss anything, but neither did I… so we headed back to our old bathroom stomping grounds for some serious stall time.

It seemed prudent  to find Dearly Beloved and Older Brother.  I needed backup.  It took a good half hour to find them and the four of us went to an archaeological exhibit for a rootin’, tootin’ adventure, if you get my drift.   Dearly Beloved and I sat on a rock and watched the two boys brush sand from dinosaur bones in the Egyptian “dig”.  I began to relax–what could be more perfect than a giant sandbox?

“I need a potty break myself,” I told DB after a few minutes.  “Can you watch both of them?”

He looked insulted by the question.  I reminded him that Little Brother was fast and didn’t have an Off switch, then I hurried to my potty home away from home.  In less than five minutes I was back at the archaeological dig.

I looked for my guys. . . one. . . two. The little stinker was not in the sandbox.

“Where is he?”  I hissed at DB.

Unruffled, he looked around casually.  “He has to be in this room.  He was here a second ago.”

But he wasn’t.  Not in the sand box, the cave maze, nor any of the digs.  My panic rose.

“Stay here and look for him.  I’ll start searching the other exhibits.”

It had taken me thirty minutes to spot DB and he was a grown man.  How was I going to find one small boy in droopy, poopy pants?

Just outside the “dig” was a glass display with a popular model train exhibit. I looked for a little blond head as I dashed past.  Nope.  I pushed through the crowd and hurried up the ramp, sick with terrifying scenarios of where our grandchild might be.

But wait!   Sniff,  sniff.

I turned on my heels to re-examine that crowd of children in front of the train case. Sniff, sniff. I knew that smell; he had to be in there somewhere.  Sure enough, at the very front, eclipsed by taller children, stood Little Brother,  nose pressed against the glass, watching the whistling trains go by.  Toot, toot, indeed.

After a sixth bathroom visit which once again left LB in commando mode and my supply of dollar bills exhausted,  we decided we’d had enough museum adventure and headed for McDonald’s.

“Sure, you can have french fries and squirty catsup,  Sweetie.  We’re going home to Mommy afterwards.”

PS:  Fellow granny, when you’re packing that plastic bag with the underwear changes in your handbag, throw in an extra pair for yourself.  Sometimes sh–  happens. It can scare the crap out of us.

Two pondering peas in a pod–Grandson and Granddad

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SOCCER GUY!!!!

Peeling Out

Is it a gender thing or a personality difference that determines the condition of our car interiors?

I’ve written about it before, how Dearly Beloved gets the heeby jeebies whenever we eat anything in his car.  And he wonders why I eat fast!  It’s downright creepy, having him sneak peeks at me to make sure no dropped crumb lies unretrieved.  Like I’ve said, a hamburger with chili and slaw would probably make the man ill. . . and I’D be the one eating it.

He loves his car, but I consider it transportation.  It gets us where we’re going in all its sterile, pristine glory.

MY car has everything but a bathroom, since I’m not one to carry the old coffee can.  I don’t have to–I don’t have the “let’s drive straight through without stopping” MENtality.  Food, drink, music, books –print and CD’s–,  puzzles and pens, tissues, napkins, medicines,  first aid supplies, dog treats, plastic bags, and miscellaneous supplies await and that’s just what is available in the obvious places.  Candy?  Reach between the seat and console and pull out some loose M&M’s. Ignore the petrified French fries.

DB calls it a disaster.  I consider it a way station on wheels.

Our daughters’ cars are much like mine, only they also have Goldfish, sports equipment, and school papers in theirs.  Like DB, our son and the sons-in-law consider it time to clean out the car if there is a coffee cup in a cup holder.  In other words, if we’re taking a trip and have to sit in stalled traffic, we can admire the unblemished floor mats in the guy car or party with the girls.

How could there even be a question?   Maybe it isn’t gender OR personality.  It’s simply SMARTS.

No one in the family is into fancy cars (unless we count the just turned nine-year-old grandson who ignored rattles as a tot and holds a Hot Wheel in each fist in every toddler photo.)   Different story when our kids were teenagers and told us we were inflicting cruel and unusual punishment and ruining any chance of cool-idity by providing them no transportation other than the (GASP!) family station wagon.  It’s a wonder we didn’t stunt their growth.

Daughter Boo was the worst.  OH, the humiliation of having to drive the “green bomb“!  It amuses me no end to find her driving a nondescript grey van whenever we visit.

Son and his Weimaraner puppy, Stella, visited last week and it is always a curiosity to see his car. Yes, this is our Mr. Clean, Neat and Tidy, Must-Check-the-Weave-of-the-Fabric-Before-It-Goes-on-My-Body and What-Is-the-Brand Name? son.

His car is an Infiniti with over 200,000 miles on it.

He was involved in an accident several months ago, so it is a badly bruised Infiniti.   His previous car had even more mileage and had no dashboard, thanks to his previous dog, a Dalmation who liked to eat dashboards.  The floor mats were clean, but one could lift them and watch the miles go by–literally.

It rained almost the entire time he was here.  When we went anywhere, it was in DB’s car–no dogs, of course–so I’d paid no attention to Son’s car and was surprised when he said he had to leave before lunch.  He usually claims he prefers to drive at night.  I asked him why the change.

“It  just seems more prudent to drive during daylight hours if one’s headlights are taped in,” he informed us.

When we walked him outside, I looked at the front of his car. Right out of Family Vacation.  As a matter of fact, in a Family Vacation moment, the hood had flown up at some point during his travels and now the corners near the windshield curled rakishly in 70’s style,  like cat-eye glasses.  The headlights were indeed taped in.

I watched in astonishment as he meticiously spread a huge tarp to completely cover the entire backseat, floor, and back of the front seat for the dog.  I didn’t even have to look in the front seat to know there was nothing there.  Prankster that I am, I handed him a banana and some granola bars.  He probably went nuts trying to decide what to do with the peel.

(Almost!) Wordless Outdoor Wednesday



Autumn in North Carolina is a bit schizophrenic.  It IS. . . and it ISN’T.  Even the trees aren’t sure.

In our garden, the roses, impatiens, and salvia are still blooming.  But who would expect a rhododendron and an iris?

Elsewhere, strange things are going down:

Eerie Acres

And coming up:

There is the eerily pretty:

And the pretty darned eerie:

Cool spiders and specters:

Ghoul parties with victims:

I’d ring this doorbell only for See’s or Godiva!

This house?  I’d require curb service.

It’s raining, so there are raindrops on the photos.  And unfortunate accidents…

It’s enough to make one scream. . .

Today’s post is linked to A Southern Daydreamer’s blog for Outdoor Wednesday.  You can find other outdoor autumn scenes there.

Are You In There?

If there is one thing I’ve learned from my decades as a wife and mother, it is that an uncanny number of questions and discussions require my immediate attention while I am in the bathroom.

I’ve never been one to spend much time primping–I often don’t even blow dry my hair–so the odds of these consultations having to take place through a bathroom door because they couldn’t wait five minutes are mind-boggling.   Odds be damned–the questions kept coming and I kept answering lest the earth tilt from its axis.

Homework questions, can I go out? questions, do you know where my navy socks are? questions,  are we out of milk? questions. . . . Like Clark Kent’s transformation when he entered a phone booth, I experienced a toilet transmogrification.  Crossing that threshold,  I instantly became Mrs. Wizard,  sought by all in search of the secrets of the universe.

If I had a quarter for every time I muttered,  “Just let me wipe and wash my hands. . . .“

We should have installed a red phone like the one in the Oval Office.

Now that the children are grown and have their own families,  I like to think  a question, a tattle, or the sound of the dog puking is triggered somewhere within their house any time they close the bathroom door.

Now, however, in this house –with two and a half bathrooms and only two people and a neurotic dog in residence–I expected to at last experience blissful bubble baths with time for quiet contemplation, be it on the toilet or in the tub.

My expectations were waaaaay off the mark.

That closed bathroom door piques Dearly Beloved’s curiosity  (“Are you in there?”) and inspires in him a desire for conversation, second only to my leaving whatever room we happen to be in together.   (The sight of my departing back triggers an involuntary reaction in his throat and a question bubbles up like a root beer-driven burp.)

Out of sight, out of mind?

Apparently not.

Dearly Beloved is Mr. Neat and Tidy,  but not into cleaning– my diametric opposite.    My kitchen floor will be mopped, but the table is often covered with sewing machine or some craft project.   If someone needs to eat, there’s a perfectly good floor available for their dining pleasure.

Of our three children, it is our son who is neat, tidy,  AND a clean freak.   I hope his wife understands that it is not my fault.   He is coming to see us today, so logically I should have spent a day or two cleaning.

Logic is not one of my strengths.   The painters were here,  the distraction level was high, and I decided that the library table I bought seven or so years ago in Indianapolis had to be painted.   Instantly.  Not even simply painted,  but the top had to be faux painted to look like leather.

When I went into the laundry room to get some rags for the project, I opened a cabinet and saw a grout restorer I’d special ordered from a tile store several weeks ago and stashed there.  It was blinking USE ME TODAY!  USE ME TODAY! so in between the coats of browns, ochres, and tans I kept applying,  I worked on DB’s bathroom floor with the dingy grout which has stymied me as long as we’ve been here.

I scrubbed it, then applied this stuff with a small nylon brush, tile by tile.  It was fabulous!  Worked like a charm!  It’s not a small bathroom, but with my trusty bucket and mop, a stack of cleaning rags, and the little brush, I persevered.  The floor  had to be scrubbed and the restorer applied tile by tile.   The small inset tiles in the pattern were a special pain,  so  I was on my hands and knees for a long time,  but inspired by the results I was getting.   Amazing.

I had worked my way across the room to the tiles behind the bathroom door when DB stuck his head in.

“Are you still in here?“

Yes.

“I heard something on television while ago you might find interesting.  The Wall Street Journal just wrote about a survey which found that couples who lived in a neat, clean house enjoyed sex more and wanted it more often.”

Wonder why newspaper subscriptions are declining?  Mrs. Wizard has the answer.

Just knock on the bathroom door .

Sniffing Around for a Friend

My friend in Alabama has enrolled her dog in private dog training sessions.  So far it has meant buying two crates and judging from the photos she sent,  each roughly the size of a two-seater outhouse.  One stays at the house and one in their store, since the dog goes to work with them.   She is a herding dog,  so they may be able to set her loose in the neighborhood to round up customers if things get slow.

They’re dealing with issues like storm phobia, barking,  who’s the alpha in the family, and insomnia.  The dog isn’t much for sleeping at night and when she can’t sleep, no one sleeps.  I would imagine that issues like crotch sniffing and doorbells will be on the agenda at some point.

We’ve never tried training with Miss Piggy.  To be brutally honest, we didn’t think she was smart enough to benefit, but have since altered that opinion because we’ve come to realize she’s not exactly slow,  she cares only for food.  She has no interest in fetching or doing tricks, none in checking another dog’s butt to see what it ate or rolled in last month.   Her motto is simple: Will Sniff For Food.

Our Akita, the late Howard Lee,  was a graduate of several obedience schools and we have the diplomas to prove it, that being the only way we could have convinced anyone.  He was not a sniffer of other dogs either  and Lord help the dog that tried to get nosy with Howard’s behind.  As I have mentioned before, he trained Miss Piggy in manners–no getting on furniture, staying in the yard, etc.–so perhaps he mentored her in sniffing manners.

Our grand-doggies–they would be Miss Piggy’s nieces–are still puppies and are quite curious about the story behind other dogs which they can learn, of course, by sniffing their behinds.   When they approach Miss Piggy to point their 1,000-times-more-wattage-than-humans sniffers her way, she sits down, putting the quietus on any attempt at communication by olfaction.  Stella, son’s Weimaraner puppy,  is coming to visit this week.

The dog next door is also a sniffer, so we invite her over when either grand-doggy comes to visit to give them a sniffmate.

To digress slightly. . . when the Obamas began their search for a family dog, I did not think I had ever seen a Golden Doodle or a Portuguese water dog.  That misconception has been corrected.  Ivy, our newest grand-dog is a Golden Doodle.

And it happened that the neighbor dog, Odessa, is a Portuguese water dog.

Odessa visits us regularly, jumping the brick wall like it’s a shoebox.  She is thrilled when Ivy comes to visit, perhaps because the two of them are similar in energy, friendliness, and appearance.   They race around the yard, up and down the stairs, through the house, in a blur of fur.

Miss Piggy declines to participate.

Odessa visits often, to Dearly Beloved’s delight.  He loves to watch her sail over the fence.  I have tried to take a picture, but she is faster than my shutter speed.  Miss Piggy always gives me a long-suffering look.   Last week she decided that if she was to have any peace, she might as well grant Odessa an interview.  She assumed the interview position.

Hello, Neighbor.  You may notice that table scraps give me gas.  Last night we had chili beans.

To my new dog owning friend, Lulu,  in Alabama, Happy, Happy Birthday or, as you would probably say, have a FANDAMNTASTIC DAY!!!   We couldn’t have sniffed out a dearer friend!!!

Bone Dry?

The sun finally showed itself briefly, although it’s pretty nippy outside.   I hope we can medicate ourselves with sunshine; we’ve been going stir crazy around here.

It has rained all week:  raindrops outside, ballgames inside.   Baseball playoffs, college football, pro football, soccer. . . Dearly Beloved may have carpal thumb syndrome by now from all the activity with the remote.  That’s been pretty much it, exercise-wise.

Last night it occurred to me that I was about to enter another state:  Bonkers.  I felt the pangs about the time DB was shouting something like, “run left, naked!“

He was not talking to me, but giving advice to the coach, quarterback, or somebody on the game he was watching; one team needed to naked reverse.  (Is that the same as “get dressed”?) Then they didn’t Hail Mary, they hooked and laddered.  Oh, the horror.  He was distraught.

Since THEY weren’t listening, he began explaining to ME how they blew it and of course I, remedial knitter that I am,  immediately altered my pattern from slip 1, k2, SKP, yo, k2, p2, k5, k2tog, k1, (yo, k1) twice to  drop 1, mis-count 2,  skip to instruction row above, drop a yo, skip to the wrong p2tog,  omitting the 17 stitches in between.    I screwed it up so badly I’d have been better off running up a ladder, naked, to hail Mary.  And I’m not even Catholic.

“You know what would be a good idea?  I think you should call those announcers and offer to stay on the phone with them during broadcasts so you can tell them what’s going on.  You could do it without attribution, as a public service.”

He looked at me suspiciously.  “Do you really think that or are you being sarcastic?”

Oh, I meant it.  I really meant it.

In the meantime, Miss Piggy was lying in front of the fireplace, making little clicking, chomping noises like she was trying to eat with false teeth as she mined her leg for a real or imagined flea.   Occasionally she moved to her sides to lick herself–loudly.

There was no chance the scarf I’ve been trying to make for two weeks was going to get past bib size and it was probably not wise for me to be holding pointed objects anyway.  I decided to give the dog a bath.

This event is noteworthy only because “the dog” is Miss Piggy of the itchy skin and the flea allergies, the nervous habits like biting her feet, and the licking. . . oh my gawd, the licking!

Must do the ears if I have enough of the one ear cleaner that doesn’t gag me to smell it.  Should I go with her dry seborrhea shampoo,  her oatmeal and aloe shampoo, or her anti-fungal shampoo? What the heck–why not all of them?

Our soaking tub has a hose and sprayer, so I bathe her there even though it means I have to climb in with her or stand on my head to reach her. She’s quite good in a bath. . . TREAT COMING and she knows it.   Dearly Beloved lifted and dried her when I finished, then  gave her one of those  jumbo bones–the lick-nibble-and gnaw it kind that’s supposed to keep her occupied for hours, or at least in one spot until she dried.  Meanwhile I cleaned the tub and bathroom, then myself.

By the time I finished, she had already wolfed down the bone and was chewing on her feet again.  She hadn’t even started to dry. I couldn’t believe it!  So much for the $4 bone!! DB shrugged and said, “She eliminated the licking and nibbling steps.”

Before we went to bed she asked to go out several more times, giving us the “Will pee for treat” looks.   We didn’t bite.  Someone began shooting off fireworks several streets over so she headed for DB’s closet to hide and sleep among his shoes.

We went to bed ourselves and DB leaned over and smelled my hair.  “You smell good,” he told me.

Probably the oatmeal and aloe shampoo.

Bean Brained

It’s been raining here all week.  Perhaps that might help to explain why we decided to have a Household Seminar for Self-Awareness and Corrective Behaviors.  The way it works,  Dearly Beloved and I tell each other what one does that drives the other crazy.

We’re not talking sex here.

According to him, my backseat driving has accelerated to the point that I “enlightened” him four times on our last ride to the Farmer’s Market.  This is not a first offense on my part. I admit I’m guilty, but my motives were pure.   Extenuating circumstances, etc.   After all, Oldfartitis often flares up in retiree driving and I want to head off any symptoms.  But hey. . . he feels he’s up for driving solo, so I have pledged to no longer give advice on lane selection, directional signal,  traffic light colors, or where the hell we’re supposed to be going.

In other words, if we are heading to the movies and DB allows his brain to go on automatic pilot and we end up at the beach instead, my lips are sealed.  Except, naturally, for “I could have told you so.” The Atlantic Ocean will stop us eventually. Meanwhile, I’ll keep a change of underwear in my purse.

He’s a good driver; I’ll admit that, but there are obstacles that are hard to overcome, like:

He’s a man and thus genetically programmed not to ask for directions or consult maps. Men are simply not equipped with the vaginal homing device that women possess.

Once when we were driving from Wisconsin to North Carolina, we overshot the whole state and even after we saw the Welcome to South Carolina signs he wouldn’t stop and ask for directions.

(In the interest of truth, his route turned out to be one that AAA sometimes recommended if one desired interstate highways all the way.  It wasn’t as bad as I would like to infer even though I maintain he simply lucked out in finding it.)

Nevertheless, I have resolved to have lips zipped when he’s driving.  End of discussion.

Oddly, “end of discussion” is exactly where my complaints begin.  Too often when he tells me something, he ends it with some silly phrase which sends me up the wall.  For a long time it was, “Know what I mean, Jelly Bean?“

We used to have neighbors known throughout the ‘hood because the husband was so funny and outgoing.  The wife was a behind-the-scenes person; a very hard worker on any project, but not outgoing, so she was usually off in a corner while he held court.  As her husband cracked one joke after another,  she stood by, rolling her eyes occasionally.

Once I heard someone say to her, “Your husband is so cute, I’ll bet it’s a scream living with him.”

Again with the eye roll, the wife snorted, “I thought he was cute, too, the first 200 times I heard those jokes.”

That’s sort of where I am with the jelly bean comment.  I don’t know how many verbal jelly beans DB has tossed in the jar at this point, but let’s just say, TOO MANY.

Note:  I was going to write that it was almost enough to turn me off one of my favorite little candies, but after 20 minutes, I gave up.  First, I couldn’t figure out how to write Piña Colada–my favorite flavor–and put the little mark over the ‘n’.  (I still don’t know; I copied and pasted here.)  Apparently, one can like only a single bean:  one Jelly Belly.  I looked up how to spell the plural  and the company trademark rules don’t allow for pluralizing Jelly Bell-you-know-whats.    Not that I think the Jelly Belly police would be trolling blogs, but still…. )

But back to the household Summit…. DB swore off the phrase and sure enough, the next time he was explaining something to me,  he finished his point and closed his mouth.  YEEESSS!!!

I’d already gone back to my knitting when he added as an afterthought, “Savvy?”

What th’. . . ?

Since then, there has been, “Capiche?“

“Got it?”

“Comprehende?”

“Get the picture?”

I have informed him that unless I say, “HUH?” the conversation should end as soon as he finishes his statement.

It’s becoming a sore point around here.

It makes me want to ask him, “What don’t you understand about the plan, Stan?”