500? No…um…Excrement!!

I’ve found myself avoiding this post, since it’s my 500th, figuring I needed to say something pithy and wise, an extremely tough assignment since I usually muse about my Dearly Beloved husband, our poop-eating pooch, and the damnsquirrels ruining my flower beds.

Eventually, it came to me that if you’ve been here reading about poop, you probably aren’t expecting pith.

Last week I went to the mountains with my e-mail pals while my Dearly Beloved and Miss Piggy hung out at the beach.  North Carolina offers both.  Here’s my Saturday photo:

And here’s DB’s. The Atlantic was smooth as a lake.

DB decided that while it was just the two of them, he would attempt an intervention with Miss Piggy about her poop-munching.  His plan was to spray her deposits with something vile enough to deter her from having any interest in excrement–rabbit, dog, or otherwise.

Before you ask, yes, we do take her on walks at least twice a day, our pockets full of plastic newspaper bags to use as pooper scoopers.  I’m talking about the additional deposits she leaves when she goes in the back yard. This cocker spaniel poops at least three times a day, usually more, and scatters it in the grass, so collecting it isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially if it’s a predawn or evening deposit.

We think she poops more than she eats.  She may be a record setter, but we’re not looking for a trophy, believe me.

DB threatened to use Clorox, but not wanting to kill either her or the grass and not being able to find the Clorox, he chose Windex instead.  I can picture him cruising around the back yard with his spray bottle, spraying Windex on all the little Tootsie Roll turds.

It was all for naught.  Here’s his e-mail to me, reporting the results of his Windex experiment:

Doesn’t work.  Her teeth are sparkling.

How did I digress this far?   Back to my 500th post…

You’d think I’d have found my stride by now about my writing, but my most widely read post had only 14 words in it and they weren’t even necessary, so I certainly can’t get any direction from that.   It was one I did a year ago:  Why I Love Caller ID.

Bloggers often do Giveaways and get lots of blog attention on anniversary days.  I considered that, but what in the world would I offer?  One of my half-finished knitting projects?  Squirrel recipes?  If I’m going to have a Giveaway, it’s not blog attention I’m after anyway, but an opportunity to give one of you something special… because you’re special to me.  Here’s what I decided:

Go to BroJoe’s World and select your three favorite photos.  Leave a comment giving me a general idea–butterfly, sunrise, a dragonfly, etc.  If you win, we’ll get specific later to make sure I order the right prints.  Right now,  I’m simply curious to see which ones are favorites.  You can also tell me which size you’d prefer–5×7, 8×10?

BroJoe says all of this is okay with him.

We’ll make the deadline October 28.   I’ll put all the entries in a jack-o-lantern and get DB to draw one.  (Hah!  You probably thought I was going to scatter them in the yard and let Miss Piggy choose, didn’t you?!)

If you want to include any suggestions for Dearly Beloved as to what he might try in his spray bottle next time, feel free to add that, too.  Not something to put IN her food–we’ve gone that route– but something he can spray on it.  Won’t get you any sway in the drawing, but it’ll give Dr. Strangelove something to ponder. . .

Help take a load off his mind.

 

Monday Moaning, Columbus

Monday morning-type issues abound.

• My e-mail will receive messages but not send them, so subsequently I receive followup e-mails wondering why I haven’t responded to earlier ones.
• My brother’s photo blog wouldn’t upload photos in “this format.”   A photo blog without photos makes for a puny post.  As far as the two of us know, it’s the same format.  Sometimes when one is flying by the seat of one’s pants, there is a rip.
• It is raining.  Why Miss Piggy emits a swampy smell when she isn’t wet is one of life’s little mysteries.  Granddog Stella is napping quietly on Miss Piggy’s bed.  Miss P, on the other hand, is lying across Stella’s bed, gnawing on one of Stella’s bones.  It’s too large for Miss Piggy  to even pick up with her old-lady teeth.  The sawing noise she is making seems the perfect topper to my two hours on the phone with three different computer support techs and now grinds into my cauliflower-ear.
• In order to get rid of the ODD (Odoriferous Drizzled Dog) smell, I switched on the fan of our air conditioning system.  No fan noise.  Not a good sign, I fear.
• I would ask Dearly Beloved about the fan problem and Good Egg Son about the computer problems but they are both out on the golf course.  In the rain.  Should one trust answers from men who don’t know enough to come in out of the rain?

Having bellied up to the Apple Genius Bar twice last week, I tried Online Support this morning.  The first tech had me uninstall and reinstall my e-mail program.  Doing as instructed, I reinstalled 10,751 e-mails–a neat trick since I don’t have 10,751 e-mails.  Who knows… I may have imported yours, too.  I couldn’t tell that anything changed in my Inbox.  I watched as I worked my way through three cups of coffee, and a cherry turnover.   

(The tech, I learned during the wait, loves muffins, lives in Lexington, KY, had car trouble on a trip with three buddies in a remote section of Ohio, and his iPhone is broken.  I’m pretty sure he’s going to feel obligated to invite me to the wedding whenever he gets married, we became so tight waiting for 10,000+ e-mails to roll in.)

Since I can still receive mail, I opened this one from a friend who sent it to me and to  his two-year-old grandson.  It made me feel better.  I hope it did the same for the little chap.

My Brother’s Been Buggin’ Me Again

It’s time to de-bug my computer, thanks to BroJoe.

There’s this…

And this:

And the wise one…

 ”Grasshopper always wrong in argument with chicken.” — Book of Chan

Phantom of the Night

My Dearly Beloved is a very light sleeper.

I have previously explained our differences in sleeping habits. I sleep soundly and deeply.   So that I won’t be mistaken for a corpse, my engine purrs when I sleep– loudly, so DB frequently reminds me. Snoring is my emergency generator.

Noises rarely disturb me, but jostling the bed may, and I’ve been waking at suspiciously odd hours lately, like a few nights ago during a thunderboomer.  I thought perhaps my dog-mom instincts were kicking in.  Miss Piggy likes to hide from storms, so I pushed back the covers to get up and go help her find a good hidey hole.

“Where are you going?”  DB asked before my feet hit the floor.  There was no trace of sleep in his voice.

“To check on Miss Piggy.”

“She’s in our closet,” he informed me, a smug note to his voice.  ”I’ve already taken care of her.  Can’t you hear her snoring in there?”  

No, I couldn’t hear her snoring, nor did I want to.  I don’t lie in bed and listen for sounds to obsess about.  Why should both of us do so?  I realized that it hadn’t been the thunder that awakened me; he sounded too guilty.  He’d been prowling around the house again.

Before I was able to drop back into Dreamsville, he was out of bed once more, searching for some imaginary moth wing-decibel noise.  Most people in search of disquietude might arm themselves with something like a baseball bat.  Not DB.

His weapon of choice is a pillow.

To his credit, he makes the bed every morning.  That way, he can collect the pillows he strategically placed during his ramblings to cover excesses like the blazing beams from electronics (i.e., the VCR button) and to smother deafening sounds (electric clock.)

“Why don’t you simply unplug the clock?” I asked him one night.  I mean, it’s not like it’s even set to the right time.  Nope.  That’s not the way he works.

I have removed my little bedside radio from the nightstand in order to save him a pillow.  (And to protect mine, lest he snatch it from beneath my head.) I would not be surprised to find one on the bathroom counter, covering his electric toothbrush.  That green dot on the handle that shows it’s charging must be a lighthouse beacon to Mr. Light Sleeper.

Wondering why he doesn’t simply close the door to shut out some of the distractions?  He wouldn’t dream of it.  He has to track the offending objects to their source and punish them for their misdeeds.

Last night DB got back into bed after one of his spectral searches.  None too carefully, I might add, for he woke me in the process.  He’d heard a noise.  I don’t mean a “someone is breaking in” sound.  Oh no. I’m talking a Was-that-a-leaf-dropping-off-that-loud-plant-of-yours cacophony.

“What time is it?”  I asked, sleepily.

“12:30.”  

Great.  I’d been asleep for about an hour.  I groaned and rolled over when he came back to bed.

“Don’t worry.  My golf clubs are safe in the garage.”

I didn’t respond.

“You’ve seen that commercial, haven’t you?” he asked in his let’s chat voice.

I haven’t seen the commercial and didn’t want to hear about it at 12:30 AM.

(And my dentist wonders why I grind my teeth at night.)

DB says not, but I’m wondering if the man has OCD (Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder.)   I certainly realize what I’m dealing with in my own situation:  PITA.

Pain In The Ass.

(BroJoe's beach moon from 3/11)

Did you hear about the great new restaurant on the moon?

The food is excellent, but there’s no atmosphere.

Seeing Orange and Purple

As is the case with too many other states, North Carolina is experiencing wildfires.  Ours are near the coastal areas, where the dry pine forests burn easily and the peat bogs smolder for months, as much as eight feet beneath the ground.

There has not been much publicity about the ones in our area.  The wildfires here are not nearly as large as the fires in Arizona, not to mention that the beaches would just as soon not spook the tourists.  Some days may be smoky or hazy and some are fine.  The smoke can travel for miles, creating Code Orange and even Code Purple (highest alert level) warnings several counties away.

One fire which began the first week of May near the Outer Banks has burned about 70 square miles and is now contained, but still has hot spots.  Six inches of rain are needed to extinguish them.

Closer to our beach area, there are at least three wildfires burning in nearby counties–30,000 acres here, 20,000 acres there… a few homes, a lot of forest areas and wildlife habitats.  It’s unimaginable to think what training at the nearby military bases must be like with heat, humidity, chiggers, mosquitoes, and heavy smoke.

The area is under extreme drought conditions and the Forestry Service has had little help from rainfall.  They fight the fires not only with water from lakes, but because the fires are often in hard-to-reach areas, the firefighters also use tractors and backhoes, as well as planes and helicopters.  They start backfires by air and ground methods to try to stop the path of the fires, but sometimes they have no choice but to just let them burn.  By June 30, crews from as far away as Alaska and California were fighting 11 different wildfires in our area.

There are still lovely sunrises, as evidenced by this one BroJoe took on June 30.

Today the sky isn’t Carolina blue, but the sun is shining and the beaches are crowded with sunbathers, many of whom will be fooled by what the newspaper weather report calls “dimmed sunshine.”  The Forestry Service won’t be able to help their burns.

The holiday weekend bumper-to-bumper traffic isn’t helping the air quality, but the area businesses are thrilled.

I found this fascinating, time-lapsed, night motion (vimeo) video of the Outer Banks made by photographer Daniel Lowe.  While it does show some of the smoke around one of the coastal lighthouses, I’m including this mostly because there is some mind-blowing art going on here.  The shots of the MIlky Way are awesome and the sound is eerily appropriate.

Something’s Buggin’ Me…!

When my BroJoe sent these pictures to me, I thought they were, just as he had labeled them, dragonflies.

On closer examination, I’m not so sure.  My baby brother may have found evidence of reincarnation.

Reimbodiment… or Reimbugament!

Exhibit A: 

Could it be…?

EXHIBIT B: 

Even down to the freckles…!

EXHIBIT C: 

Yep, bring out the candelabra, it’s HIM!

Hello, Theosophical Society…?

I spend money with reckless abandon. Last month I blew $5000 at a reincarnation. I got to thinking, what the hell, you only live once! 

– Ronnie Shakes

A:   Cao Cao,  The Romance of the Three Kingdoms

B.   Archie Andrews of Archie Comics

C.  Liberace

BroJoe’s Birthday

Today is my BroJoe’s birthday.  The Big 5-0.

It’s about damn time.

Hard to describe my brother.  If you put an Eagle Scout, George  (It’s A Wonderful Life) Bailey, and Peter Pan into a blender, toss in a few nuts (that’s the genetic part), pour the resulting mixture into a very tall mold, and then half-bake it under the Outer Banks sun, that would be a good beginning.

He treks through woods and swamps and takes fascinating nature pictures.  I’ve used some of them in earlier posts.

Since he’s up and out before dawn almost every day,  he even shares the sunrise:

The photos show his respect for nature and his talent, but perhaps this snapshot reveals more about who BroJoe really is, even though he isn’t in it.

He calls this one, Guess Which Bike Is Mine.

Happy Birthday, Joe!!!   

Swan Lake

This may be my new favorite of my BroJoe’s wildlife photographs.  He took it at the Alligator River Refuge on the Outer Banks.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

– Horatio G. Spafford

Does An Apple Fall Far From The Tree?

Sunrise over the Alligator River

Another sunrise, compliments of BroJoe, the brother who never sleeps.

Last week you may have read a story in the newspaper about a guy who, since being struck by lightning in 2006, has had trouble sleeping, so he is up at all hours of the night, tinkering on various projects.  That’s how he happened to be outside in the wee hours of the morning, working on his truck, when he got mauled by a bear.   Since I’ve been showing pictures of sunrises and bears, compliments of BroJoe,  I want to assure you that the lightning-struck, bear-mauled man (who is now on vacation at North Myrtle Beach) is NOT my brother.  I don’t know the man.

Things are not exactly tranquil around here.  When I checked my tomato plants and saw that the squirrels had picked every last green tomato,  I yanked out the plants in a mad frenzy and hit Home Depot for some un-tasty flowers for that bed.  I e-mailed BroJoe about it, telling him that if I couldn’t have any tomatoes, neither could the squirrels.

He wrote back that I sounded just like Mother.   Funny… Dearly Beloved says the same thing.

Dearly Beloved hasn’t exactly been Mr. CCC  (cool, calm, and collected) himself lately since he declared war on  the damnsquirrels.   He has the armchair in the sunroom turned so he can glance at the bird feeder while he is reading.  Yesterday he suddenly slammed down The Girl Who Played With Fire and dashed out on the deck yelling, “GET YOUR ASS OFF THERE!” loudly enough that any neighbors on the block  unlucky enough to be sitting down vacated their chairs immediately.

Our kids would be shocked.  The man just doesn’t do things like that.

I regret that I did not have my camera handy later in the day when I saw Lucifer -the-damnsquirrel making a mad dash to outrun the broom which had been hurled from the deck.  Missed by an inch.

Still later,  I looked out and saw my steely-eyed caveman poised to hurl another javelin, this time a mop I’d put out to dry.

DB hasn’t been reading and warring all the time, however.  He spent a lot of time outside this week working on the sprinkler system, a skill he has developed since retirement.

My hero in 97-degree heat.

This morning he was up at sunrise, checking to make sure that the sprinkler system was working properly.  As he walked around the back yard checking the sprinkler heads, a green apple came sailing out of the tree.

The oak tree.

Since the nearest apple tree is in our neighbor’s yard next door,  the culprit had to be a damnsquirrel.

The question is… was it dropped or was it thrown?