Pajama Day: Reprise

Summer time means vacation time, so I'll be leaving you with a few oldies but (hopefully) goodies this week while I venture out into the woods of Upstate New York.  If I'm not back by Saturday, send help!  In the meantime, here's another little tribute to the Wonder Dog...

Pajama Day

Pajama Day is a cat lady's dream.  Imagine... waking up to a day in which there are no pesky employment obligations, no creditors lurking at your door and no relatives planning to visit.  Your social calendar is completely empty.  Household chores are unnecessary as you don't plan to wear clean clothes anyway, you can live off any leftovers in the fridge that haven't yet become science experiments and you couldn't give a crap whether your house is clean or not.

What do you do first?  The obvious thing is to go back to sleep, which you do until the other inhabitant of your home, the trusty canine, decides it's time to go outside and increase the number of land mines in the back yard.  This is brought to your attention by the tapping of doggy toenails, which should have been trimmed long ago... except that he would rather bite the hand that feeds him than have his nails done.  (He obviously doesn't understand the allure of French tips.)  You try to ignore the pitter-patter of large feet until the whining begins.  Soon you realize the whining is not due to the dream you were having about work and you become more fully awake.  Again, you try to ignore the signals by putting a pillow over your head.  When the whining finally erupts into a full-fledged bark, it's time to give up and get up.  (Cat silhouettes are much more accommodating... they never tap, whine or bark.)

As long as you're up, you might as well start brewing the coffee while the dog does his thing.  In the spirit of generosity, you provide food and water for him as well.  While doing this, you naturally spill water on the floor, slip on it and strain your bum knee.  Limping to the door to let the dog in, you realize that you should probably ice the knee, so you stop off to put an ice pack in the freezer to chill. Upon opening the door of said freezer, all the boxes of Lean Cuisine that have been crammed inside slide out and fall on your unshod foot, creating a new shot of severe pain to go along with the pain shooting through your knee.  This means it's really time to get off your feet.  You finally make it to the door and the dog comes flying in past you, (bumping into your already sore knee,) to get to the delectable taste treats you've left in his bowl.  These are scarfed down in about 3 seconds and he turns to you with a pleading look that says, "That was lovely, but what else is for breakfast?"  On your way to the recliner you throw him a rawhide chew which is consumed by the time you lean back in the chair.  The whining begins anew, so being a thoughtful pet owner you lean over to scratch him behind the ears to relieve his angst.  This results in a new pain... this one in your back where a nerve exposed by a herniated disk gets pinched from leaning over the wrong way.  Back to the fridge to put in another ice pack.

This time the cold emanating from the freezer reminds you that you have to pee.  You hobble up the stairs with one hand on your aching knee and the other hand supporting your aching back.  Once seated upon the throne of relief, you realize there are only two sheets of toilet paper left on the roll.  (Had you cleaned the bathroom like most people do on a Saturday morning, you might have noticed this before settling down.)  As you attempt to rise, you find you can't because of the pain in your knee and back.  Meanwhile, the dog has begun to whine again because he misses the scintillating conversation you'd been having previously downstairs.  Grabbing hold of the sink with one hand and the toilet paper holder with the other, you pry yourself up painfully, hobble into the spare room to procure a new roll of paper from the bulk size package sitting there and return to complete your task, which has become much more urgent.  Glorious relief is at hand and soon it's time to once again grab onto the sink and toilet paper holder to pull yourself back up off the throne.  This time the toilet paper holder snaps off the wall, falling on the remaining toes that weren't attacked by the Lean Cuisine.  New pain shoots through your toes.  

It's becoming abundantly clear that the dreams of a relaxing pajama day are not going to materialize. The only thing left to do is to pop half a bottle of Advil, dig out a pair of earplugs from the bedside stand, pull the shades and go back to bed.  Finally you drift back into an uneasy slumber... until the tapping begins again!

Hickory in Wonderland

It's quiet around the old homestead today.  Hickory the Wonder Dog has gone to Wonderland.

Hickory came to us as a puppy when he was only eight weeks old.  When we got him, he had a bald spot on top of his head and a scar down his face.  He was the last of the litter to be spoken for since he was deemed "defective".  But I'm a sap for the underdog and that made him all the more lovable to me. 

The bald spot grew larger and the vet determined it was a dermoid cyst, so Hickory had to go through a major surgery to have it removed when he was a year old.  Which also meant the had to have the skin from his neck pulled up and grafted onto the top of his head.  From then on he always looked kind of like he had a bad toupe! 

The cyst was not the only thing that grew.  Hickory was a large, economy size dog, topping out at 130 pounds.  Yeah, that's a BIG dog!  But then, we're big people, so we suited each other.  The living room already seems huge now, without him sprawled across the floor.

His home away from home was out at Shamra's house, with his best friend, Sadie, the cats and the chickens.  I never had to worry about putting Hickory into a kennel for trips because he was always welcome there.  He spent hours roaming with Sadie in the meadow and going swimming in the pond.  (Sadie hated the water, though, and would look at him with distain when he would mosey on over next to her to shake off the pond water.)  Shamra's family dubbed him "Big Daddy" and loved him as much as we did. 

We said our final farewells after his back legs gave out and he was unable to get up.  Hickory's last night was spent outside because he couldn't get back up the steps into the house.  Since it was raining, I made a little tent out of tarps and spent the night with him.  It was our last campout together.

I petted him through the night, keeping him as comfortable as possible until the vet came the next morning.  Then I held him as he relaxed into his final sleep.

Hickory saw Vlad and I through life's ups and downs... accidents, surgeries, death, divorce and unemployment... always maintaining a steady, loving gaze just when we needed it most. 

We'll hold him in our hearts always and trust that he's happy now in Wonderland.

WTF Wednesday #3: More on Home Security Measures

So, Moooooog over at Mental Poo just celebrated his two year blogoversary a few days ago. Congrats on that accomplishment! (Makes me wonder how big his FBI file is by now.)

There are many bloggers out there who inspire me, but the Midget Man of Steel was the one who introduced me to the Motivator. Talk about an inspirational moment. When I'm feeling fairly unmotivated (which is most of the time) I turn to the Motivator to entertain and amuse myself.

And WTF... while I'll never be as clever as Moooooog, I'm still enjoying destroying everything in my photo file by turning it into a motivational photo. Sure hope my mom likes the one I sent her for her 84th birthday on Monday:

(WTF! I'm not positive, but I think the Chip-n-Dale on the left has his ass on backwards.)

But, getting to the subject at hand... in scouring upstate New York the past several days, I just haven't been able to find that perfect samurai sword for my very own Home Security for BadAss Bloggers arsenal. WTF is up with that?

Then Jules over at Mean Girl Garage says that if you're a convicted felon they won't sell you a samurai sword. WTF? How do you suppose Jules knows that? Hmm.... Is there something she isn't telling us? WTF...Jules must be a bigger BadAss Blogger than I thought. It's her birthday on Friday, so I hope they let her out by then so she can go celebrate. However, I digress... this shouldn't be an issue for me since my record was expunged after successfully completing court class. But then again, you can never be too sure.

So, in the unlikely event that I am unable to procure said samurai sword, I have taken alternative measures. My vicious canine, Hickory the Wonder Dog, is ready for action, thanks to my son Vlad who has outfitted him with the finest in WWII Soviet weaponry. When I first saw Hickory all decked out with his new rifle, I thought to myself, WTF? What was Vlad thinking? But then as I considered it a bit more carefully, it all made sense. Undoubtedly, at 130 pounds and armed to the teeth, Hickory will strike fear into the hearts of burglars everywhere:


You certainly wouldn't want to mess with that!

Now, if I could only teach him how to use the samurai sword when it arrives...

Fortune Cookie Friday + Happy Hour Friday = Perfection!

Wouldn't you know, I wrote the post below and then went over to Otin's blog and noticed he was doing Happy Hour Friday, which coincided perfectly with what I had written... so I decided to link the two, which makes me happy!


Okay, so it's Friday and I clicked on my fortune cookie widget, which provided me the following words of "wisdom":

Remember, being happy is not always being perfect.

Hell, if that's true, I should be ecstatic. I should be gleefully floating on air. I should be dancing on happy feet. I should be cavorting in the meadow with Hickory the Wonder Dog.

Because I'm never perfect! I mean never! Really, I'm serious! I know you must find that hard to believe. But, the good news is... that means there's hope for happiness at the CatLady's house.

In a perfect world I would stay happy forever, but now I'm worried that the truth is exactly as the fortune says. If everything was perfect, would I know that I was happy? Would happiness be diluted if I was never UN-happy? Oh, no! WTF? This is beginning to sound like an exercise in Zen philosophy... ack!

My problem right now is that I actually am very happy. I'm happy not going to work. I'm happy reading blogs all day long. I'm happy drinking gallons of coffee in the morning and mainlining Dr. Pepper in the afternoon. I'm happy watching Dexter and other mindless drivel on DVD. I'm happy playing Apples to Apples and other games. I'm happy hanging out and drinking wine with Nanodance and my other friends. I'm happy having pajama day every day.

Sooner or later, though, I'm going to have to go out and seek gainful employment, which means there will be hassles and stupid people to deal with and long hours and waking up at night worrying about some project that's gone wrong. And then I won't be happy anymore. I can't help myself. Because I'm so disorganized, I have to over-compensate by being uber organized at work, which means I have to keep up the facade of being a competent person, which is so very exhausting.

Plus, I really hate perfect people. I hate people who have perfect hair and perfect children and perfect spouses and perfect houses and perfect pets and perfect jobs. They're just so annoying! It's like Lance & Melanie. We used to get Christmas letters from these distant relatives, whose kids were always perfect. They used up two pages of paper, telling us all about the awards and good grades and perfect teeth and perfectly polite manners of these perfect children. It got to be that at our house the names Lance & Melanie were synonymous with obnoxious prigs. (And since Lance & Melanie are so perfect, they would never condescend to read a blog like this, so I think I'm relatively safe from slander suits.)

So, why do we spend so much time and energy trying to pretend we're perfect, when perfect people are such obnoxious prigs? Happily, the answer is, I don't try to be perfect anymore. And none of my friends do either. Which is why I like my friends so much. And why I like my cyber-bloggy-friends so much. Because we're rude and irreverent and obnoxious and fun! That makes me happy... and happily less than perfect. Which means I'm probably going to hell, but that's okay. I'll have lots of friends there.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...

I know I got a little carried away the past few days with all the excitement about the Meme Award. Thank you! Thank you! It was getting so I couldn't even go out in public because of everyone wanting my autograph. (Like on charge slips.) I did make it out into the real world to go to the therapist, though... my doctor won't give me my drugs unless I see my therapist regularly, so every once in awhile I go and we shoot the shit and laugh about my weird life and she tells me what's new with her and then I go away and fill my prescription. It's a win-win situation for both of us.

Anyway, my therapist started telling me about taking her granddaughter berry picking and it reminded me of the first time I took Little Vlad berry picking.

When Vladimir was little, he wasn't a big fan of animals. He was always somewhat nervous around animals, especially large ones, because they are so unpredictable.* Trips to the zoo were highlighted by Vlad avoiding most of the caged animals and staring at the fish in the aquariums. Fish are generally pretty innocuous because they don't charge at you or anything, like man eating tigers or rhinoceroses do. And you can forget about pony rides... that just wasn't happening. (In fact, Vlad was so disenchanted with animals that he took a stuffed Thomas the Tank Engine to bed every night instead of the typical teddy bear.)

But getting back to the berry picking...

We had gone strawberry picking with some of our best friends when Vlad was three. It was a beautiful day and we were having great fun watching Vlad and his little friend Maggie eating berries as they moved along the path. They just looked so gosh darned cute with strawberry juice dripping down their chins!

We finally got several baskets filled and took them up to the farm wagon to pay for our bountiful harvest. Sitting on the wagon was a cardboard berry basket with a tiny bird inside. Apparently the owners of the field had found the bird abandoned under one of the strawberry plants. And believe it or not, Little Vladimir was fascinated by the wee bird. He just kept staring at it. I was amazed and very heartened by his interest in a real live animal... finally! Could my child actually be forming a relationship with a living creature? I was even more excited when he said....

"I want to take that bird home!"

Oh, be still my heart! My child likes an animal! I was ready to go buy a bird cage and start making up names for the little critter. The lady told us the story of how she found the baby bird and how they were hoping they could feed him and nurse him back to health until he could make it on his own. Vlad didn't make eye contact with the nice farmer lady as she spoke, but continued to just stand there and just stare at the bird. He even asked if he could climb up on the wagon to get a better look at it.

It was so sweet I almost cried. Then, as he eyes remained glued to the bird, he said...

"I want to take that bird home and eat it for dinner!"

Where did I go wrong?

And just in case you were wondering.... We did not have fowl for dinner that night.

*It turns out that wariness of animals is an Asperger's thing. Vlad was 9 before we got our first and only pet... Hickory the Wonder Dog. Vlad had finally begun to show an interest in animals and I figured a dog was a better bet than the slug he brought home and begged me to keep.

Birthday Greetings!

Hey!

You out there!

It's my birthday!

Just thought you'd like to know.

I have a very exciting day planned. It involves being a total slob and relaxing all day, filling my face with disgustingly unhealthy food and avoiding human contact. A perfect Cat Lady birthday!

Here's what will probably happen....

6:00 ~ Awaken to the sound of impatient doggy toenails, tapping to let me know it's time to get up and let him out.

6:15 ~ Try to go back to sleep after letting dog out. Damned cheerful chirping birds keep that from happening!

6:30 ~ Give up sleep and declare it a pajama day! Take care of morning ablutions and put the coffee on. Succumb to temptation and eat not one, but two donuts. Total decadence! (It's my birthday, after all.) Sort through stack of unread books to find something mindless, yet socially redeeming to read.

7:00 ~ Enjoy the quiet as the now college age Vladimir leaves for his full time summer job... at least one of us will be gainfully employed all summer.

7:15 ~ Fall asleep in recliner.

9:00 ~ Wake up and wonder where I am... what day is it? Realize I overslept and missed my final exam for that psychology course... oh, wait... that was a dream... Hey, I'm 55 years old and have been out of college for 33 years! Why am I still having these dreams? Maybe I should have paid more attention in that class, after all!

9:01 ~ Realize it's my birthday and that I'm not 55 any more... I'm now 56, which means I'm officially in my "late 50's", which means I'm getting really old, which means my life is well past half over, which means it's all downhill from here... OMG!!!!! Panic Attack!!!!

9:10 ~ Get over panic attack and go back to reading.

10:30 ~ Hear strange mewling noise outside. Go out to investigate.

10:31 ~ Find basket of homeless kittens on doorstep... I know you put those there, Nanodance!!!! Haven't I told you before? I don't want any cats... as long as the silhouettes are up, that still counts for Cat Lady purposes!

10:45 ~ Dog highly insulted by birthday gift from Nanodance. Get dressed to go wander up and down the street, looking for new homes for the kitties.

10:55 ~ Give up and decide to drive over to Nanodance's house and leave the basket of kittens on her doorstep. Will have to pretend that I never got them and that they wandered back to her house on their own, dragging their little basket behind them.

11:00 ~ Check mailbox for birthday cards... none there. Boo Hoo! Wait... Oh, yeah... it's Memorial Day! There's no mail delivery! THAT'S why nobody sent any cards... it's not that I'm unpopular! Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the one after that.

Anyway, you get my drift... once you're past 30, it's all over in terms of exciting birthday celebrations. I'll just hope for a quiet day at home, with no disasters befalling me. That's my idea of a perfect birthday! At least I get a three-day weekend to mark the occasion!

Happy Memorial Day!

P.S. I told the kidlets at school that we don't have school today because it's a national holiday in celebration of my birthday.... they bought it as far as New York is concerned, but couldn't figure out why the entire nation would have a holiday for my birthday. Maybe I should tell them it's because I wasn't born in New York. They believe just about anything I tell them... probably why I like hanging around with the little rascals so much!

Pajama Day

Pajama Day is a cat lady's dream.  Imagine... waking up to a day in which there are no pesky employment obligations, no creditors lurking at your door and no relatives planning to visit.  Your social calendar is completely empty.  Household chores are unnecessary as you don't plan to wear clean clothes anyway, you can live off any leftovers in the fridge that haven't yet become science experiments and you couldn't give a crap whether your house is clean or not.

What do you do first?  The obvious thing is to go back to sleep, which you do until the other inhabitant of your home, the trusty canine, decides it's time to go outside and increase the number of land mines in the back yard.  This is brought to your attention by the tapping of doggy toenails, which should have been trimmed long ago... except that he would rather bite the hand that feeds him than have his nails done.  (He obviously doesn't understand the allure of French tips.)  You try to ignore the pitter-patter of large feet until the whining begins.  Soon you realize the whining is not due to the dream you were having about work and you become more fully awake.  Again, you try to ignore the signals by putting a pillow over your head.  When the whining finally erupts into a full-fledged bark, it's time to give up and get up.  (Cat silhouettes are much more accommodating... they never tap, whine or bark.)

As long as you're up, you might as well start brewing the coffee while the dog does his thing.  In the spirit of generosity, you provide food and water for him as well.  While doing this, you naturally spill water on the floor, slip on it and strain your bum knee.  Limping to the door to let the dog in, you realize that you should probably ice the knee, so you stop off to put an ice pack in the freezer to chill.  Upon opening the door of said freezer, all the boxes of Lean Cuisine that have been crammed inside slide out and fall on your unshod foot, creating a new shot of severe pain to go along with the pain shooting through your knee.  This means it's really time to get off your feet.  You finally make it to the door and the dog comes flying in past you, (bumping into your already sore knee,) to get to the delectable taste treats you've left in his bowl.  These are scarfed down in about 3 seconds and he turns to you with a pleading look that says, "That was lovely, but what else is for breakfast?"  On your way to the recliner you throw him a rawhide chew which is consumed by the time you lean back in the chair.  The whining begins anew, so being a thoughtful pet owner you lean over to scratch him behind the ears to relieve his angst.  This results in a new pain... this one in your back where a nerve exposed by a herniated disk gets pinched from leaning over the wrong way.  Back to the fridge to put in another ice pack.

This time the cold emanating from the freezer reminds you that you have to pee.  You hobble up the stairs with one hand on your aching knee and the other hand supporting your aching back.  Once seated upon the throne of relief, you realize there are only two sheets of toilet paper left on the roll.  (Had you cleaned the bathroom like most people do on a Saturday morning, you might have noticed this before settling down.)  As you attempt to rise, you find you can't because of the pain in your knee and back.  Meanwhile, the dog has begun to whine again because he misses the scintillating conversation you'd been having previously downstairs.  Grabbing hold of the sink with one hand and the toilet paper holder with the other, you pry yourself up painfully, hobble into the spare room to procure a new roll of paper from the bulk size package sitting there and return to complete your task, which has become much more urgent.  Glorious relief is at hand and soon it's time to once again grab onto the sink and toilet paper holder to pull yourself back up off the throne.  This time the toilet paper holder snaps off the wall, falling on the remaining toes that weren't attacked by the Lean Cuisine.  New pain shoots through your toes.  

It's becoming abundantly clear that the dreams of a relaxing pajama day are not going to materialize.  The only thing left to do is to pop half a bottle of Advil, dig out a pair of earplugs from the bedside stand, pull the shades and go back to bed.  Finally you drift back into an uneasy slumber... until the tapping begins again!

Note to self:

Lionel trains set up around tree... remind dog not to lick the third rail.  (Although this doesn't seem to bother the cat silhouettes.  They actually appear to be laughing.)