Chicken and Sponge

Continuing to Annoy and Be Cute

The title of this post refers to Hedwig, though one might think I was talking about Samantha.  Before I get off on the wrong rant, though, let me update you on Hedwig.

In the above picture, she is resting on a tray on top of the refrigerator.  It is slightly distasteful, but at the same time, she isn't sticking to one of us.  Because these days, Hedwig resembles nothing so much as a piece of velcro, and Mick is her fabric of choice.  He can't stand it.

He sits down.  She is right there.  He throws her down.  She is right back.  And I think I've already told you that she has a meow that sounds like a cranky drunk who's been chain-smoking and drinking whiskey.

On the bright side, for me that is, she has stopped sleeping with us.  I greatly appreciate this.   It took being mean, meaner than I thought I could be.  It was all due to the fleas.  In the past, when I would toss her from our bed and she would creep back to settle down on one of my body parts, I would eventually give up or she would sneak better.  Then she got fleas and there was no way I was going to tolerate her in the bed, scratching.  She tried, though, and it was scratch, scratch, scratch, and then I would scratch, scratch, scratch, and then...she tried to lie down by my head and that was it.  I launched her.

No, I didn't hurt her.  I didn't abuse her.  I only launched her about 2 and a half feet.  But I let her know I didn't want her sleeping in our bed.  Not with the scratch, scratch, scratch going on.  No way I could tolerate that.

So Hedwig decided that she would sleep on top of the satellite receiver in the living room.  Ocassionally she sleeps behind the tv itself.  That was fine.  I guess.  Far more fur flying around than I would like, but it's better than having her sleeping on me in our bed.

Then she got me back.

Our cats are pukers.  Always have been and now I'm afraid that they always will be.  We've tried every cat food under the sun, starting with the most expensive ones first.  Nothing worked.  Every formula:  sensitive stomach, hair ball control, indoor cat...Iams, Science Diet...piles of cat puke every morning.

Then it stopped.  I was afraid to say anything for fear of jinxing us, but then I made a comment to Mick, "This new Friskies Indoor Cat Formula seems to have done the trick.  I'd given up.  I don't know if you noticed, but they've been puking a lot less."  "Yes," Mick replied, "I have noticed".

And that is when I jinxed us.  I should have kept my mouth shut.  Then maybe the cats would have kept theirs shut, too.  Payback from Hedwig was when she knocked over my favorite picture of Miranda that was propped up on the satellite receiver and then, you guessed it, she puked on it.  The contents of her stomach ran under the glass on the frame and ate away the bottom portion of the picture.  My favorite picture of Miranda, taken in the 5th grade.

Hedwig didn't stop there.  Oh, no, because I shampooed the living room carpet a couple of weeks ago and now every morning I get to clean up a pile of cat puke right in the walk way.  Every morning, a fresh nasty stain.  Time to shampoo again.

Whenever we get visitors who like cats, they all comment on how cute Hedwig is and how they'd like to take her home with them.

And Mick and I reply, "Yes, we'd like you to take her home, too."

When Autistic Kids Elope and Other Living Nightmares

Recovering from the Adventures of Zeus and Louise. 

Mick has been too exhausted to post.  Ditto for moi.  We're still recovering from LAST Sunday morning.  Make that 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning.  Cruel, cruel child.

It is a very bad sign, but a very effective forewarning, when Sam gets up and closes our bedroom door in the morning.  Did I mention it was 6:30 a.m.?  And Sunday?  Have I mentioned how much I cherish my weekends?  The need to catch up on sleep?  I get up at 5:15 a.m. Monday through Friday.  I really did, all this past week, and you know what else?  I EXERCISED!  So why is it that when Sam closed our bedroom door so early in the morning and we both knew it was a terrible sign, why was I the one to immediately jump out of bed to DEAL?  Because I didn't want to get into that same old argument about who is more tired, me or Mick, and then have him say with complete disdain that I could get more sleep, but I choose to read.  Because if I hear that one more time, something in my psyche will snap and then I'm either going to punch him or start to ruminate on truly horrible things I could do to him.  So, in order to save my marriage, I jumped out of bed to follow Sam and see what she was up to.

Bad sign number two:  Sam was wearing shoes.  She had her pajamas on, but she had shoes on, too.  And then she grabbed the car keys and things got interesting.

While life turned into a rated NC-17 real life drama ( not really, very little swearing and only mild violence and that was all perpetrated against me), I kept imagining Mick in bed, pretending to sleep.  Pretending, because Sam gave me the literal run-around and I was in and out our front door several times, each time heralded by the security recording that announces, "Front Door!"  In and out, in and out, with that voice sounding throughout the house each time.  Then I made a critical error and Sam gained entrance to our car.  With keys in hand and she was attempting to put them in the ignition.  I feel no confidence whatsoever, that this process would be beyond her.  In fact, I'm pretty certain that Sam is a smart enough cookie, and an observant one at that, and could quite easily start the car and probably get it to move.

I'm also pretty sure that she is unaware of what P, R, and D mean and chances are she'd jam it into D and drive straight into our porch.  Or worse.  Much worse.  And all possible, horrible scenarios played out in my mind while I tried to wrestle the keys away from her and she yelled at me and pushed.

I took a short commercial break to run to the, "Front Door!"  and poke my head in and yell, "MICK, I REALLY NEED YOUR HELP NOW!" 

I'm pleased to announce that he did not go take a hot tub first, yell, "I'll be there in a minute", or even take the time to get dressed.  His sister will be relieved to know that he did take the time to grab his robe first or it really would have been an NC-17 live drama.

As Mick approached, Sam gave me a final shove that sent me reeling backward like a drunk thrown out of a saloon in the old West.  And Mick came in like Black Bart.  His expression was thunderous.  They got into it, Mick won (the first round), Sam was severely scolded and told that uh-uh no way would she be driving, and then we hid the keys.

And Sam ran out the front door and started running up the street to the main road.  Mick looked at me and said, "Just let her go.  I'll go get dressed and get her in the car."  And I said, "Uh-uh, no way" and grabbed my coat and followed her up the road.

At 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning.  In my pajamas...and slippers...in the rain.

For a fat child, that kid can cover some ground fast.  No way was I going to let her go and have Mick try to catch up.  Remember, you remember, don't you?  It was just a couple of weeks ago that we'd called 911 and spent three hours searching for her only to find Sam lying in some lady's bed eating old Halloween candy.  I could just see her walking in on a family getting ready for early church service.  Scaring some elderly person into a fatal heart attack.  So I followed.  And prayed that Mick hadn't taken a hot tub before dressing.  Or had a fashion crisis where he couldn't decide if he should wear the blue plaid or the red plaid that day. 

She sure could walk fast.  I realized that my slippers had big cracks in the soles.  Also, no matter how carefully you step, gravel will find a way inside one's slipper.  And then it gets caught in the long, fake fur.  I also realized that there are quite a few people driving around at 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning and what the hell are they all doing?  I knew what I was doing.  I was tracking.  I was trying to prevent an elderly couple's fatal heart attacks.  But what were all these other people doing driving around that early on a weekend morning in the rain?  Get a life.  Sleep in.  That's what I would have been doing, given the chance.

I saw Mick speed past me and pull into a driveway in front of Samantha, who entered the car without further incident.  Yes, he turned and picked me up, too.  And we went home.  Sam stripped.  Threw off her shoes and we breathed a sigh of relief.  No shoes is a good sign.  Not a guarantee of staying home, but a good sign none the less.

And then I went to the back door and realized that the dogs were not on our porch, where I'd expected them to be.  They hadn't jumped all over us in a crazed frenzy from our twenty minute absence as we'd entered the house either.  I poked my head out the back door.  Uh-oh.

The porch door was open.  The door that led to freedom.  I walked back to Mick and said, "The dogs have escaped."  "Are you sure?" he asked, and he followed me out to the porch.  Then he walked around the yard, the whole acre of yard, the almost treeless, flat, bare acre and he called their names. 

Then Mick stalked back to the house shaking his head, grabbed the car keys, and said, "Why do these things always happen to me?"

It was about 45 minutes later that Mick returned.  I'd had horrible visions of one or both dogs getting hit by one of those crazy 6:30 a.m. sunday morning drivers.  But no, the two lunatics came charging in the door, wet, smelly, muddy and so excited to be home after their exciting adventure.  Mick told me the tale of driving and looking, driving and looking, and thank God that Louise is larger and white because he saw he out in between two fields ambling along.  He called her name and she came running.  Zeus, afraid that he'd miss out, came running from further up the road and the two idiots made it home.  Tired, panting, tongues fully extended, they collapsed on the love seat and slept.

I realized that I hadn't heard any noise out of Sam and went to look, just to make sure that she hadn't escaped again during the current dog drama.

Alas, she was exhausted, too.  And she slept, in OUR BED, until 12:30 in the afternoon.  And Mick and I just sat, limp and vacant eyed, waiting for the next crisis to strike.

Dealing With a Flea Infestation in Your House and Pets

Well, if dealing with fleas on Christmas Day wasn't enough, after a full day of work no less, we are still dealing with fleas as we ring in the new year.  If there is anything that will make you have second thoughts about pet ownership, it is dealing with a flea infestation in your home, and all over your delightfully cuddly and affectionate pets, those four-legged family members.  Who, this morning, struck me as vile and disgusting and repellant.  I didn't look forward to what I figured must lie ahead.  My precious Sunday gone.

First order of business was to look up flea infestation on the internet.  As I'd expected:  work.  Baths were a must.  Yes, we'd done this on Christmas Day, but fleas have a life cycle, and like some other kinds of vermin e.g. lice, they have a stage which is resistant to treatment and requires a second attack on the problem a couple of weeks later when all the eggs start to hatch.

Fleas, unlike some vermin, do seem to live long and happy lives in our carpets, blankets, furniture, and dark corners.  It makes you long for the flu virus which will obligingly die on door knobs and light switches if it doesn't find a living host.

To bomb or not to bomb?  Well, we're not bombing today.  Today would be difficult. Everyone is home and we've nothing to do elsewhere.  A school day would be a much better day to bomb.  But Mick, I believe, is going to try to get us through this without a bombing.  We read the same article, however, we didn't get the same message.  I'm not going to argue.  I'm going to wait.  And probably scratch.

So the pets have all been bathed again with flea shampoo.  Hedwig, suffering the worst of the flea infestation, was first in the sink.  Yowling, clawing, and carrying on like she weighed 800 pounds instead of 8.  Favorite part of the flea treatment for me?  On the flea shampoo it says to lather the cat well then leave them all sudsy for approximately four minutes before rinsing out.  Luckily, I had Mick to hold the beast because she was as ferocious and as demented as usual.  There is no way I could have bathed her and left her lathered up without another pair of very strong hands to help.  And like last time, Hecate wasn't nearly as bad.  And as usual, the dogs are just kind of happy little idiots and not much of a problem at all. EXCEPT THAT THEY ARE THE ONES WHO BROUGHT US THE FLEAS!!!

Except that I'm the one who is really responsible for this problem.  We had flea treatment for the dogs (the cats, being indoor cats, didn't require a flea treatment if we could keep the dogs from being infested) in the cupboard that holds their shampoo.  But...when I went off to work and begged Mick to take over the pet baths, I didn't remind him to administer treatment once a month.  I forgot about it completely.  Until I got home on Christmas Day and was asked to look at the black specks on Louise's back and to observe the scratch-scratch-scratching of ALL our pets.

I feel like we are a tainted household, marked by vermin and filth.  It's like having v.d. I won't feel good until I know the problem is gone.  And not just on a two-week hiatus as we wait for eggs to hatch.  Right now, we're on that two-week hiatus.  But Mick will vacuum and vacuum and vacuum every day.  The article we read said that vacuuming is the first line of defense.  The second is bombing, and if need be, we will, but I'm willing to try less toxic means at first. 

Meanwhile, we have laundry piled HIGH.  And as I look around our bedroom/ home office, I am struck by the number of pillows on our bed--Mick's two and my seven.  They are all very necessary for a good night's sleep.  My scalp itches a little.  It has for a few days now.  A couple of days ago I decided to ignore the fears that were drifting into my consciousness.  Scratch.  Scratch.  I look at those pillows.  I look at the clock.  It is already 2:00 in the afternoon.  The washer is slow, but thorough.  Miranda's twenty blankets and a body pillow lie on the pile.  Dog blankets, regular dirty clothes...will there be time for my seven pillows?  Why bother?

I have flea bites on one shin and my head itches every couple of minutes.  (Hey, can I use the cats' flea shampoo on my own head without giving myself cancer?)...Guess where Hedwig the Infested sleeps?  That's right.  With me and Mick.  Often up on one of the pillows.  By my head.  My sympathy for her wanes as I contemplate how much time I have left in the day to deal with all this.

Scratch, scratch...scratch...scratch...

Oh, How We Love the Little Beasties, Don't We?

That is our fruit bowl that Hedwig is lying in.  Our FRUIT BOWL.  Sans fruit.  Surrounded by clean,unfolded laundry.  But yes, there is a cat in the fruit bowl.  There is a cat in the fruit bowl who is irritated with ME, with ME if you can believe the nerve, because I have disturbed her nap.  I wasn't even irritated with her for lying in the empty fruit bowl.  No, I was irritated with her for running across the keyboard of my computer while I was trying to write this blog.  I was irritated with her for PUKING right where I walk when I get up in the morning.  When I get up IN THE DARK!  When I get up at 5:30 a.m.  Enough said.  You know what happened.  I don't need to spell it out.

METHANE GAS FACTORY.

Hey, Mick, let's save a little money and buy the BIG bag of dog food from Costco...  Now why did we stop buying this brand?  See above.  

The Four-Legged Thanks

The Anti-Norman Rockwell mental picture of my family's Thanksgiving--nicely set, tippy table with a red table cloth, the usual assortment of Thanksgiving dishes, mother, father, daughter, and fully-developed, fully-naked daughter sitting down to give thanks and chow down--made me forget about these two pests.  Who, for once, weren't being pesty.  Louise and Zeus had a very nice Thanksgiving, thank you very much for asking, because chef Mick dribbled something delectable down the front of the dishwasher and those two freakishly large tongues did not stop their assault on the dishwasher  until all human members of the family were done.  And for that, I gave heart-felt Thanks.  Though the background noise, slurp-slurp, was disgusting.

Mick feels triumphant that he survived a week at home with Samantha.

Hedwig, feeling very thankful for gross, beetle-like, mutant insects that travel by firewood and crawl around for her amusement.  I'm less than thankful for these insects and even less thankful for a cat that lets them live because she becomes distracted by the camera and then can't find her bug.

Update: Father Left With Autistic Kid for Thanksgiving Break

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with today's post.  However, can you see why I run from this tongue?  Zeus explores the world, not to mention the cat box, with that tongue and he thinks there is no better way to say, "hi, how are you" than by dragging that monstrosity against any exposed flesh he can find.  This time of year, that may be your face.  A side note:  see all that white on Mick's leg?  Courtesy of Louise, who sheds more than any other dog I know.

Imagine my surprise when I came home this evening to find that everyone in my household was still alive, in one piece, and not yet certifiably insane.  And to think I was plagued with guilt ALL DAY for having a good day at work while imagining Mick's intense suffering.

Yes, as mentioned before, Sam is home for the week.  Conferences, followed by the Thanksgiving weekend, have caused Mick and Sam to be home alone together.  Miranda, now in high school, does not get conference days and the world remains bitterly unfair.  Miranda needs to see this in a positive light.  Perhaps she will after she is home with her dad and sister while I continue to have good days at work (or so I fervently pray) on Thanksgiving and the day after.

After Sam's determined running off this weekend, I was filled with trepidation for what this week might bring.  Granted, only one day down and four to go, but today was much better than expected.  This tells you something about the human, or more precisely, the male psyche.  The weekend was, UNARGUABLY, hellish.  So today, when Sam ONLY RAN OFF TWICE...AND...CAME BACK WHEN CALLED, well, that can only be considered a huge improvement.  But if the weekend hadn't been hellish, Mick would have been livid in the extreme.  Everything is relative.  I repeat, everything is relative.

But Mick did something else smart and resourceful:  He raided two of the piggy banks.  Make that one big piggy bank and a cup full of change.  Those sources, though, contained mostly quarters.  The only thing better than a piggy bank full of quarters is a piggy bank full of dimes, but we'll take what we can get (or pilfer in this case).  Outraged readers: calm yourselves.  These are not our children's banks.  They are ours.  Mick made a haul of $100.  Sam got a trip to Safeway for lunch meat, cupcakes, and I didn't inquire what else.  But this folks, is what piggy banks are for:  the rainy days, the lean times, the emergency fun fund.  Better yet, Mick didn't see the other bank that was sitting right there before his eyes, camouflaged with clutter.  But we have seed money.

Hopefully tomorrow is as good as today, if not better.  The day I picture possible trouble is Thanksgiving day itself.  I, as mentioned, will be working my usual shift, but making that lovely time and a half.  Miranda will be home and wanting to watch countless episodes of Bones, her new favorite show.  Sam will be wanting to take off and spend money in Acapulco or something, and Mick is going to be trying to watch the civil war game between Oregon and Oregon State to see who gets to go to the Rose Bowl.

So Mick is going to want more help watching Sam than what Miranda is going to want.  For their own reasons, no one is going to want to make Thanksgiving dinner, but SORRY, I JUST CAN'T DO IT AND I'D LIKE DINNER TO BE READY WHEN I GET HOME!

Oh, and Sam always wants to bring in the tree and decorate for Christmas during the Thanksgiving preparations.  Have fun, Mick.  Have fun, Miranda.

You just know all hell is going to break loose on Thanksgiving Day.  You just know it.

Trials of a Doggie Doorman

Did I pick this picture to show our dogs enjoying a ray of sun?  Or is it because that corner of the coffee table looks as clean as it ever gets and is better than usual?  The dogs.  The answer is the dogs.  On closer inspection you can still see the smudges, the ready-to-cascade-to-the-floor pile of magazines, not to mention that Mick's bottle of foot lotion is in the frame, too.  Missing?  Receipts, three pairs of headphones, books, rubber bands, an empty Ipod case...and whatever else dwells beneath the top layer of crap on that table.

As mentioned before, this was the first summer that the girls and I spent here in Dallas.  Previous summers were spent in Pelican, Alaska with Mick, the girls, and all four pets.  Our dysfunctional traveling circus.  And during those summers, Mick and everyone else had to listen to me bitch and moan about taking those dogs out for five walks a day because they have pea-sized bladders.  And Zeus poops like a Play-Dough factory.  Rain or shine, and face it, in Pelican, Alaska, it was far more rain than shine with a good dose of wind, therefore it was the dreaded sideways rain.  Five times a day.  Occasionally at 2:00 a.m. which thrilled me NOT AT ALL.  Up and down stairs, in the light, in the dark, in the sun, but usually in the rain.  Five times a day.

So Mick got to hear over and over and over and over and over...get the idea?  "I can't wait to get home so all I have to do is open the slider and let these freaks out into the yard!"  Famous last words?  Well, hardly my last words.  More a case of eating my words.

So this past summer, summer of 2009, Mick went to Pelican and the girls and all four pets stayed in Dallas with me.  And Mick would get phone calls from me that would start and end, with no greeting, just the words, "All I have to say is DOG DOOR, DOG DOOR, DOG DOOR, DOG DOOR!"

They drove me insane, those two.  It was constant.  It was never-ending.  I got so used to opening and closing that door that I even opened it for the cats.  They would sit there and fake me out.  Readers, they  are strictly indoor cats.  In, out, in, out, in, out...and the flies.  Dear God, I think we still have flies living in this house.  They would fly in, but they wouldn't leave.  Hate flies.  And even more irritating than that, Miranda, for whatever illogical reason, is freaked out by flies.  So I get to listen to her shriek when one comes near her.

So now Fall is here with a  vengeance.  Right now it is so windy outside (but no rain, and for that I'm so grateful) that it is rather spectacular and awe-inspiring.  Of course, there have been and will continue to be days with plenty of rain.  And I will complain about it, just for good measure.  I shouldn't.  I think we get about forty inches annually, as opposed to Pelican which gets about 248 inches of rain annually.  That's not a typo.  And yes, I will complain anyway.

I will also complain about our dogs, the wonderful and infuriating Zeus and Louise.  No longer is it in and out and in and out.  Now it's, "Come on!  Get up, you lazy curs!  It's time to go out.  No.  No.  Don't you go to bed yet.  I'm NOT letting you out in the middle of the night!  You made friends with a skunk last time.  Now, come on!  No, no, no, get back here!  Don't you go to bed on me!  You go outside.  Now.  Outside.  Fine, be that way.  Don't you dare ask to go out in the middle of the night.  Lazy beasts..."

However, by Spring...I want that dog door.

In Honor of My Veterans' Day Birthday...

In honor of my veterans' day birthday, and my poor lower back AND right butt cheek that I suffered yesterday (oh, the suffering continues, and talk about the indignities suffered in life!), where was I?  Forgive my feeble, aging brain.  Oh, yeah, in honor of all that, plus my inherent laziness, I thought I'd just share some favorite pictures and write whatever comes to mind for captions.  What a deal.  That was sarcasm for those of you who need to have every nuance defined for you.

I know we're not supposed to play favorites, but...Louise doesn't puke like all the others.  We have a regurgitating trio in this house (all four-legged, thank God), but Louise refuses to make it a quartet.  She IS still a skunk head and this wet weather brings it out, but look at that face!  Look at her posture!  Look at her whole demeanor!  What's not to love?

 

OK.  That little mini freak, Zeus, isn't supposed to be on the beds and HE KNOWS IT!  That is a challenging look he is giving me.  But Sam wasn't feeling good (who else would that lump be in my bed?), and Zeus really just wanted to cuddle with her.  She was ill enough that she didn't realize he was there or she would have given him the boot.  I thought he was cute and the situation was sweet, so I turned a blind eye until I just couldn't stand it and had to get the camera out.  Of course, he ruined the shot by standing up and challenging me to remove his body from the bed.

 

This is Sam in the backyard, poster child for our odd family and lifestyle.  She is wearing her father's bathrobe and nothing else, relishing the bonfire, since she is our little pyro.

 

Yeah, I know I posted this one not too long ago, but I like this picture of Miranda and her grandpa.

I should have my head examined (but you knew that), because this is one of my favorite pictures of Sam.  THIS is the picture  for our poster child of Life With An Autistic Child.  I wrote of this incident, when I had discovered that Sam had found a big black sharpie, you know, a PERMANENT marker and then proceeded to color in her arm, leg, the BOTTOM OF HER FOOT, and then ran all around our living quarters leaving a trail of big black foot prints as I chased her, pleading with her to JUST STOP...to no avail.  Her face was gray for the next three and a half weeks.

 

I like this picture because Mick looks so happy and comfortable in his element.  I hesitate to post pictures of him because then I usually have to deal with the "this picture makes me look FAT" syndrome.

 

Cute, yes, but don't buy into that.  Though only eight pounds, she can turn a king-sized bed into a postage stamp.  She is stubborn, whiney, and she is a puker.  The other morning, it was in the window track, thank you very much.  Just what I want to deal with at 5:30 a.m.  Oh, the annoying one is Hedwig.

 

Hecate.  Much less irritating.  Doesn't sleep with us.  Still pukes.

 

Spit-lips.

 

So hard to get pictures of Miranda these days.  She was such an easy, cooperative child and now she's...14.

 

Love this picture even with all the imperfections.  They are good sisters.  Miranda is so good to Sam, who can be so very trying, but in return, Sam adores Miranda.

 

I will end it here with Zeus and Louise because this is exactly what I intend to do (but in my own bed, hopefully without the cat-pig).

Well, that was fun for me.  Hope it was for you.  Certainly not all my favorite pictures, but still, in a hit  & miss fashion, I think this was a good spectrum.  Now to go rest my aching butt cheek.

Domestic Miracle

This is not the picture that I would like for this post.  That picture was never taken.  Explanation below.  This, however, is Mick with Zeus and Louise at Central Bark.  The dogs are riveted by the comings and goings of the canine friends.

The picture I would have liked for this post would have been the evidence of a miracle that took place right in our household on Saturday, after returning from Central Bark.  The picture was not taken, though.  I wasn't going to do anything that might interfere with the completion of the miracle.  After four years of dog ownership, Mick has now given the dogs a bath.

Yes, he kept calling out questions.  No, I didn't get up and go find stuff for him.  I shouted the answers right back.  I didn't even point out that it's kind of foolish to have the dogs already in the tub and not have all the supplies ready.  I offered minimum, no, let's make that no assistance.

Louise is 56 pounds and our tub is considered a sunken tub.  Not easy on the back.  I like the dogs washed weekly, though it's more like every other week.  Don't like that doggie smell.  Not as bad as human b.o., but certainly pungent and unpleasant in its own way.

It started raining right as we were leaving Central Bark so Louise's head started to emit that lovely, nostril-burning skunky smell.  For some reason, I'm the only one who can smell it.  I don't know how this is possible, unless everyone figures that if I'm the one who can smell it, I'll be the one who is motivated to bathe the dogs.  Mick owed me, though.

While still in Pelican, he'd offered to bathe the dogs the day he got home and I would have gratefully taken him up on the offer.  If only I could have stomached the odor coming from the dogs.  They stank, plain and simple.  I couldn't wait even one more day.  So they were clean and shiny and soft when Mick got home.

Saturday they were again dirty, gritty, stinky and ready.

I'm hoping that Mick will take over the dog washing.  I don't have a lot of time these days.  And I tend to be real whiny about it, too. I'm whining enough so that people around here will just do whatever needs to be done, just to shut me up (that seems to work for other people).  Hopefully that will be motivation enough.  Because God knows I'm the only one with olfactory powers around here.  Stomach-turning stench doesn't seem to be enough.  So loud, incessant whining it is.

A ball-chasing, dirt-rolling dog friend.

 

Good times:  face-licking, butt-sniffing, grass-rolling fiends.  Yes, friends, as well.
 
 

Gophers--4, Mick--0 : The Battle Continues

While the carpet looks like the dogs are guest staring on That 70's Show, they aren't.  And though they may look like they've been out hunting gophers, they weren't.  They were simply getting filthy for their own selfish fun.

They lost my sympathy when they totally decimated my sweet potato plant and ate the evidence.  All further evidence of them in our little personal eco-system makes my jaw clench painfully.  The sweet potato wasn't the first fatality, of course.  It's just that the sweet potato was so glorious and magnificent and ready to harvest. I had babied it and admired it all summer. There were, of course, the six cauliflower starter plants that just completely disappeared from the garden in the dark of night.  Not to mention about five broccoli starts and honestly, I can't remember what else.

The gophers still have Miranda's sympathy and somehow, we can't seem to help blaming her for their continuing existence, despite Mick's best efforts.

We aren't trying to live-trap.

We've had it.

All except Miranda.  And the dogs, who frankly, aren't doing their jobs, not earning their keep.

We have lost about $200 worth of tulips and other spring bulbs.  THREE TIMES NOW!  This last spring we thought we had them beat.  The gophers are so much smarter than we gave them credit for.  And we are less smart than we credited ourselves.  Obviously.

We have had tulips planted in the two long beds that run parallel with the front and side border of the vegetable garden each spring.  Every year, we think "This is the year.  This is the year that the tulips will multiply and we will be able to split them up and continue with two more borders, and encompass the vegetable garden with a mass of spring color.

But as I weed those beds each summer, I discover--NOTHING.  Not a bulb in the bed.  Not one.

So we thought, mistakenly, that we were smart last fall.  We bought rolls of window screen and Mick emptied the beds of dirt, lined them with screen, covered each end, put the dirt back in and we planted our bulbs.  The tulips were gorgeous this spring.  And the bulbs had completely disappeared by early summer.  It turns out that those little miscreants, when encountering an obstacle, the equivalent of prison fencing, will wait until no one is looking, leave the safety of their tunnels, walk over to their desired feeding grounds and DO A SWAN DIVE!  And eat.  Eat non-stop.  Not a bulb left.  Once again, $200 gone.  For those of you not keeping count, that's about $600 worth of gopher food.

So there are the vegetables, the tulips and other bulbs ( they leave my gladiolas alone, though, poor lonely glads), but that is not all.  Oh, no, because there is the yard.  Or in our case, yards.

I don't water in the summer and we have an ugly proliferation of weeds anyway, but I do mow.  Thanks to the gophers I get to mow through mounds and mounds of dirt piles ( yes, yes, I try to even them out, but you know that is only going to do so much).  I get to abuse the poor lawn mower and I end up caked in dirt, my teeth gritty.  Thanks to the gophers.  As I mow, dust clouds float around the yard, looking like their own weather systems.

Mick hates these gophers.  He would poison them, but as mentioned before, our dogs will never be commended for their brains.  Their brawn, their gladiator spirits, yes, but brains...it's kind of like trying to find summer tulip bulbs in the flower beds.

I honestly don't remember what-all Mick has tried to eradicate our gophers.  I know we had garlic sticks for awhile.  And I know we still have gophers.  The latest has been a set of four traps ( he found them on the internet and it sounds like it was quite the sales pitch, but...).

The gophers had been busy totally screwing up what we refer to as our "immediate back yard" (as opposed to the far back).  It is unsightly.  Worst than that, it's insulting.  Those gophers are insulting our intelligence, mocking us, and they are winning.  So Mick started baiting and setting his four new traps in the immediate back yard.  Trial and error.  Reset.  Reset.  Reset.  Not one dead gopher.  Not even a maimed gopher.

And then I came home from work yesterday to find that Mick has gone mad.  One gopher, (whether it is alive or dead, I don't know, but Mick swears it must have crawled off and died somewhere and I think it is watching him from some secret vantage point and smirking), ran off with one of the traps.  Mick went to check his traps and now there are only three.  So he dug around.  And now there are still only three.  And when I got home, the neighbors had pulled chairs up to the fence and sat watching my husband use their metal detector and dig and search and dig and search and dig and search.  Mick found many nails, screws, and scrap metal. He didn't find, however, any trace of a fourth trap. Or any dead gophers for that matter.

I am afraid that it is going to come down to explosives.  I'm afraid that I'm going to come home and find that I'm married to Elmer Fudd and he is chasing the wabbit.  I am afraid.