I am losing it.

 I really don't know how much more of this life I can take.  I feel as if I'm alone and everything is my responsibility.  First I have to pay for the car registration using the company's debit card.  Of course the husband can't do it since he refuses to do any computer stuff so it's up to me.  Then I notice the card expired 7/21.  I tell the husband who sits there looking at me with his mouth open as the wheels slowly grind in his head and then says the card is good until the end of the month.  Guess what.... NO!  Did we get the new card?  Mouth open, wheels grinding finally 'no'.  OK.  Do things for the business come to the PO Box or the old office address or to the home address where the business is now.  Mouth open, wheels grinding, more grinding till I'm told its the home address.  OK.

Now he claims that the company is his and he is the boss only I'm stuck calling Bank of America who ask me for some phone number.  Is it what used to be the office number, the fax number or his cell phone.  He has no idea.  Finally get through and am told it would be sent to the PO box.  A few hours later he finally gets to the PO box and no card.  So I get to call the bank AGAIN.  This time I get through faster but as I'm trying to talk to the woman on the line, he's talking to me.  Finally get it sorted and he complains that it may take 2 to 7 days for the card to come in.  Oh for God's sake.

Then I'm dealing with one of those cash back things where I was supposed to get a whole $2 off my purchase only I never completed it and so they took out $189 as well as walmart taking their $190.  So now am I getting 6 tubs of litter, 4 bras etc which is double of what I wanted but only 1 order and am out cash.  Meanwhile husband is sitting there staring at me with his mouth open,.  I swear I am going to super glue that damned mouth shut.

Yes I know he is getting older but he does nothing around the house.  It's July and the yard hasn't been mowed yet.  Recyclables are piling up.  That's al he needs to do but there he sits surrounded by 3 trays full of junk, not to mentions his flotsam and jetsam spread all over the bay window sill and then he complains that it's hard to move from his chair.  Get rid of two trays and look, you can walk.

We have an abandoned car to get rid of, just a phone call to have it towed.  A lightbulb at the front door to be replaced.  A tax form to be sent out so that COVID cash that was never received could be recovered.  But there he sits

All that is bad enough but he asked me if I was cold in the house.  I am always cold in the house.  Well, for once, so was he.  What does he do?  It's 100 plus degrees outside.  The AC is set to 75.  Does he push it up a notch to 76.  No.  He turns on the hear IN THE SUMMER.

As I said he's getting old but is only 72 not 172.  He needs to get off his ass and get something done around here.  I am tired of handling the business and anything that has to be done on the computer, including ordering groceries and necessities from Walmart etc, taking care of the animals and the house as best I could and I CAN NEVER GET AWAY FROM HIM because he doesn't allow me to go anywhere by myself, he has to drive me to TAKE CARE OF ME!!!!!!!!  Right.  I'm in the process of getting dentures and he bitches if an appoinment is earlier than 10 when I had to get up at 3:30 am and drive him to eye surgery when I could barely see myself and then schedule my cataract surgeries so late in the day that finding a vein was hard because I was so dehydrated.  And he complains about getting up before 10.  Hell.  He even get to go and eat at IHOP while I'm in the dentist chair.

I CAN'T TAKE ANYMORE!!!!!

 Ah back at it.

Have a confession to make.  Not as nice as people think but cross me and all hell will break loose.

Had someone who called herself a friend.  I wasn't all that thrilled with her 'friendship' but felt sorry for her so I stuck it out.  Then she got weird, starting obsessing about something that wasn't obsessible.  She called the house, back when we had a land line and I never answered the phone because it was never for me.  Basement full of boys, playing video games, and she calls, they answer come upstairs to get me.  Conversation ends we hang up.  She calls again and again and again and the last time she calls she's told by some boy that I'm not there and, I think, she said he said she had the wrong number. 

So she brings it up to me.  I explain that I don't answer the phone so maybe one of the sons' friends got tired of answering the phone.  I apologized for it happening.  She brings it up again at another time when we were together in person.  I explain again and apologize and no sooner are the words out of my mouth, she brings it up again, saying I'm only making excuses because I don't want the sons to get in trouble.  Trouble with who (or is it whom?)?  The telephone police?  She knew I wasn't a phone person.  Hate talking on the phone and she calls me 5 times in an hour.

Moving on.  Then she gets a bee in her bonnet about something that never happened, dragging my husband into it and brought up the phone thing again coming right out and calling me a liar.  I may be many things but I DO NOT LIE.  Well that did it.  Then I get an email from someone I don't know asking me about nutjob.  I simply told them that she misremembers things, swears they are true and gets mad at you for what she misremembered.  Stranger says, yes she does that to me to and that was the last I heard of it.

Nutjob got worse.  Decided she was a life coach, she who desperately needed one and was offering her services on an email list.  I put out a word of warning and well.... nutjob went nuts.  She ranted in a long comment on this blog about things that had nothing to do with anything bringing up the phone and the thing about my husband again.  I only got that far, deleted the comment and blocked her.

BUT I WAS MAD.

I have gotten my revenge.  Slowly.  She had herself spread all over the internet and when I find a blog or a face book or a whatever, I read what she writes till her craziness starts again and she brings me up so I comment, always nicely, and she blocks me.  The latest is that she has a flicker account and I complimented her on a picture.  Something she made in Second Life with her supposedly all sexy and beautiful.  So what does she do?  She starts signing me up for all kind of email publications actually naming me in one as pigfacedgranny.  I love pigs.  Think they are adorable so am more amused than anything,  I sent her an email thanking her for it and the email publications and am waiting for her response.

Why am I still doing this.  You don't call me a liar.  You don't bring in something personal about my husband who was never anything but kind to her and her obsessive controlling husband.  Sure.  Smear me but not him and not the sons who were only tired of answering the damned phone.  She can call me all the names she wants but I kinda like pigfacedgranny so I win there as well.  Yes, I win.  I don't win often but this time I won.

Feels good to get that all out.  Anyone who reads this and knows me from way back when also knows of this person.  Just be grateful she's moved on from the Big List.  That is all.

 Going to try a new med to get rid of my constant pain.  I hope it, at least, blunts it a bit but who knows,  At last I have found a doctor who has taken this seriously.  Fingers and toes and eyes crossed.

I was right

I was being warned by my dreams etc.  Charlie died, suddenly (he was only sick for 2 days) and terribly.  I don't know why my brain does this to me.  I wish it would stop.

Random thoughts that flit through my mind

When I was a kid, you could not buy Tastykakes Peanut Butter Tandy Takes (yes, Tandy takes, now they are Kandy Kakes) in the summer because the peanut butter would spoil. This was before everything was air conditioned. And speaking of air conditioning, once a week, my father would take my sister and I up to the local meeting room at the library to watch a docmentary film. It didn't matter what the film was... the room was air conditioned and that was enough for us.

It's been a long time.

Yes, it's been a long time since I was on here.  Truthfully, I forgot all about it till I was cleaning out my bookmarks and found it again.  Really not much to say as life isn't all that interesting.  Sure, there is a supposed Pandemic bu I personally think it's a whole lot of bullshit. 
I've been having odd dreams lately.  I suppose it's all this virus stuff that you can't ignore because it's thrust down your throat at every turn.  I worry about these dreams because they are just too weird and I wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something only I'm too stupid to listen.
Before our house fire, all those years ago, I was having fire dreams which stopped after the fire.  Even many months before the fire, the universe was trying to tell me something.  It wasn't only dreams but winged things.  Let me explain.  First there was the dragonflies.  One Saturday as I sat in the yard a dragonfly was hovering around my face.  Right in front of my face as if to look eye to eye with me.  Or do dragonflies have more than two eyes.  That was odd enough because dragonflies weren't a usual sight.  I thought little of it.  Same day and hour later we off to the post office and while I'm waiting in the car, what is buzzing around it BUT a dragonfly.  I doubt it was the same one.  A few minutes later, I'm getting out of the car at Home Depot and what flies up to me but....I think you know where this is going... a dragonfly.  OK.  So I saw three dragonflies... big whoop.  Ah ha but then it gets stranger.  I'm sitting at my desk in the office and I hear a tapping on the window.  I look to see a sparrow sitting on the sill, tapping on the glass.  Now that was odd.  We didn't feed the birds there.  There were no crumbs on the sill.  There was no reason for a sparrow to be tapping at the window.  Another time, I looked out that same window to see the oddest flock of birds.  Birds of a feather flock together.  We've all heard that except this flock was made up of different birds, rooks, sparrows, pigeons and even a seagull.  They circled the building then lighted on the power lines.  Except the seagull, webbed feet you know are not made for perching on lines.  Crows showed up in the yard to caw and haw and make a right old noise.  A blackbird flew into the front window twice.  Other birds would sit on the ground looking at me as I passed.  BNirds that would usually scatter but there they sat.  Still I didn't see it.
Then life fell apart with our dogs dying.  First Rocco only five, put to sleep when his cancer got too bad.  Little Dog Ollie followed a few months later.  He just gave up and also had to be put to sleep.  He never did close his eyes only stared into Josh's face.  For the first time in decades there were no dogs in  the family, so we got Charlie, who nearly died from a bacterial infection in his stomach, only a week after he joined us.  Once he was well, we got Patty who was dead in three days from Parvo.  Then the house fire.
My doctor asked how I stayed sane.  Who ever said I was sane to begin with?  ONly after the fire when the fire dreams stopped and the winged things left me alone did I see that they were signs.  Signs I never saw.  That's why these weird dreams now are so bothering.  Especially last night's where something horrible happened to my husband.  Sigh. 
So that's it.  Not the funny stuff I used to post.  I think I lost my humor quite some time ago and doubt that I will ever find it again.  Such is life and now it's bedtime.  Hopefully I won't dream tonight.  Fingers crossed.

Should I try again.

I wonder if I should try blogging again.  Don't know.  I think my life is a little too old lady and I get a bit too cranky to be interesting.  I'll have to conside.

A whoopsie doodle of a dream,

I had a dream right before I woke up.  I have no idea what the heck I ate before bed that would create such a dream but dream I did. 
And now I'll share it with you.
I was at a library picnic (they only had one in the years I was there).  I was standing at the edge of the water when a guys in dress pants, white shirt and a tie comes floating past, face up and dead.  Right behind him floats a young kind and a woman, both on their backs, she in a dress.  I wade in, pull the kid out, carry him up the hill, lay him on his side and get the water out of him.
Once he was breathing I went for the woman but could pull her out of the water so I got her to the shore then ran up the hill to get the head of security (which the library didn't have unless you count me with a shag carpet rake but that's another story).  The head of security comes running down, he moved fast for a big guy who was on some tv show sometime, and picked up the woman to lay her next to the boy.
By this time the dead guy had an escort, a shark ??? and a crocodile (not alligator I could tell by the snout).  Security guy wades in nonetheless, kicks the shark, bops the crocodile on the nose and grabs the guy...uh ah... the part of the guy that's left and runs back up the hill past me holding the lower body of the guy by the guy's spinal cord.  No idea what happened to the other half.
But WAIT the dream isn't over.
The crocodile comes crocodiling out of the water heading for the woman and the boy but is momentarily side tracked by a side by side row of carved and painted wooden fish arranged on a blanket.  It nips one and decides it's not dinner and heads for the woman and boy so I grab a wooden fish and bop the crocodile on the head with it.  Croc turns and goes back into the water.
The boy lived, don't know about the woman and the man, well I doubt that half a man is better than none.
As I told the Old Pooh this dream this morning he asked why the security guy brought out the half of guy.  DNA I told him, instead of how the heck would I know why anyone in my dreams do what they do.
I think I need a nap.

The Voices

Tra La.
Back again with this blog that I can never seem to keep up.  I was telling you all about the paranormal in my life but even I found it boring.  So I'll tell you about the lighter paranormal bits of my life.
For instance: The Voices.  Those Voices I would hear when I entered the office building.  The conversation that I could never understand but could hear.  It got so that I would greet them aloud every morning with a "Hello, Voices", hoping that they would answer back.  They never did.  Someone else in the building heard typing in a room with no typewriter and there was the loud knocking on the closed office door that I answered only to find the guy next door at his door asking if I had knocked.  I hadn't.
I also saw one of The Voices only once.  Didn't scare me.  I thought it was great but it did get me thinking.  Did The Voices really want to be there.  Stuck in that historic building for the rest of their eternities?  Did I want that to be their fate?  I'd grown fond of those Voices so I thought I would help them out. I told them they were dead, that they could leave, that they could move on to their reward and the building went silent and empty.  I was proud of myself.
But then....
The water was out in our half of the building.  To use a bathroom I had to go down three flights of stairs, cross the wide vestibule, take those stairs down, through the garage and into the icy bathroom there.  I do mean cold.  So there I sit doing my business and what do I hear?  Yep.  The Voices.  I didn
t sent them on their way.  I sent them into the cold lonely garage.  So I put myself back together, waited till the toilet stopped flushing and addressed The Voices basically telling them that they could go upstairs, the could go anywhere they wanted, that I was just trying to send them to their loved ones.
The Voices were back.
I don't work in the office anymore but do my stuff from home.  I did make it a point to tell the voice goodbye.
The Voices are happy.  Two churches meet in the building each Sunday.  A regular service and a Hispanic service that if full of people.  Imagine the energy!
The Voices.  My best office friends!

Oranges

I have a miniature orange tree that we bought on our honeymoon.  This year the tree will be 43 years old.  It's not just a small orange tree.  Its oranges are the size of a small superball and bitter as anything.  The tree is now taller than me, and I'm five foot four or thereabouts.
It was too big for the windowsill in the winter.  So it spent winter in the basement under a light.  In summer it was outside.  When the sons were old enough to hang out downstairs the tree seemed to do better as if it liked the companionship.
The boys would gather and play video games and one boy, in particular would be poked.  When he'd look, he'd discover that it was the tree poking him.  So the tree would be shifted back, they'd start to play again and the kid would get poked again. Eventually the boys had to shift positions because the tree wouldn't behave.
Fast forward.. the sons each have a crowded room int he basement with no room for the orange tree.  Upstairs it came located near the front window, where I hoped it would get enough sun.
Fast forward some more and.... yep... house fire.
It was cold.  It was February and the firemen had chain saws and what not.  Walls were cut into, the front window broken.  There was water and vile yellow smoke like something from Hell.  The basement was a loss.  Contents stank of wet and that vile, yellow smoke.
As things were winding up, I noticed that the tree was hanging out of the window.  No.  That's not quite correct.  It looked as if it were reaching outside of the window trying to breathe.  The tree was not close enough to the window so that the branches would have come out when the glass was broken.  It's pot was upright and not tilted so maybe the trunk bent somehow.  No.  It was upright when the fireman carried it out of the house.  (They wouldn't let us take anything but my purse and the tree and those the fireman carried out.
I know that trees don't move.  That they don't reach out to purposely poke someone or to lean out for fresh air but the orange tree did.  Maybe the house Angels hang out in it.  I don't know.  I only know what happened as strange as it seems.
Marmalade anyone?

Growing up

I suppose that, during childhood the unusual became usual because nothing more than the crab stands out.  We moved to New Jersey and when my parents moved back to Baltimore, I stayed behind.  Imagine, at 18 I asked for permission to stay.  Certainly something that wouldn't happen today.  Arrested development or simply fear of my mother?  Whatever it was I moved in with a friend's family and stuff started happening again.

First off there were my car lights.  This was back in the early 70's and to turn on my car's lights I had to pull a lever out and, to turn them off, push that lever in.  I had to park on a piece of unused land across the street from the house because there were already too many cars in the household.  This piece was in clear view of the mechanics at the end of the street who called regularly to tell me I had left my lights on.  First time, ok maybe I didn't turn them off.  Second time, I was certain I had but maybe....  By the fifth, sixth and seventh, I knew I had.  I'd push in that lever so the knob was flush and would come out to find the lights on, lever pulled out.  I always locked the car so I knew it wasn't some kind of prank.  I finally got fed up and sat in the car, yet again to turn out the lights and said, aloud that I had enough and it had to stop. Then it did.

Christmas came and I was helping to decorate the tree.  The little sister picked up a blue ball on a hook.  Apparently it wasn't on the hook correctly because it fell.  I watched it wondering it if would smash into dust on the tile floor when it simply disappeared.  One minute there, one minute not.  I said nothing but little sister kept asking where her ball went.  That she had a blue ball and now it was gone.  I still said nothing, only handed her a new ornament to hang.

Next came the letter.  A letter appeared on the kitchen table one day.  Part of a letter, I should say, one page talking about the D'arcy Fisks and how they were coming for a visit.  No one in the household had even heard of the D'arcy Fisks and they had been in that house for years.  No one admitted to the letter and the next day it was gone.  

Things started to ramp up then with noises and sensations and the knowledge that there was something haunting the basement.  Eventually I figured something out and managed to put an end to it.  My friend and I had made an appointment to see a well known local psychic.  The psychic was so popular that appointments had to be made months in advance and the moment we cancelled our appointment, the nonsense stopped.  There was, however, something else that occurred after the grandfather who had lived in the home with us all died.  I would hear him get up in the middle of the night, shuffle to the bathroom and back again.  He never flushed.  I guess spirits don't feel the need to flush.

I wonder now why this didn't freak me the hell out but it didn't.  I guess I just filed it in my head under weird stuff.   I mean, who else would marry a man they met at a funeral?  A man who never had weird in his life till he met me.  That, however, is a story for another time. 

Time flies or do flies time?

I joined a paranormal group on Facebook and after reading a number of the posts I have come to the conclusion that my life isn't an Oddz Bodkinz kind of life, rather it is a paranormal kind of life.  Funny that I should think that anything with the word normal in it would have anything to do with me.

In fact, my normal is paranormal and I often wonder how the real people live.  How do they manage to go through life without knowing someone is going to call and have the phone handy.  Or be given a heads up when something awful is about to happen.  And, to tell the truth, they are never realy clear about WHAT is going to happen, I just have to wait and see.

Doesn't everyone hear someone call their name?  Have their door swing open?  Find meaning in repeating numbers?  Feel what those around them feel?  Talk to animals?  Know how they died in a past life  (Titanic no less)?  Well no wonder people look at me funny.

There has just been SO MUCH in my life that I could write a book.  Title it something like.... When the Paranormal is Normal.

So, instead of a book, I will write it here.  No one will read it anyway but that's ok.  Sometime you just have to sit down and get something out, even if you are the only one to ever read it.  I suppose, for me, it would make it seem.... oh I don't know... true, even though I know it's true.  Whatever the reason, here goes.

The very first experience I remember is the giant crab that crawled out of my bedroom wall.

It was summer in Baltimore without air conditioning.  We used to go watch boring movies at the local library branch simply because the room was air conditioned.  No air conditioning in the home but a big bad assed fan that was installed in my bedroom window.  The fan blew out so it sucked all the hot air from the house through my bedroom and out into the night.  To take advantage of the air flow, I slept with my head at the foot of my bed.  Never being a good sleeper I often woke in the middle of the night and laid there like a lump waiting for sleep to return.  It was such a night when that crab, claws clicking appeared out of the wall at the head of the bed.  It scared the crap out of me and I went screaming into my parents room.

I was sent back to bed with a terse "It was a dream".  Bullshit.  I was old enough to know a dream, to know pretend and what I saw was not pretend.  It was a crab coming out of my wall. 

Of course, I never said anything about it again.  I said nothing about the other odd stuff that would happen.  The stiff, starched, for display only dolls on the top of my book case that would come alive at night and dance or just move about.  Or my grandmother riding past in the passenger seat of a cae when she had already been dead for 6 months or so.  Or the way I simply knew things.

Needless to say, I learned to keep my mouth shut.  Why bother telling anyone when they wouldn't believe you and give you 'that look'.  You know which look I mean.  The look that tells you they don't believe that they are hearing what they are hearing and then they back away from you very very slowly as if your insanity is contagious.  I grew to hate that look and yet I wanted to share what was going on.  It made me feel special.  I was never special.  I always couldn't do or be something good enough but I could sense things and see things and know things that others couldn't or maybe they wouldn't.

Now I don't care about that look.  I'll proclaim to the world, or my small section of it, the oddities that pop up.  the unexplained things that make perfect sense to me.  It's my way of saying to the world that I am different and I don't care.  In fact, I like being odd.  It sure beats the heck out of normal.

It's been a mighty long time

Since I posted anything here.  That's the way it is in Oddz Bodkinz Land.  sometimes, no matter how hard you try you just Life gets the better of you.  Maybe forcing myself to write will help.

Here goes.

So what's new in Bodkinz Land?  Well, we are inundated with those tiny annoying fruit fly that spontaneously appear whenever the Old Fart bring homes bananas,.  He was walking around smacking them with a fly swatter and leaving the flattened carcasses stuck to wherever.  So I came up with a vinegar and epson salt spray that kills them but now the salts crystals are reforming on the walls and it's like living in a cavern.... with out the drippy water.  He's promised to help me scrub the salt off all surfaces but since he's emptied the dishwasher only 5 times in the years since we moved back home, I doubt I'll have salt scrubbing help.

Charlie's insatiable need for food, gets to me sometimes.  I understand the need but I wish he'd let me pet him and NOT have to give him food afterward for payment.  I just can't pet him to pet him.

Kali has really come out of her shell.  I didn't even know she was in a shell until she came out.  It started with her trilling to us in the morning and us singing back and her latest is actually playing tug of war with us and a pool noodle.She's even at my side in the kitchen and I don't think it's just because food 'accidentally' slips from my hand.

Then there is Sparky, our texan.  They sure birth them odd in Texas.  I have never known a dog like him.  The other day I found my bed pillow, a dog toy and an unopened bag of tortilla chips at the bottom of the outside basement stairs, right by the doggie door and on top of the drain hole.  Had he planned to leave them there or did he get side tracked?  Sparky hides his bones about the house.  He was vigorously covering a bone with plastic bags in a neat corner behind the craft room door.  Charlie wandered in to see what Sparky was doing then wandered out again.  Sparky gave me a look equivilent to a human shoulder shoulder shrug then sighed, uncovered his bone and found a new place for it.  I have never known a happier dog.The

The fire alarm in the house still screams when I make pork chops.  It's kind of hard to get to the button with the broom handle because Kali and Charlie actually push me toward the door and won't leave the house until I do.  The sound had GOT to be killing their ears. Oh and fire alarm lso occasionally tells us, usually in the middle of the night, in a conversational tone "fire' AND THEN IS SILENT AGAIN.  I swear it's giggling somewhere in the recesses of where ever it is where it hides.

For the best news, and yes, it will show just how petty I am, I am over the moon that the neighbor from hell also known as Hagatha had lost her house to foreclosure and is forced to move out.  She has been a thorn in the side of the same people in the neighborhood for years.  Her next door neighbors even had to fence their property to keep her dogs from crapping on her land.  we all have huge yards so it was a big undertaking.  When he dogs would crap in the street she would fling the turds over the fence into our yard.  It isn't just dog turds.. she lied to the police claiming my sons did something they didn't, her daughter ran into Casey with a sled busted his lip to hell and back and when he went to show  Hagatha, she turned him away.  Then there was the music, the drunken parties, the fights in the yard, he refusal to take responsibility for anything, the drinking.  Her youngest suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome.  Her nephew who was living with her nearly killed himself in a drunken accident on his 21st birthday and it took him years to die, all the while in a coma.  What did Hagatha do?  She wanted the drunken teenagers at yet another drunken party to kneel and say a prayer for her nephew, all the while she was holding a beer.  she has her sister living in a mobile home on her property, which is against zoning or so I was told when I suggested something similar for our housing after our fire.  Her son steals from everyone and when she's confronted she says her children and do and say whatever they want.  The summer we were displaced, she even pissed off all the blacks in the neighborhood by her racial slurs and suddenly no one was talking to her.  Which was good because people who didn't even live IN the neighborhood would show up at her house to hang out on the street in front of them.  The cooler crew we called them because that was their favored seating.  I even heard a cop tell her one time that he was sick to death of having to respond to calls about her and her family all the time.

Her husband died a number of years ago and she told everyone that she got $600,000.00 From his insurance.  Where the hell did the money go?  Either down her throat or up someone's nose.

I don't like to see anyone lose their home.  I would have preferred if she had moved on her own but since that was never going to happen.  So, yes, I am doing the happy dance was will the best neighbor in the world next door and the we had to fence our yard to keep your dogs out of it neighbors next to her.

I'm just wondering if she told her sister in the mobile home about this.  If not, the sister is in for a BIG surprise!

So that's it.  Who knows how long it will be before I write again.

Sticky Brain

I don't know about anyone else, but I have a brain that will NOT let go of a thought once said thought infiltrates the dark recesses of said brain.

For instance... I got the notion in my head yesterday that when Michael and I die, Josh and the dogs will have no place to live.  If they find one, will the yard be the size of ours where the dogs can roam all day and come in exhausted at night?

OK.  It's not as if I could do anything about it.  Michael and I are both is good health so this is ridiculous, right?  Tell my head that.  It keeps playing and replaying and replaying the same damned thing till a panic attack sets in and my nerves are jumping.  I don't know how to stop it or why it decided to rear its ugly head.  All I do know is that I hate it when I get like this.

I blame the dogs.... for this endless thought anyway.

Watching the dogs over the weekend, I again marveled at how much they love their lives and the big yard with its various places that can mean so much to a dog.  There's the bamboo jungle, not to mention a stack of cut and dried bamboo that makes such delightful sounds when Kali and Sparky "dance" on it.
Then there's the overgrown part, the mowed part, the hill of dirt for digging, the deck for basking in the sun as well as the driveway for that and the front porch.  There's smells and people walking up and down the street and the dogs across the street and birds and squirrels and places to bury stuff.  The dogs are lean, their coats so shiny you would think we polished them and a doggy door that allows them access to all that yard whenever the mood strikes.  so it's no wonder I wouldn't want them, in their youth to lose all of that.  But why think of that now?

I swear that parts of my brain are controlled by some evil troll that whispers these things over and over making my life unbearable at times.  It's as if this troll does not want me to have a good thought or enjoy something.  I love watching the dogs in the yard and so the troll whispers.  If I'm happy (which isn't often) the troll whispers again and if there is trouble, the troll builds on it till my head is spinning.

I take prozac and that helps somewhat but this troll is strong.  I just have to find some way to be stronger.

Mama'Z Baby Boy

Sparky is growing fast.  He's lost is rounded puppy belly and his puppy fuzz and has now gained a long lean middle schooler's body with a shine that looks as if we polish him each night.  His legs have gotten long and his feet are bigger every single day.  I'm thinking I may end up getting a saddle  and riding him places.  My own little pony.

I have never had a dog that simply played.  Even when the big dogs are about, Sparky will play with something and keep himself quite amused.  The other night he came prancing into the craft room, dragging something and stinking up the room.

Now, Sparky is not without toys.  They are usually spread across the living room along with half chewed bones, bits of rawhide plush and plastic squeakies and even a half unrolled ball of yard that he just loves.

So what does he drag into the craft room?  Some foul smelling, half disintergrated, covered with mud and who knows what all a once plush flamingo.  And he was prod of it, carrying it around for most of the night. 

I;m hoping I'm wrong but I think the last time I saw that particular flamingo, we had burried it with someone, either Rocco or that poor puppy Patti.  I suppose I'll have to be brave and go see if we have any holes in the graveyard. 

Then this morning I find Josh's lost slipper on an outside step.  Again it looked as if it had been burried but since it was only missing for a matter of days, Sparky must have burried it and then dug it up again.

Talk about a buster.  But he loves his mama and that is what counts and we are going to ignore that whole chewing on a titty thing he did last night. 

Small World

This was told to me by Casey.

It seems that Casey has a friend with a daughter just entering High School.
On the first day of class, the teacher wanted them to write something about their first day of school.  It didn't have to be that year just some year.  To make her point the teacher told a story of her own.

It was the first day of Kindergarten and the time for coloring.  So the kids got out their boxes of crayons.  The storyteller had a box of 8 crayons while the boy seated beside her pulled out this ginormous box of crayons that held every color in the world AND had a sharpener to boot.  The storyteller yearned after that box but since she couldn't have it, she hoped with all her might that the boy would share the crayons with her.

With the telling of this story, the storyteller spoke the boy's name and the daughter of Casey;s friend suddenly blurted... "I know that guy!"  Yep.  That guy was my Casey.  Can you imagine.

Now Casey didn't stop with the telling of the story.  He had plans to buy a ginormous box of crayons for the friend's daughter to give to the teacher along with a photo of a sad looking Casey holding a sign that will read "I'm sorry I didn't share".

So I guess the world isn't so big after all.

Besotted

I am crazy about the puppy, Sparky.  He has so much personality, he can't help but make you smile, n ot to mention just laughing out loud.

He has attached himself to me but is willing to love anyone who crosses his path.  Just bend down to per him and suddenly he slides into a puddle at your feet.  Then he takes your fingers into his mouth and give a hearty puppy sigh and all is well with a world.

Vancy (Sparky's fairy godmother) said he was unflappable.  That is certainly the truth.  He has no problem being on his own in the yard; sitting on the dirt pile, chewing a stick, investigating undergrowth, digging a hole and, his favorite, biting the flowers off the annuals on the deck.  He has favorite toys among the ones that the big dogs already had, favoring the ones that they don't favor.  He especially loves a purple pumpkin (the king for trick or treating) sticking his head in it and running about the house bouncing off furniture.  (we would stop him but are usually laughing too much to move)  He's also learned where the toys are kept so he can help himself  and the same goes for the half chewed dog chews though real bones are his favorite.

He comes when you call him and that puppy bounce of his has given way to a sleeker run as his legs are growing longer and leaner.  He's learned that he can dig in his water bowl outside but only drink from the one inside.  He just learned how to get into the bay window, scattering everything before him.He knows to sit back and watch when the big dogs get all hysterical at the fence, joining them when it is safe.  He's learned to be quiet when everyone is sleeping and to pat me gently to wake me up so he can go out in the morning.

He still needs to navigate the inside steps to the basement and the doggy door.  Even though is legs are getting long he's not quite big enough and I don't want him scraping his tummy each time he goes in an out.  He also needs to understand that he stay in the yard when the gate is open and stays out of the way of the car pulling him.  That will come.  Charlie and Kali are showing him.

Charlie and Kali.... As much as they cringed when we first brought the puppy home, the often are the ones to instigate play, luckily only one at a time.  They bark, roll, growl, show teeth and play hungry hungry hippo but they are not as fierce as they may look.  Their patience last only so long but a sharp bark tells Sparky that they are done.  I see them, not so much as a pack, but as a family, with Charlie forging ahead checking out noises and giving hell to people walking up the street without his permission and Kali and Sparky sitting back, close together waiting for the all clear.  Father, mother, son.  What could be more perfect than that?

PUPPY!

I am enjoying this puppy more than I've enjoyed anything in a very long time.  This little guy is so full of personality. 

We had gotten Charlie as a puppy but he was so sick he nearly died and then was still weak once the crises was over so it was almost as if he missed his whole goofy puppy hood and it's only been lately that Charlie has come to accept hugs and loving from me.  Kali was already 8 month old when she joined us.  I think her life was rather subdued living with a full time medical student and while she does get silly occasionally I think she's missing her silly gene.  She's also our killer with three baby rabbits and a ground hog to her credit.  the last baby rabbit was brought into the house where she laid on it rather than let the dogs or me get it.  She finally let me have it and it went right in the trash.

Sparky came to us nearly brand new and so we've gotten to experience his brand new experiences.

Winding down

I haven't felt well in some time.  Not one thing I could put my finger on but more of a lethargy and a disinterest in what it going on around me.

The puppy seems to be the only thing anchoring me.  He makes me laugh, when I don't laugh at anything.  His exuberance is refreshing and his sheer delight in the silliest of things warms my heart. 

I try to post happy things on Facebook, but it's forcing myself and I'm so tired of forcing myself.

We are supposed to be going on a mini vacation to Southern Maryland and I do not want to go.  It was originally to Wildwood NJ but that enticed me even less.  I thought this southern Maryland thing would be a good idea because MIchael likes water and light houses and there are both.  I don't have a bathing suit and do not intend on buying one.  truthfully I'd just like to sleep the days away instead of forcing myself to pretned that I am interested in whatever. 

NOw I have a secret that I want to get out but it's a weird secret and I can't burden anyone with it.  But it has to be said.  I have to say it and put it out into the universe.  It has to do with a pendulum and when I die.  Not pass on, pass away, expire but DIE.  Let's just say I will be lucky to see Halloween.  See why I don't tell it to anyone personally.  First they'd think I was a crack pot and then they'd think they'd have to tell me that I couldn't count on something like that and then they would feel that they would have to tell me that they would miss me.  I shouldn't be morbid.  I shouldn't wish it.  Yammer yammer.  with it here and if it happens (if it doesn't I am going to be seriously pissed because I"ve been holding off getting teeth) I want it known that it was predicted.

Yes I suffer from depression.  No I'm not depressed.  I am just so weary of everything and want to be over that rainbow bridge where I will wait, with my gone before furchildren waiting for these young canine furbabies. 

So that's that.  I'd like to say that it's been fun but it hasn't.  I really am ready.

Oh and I will take nothing into my own hands.  I couldn't do that to  my left behinds. And, even more so, I promised them I wouldn't.  I always keep my promises.

Dog Dynamicz

I love watching the big dogs and the puppy interact with each other and often find myself amazed.

Now that the big dogs no longer think of Sparky as something foreign and, therefore, to be avoided at all costs they are working out their own pack dynamics.

I would have thought that Kali, being the female would want to do the mothering.  All she does do is allow Sparky to pull on her face and play with him as long as it's on her terms.  Charlie is the disciplinarian and a single harsh bark form him will stop Sparky in his tracks.  In fact, Charlie even play referee when Kali and Sparky are playing.  If Charlie thinks that the puppy is becoming too rambunctious he lets him know with that famous one note bark.  I had always said that Charlie reminded me of Matt Dillon, slow and seemingly none too bright.  It seems as if I was right.  Charlie is the Sheriff.

Yesterday I let all three out on the deck.  Kali was the first one down and disappeared into the bamboo.  Charlie followed while Sparky stayed on the deck, too tired to take those steps.  We heard a little dog bark, answered by an unfamiliar big dog bark.  The barks bounced back and forth like a vocal tennis match and Sparky's head turned right, then left, then right, following the sound till be dog bark changed and Kali came running back to the deck to sit beside Sparky while Charlie defended us all with a volley of bark until the big dog that was barking was silenced.  Then here comes Charlie with his sheriff's badge all polished, returning his six shooter to its holster while Miss Kitty and Festus awaited his return.  (ok so I let my imagination wander a bit there)

Only once Charlie gave the all clear by touching noses, they all went down the steps and off to do whatever they do in the bamboo and overgrown grass.  I have noticed that Sparky takes his cue from Charlie.  I'm hoping he will soon figure out the poop outside thing and the doggy door even if it is only to come into the house.   sparky is growing my leaps and bounds with feet the size of ping pong paddles.  Kali lost that hunted, on the verge of a breakdown look, that she had before I told her she could kick ass and Charlie keeps his badge neatly shined since he is the boss, head honcho, sheriff.

Meanwhile, Sparky aka Badger Boy continues to make us laugh with his unbridled joy in all things.  His latest toy, one he chose himself from a craft room, is a ball of ugly yarn which he has unrolled and, I swear has started macramaing into something outrageous,  He loves his pool and the small fan we leave running just for him and the only down side in his life is that $%#( tail that follows him wherever he goes and is always out of reach.

I love having these goof balls.  I will always miss my dogs that have gone before but these guys help to heal my terribly battered heart.