Man's Best Friend

So I was upside down earlier with the handheld Shark portable vacuum sucking up discarded kibble and other doggie detritus and it came to me in a thunderous revelation that all this stuff I do for the dogs changes not the fact that if I were to die on the floor right now, the pooches would have my bones picked sparkly clean in nanoseconds.  Remember that.  Same with your human children, in a different way usually, but still effectively they will pick your carcass clean.  What a world we live in.  No wonder so many of you have kept your baby hotels at zero occupancy for so long.  Good on ya.

My life has flat lined.  Well, yeah really.  I've been reduced to watching "On Demand" television.  Why only just today I treated myself to a hereto for unknown Discovery channel...Investigations.  So then I sat slack jawed through two episodes of "Behind Mansion Doors"  which is essentially old murder cases that have taken place in Indiana or Ohio where a rich guy is found murdered by someone.  In the two episodes I was riveted to, both men were gunned down by  hired morons I mean killers.  The hired guns were both  financed by tadadada a brother.  That these episodes were taken from the late 80's and are reenacted by bit players who bore no resemblance to the real players is of no importance.  Though it is confusing when they show actual file photos of victim, perp and investigators and then show the reenactment using the shills.  Never really sure who anyone was.  But it gave my Gardens of Time Game to reload so I have a full six lives to waste away in the other activity of my life...Face Book.  Give me strength.

Oh something interesting happened on Friday.  I had some bone sawn off my first metatarsal of my left pedal something or other.  What this means in real life is I have five gnarly looking stitches on top of my foot which shall remain till next week sometime and I got to go on a narcotic sabbatical for two days.  That I'd also signed up for a house/horse sitting gig seemed irrelevant in my Norco stupor, but nevertheless I'd received valuable cash money for my services and so I did what any forward thinking wife would do...I got Steve to do it.  He pretended to be put out and all cranky, but he did get up way ahead of schedule in the mornings all weekend to hustle down the road to feed the beasts and did it again in the middle of prime nap times in the evenings to repeat the feeding thing.  Don't kid yourself, I was there with him moaning in pain, sitting in the passenger seat of the little truck while he tossed hay to all concerned, but he did it.  Good boy.

I had a conversation today with a friend who has accumulated dachshunds.  I have three Jack Russell Terriers so I can sympathise with her.  You should limit your collections people.  Be satisfied with one.  And make it special.  There are only a few things you should have multiples of; trust funds, vacation homes and millions of dollars.  No where in that list does it mention Jack Russells.  Polite people wouldn't even have one.  

My youngest daughter has a fine dog named Sugar and she is of somewhat dubious parentage, probably Lab, Pit Bull and maybe German Shorthair.  But they only have one dog because Sugar is enough.  Sugar gets (has to come to be punished) to come stay with the babies on occasion and by the end of her visit she is practically begging to be set free.  The babies on the other hand have their own takes on the visitor.  Carlos - He scrabbles around in a blind funk, growls menacingly at the wall and generally just does stupid stuff.  I caught Sugar trapping him in the kitchen and threatening him if he dared to move.  It was effective.  Bumble - I'm pretty sure Bumble just pretends Sugar is not there and spends a lot of time under the bed or under the deck planning world domination that does not include Sugar.  She also is a sneak and will gobble up all the left over food when no one is looking and  proudly waddles around with an extra ten pounds on her sturdy 12 inch tall body.  She looks a little like a tick.  Emma - of all the dogs who could come to visit, Sugar is the best and Emma is a complete best friend slut when it comes to Sugar.  She begins the visit with a thorough dental exam, ear washing and butt assessment.  Then she will try to play ball with Sugar, but Sugar's DNA allows for only one possessor of the ball and it is not a Jack Russell.  You figure the outcome of that.  By the way, Sugar weighs in at a hefty 70+ lbs and Emma at a delicate 12 lbs.  I will say that what she misses in bulk, Emma more than makes up for in tenacity and bravery stupidity.  Normally I would never call Emma stupid, but sometimes those awful Terrier genes just take over like roid rage and there you have it. 

Many of you have bucket lists.  I have a wish list.  My wish list.

•  I wish the Tom and Lorenzo guys would blog about the Khardashians.  I could write it for them, but I'm kind of busy with this rag.  If you don't know who Tom and Lorenzo are, then your reading syllabus is sadly out date.  Correct when possible  http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/
• I wish the Sees lady would deliver.
• I'd like a really nice horse and the money for it too. (muy importante that money for it part)
• I'd very much like to not have to go to the hairdresser, or alternatively, would know when to go before it's too late.
• I'd like it if my car never died, cause I like it.
• I'd like to have a "my last home place" and it doesn't involve any one's nasty old basement or retirement tenement.  It must have property, a pool and a barn with an arena.  And help.  In a good neighborhood of estates.  Properly taken care of estates.
• Good health, sharp wit and excellent adventures.

Enough for now!
Cheers,
Squidgy

World travelers and all like that

So we went to Washington state this past weekend.  For us it's like going on a world tour because, you know, we just don't get out that much.  With good reason I'm sure, but I digress.  We got to ride on an airplane up and back.  For some unknown reason we managed to get to the airports on time, found the correct airline, and with very little drama got on the correct flights and made our destinations without any kerfuffles.  The travel gods were kind. 

Last year we were invited to Washington for a different event and the travel gods must have been pissed off about something.  Let me tell you what happened shall I?  First of all, I don't know if you know this about me, but I am completely incompetent in the morning.  Give me a task of very simple details and I probably will not get all of it right.  So we had to be at the airport at something gross like 5:00a.m.  That's just unnecessary to my mind.  Now mind you, Steve is every bit as incompetent as I in the a.m., but since he takes no responsibility in travel details he maintains he's off the hook.  What this means in real life is that he can get mad and I have to defend myself.  Again I digress.  So the line at the Horizon check in was miles and miles and we didn't have much time anyway and there was a special line for special people who got to waltz in and deposit their bags and what not and stroll away with full knowledge that their plane will wait all day for them if need be.  We, however, are not um "elite" in any way, shape or form.   So we waited in line for six or seven hours till we finally presented ourselves and all our stuff and like that and a snotty little minimum wage man informed us that there was no reservation for us.  And, there were no seats on the plane and would we just get outta da way cause there were important, gasp, people behind us who were ticketed and what not.  So I thought it would be a really good idea to just sit there and argue with him.  And Steve just walked away, because it became apparent to him that we not only had stood in the wrong line of the wrong airline counter, but our real airline counter was clear across the terminal and it no longer said anything at all about Portland, but now said Bangladesh or something.  So I got my last word in and huffed it over to the right airline, Frontier, only to be told that it had boarded, our seats were no longer available and was there anything else they could do for us.   Well, after my head stopped spinning around and around and around, Steve dragged me away before the armed with guns guys could come have a go at me and we went upstairs and pouted and snarked at each other and waited for a couple seats to become available so we could travel.  Sadly, as I said before, the travel gods were not pleased with us for whatever mystical reason and so no seats became available and we had to call our hosts in WA to let them know we weren't coming and to have a nice weekend.  Oh, I may have forgotten, this was one of those design a show jump ring for an event weekends, so now we had to go home, Steve still had to design some courses in a bad mood, but now we got to Fax them to WA and hope it all made sense.  Who knows if they did.   And this children, is why I only fly on two airlines.  Because ICRS.    I'd love to know what string of words you all made out of that.

I have a new gig right here in my own neighborhood.  Literally less than five minutes away.  It may or may not prove to be interesting.  There are five grown up horses and a six month old foal.  One horse is a TB and was/is an event horse, but doesn't do anything but be the boss of everyone in his pasture.  The other four are Trakehners.  They don't do anything either, except one had a baby and she came to these people already prenada so there you go.  The foal is an evil, evil little so and so.  His mother has no self esteem and  this spawn of Satan bites her, kicks her, jumps on her and any number of other annoying things and she does nothing.  If you personified her she'd be "that" mother in Carl's Jr. who dotes on her exasperating demon child who screams bloody murder because he didn't get the right toy in his Happy Meal and somebody better do something about this RIGHT NOW!  And she just sits there, in her mu mu, and smiles benignly and utters "little tyke, knows what he wants"  and like that.  And the other diners are drawing a lottery to see who gets to kill them both, weapons of choice.  See what I mean?  Anyway I'm meant to go down the street twice a day to throw hay at them (three flakes each, twice a day) and give Momma-San some grain, that the dark lord foal will steal from her, because he's like that.  And this should be quite jolly.  We'll see won't we?  Because I don't know this lady from Adam and she's found my name from an ad on an equestrian site that I don't even remember submitting, I have produced a contract/release of liability treatise and a veterinary release form and a pet information sheet for each of the critters.  I found them online from a free legal website, so what could possibly go wrong?  Again, I'll let y'all know.  Because I'm greedy, I just hope the check clears, though I did request cash.  Why not be difficult too?

The spouse has declared some weird new austerity plan for me.  This, of course, only affects me, not him, and I am somewhat chuffed by it.  For instance.  My eldest daughter,Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo, sister to Chang from a previous episode, is having her baby in BFE New Mexico the first part of October.  I had planned to board an airplane at a reasonable hour and wing my way to the east for the blessed event.  Stephen has decreed that I am a rock and that I should drive and that he'll go with me...if he can...which is a lot like saying "hey, you're a rock, you'll be fine driving across three states by yourself.  Man up."  The last time I drove across New Mexico by myself the spare tire on the truck I was driving fell off, rolled under the three horse trailer I was pulling causing it to buck up in the air about 70 feet only to land on the tire again which then proceeded to bend the angle iron under the trailer and exit via the rear passenger wheel on the trailer making it explode and then went rolling merrily down the highway.  So I limped to a tire place somewhere and got a tire for the trailer, found my way to Tucumcari,  NM where some helpful guy checked out the trailer during a refueling mission and noticed all the damage underneath and recommended I not drive it till the angle iron was replaced because more bad stuff would happen to the trailer if I didn't fix it,  and yes, he did know someone who had a machine shop and it shouldn't take more'n a couple, three or four days to git er dun.  Sum bitch.  I sat in Tucumcari for three or four days and fretted and was nauseous the entire time.  And that is my driving through New Mexico alone story.  Now ask me again how excited I am to travel there alone....BTW Tucumcari, NM is not on Conde Nast's list of anything cute.  FYI.

The next fun thing that will happen is the joyous occasion of our wedding anniversary.  Now here's what some of my friends have done for their anniversaries this year, trip to Germany, trip to Carmel, actual rememberance of the date, new car, new house.  The spouse reads this, indeed, the spouse whines piteously if I don't write regularly.  Let us see if the spouse steps up to the plate and even notices the stony silences on the day because he CRS either.  I remember one year coming down the stairs at a house we shared with his mother (fodder for an episode unto itself) one day and she was all "Happy Anniversary!  Joy Joy Joy! etc.!"  and we just stared at her, figured she'd finally flipped her lid for good and walked on.  As stated previously ICRS, but it is not ok for the spouse.

And so dear reader I've reached the limit of my creative expertise for the time being.  Maybe something cool will happen by time I'm badgered in to writing again that will make this drivel worth reading.  Until then,
Cheers,
Squidgy

If a man has an opinion and a woman is not around to hear it, is he still wrong?

It was a long week.  Stevie took himself off to the hinter land to rub grimy elbow with the unwashed at the Solano County Fair and  left me to my own devices...which is never good, n.e.v.e.r.  Not that I had anything at all interesting to do.  Dear reader, I know you count on me to provide riveting vignettes of my life in the fast lane, but even a diva must take some time off.   So I spent a week doing very mundane things.

Take Monday for instance.  I met the youngest daughter for lunch with the little grand urchins.  Her treat. So we went to this Thai place that really should have had a big old sign out front that stated clearly that children were not welcome.  This became somewhat important when within five minutes, I mean we didn't even have water yet, Mr. Silas pushed the four foot tall wooden goddess of something off her plinth and sent her crashing to the floor.  Upon impact her various bits when rolling hither and thither about the place and I was like "dang Si, really?"  and the mother unit was all "@!#$%^&*()@#%$^&*Silas#$%#$%^#$% little#%^&$%^&$%^)"  Fairly impressive string of invective from the usually serene one.  I was all for bailing out at this point, but the restaurateurs figured that now we'd broken the focal point of their decorating scheme well then by God we were going to sit and pay money for food.  So we did that.  Hurriedly.

Later that day, I found myself at the gym staring in horror at the pool where a group of ancients, I mean peers, were flopping about in anticipation of the "new class"  water in motion.  So essentially what you are meant to do is perform an aquatic ballet in the water listening to dreadful music from the 80's.  I dutifully floundered with my fellow enthusiasts for the requisite hour all the while thinking what the hell am I doing?  With some relief the hour ended and that was Monday.  Gracious sakes alive.

Tuesday, the ennui continued, except I went back to the gym and spent 40 minutes climbing hills randomly on the treadmill whilst listening to some extraordinarily  boring novel on my Ipod.  The Ipod is a wonderful device whereby you can effectively tune out the entire world via your content and a pair of ear phones.  It goes everywhere with me.  I even have a dock in my car where it lives when not being banged about at the gym.

What happened Wednesday.  Oh right.  The offspring of the spouse was in her last few days of residence at Chez evil step mammie so the middle daughter, remember her...Chang?  decided we should have a farewell dinner for her.  So we did that.  They ate gross stuff like beet salad with goat cheese and goat cheese and prosciutto pizza, goat cheese this and goat cheese that and it is all revolting to me and I had a salad.  At least no one broke anything.  And when I got home I rounded that off with a pint of Hagen Daz, strawberry if you must know.

Thursday I had an appointment at the gym with my personal trainer.  Now this isn't nearly as groovy as having a personal trainer who exercises for you, not this one, you have to make a date and she stands around and counts while you lift weights for a million repetitions using various torture devices designed to make you feel inadequate as if sweating like a, oh gross I can't go on, like you need to feel any more inadequate whilst wearing the spandex of the day in front of a ripped 20 something year old who won a basketball scholarship to the Air Force Academy and has zero body fat.  Say what you will about being curvy, it's all body fat.  So because I hadn't been humiliated enough she decided I'd lost weight from my little accident and thought it would be demeaning to take all my measurements and check out the body fat percentages.  Good news, I've lost 20 something pounds.  Bad new, it's all muscle weight.  So basically I look the same but fat being lighter than muscle is the main ingredient. @#$%&* and )(*&^% and @#$%@#$%#$%.  So trainer girl smiled maliciously and told me I needed to perform a daily routine and designed a new schedule that is somewhat trying and the expectation is that I will grow muscle, lose fat, gain weight.  Not sure where the benefit is in all that.  How much muscle does it take to get a pint of ice cream out of the freezer anyway?

Not much happened Friday either.  Oh, wait, I went to see the last Harry Potter movie.  By myself.  Neat.  So I walked into the theater and it was completely empty, like I was the only person there.  And I thought to myself, "I should call Shirley!"  So I did.  You know how you really hate the person talking on the cell phone in restaurants and say movie theaters?  Yeah, that was me happily and obliviously nattering on about picture hanging and discussing bad horses and lunging and this and that all the while the theater was filling up.  I'd like to know what happened to me be alone in the theater.  Well whatever.  So I told Shirley I'd call her back in the manana and hung up just in time for the endless previews of movies yet to be released.  Like I'm going to remember to go see any of them.  Except there is a new Sherlock Holmes coming out in November I think.  The spouse and I will no doubt find our way to a theater nearby for a viewing.  Anyway, back to Harry Potter.  You should know that I've read all the books and because that's not enough, I've also listened to them on CD.  The guy who  reads them is fantastic and I could listen to his voice forever.   Back to the subject, I pretty much know every line and circumstance of every book.  I'd say this movie covered the basics, but left out about 75% of the back material.  Of course when the book is on CD it takes something like 21 hours to get through, perhaps a wee bit long for a sit down in a movie theater surrounded by strangers.  Good job that they broke it up eh?  I note with fascination that "they" are going to subject us to two parts of the final "Twilight" movie.  Good grief, really?

Ah Saturday, I took myself off to whine country to ride the magnificent Kilo at horse show moms estate and also to give her daughter offspring a little lesson on the flat, which means I taught her a riding lesson not jumping.  So all that was fine.  Then I scampered off to Petaluma in hopes of catching Shirley in a jump lesson with her trainer, but alas, was too late for that entertainment, but I did get a chance to catch up with Andrea and that is always fun.  We inspected her horse trailer as it had been subject to a hailstorm of biblical proportions last spring and the dents in the roof make it look like a million egg poachers,  Fairly impressive.  Evidently the truck was victim to the same type of damage.  This is what doing a good turn for someone will get you... 

Which brings us to yesterday.  I didn't do anything but lounge around, surf the Internet and finally and thankfully finished Steve Tyler's book.  I have nothing good to say about that treatise except it is understandable why so many rockers die at age 27. 

So the spouse comes home today/tonight sometime so I must go vacuum or something.  I must also prepare myself for house sitting in Petaluma beginning Thursday.  I have been ordered to hang pictures at the casa.  That should be fun.  With the way things rattle around in my head, imagine what I can do with nails and a blank wall.  Awesome

Cheers,
Squidgy