Brown mutt for sale

A few days after the kids moved into our house, a friend recommended that we go to a comedy show to cheer ourselves up and relieve stress through laughter. Dealing with the fire stress, Christmas holidays, and kids has been different and difficult at times.

Then it occurred to me that my family provides a good bit of laughter. I could put on the rosy glasses and adapt a better attitude, therein find some funny. (And take my meds. Those are important.)

So I'm going with the cheaper version of a comedy show: almost middle-age kids, teen grandchildren, child-size grandchildren, and a great-grandie trying to learn to crawl and walk at the same time. Almost all of us living on the same house lot. 

Let's add to that menagerie of people, the menagerie of pets: three Maltese pups in the small camper; one Maltese in the big camper; and in the house a sweet schnauzer named Lucy and the newest member of the menagerie: The Mutt.

The Mutt, aka the brown dog, the stray dog, that damn dog, has one or two irritating habits. His moniker depends greatly on his antics and the amount of cleaning required of the the adult dealing with him. His bad puppy habits are so despicable that I decided that we needed to "rehome" him. To that end, I put a small ad on Facebook:

Brown mutt for sale. Real cheap. Answers to every command he knows. Trained to clean trash cans. Will self-load into any vehicle. Eats anything. Can dig trenches and make gates. Loves everyone, good with small children (able to teach them how to fall correctly and rebound quickly). Paying $5 to come look at him, plus $5 if you take him home. 

Thus far I have received no takers. Will, however, defended Mutt and insists he is part of the family and Jolie loves him. Therefore, he cannot be rehomed. Uhm, that's coming from someone who doesn't have to pick up after him, repair the fences he breaks, refill the holes he digs, run him out of our camper, or walk in the dark with Mutt jumping on knees, thighs, and ankles. I just know that Mutt is determined to see me fall in the gravel just for the fun of watching me roll. No doubt he will help me up and kiss all the boo-boos. 


By now we've gotten used to him and expect him to come bounding into a set of knees at any second. His favorite pastime is to tease the Maltese puppies when they are outside. We built a small yard for them right outside the camper. It's where we feed them, let them get some exercise and take care of outdoor business. 

Mutt has been trying for weeks to dig into the yard, which shows his IQ level. Few animals work to get in a cage. We can't allow that because Mutt weighs more than the three Maltese together. Translate that into every day someone has to shovel dirt and rocks back into the holes he's created. When he not escaping his freedom, he's using it to annoy the Maltese by running around and around their yard so that they feel the need to bark and chase him. It's a mean game of "Not It" that no one can win, not even the humans who try desperately to chase him away.

Cotton is my forever dog, so he comes with me almost everywhere, which requires walking from place to place. While Cotton was out few days ago, Mutt ran back and forth in front of him trying to engage a game of tag. He bomb-rushed into Cotton and rolled him into a couple of cartwheels. I barely snatched up Cotton before the second assault and tossed him into the camper. 

Believing he's a big boy with a full set of teeth, Cotton was somewhat miffed and wanted blood.  He bounced back out yapping and snarling, so I caught him again this time in midair and received a nip on the arm for my efforts. While I dealt with the maniac in my arms, Mutt bounded past me into the camper. You can't imagine the joys of playing hide and seek in a small camper until you play with a mad Maltese and a crazy Mutt, who is actually good at all of his games. 

Peacocks, owls, and ants

Several years ago our son and his wife lived next door to a family who owned peacocks. They were lovely and colorful and fun. Until nightfall. That's when they would make these loud, scary calls. It didn't help that the house was a rental with poor lighting outside. Or that the peacocks had full run of the entire area. They were allowed to stop traffic, visit neighbors, ride on the backs of four-legged animals if they wished.

Oh, and the yard. Not a "yard" so much as a former field that had been converted into a pecan orchard, that had been converted to a place. There were holes from crumbling railroad ties, dips that held ATVs hostage, and mounds of....well, wait for it. Walking to or from the house was an obstacle course that often caused your body to suddenly twist into a convoluted pretzel. 

At precisely the right time, an owl would hoot in those creepy sounds that big owls make. You know that sound: low and deep and breathy. The ones that echo off the pecan trees. Those ones.

Sometimes you stepped on a soft mound of freshly ground dirt. To which your response had better be high stepping at a fast clip before something below smelled your flesh. 

Red fire ants in Louisiana tromp up your foot at the same time, like a troop of Roman soldiers, they search out their field of attack under socks and pants, so when the officers yell "charge," they take one synchronized chomp. There is no pain like the burning pain of Southern fire ants, but Louisianans are bound to secrecy so as not to discourage tourism. I can say no more.

Inevitably there would be a hole waiting for the step immediately following the drop into the ant hill. It worked in the order of sinking ant hill, high step, high step, hole, drop. "Hoo hoo hoot." And an onslaught of slapping at your ankles until the realization that you're the one flaying around.

Of course, during this attempt to remove the monsters eating you alive, your legs were still working. Once in motion, they just went. Nothing in your brain signaled them to stop because everything in your brain is working at the ants. Once a body is in motion, the body stays in motion, remember? The problem is that your body  forgot the laws of motion while traveling at 3.1415 miles per hour. Something had to give. 

The knees are the first to go, remember? One knee caught your body weight in a thud, while the other foot pawed the grass in an attempt to get ahead of the rest of you. That happens instinctively. But it never works. The only time instinct really did any good was much later. After you'd clawed your ankles, broken your knee (the good one) and had a slight heart attack. The good news is that a slight attack kept your heart pounding. Ah, you could race to the door on one bad knee and no ankles. Any door would do. 

More likely than not the door would be locked, but still, it was a door. It's possible to jerk a locked door open if your heart is pounding hard enough to get adrenaline to your hands. You'd had that attack...there was adrenaline.

Of course, getting to the door required running on air. As in not touching the ground. You see, at night pecan tree roots rise out of the dirt in an interlaced course with the sole purpose of grabbing a toe. The roots were easy to evade: one need only raise the toe of each shoe just ever so much higher than normal. Everyone knows that tree roots are harmless under the foot. Feet are too big for roots. However, tree roots can grab toes; thus, the toes are in danger. But if you run fast enough, you can hover above the roots and get to the safety of any door.

Or you could be a big brave person, puff out your chest, and let your husband go to the car to turn on the lights.

LSU Saturday Night

Our house is a true LSU house. Actually, I am quite okay to sew while a game is on, but others here cannot understand that attitude and occasionally I do have to sit in front of the TV. Today is the first game day for LSU, so it's the first game day on every TV in the house. Every. Television.  Every. 

Did I say every TV? Marley has a TV in her room, so she decided that she would watch the game with her Barbies. All the Barbies decided to tailgate the game. That's the fun way to watch a football game. Of course, Barbie felt that the correct protocol would be to include the Disney princesses. 

The princesses couldn't leave out the other dolls. And those dolls invited the rubber ducks. The rubber ducks couldn't come without the Littlest Pets and the princes' horse, which meant the princes had to be there. But the princes sat near the rubber ducks because there are so many princesses they couldn't give any one enough attention. And that's how we watch the game in our house. Who do you invite to your game day party?

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: H U M O R

Pretend words here.

**change some to often

I am a librarian and I would catalog it,
but I'm busy cutting, sewing and quilting.

And so, the tour de force...

Honestly, I know it's batman but I don't get how it's funny.
 Could someone explain it to me?  

And the tour de force...

That Crazy Redbird

I can not tell you how many times a day I say those words! "That crazy redbird" is making a mess on every window he attacks. We'll have to pressure wash the house. (Yes, it needs pressure washing already. That's not the point!)

Jenny has been parking just anywhere in the middle of the parking area, which is pretty big. When I asked her why, she said it's because the birds are leaving droppings on her dark paint. It's nasty. This video is mostly for her benefit, but I thought it funny enough to share. Keep in mind that I had to stay inside the studio so as not to scare him and it was showering. Just keep your eye on the side mirror.

The Crazy Bunch

My family is such a fun-loving crew. Traditionally we wait to have our get-together/gift exchange on Christmas night. This allows the kids to wake up to Santa surprises, go to mass, and visit their in-laws, or whatever they choose to do.

This year we decided to exchange gifts, have supper and then play games so the little ones could join in the fun. They had been running around screaming for most of the evening and the adults decided this would help to settle them down a little. Of course, not one made much of an effort to pick up or straighten the house, so excuse the messes in the pictures. 

Ha! It's crazy to think that we'd play a game and be quiet. It started relatively calmly, but that did not last long. We started out with some form of charade that didn't work very well but eventually got off the ground. I looked up a couple of family games and in no time we were rolling with laughter as everyone took turns acting out their animal for "White Elephant." Here's a minute of some of our fun and laughter.

When we got tired of animals, we turned to "Giants, Wizards, Elves." That's basically "Paper, Rock, Scissors" but using sound effects and your whole body. Even the shy ones got into that game. 

What happened here, I can't say exactly.  But we laughed way too much for such silliness. I'll only say retaliation is never good.

What are some fun family games your family plays? I can always add to our list...

eureka!

See this?  All these parts?  Looks like a chopped up car, doesn't it? It's not.  It did sound horrible, however.  Rather like a car that had thrown a rod.

Clacking and clanging and whirling all at the same time.  But nothing else was happening.  This baby was definitely not filling up.

So Richard finally decided to give me a hand.  He took it all apart. Spread it all over the studio floor.  Left it there.  Didn't bother to tell me the possible outcomes.  For example, could or would it eventually be a working machine again?  

This is where it ended up today.  An "oh, by the way" moment with my husband informed me that the motor has broken bushings.  Ah, thank you, darling, for the information.  I didn't mind stepping over your pile of broken vacuum and tools for an entire week.  Really, thanks for taking a look.  You're such a huge help.

Pleading Granddaughters and Sock Monkeys

Sometimes it just doesn't matter how strong a person is. Grandchildren know.  They just know.  They have multitudinous ways of knowing: DNA, parents, blood, love, heredity, consent, approbation, emotion and so on.  

You begin with an adamant, "no."  

You continue with this no for quite some time, eventually adding thought-filled, carefully crafted reasonable answers to "Why?" the "no."  

And you stick to the "no," albeit a weaker version.

You then move to the maybes and I-don't-knows and we'll-sees.

And at some point, the torturous pleading and begging and boohooing becomes unbearable.  You've lied, you've cried, you've blacked out, only to awaken soaked and bloody.


You relinquish in despair, ashamed of your weakness and exposure. The pleading and crying end, and you wonder why.  You'd known all along.  You've been through the pain and torture on numerous times before.  

Challenged by a grandchild, you've never beaten the gauntlet.  No one has.

In this particular case, the granddaughter and a new sock monkey, named Leroy, are happy friends.  Yes, she is 16, and apparently, she still plays with stuffed toys.

And a grandmother has lost (and won) yet another battle.  Merry Christmas to grandmothers and grandchildren everywhere.