Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Finally, I get to Dolittle!

Dolittle Ranch that is! Boy am I looking foreward to it! Haven't been able to visit since the Slip and Slide party!
So it is just me and my pony and my trusty Colt .38!
Swimming and riding and eating and having a little wine with friends!
Look out Denesirita and Stud Spud- here I come!

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Life is like a paper bag...

I went to our local library sale today. It was awesome!

The Library is one of the oldest in the area, and it is beautiful- everything an old library should be. It has high windows and tall stacks and wooden floors and when you walk in you smell...books. Ummm!

I've been visiting this library since I was old enough to read and maybe even before.

I remember walking in and thinking " I could read all of these books!"


And I set out to do just that.


I've gotten a little more specific in my reading list- but I will still give almost any book a try.


BUT- I digress...


I went to the Library Sale today and for $5.00 you could fill a paper bag- and they provided the bag!


Now when you first open that paper bag, and look inside you see endless possibilities....


It's big and square.


You run to the first rows of books and quickly scan the titles.


Your fingers fly over the spines picking, choosing, rejecting, reconsidering, until you put the first book in the bag. It rattles around in there all alone.


WOW! There is still loads of room!


You rush to the next stack, don't want to miss anything... pick...choose... put in the bag.


Still lots of room- this is great! You are really going to get your moneys worth today!


You go to the mysteries, then fiction ( popular) then fiction (thrillers). Sci-Fi.


Wait here are the biographies, the animal section and the self help!


Pick-Choose- Select- I can squeeze some on the sides....


Oh my - the Childrens sections! Pooh, E.B.White, Little Engine books, alphabet books, counting books and story books...


Glad they are slim, they will fit on this side...


HISTORY! MY FAVORITE! ( Thank goodness this section is a little picked over- here's a big one on California for my California collection!)


The bag is so heavy! I have to drag it and straddle it while I look through the next shelves.

Lord help me- the Classics! A High Wind in Jamica, Steinbeck, Hemingway,Shakespear, D.H Lawrence... is there no end?


And I am nearly full, my bag weights fifty pounds.

I round a corner and find...


NON FICTION! Yikes.


Pick.... Choose... into the bag. It is nearly full. Where did all that lovely room go? I don't want to get a second bag! I only want to carry one!


I finally make my way to the cashier. She takes my $5.00 and urges me to go around again.


I can't!


I lug the bag into my arms, and as I am ascending into the light of day the kindly man at the gate, smiles and pats my arm.

" That bag isn't full young lady!" he says. He gathers up three or four more paperbacks into his hand and piles them on the top of the bag.

" There you go. Happy reading!"








Sunday, August 22, 2010

An 'If you give a mouse a cookie' kind of day

For those of you that have children, you may already be familiar with " If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" by author Laura Joffe Numeroff. It is a personal favorite of mine- because it rings so true.
Today was one of 'those' kinds of days.

It began simply enough.
I wanted to add water to my waterbed. ( Don't judge me! I'm an old hippie and I've never slept in anything else!)
So I had to find the 'doo-hickey'- the small blue device that attaches to the hose and the spout in the bed.
It was in the drawer- and as I looked for it I decided to throw away all the unnecessary junk in that drawer, and the two other junk drawers.

Then I had to attach the doo-hickey to the hose.

So I go outside, and take the water nozzle off the hose, but before I do, I'd better water my flowers first.

Then when the doo-hickey is finally attached, I have to put the hose up to the second floor to my bedroom window. To do athat I have to find the ladder.
The ladder is under the fence that fell down.
The fence fell down because the weight of the ivy was too great.
So I remove the ivy.
And break up the fence and carry it to the side yard for disposal later.
And fetch the ladder, which is really really dirty from being under the debris.
So I have to take the doo hickey off- re thread the water nozzle, wash off the ladder and then put the doo hickey back on.

Then I have to climb the ladder and push the hose through the under part of the screen- but I see that it is a tight squeeze so I climb down the ladder, and go up the stairs to take the screens off.

And I see that they are really really dirty. I'd better wash them. And if I'm going to do one I may as well do both of them.

So off they come and into the shower they go. I scrub them with shower cleaner and set them on the other side of the tub to dry.

Then go back down stairs and thread the hose through the window, and then run up stairs to put the doo hickey into the waterbed, and tighten it down. But I have to strip the sheets to do that, and as long as the sheets are off I'd just better wash them.

So I take them off the bed and run downstairs to put them in the washer.

Then I go outside and turn on the water, and then run upstairs to make sure it isn't leaking.

It isn't.

I watch it until I have enough water,

Then run back down stairs to turn off the water.

Then run upstairs to take off the doo hickey and throw it back out the window.

And I notice the window is really really dirty- and as long as the screens are off I'd just as well wash the windows.

So I get the window wash fluid and towels and wash inside and then outside the windows, but I can't quite reach the middle or the top cuz it's really high! ( Have I mentioned I'm a feared o heights!)
So I go outside, take the doo hickey off and put the nozzle back on, and wash the washer fluiid off the outside of the windows. And I notice the walls are dirty too, so I hose that off too.

By this time the sheets are finished washing so I throw them into the dryer and the phone rings.

It's Lil Mama, back from the show, I put on my boots and go to the barn to help her unload.

When I get there, the Stud Spud Barn owner is rebuilding the retining wall in front of the wash rack.
I say "Why are you rebuilding the retaining wall?"

He says " Well I went to the Home store to buy some lumber to redo the deck, and I saw they had the lumber to redo the stall floor, so I went ahead and bought it.. and while I was there I saw they also had the right size to redo this retainig wall, so I bought that too..."

Thursday, August 19, 2010

On Friendship- or sometimes the lack of it.

If you know Vaquerogirl at all, you know that I value my friendships. I love all of my friends, and will do almost anything for any one of them.

I do have a tendency to speak my mind, although I do try to do it kindly. Sometimes my silences are louder than words could be- but for the most part I try not to irk my friends.

I let bygones be bygones.

I honestly know that everyone in the world is busier than I am most of the time, and I try not to have my feelings hurt by long bouts of in-communication.( I think I made that word up just now- but it fits so lets go with it).
I have several friends that I can go for months without talking to, and I don't feel offended at all~ we chatter happily away when we finally meet.

So why do I feel like someone pulled a tooth without novacaine because one of my best friends has suddenly cut me out of her life?
We didn't have an argument.
We didn't have a fight.
She didn't say- "Hey never speak to me again!" And slam any doors.

But I did disagree with her on FB (privatly not pubicly) about some political thing. But that is usual for us- she's a Dem, I'm a 'Publican'. During Presidential election years we have been known to shout at each other to the point of someone fearing for their lives and nearly calling the cops. She has NEVER held a grudge before.

I can only rack it up to the other friends she is keeping. They are more sucessful in her chosen career than I am. They have the same Dem beliefs.

But I can't help but feel hurt. I'm sure it's not 'personal', although how personal is your best friend?

I am trying to 'MOM' myself- telling myself that it's her- not me. That she's not a good friend if she won't even tell you what is wrong, that I'm better off without a friend like that...blah blah blah. No wonder my kids never listened to me!

I've plenty of friends to watch my back. They are more like me than she is- horse people, ranchers, and what not. But I will miss that part of her that is a small part of me too. That was the role she played and the hole there can't be filled.

I miss her.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Shakedown Cruise










Hubby and I took the Pups on a little mini vacation. We call it a 'shakedown cruise - you know, to shake the bugs out of the new fifth wheel.

The Sonoma Coast is a beautiful place, about twenty miles north of San Francisco. Natives here call it the COAST- not the BEACH. Why?

Well, even though there are a few wonderful flat sandy beaches, most of the the edge of this world is stark and sheer, with the wind whipping the trees into gnome like shapes and driving the rock faces vertical, churning the waves and carving the land away double time.
I spent a lot of time here when I was in school in nearby Santa Rosa, and I know all the beaches and the roads getting there. But I hadn't been to the coast in years. Not where I walked on the beach and watched the pelicans fly anyway.
I had forgotten how much I love it. How much it restores my soul. I could not breathe in deeply enough or open my eyes up long enough to gather it all in...I actually feel restored.

We spent the night in Bodega Bay.

Everyone has seen Bodega Bay. If not in Hitchcocks "The Birds" starring Tippy Hedron then in clips from "Jaws". It is a very small town right up against the Pacific Ocean.( A few of the houses are now IN the Pacific Ocean!) The restaurant, The Tides, is still there, although it looks a lot different, and when we got there we saw a huge sign announcing that Ms Tippy Hedron would be visiting the tides! But not until Sept 4th! Darn- we'll miss her.

But we parked the RV and everything went very well. No 'stutter steps', no forgetting things. We remembered how and why to do all the important things, like turn on the pump and the heater and the propane.
The pups had a great time too. They loved their 'walkies' and Tripps was fascinated by the ocean.


I was fascinated by this memorial.
It was erected in memory of a local boy named Nicholas Green, who was murdered by bandits in 1994. He was in Italy and he was only 6 years old.

There was also a stone monument, covered with toys and bells and flowers, telling his brief story.


Each bell is inscribed with a child's name.



Some of the bells were hidden.



Beautiful and sad and eerie.




There also was this house going up.
Across from this view.....
Wouldn't you just LOVE it!

I had a wonderful time, even though it was too short.

So my wonderful Hubby, realizing how much I love being there booked three more days at the same park in two weeks. Yippee!



Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Oh Lord! Now What?






Yesterday was a real stressful and scary day!




It started out well enough.




We upgraded Tripps to this humongous crate. It takes up half of the kitchen!

Which meant that Lola was upgraded to Tripps other crate- the one he arrived in. It takes up one quarter of the other half of the kitchen.














Hubby and I had breakfast and then went out to the trailer parking lot and I learned how to back this thing up!






It is a lot harder than it seems! But Hubby is a retired UPS driver, retired after 30 years, and he can back this thing up the side of a building if necessary- so he was teaching me how.







Have any of you ever had your Hubby try to teach you anything?



I hear a collective groan out there!




STRESSFUL!




It was going well, I was getting the hang of it, no one had said anything they would be ashamed of later and I felt pretty proud of myself!




I drove the trailer around town, then parked the trailer, and returned home.




We had a bill to pay, so we let the dogs out of their crates into our enclosed back yard.




No problem- they have been out there a few hours before this.




When I got home an hour later, I noticed Tripps was acting 'funny'. He was jumpy and couldn't walk right. He stumbled up the stairs and didn't seem to see me.
This was the doggie that was climbing on the table the very day before.





"Quick, we gotta take him to the vet!"


I figured it was something he had eaten, it seemed like poisioning to me- but I didn't wait to check my yard, I just threw the pup into the truck and we took off for the vet. They then sent us to the Emergency room Vet.
On the way Tripps was - well- tripping! Badly! He was hallucinating and climbing the truck walls.


CHA CHING!


They took him immediatly into the back where they started IV fluids and a whole bunch of other stuff. I could hear him yelping and crying behind the closed doors.
The vet told me later that he was tripping and they had only touched him, he was so scared he began to scream!
They had to keep him overnight.


It was like leaving one of my children!


When I got home, I went into the yard to discover that Tripps had found a bag of Snail bait that I didn't even know I had!


Luckily the little Boston, Lola didn't get into it!
















I cleaned like a whirling dervish, using the shop vac and getting every single bit of bait. Evidently the Bait is sweet and once a dog tastes it, they will actually look for it! I nailed the shed up too!
So today Tripps came home. He is tired and hungry, but they were able to flush the toxins from his body and he should have no lingering effects.
Whew!
Lesson learned! Check all of your shed, cabinets, under decks and garage shelves for any kind of bait, or toxic materials. You never know what your dogs might find!