Chewbacca Eats Ewoks

 Here’s a short quiz. 

When is the best time to clean and organize a garage and install a doggie door? 

A.  When it's warm outside and the sun is shining brightly.

B.  When you've recently had three inches of snow, the temperature is 21 and the wind chill is seven.

You’re sure?  A is your final answer?  Wrong!  The correct answer is B.   

 

Where’s the challenge in picking up nails, screws and tiny bits of wood if you can actually feel your fingers?  Why would you want to risk damage to your flip flop exposed toes when you can protect them with heavy wool socks and clown-sized insulated boots?  Besides, leaning over a door held up by an cabinet part on one end and a wooden table on the other, as I pressed down on the doggie door with frozen hands so Dean could mark exactly where the screw holes needed to be drilled, all the while not allowing any snot to plop onto the surface, well, that was a triumph which could never have been achieved if it was warm outside.

Okay, since you’re feeling so bad you chose the wrong answer above, here’s another chance.  This one should be a no-brainer for you. 

What’s the most common use for a chain-link dog kennel?

A.  To keep a dog inside.

B.  To keep a dog outside.

I’m shaking my head in disbelief.  You really chose A?  Again?  In a quiz from MY blog?  I really didn't think you'd fall for that photo.  Seriously.  You need to think these things through before you so rashly mark you answer.   

Holy cow!  I might be able to park in here!!

The answer is B.  Keep a dog outside.  Or, more specifically, keep a 60 pound puppy outside.  A puppy whose favorite pastime is chewing and whose favorite chew toy is wood, cardboard, stuffed animals, plastic milk jugs, plastic flower pots, paper, cardboard, kitty toys, sticks, grass,  weed barrier cloth pulled out from under gravel pathways, everything.  

In training.

 Alright.  Here’s your final chance to redeem yourself.

Who is the one being trained in the following photo?

A.  Angus

B.  Dean

Good job.  I knew you’d finally get one right.

 

 

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Chewbacca Eats Ewoks

Which Way To The Beach Boys?

I baked Pumpkin Apple Streusel muffins today because Angus has a bladder the size of a beach ball and Dean is clumsy.   

It didn't call for them but I added some walnuts to the recipe because I add nuts and raisins to just about everything I bake.  I'm not sure why I didn't add raisins to these muffins. I'm still trying to figure out why I didn't.  I hope that doesn't mean I'm getting sick.  Sometimes illness can cause bizarre behavior.  Like not adding raisins.  

I don’t usually put the streusel on top of muffins when I bake them because I’m lazy that part is usually filled with calories and fat.  But I added it this time because when I added nuts to the batter I let myself pretend like I was baking something healthy.  Mmmm....that streusel was well worth adding.  Dean actually said “tasty!”  

 Here’s the recipe if you want to give them a try.

PUMPKIN APPLE STREUSEL MUFFINS

2 ½ cup all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon pumpkin spice

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup pumpkin

½ cup vegetable oil

2 cups peeled, finely chopped apples

Streusel Topping

In large bowl, combine the first five ingredients; set aside.  In medium bowl, combine eggs, pumpkin and oil.  Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients; stir just until moistened.  Stir in apples.  Spoon batter into greased or paper-lined muffin cups, filling ¾ full.  Sprinkle Streusel Topping over batter.  Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.  Serves 24.

Streusel Topping:    In small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, ¼ cup sugar and ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon.  Cut in 4 teaspoons butter until mixture is crumbly.

I could have said I baked them because I had four halves of baked pie pumpkins in my kitchen, a basket filled with apples generously shared by a co-worker, and I had an extra hour of time to fill.  I wouldn’t have been lying.  Those reasons did figure somewhat in to my decision to bake this afternoon.  But in addition to the two reasons I previously stated, the ultimate reason I chose to bake muffins today was because I mopped my floors yesterday.  I mopped two bedrooms, a den, a kitchen, two bathrooms, a living room and a dining area.  Gosh, it feels so good to have a clean house.

An hour after I’d finished mopping, Dean dropped our container of kitchen scraps onto my freshly mopped kitchen floor.  It holds about half a gallon and was about half full of rotting apple peels, onion skins, pepper seeds, tomato parts, coffee grounds, and other future compost garbage.  He was not happy.  I knew he wasn't happy because I heard him very distinctly ― over the sound of my vacuuming ― yell something I probably shouldn't write.   I think the neighbors heard too.

A couple of hours after that, while Angus was chomping down his dinner, apparently he heard the call of nature.  One second he was intently emptying his bowl and I was blithely filling the dishwasher, and the next second he had unobtrusively left headwaters next to my foot.   Dean and I followed the trail of the river which meandered around the kitchen, the living room and the front entryway.  I was torn between disappointment that Angus didn't let us know he needed to go out, and pride  in his ability to do more than one thing at a time even though he's a male ― chomp, walk and piddle. 

While Dean grabbed a towel and started wiping, I grabbed Angus and headed outside intending to return immediately and help with the cleanup.  I didn’t think there could be anything left in the boy since he had already left a river in the house but I didn’t want to take any chances.  Ho ~ ly cow was I wrong.  The peeing continued outside for a solid 45 seconds.  He did his best to turn our house into lake-front property.

So that’s why I baked muffins this afternoon.   Within approximately three hours after I had mopped all the floors, they had been covered in kitchen waste and dog urine.  I sometimes drop a bit of flour on the floor when I’m baking but after yesterday, I figured I could dump a whole bowl of batter and it wouldn’t much matter. 

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Which Way To The Beach Boys?

Wire There No Vampires?

Halloween, the holiday I love to hate, is looming.  But just because I whine about it  doesn’t mean I don’t celebrate it.  I do.  Nearly every year I dress for the occasion in my witch’s outfit of comfy lounge pants, sweater and footies and cackle all the way from the dark and gloomy first floor of the house down to the basement where the only light is the reflected glow from the television in the cat’s eyes.

 

I don’t want anybody to think I’ve always been this way.  I loved Halloween as much as the next person until I had children.  And they went to school.  And the school had Halloween parades.  Halloween parades where ghouls and witches and fairies and mummies marched from room to room just before they gorged on apple fangs, pudding brains and skeleton bone cookies, followed by the awarding a prize for the best costume.  Yes.  You heard me.  Uh, I mean, read that correctly.  There was a Best Costume prize.  

I know for a fact that costume parade was not for the kids.  No sirrrreeeee.  That parade was an insidious mother competition that gave unfair advantage to mothers who knew how to turn on a sewing machine read a pattern and expertly use a sewing machine; creative mothers who felt compelled to sew a costume which actually FIT their child.  Smelly, wrinkled, torn and jelly-smeared garments pulled from the dress-up box were not good enough for their kids to wear in a Halloween parade.  Nooooooo … those mothers stayed up half the night sewing dinosaurs with twitching tails and princess dresses made of yards and yards of tulle glittering with hand-sewn sequins.  Consequently, those mothers who flaunted their resourcefulness and professional sewing ability and crushed any inkling of confidence I might have felt after my attempts at costume creation are the rea that costume parade is the reason for my intense dislike of Halloween.

After this year though, I may not be the only one whose painful experience will be forever tied to this candy-devouring holiday.  Or, in Myra’s case, this NO-candy-devouring holiday.  Recently she fell and knocked her face on a table, leaving one partially descended front tooth hanging by a root while pushing the other one, which had not yet descended at all, further up into her gum.  That was horrible enough but after Ryan, covered in blood, rushed her to a dentist, she spent an hour lying patiently in a dental chair while her tooth was wired back into her gum and that was, well, kind of gruesome.  But not being able to wear her vampire teeth on Halloween ...  or eat any of the candy for two whole weeks … that's an unspeakable trauma which may very well haunt Myra every Halloween for years to come. 

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Wire There No Vampires?

Miss Manners Is Missing

We walk Angus nearly every night.  Dean used to be the one who held the retractable leash but on one of our walks a couple of weeks ago I noticed he kept letting Angus range out.  “You’re supposed to keep him close to you.  He needs to learn to stay near us because he’s going to be a big boy and I don’t want him to yank my arm off from his pulling when I’m the one holding the leash.”  The next night as we got ready to take Angus on his nightly walk, Dean held out the leash and said, “Here Miss Smartypants.  YOU hold the leash.” (something like that anyway)  and that was that.  Of course, because I had impugned Dean’s dog-walking prowess, and can feel him silently critiquing my own leash-holding-dog-walking proficiency every night, I am now under constant pressure to walk Angus exhibiting exemplary technique.  

When we walk I keep the leash short and Angus close.  He does pretty well walking beside me, but now and then he tries to drag me onto the grass.  I drag him back.  He drags me toward the grass.  I drag him back.  He drags me toward the grass.  I drag him back.  After a while I finally realize he’s dragging me over because he needs to pee or poop.  So I extend the leash so he can wander off into the grass and sniff out the perfect spot to take care of business.  (Don’t worry.   Dean might not hold the leash anymore but he does carry the plastic bag.)

Last night as Dean and I were on our dog walk and Angus and I kept dragging each other onto and off of the grass I finally, once again, realized he must want to take care of business.  So I lengthened the leash to give him privacy but all he did was sniff.  There must have been a bunch of awesome smells last night because we pulled each other from sidewalk to grass and back for about 30 minutes.  Oh, sure, there were a couple of times when he peed, but mostly he just burrowed his nose in the grass or under a bush and sniffed.  Finally, about four blocks from home, his sniffing became a bit more insistent so I thought maybe he really did intend to do more than just inhale doggie ambrosia; plus I thought it looked like he was beginning to do the poop walk.  So I quickly lengthened his leash and let him wander into a yard.   

It turned out no peeing or pooping followed his stroll in the grass.  His unrelenting sniffing was triggered by a scent that drives every dog wild — rabbit.  Before my brain had even registered a rabbit threat Angus was halfway across the yard in hot pursuit.  Just before my arm was nearly ripped from my shoulder my hand, still gripping the leash handle, slammed into the mailbox next to me.  As I was fighting tears, clutching my throbbing hand, and dragging Angus back, I looked over at Dean.  He was grinning.  “You always tell me  not to let his leash out.”

As much as I wanted to, I didn’t say what I thought throw down the leash, stomp off cradling my now bleeding hand and walk home by myself.  No. I waited until we were three houses from home, in full view of the neighbors.  

13 more days until Dog Owner Puppy Kindergarten.  

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Miss Manners Is Missing

Modulation Is The Key

Some days I feel like my head is so overflowing with fears and uncertainties that I leave a scattering of these anxieties in my wake every time I move.  Lately they have been finding their way to this blog.  I feel like recently I’ve been writing one whining self-absorbed post after another.  Unfortunately, I don’t seem able to seal the chinks these worries have been trickling through, so once they’re out they’re able to tenaciously claw their way back in.   It’s kind of like those creepy Boxelder bugs.  No matter how many I sucked into the shop vac or plucked and drowned, there were always more to replace them.  

For weeks I’ve been feeling stressed from worrying (Dean would say obsessing) about painters and plumbers and floor installers and bugs and scary lawn tractors and ripping off wallpaper and painting and watering systems and maintaining two houses and utility arrangements and septic systems and propane tanks and an ever-growing to-do list and ….  and … and …  Here’s the thing, though.  If I’m going to be truly honest with myself, and you, I think most days the source of my distress is really just one thing — change.  This looming change called retirement.  Retirement and all the adjustments and uncertainties it will bring.  Like not only leaving a home filled with memories and moving to a house I’m still unsure of, but moving to a whole new town and all the unknowns that will come with it.  Like wondering how, when I AM finally retired, I will fill my days once I’ve sent Dean off with his honey-do list, plus the uncertainty about whether or not he will complete it.  Change is hard for me; and even though I wanted these changes — all of them — they scare me.

However, I know that someday all of these changes, which I am both welcoming and fighting, will no longer be upsetting.  I know someday the unknown will be the known.  I know someday I will seal the cracks and those worries won’t have access to my brain anymore.  Just like someday I will replace those leaky windows and those Boxelder bugs will no longer have access to my house. 

In the meantime, I am going to try to see beyond my fear of change and embrace the opportunities and challenges it will bring. 

I am going to try hard to force my worries into that shop vac, and instead of focusing on pesky bugs I am going to open my eyes to the beauty around me.  

I am going to trust this new path will lead me toward new and exciting adventures. 

 I am going to try to take the time to appreciate what I have been given  ...

 

like the squeeze of a hug ...

 and the warmth of a smile.

I am going to try hard to treasure ……. the music of life.**

**"The Music of life" is a link to click on if it doesn't look like one.  I HATE the new Blogger updates!

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Modulation Is The Key