Author: Tonya Lanthron

Tonya Lanthron https://elysianhunter.wordpress.com Middle aged, conservative, about as exciting as finally finding the match to the pink sock behind the dryer

God Gave Us Neal Schon, Sanity is Relative, and We the Unwilling Doing the Impossible for the Ungrateful (Again)

Leave a comment

No, I did not mean my commentary on Neal Schon being God’s gift in a blaspheming sort of way.  The guy has an incredible gift, OK, and for some reason I mellow out pretty good when I’m listening to old Journey stuff.  I needed a LOT of mellowing out this week- so I’ve been zoning out to old faves such as “Now You’re On Your Own,” “Of a Lifetime,” “Karma,” and so on.  There is something way therapeutic about that grandiose funky fusion rock of the 70’s.  It’s one of those clandestine pleasures that rates up right there with showering in the middle of the day when you can- for no logical reason, but just because you can.

I am trying not to succumb to the yearly holiday depression that coincides with Jerry’s bleak holiday despair.  It hasn’t been easy this year, especially with money being so stinking tight.  That is depressing even without drunk and stupid meanderings, but add that into the mix and even I get lonely and truly start wondering why I am still being permitted to suck up valuable oxygen.  It’s been so long since I’ve had a meaningful conversation with another adult that it’s almost pitiful.  To make things even worse, now that it’s winter, Jerry doesn’t go to the campground on the weekends, so he gets drunk and stupid at home and I have to deal with him.  One would think that in my loneliness I would appreciate the company, but there are few things more dreary and lonely than catering to a drunk all weekend.  The only conversation that comes from Jerry most of the time is his whining about what I’ve done wrong,  what I haven’t done, or what I can’t afford to do.  I don’t want to fix him breakfast and serve it to him in bed only to hear his dissatisfaction with normal breakfast fare and his lingering desire for Porterhouse steak.  I might be able to get the Porterhouse from time to time if you cut back on the beer and smokes and quit blowing your money on bullshit, but I dare not bring that up.   Logic does not generally compute with Jerry unless he can conform it to his point of view.  In his mind I should (somehow??) make more money to pay for him.

Perhaps I have vestiges of normal female desires to feel cherished and wanted by a member of the opposite gender, even though I know that for me that doesn’t happen save in my own imagination.  I don’t have any illusions regarding my awkwardness and plainness and just plain lack of any sort of carnal appeal. I’m thankful to have three hots and a cot as it were, and to expect anything more than bare necessity and survival is asking too much.  I was taught from my earliest memory that I am only as loved as I am useful, and here lately I haven’t felt terribly useful. Even so there are times when I would so enjoy an evening with a friend, conversation that doesn’t focus on everything I’ve done wrong, or everything someone else expects me to do for him.  When Jerry does speak coherently, I usually can’t wait for him to shut up and stop whining.

This morning he was whining about Sheena.  Sheena knows when the girls are supposed to go out in the morning.  She gets excited and starts woofing and whining to be let out.  I’m grateful that she is good about letting us know when she needs out.  So Jerry starts in with, “Spray that dog so she shuts her mouth,” and so on, but I have to admit I ignored him after that.  I’m getting good at tuning out the whining.  After I let the dogs out, I wandered back in with the spray bottle, pointed it at him, and replied, “I want to see.  Maybe if I spray you, you’ll stop your whining.”

I can handle canine vocalizations, but Jerry’s incessant whining- mostly regarding things I have no ability to change or improve- has already gotten on my last nerve.  Sheena is a headstrong dog, but she’s infinitely more trainable than Jerry. Sheena also whines a lot less.  Sort of on the same subject are some old 70’s movies for “trainables.”  This one is long, but from today’s point of view horribly politically incorrect, and therefore, hilarious.  I almost forgot there were so many different slang terms for the male member.

We the unwilling, doing the impossible, for the ungrateful.  This is my life in synopsis, the extreme Cliff’s Notes version. If I were to opt for traditional burial I would insist this be inscribed on my tombstone, but since I am going to be cremated I guess it doesn’t matter. 

I am thankful for the Prozac, believe that.

I Need a Video Camera (if only for my own entertainment) and Why Dogs are Better Than Men

Leave a comment

I have a very rude pic of Jerry experiencing the aftermath of a particularly stupid drunk and stupid episode, but I have enough decency to keep that in my own private collection.  I thought about posting it for a moment, but that’s a little worse than my usual passive-aggressive revenge.  That borders on aggressive-aggressive revenge, which I’m a little too soft hearted to engage in even when I know there is little chance of getting caught. There is no actual nudity involved, but he is down to his whitey tighties, and I figure nobody needs that visual.  Nor do they need to see the reason why I spend so much time getting intimately acquainted with the rug shampooer.  Suffice to say that the dogs are housebroken, so unless they have an attack of Montezuma’s Revenge, it’s not the dogs.

I spend a lot of time among members of the species canis lupus familiaris, and even though I trust my dogs more than I trust any fellow humans, it’s good to remember that as far as taxonomy goes (the naming and classification of species) the domestic dog is a subspecies of canis lupus– the grey wolf.   Dogs can be dangerous if they are ill-treated and/or one fails to respect their strength (a 65# dog can easily take down a 250# man, for example) and the potential lethality of their bites.  More humans die as a result of dog attacks than from snake bites.  Even so, I believe the trust I have in my own dogs is warranted.  There is no love more sincere than the love of a good dog.

It’s fascinating that one species can have so many differences in its members.  I am not the reigning expert in scientific matters by a long shot, but the current theory is that dogs have such a high rate of mutations due to what are called tandem repeats– sequences of DNA that repeat themselves multiple times.  Of course we humans have made some genetic diseases in dogs worse by limiting the gene pools (i.e. line breeding.)  I don’t have any purebred dogs at this time- but both of our now departed purebred GSDs, Kayla and Heidi, ended up having to be put down due to rear limb ataxia that progressed to near paralysis due to probable degenerative myelopathy.  This is a genetic disease in GSDs and I am sure that it is more prevalent than is reported.  Since DM doesn’t show up until a dog is 7-14 years old, no one would know if a breeding pair are carriers until they have already reached the end of their reproductive life.  Today there is a genetic test, but not all individuals who carry the gene develop full blown DM.    Even Lilo and Sheena, who are crossbreeds, have hip dysplasia, which is primarily a genetic disease as well.  Most dogs, purebred or crossbreed, carry at least one genetic defect.  Lovely Clara, who is an ideal canine specimen in many ways- and actually has good hips- was born with an umbilical hernia, which would have automatically made her unsuitable for breeding (though she would have been unsuitable for breeding anyway as she is a crossbreed.)

Despite the capricious nature of canine inheritance, and the potential that dogs have to be dangerous if ill-handled, I prefer the company of dogs to humans.  Maybe that’s a bad thing to admit, but dogs are better than men for a number of reasons.

Dogs (generally) don’t drink beer.

Dogs don’t smoke.

Dogs generally don’t dirty up laundry.

Dogs will eat what they are served.

Dogs are always happy to see me.

Dogs don’t care what I look like.

Dogs are always great listeners.

After this morning I am tempted to embark on a bit of aggressive-aggressive revenge on Jerry.  I have threatened for years to video record his drunk and stupid incidents for his review (also for sharing with friends and pretty much most of the free world via You Tube) but I haven’t wanted to come off of the $$ for a video camera.  If I have any tax money left over (yeah right) I may contemplate planting a couple of Jerry-cams in strategic areas.  I will have to have audio too because the comments, as well as the thuds and crashes of drunk and stupid fallings down, are half of the fun.

I am not one of those people who buys the common wisdom of  “alcoholism is a disease.”  What a crock of shit.  I used to be a binge drinker myself.  Drunkenness is a decision.  You either decide to suck down those beers (or in my instance, liquor and/or wine- I never could stand beer) or you decide you are going to stay sober.  If habitual drunkenness is a “disease” then why isn’t smoking considered a “disease?”  Nobody feels sorry for smokers (nor should they- even though smoking is a LOT harder to get free of than drinking) and society makes no provision for the smoker to indulge his/her habit.  Why don’t we treat drunkenness like smoking and just stop tolerating it and making excuses for it?   In my world, as I was growing up, bad behavior carried consequences.  You make a bad choice you pay the consequences.  Get shitfaced and act stupid, then end up as a worldwide laughing stock on You Tube.  I’m thinking about it but will probably be too tender hearted to carry it out.

Still Sucking Up Valuable Oxygen, the Beauty of a Lean Christmas, and Being the Stealth Cougar

Leave a comment

This morning I was reminded that God must have some purpose for me as I’m still sucking up valuable oxygen.  Perhaps it is to keep on depositing money in Steve-o’s account.   It’s always creepy to hear of a person near my own age with no known health issues to simply drop dead for what appears to be no reason.  In a way- though I’ve been warned I probably won’t make it to old age-it makes me wonder if I am going to end up one of those people who still have a mind but their body goes all to hell.  My great-grandmother (who died at age 94 and was more mentally sound than I am now until she had the stroke that killed her) had a plethora of bodily ailments- rheumatoid arthritis, heart issues, lung cancer (she was a hard core smoker for 40+ years,) breast cancer, you name it -but until the last two weeks of her life her mind was all there.  Then you have the old people whose bodies seem to hang in there just fine but their minds are gone and they turn crazy as a shithouse rat.  If I were prone to wagering, which I am generally not, I would say my body will go before my mind does.  I can’t say which is worse.  It would suck to lose your mind, but as they say, “ignorance is bliss.”  Some of the happiest people I’ve seen are mentally challenged, and I’ve seen some people with genuinely brilliant intellects who are emotional and spiritual shipwrecks.  Perhaps the wisest answer is to trust that God will get you through with the hand He deals you.  Now I know why I don’t play poker.

I am holding fast to my vow to avoid buying people a bunch of crap they don’t need and that I can’t afford.  I am enjoying the simplicity of my Charlie Brown disaster tree although I did take the time to fix the lights so that they all light and they blink when they’re supposed to, at least for now.  I will buy the nieces and nephews loads of candy- since they are still young enough to be able to enjoy it- and that will be about it.  Anyone who doesn’t like that is cordially invited to send Steve-o money to free my finances up so I can spend money on something other than him, taxes, insurance or scripts.

I have to admit I still enjoy the eye candy and I really don’t think the young dudes realize it.  I just look old enough to be your Mom.  I know, I’m harmless enough, but in a way it’s sort of depressing.  Most guys my age and older don’t offer much of an appealing visual.  There are some notable exceptions (Mike Rowe…) but what woman wouldn’t find him fine to look at?  I guess for safety’s sake I should only be looking at dudes from afar because I know just how easy I can be tempted should an opportunity arise.  The good thing is my frumpy looks and rather boring appearance are good for keeping me chaste if nothing else.  The bottom line is I don’t get offers, which is probably a good thing.  This old white chick is extremely low mileage, probably for the same reason Ford Edsels weren’t particularly popular.  Even though they ran, they were ugly and awkward and not terribly fun to drive.  Such is my fate.

I had the opportunity to embarrass the snot out of Jerry Saturday night.  One of his buddies from the shop wanted Jerry to procure him an Asian porno flick.  I’m not terribly impressed by porn- most of the time it’s just plain gross, the music is horrible and the plots are contrived- but what the hey, we were out on Morse Rd. anyway.  So I took him to the Lion’s Den.  The couple who manage the store were very gregarious, displaying toys and telling him which movies were on sale and so forth.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him turn such a bright shade of red.  I could tell he was trying to look away as I was casually perusing the “toy” section.  We got the movie and got out fairly quickly but I have to say I enjoyed seeing him so embarrassed.  He didn’t offer to buy me any toys while we were there, which was kind of lame, since nature has dealt him a rather crappy hand in that department.    Let’s just say for politeness sake I tolerate involuntary celibacy, but I don’t enjoy it.  I really shouldn’t blame nature for his ED either- beers don’t drink themselves and cigarettes don’t smoke themselves-and drinking and smoking both are linked to ED.  As I said, he could at least procure me some battery operated substitutes, but go figure. 

I am reminded of a medical joke: A little old man goes to the Dr. for a complete physical. The Dr. asks the little old man to show him his sex organs.  The little old man wiggles his index finger and sticks out his tongue. 

Perhaps he doesn’t want to enhance my fantasy life any more than I do on my own.  It’s truly not funny although I try my best to find humor in it, lest his ED problem become yet more fodder to feed my discontent and depression.  Living with Mr. High Maintenance would be a lot easier if we had any kind of a sex life.  It’s particularly frustrating that he refuses to seek medical help or to even to try alternative kinds of bedroom fun (i.e. toys,).  And he wonders why I sleep in a separate room, in my own bed.  Part of it is because I have to sleep on an incline due to my constantly draining sinuses- to keep me from drowning in my own snot- and that’s the official answer I give, but the real answer is I see little point in the inconvenience of sharing a bed (with a snoring smoker no less) unless there’s a some action going on every once in awhile. 

I have to move forward from this subject (I almost used the phrase “get off,” then thought better of it,) before I go from slight melancholy to full blown depression.

Suffice to say that for some reason the Good Lord is keeping  me breathing, even with my laundry list of  physical defects and medical issues, when others who appear perfectly healthy drop dead for no apparent cause.  No matter how much I may speculate and think it unfair that those who have so much to live for are taken out of the world in a seemingly untimely manner, and people like me who basically are just sucking up valuable oxygen and waiting to die linger on for no readily apparent reason, it’s not my judgment call.  Go figure.  I’m not in control and that’s a very good thing.  Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

Survival of the Mentally Fittest (or at least the craftiest) and Understanding Man Logic (or is that an oxymoron?)

Leave a comment

I learned to be covert at a very young age as a necessary survival mechanism.  I am hideously ill-coordinated, and I was a weak and sickly child to boot, so physical fighting was almost always a losing proposition for me.  Avoidance was always the best strategy to prevent as many beatings as possible.  I found lots of interesting places to hide- closets, high up in trees, behind furniture, etc.  There were many places I could go to see but remain unseen.  Keeping under the radar- or above the situation- kept me from beatings more than once, and as I got older, guaranteed me much juicy fodder for blackmail opportunities.  I caught my sisters engaging in all sorts of illicit activities that would have gotten them in loads of trouble had I chose to nark on them.  Usually I didn’t nark if they spared me a beating -or at least stayed out of my stuff.  Knowledge is power in more ways than one. 

Even though I am not living under the threat of continual physical beatings, I still enjoy making detached ivory tower observations.    In some ways this is a bittersweet pursuit because I am haunted by a number of old ghosts who live in my dreams, ghosts who I can’t help but to come face to face with when I am confronted with places from my past.  When I’ve been out of a particular sphere for a long time viewing the residuals as they appear today can be disquieting. 

Last night I had a rather noteworthy dream in that it was a new scene- nothing remotely connected with past places or events which alone was refreshing.  I enjoyed the old metal bridges (late 19th/early 20th century) that one seldom sees anymore even out in the hinterlands.  Better than that there was a lovely waterfall that had been created that flowed over an embankment paved with red bricks into a free flowing river where people were swimming (nobody in their right mind would actually do that in most Ohio rivers these days.)  I don’t know why the bridges and the river stuck in my mind.  The scenery itself was new but it’s an old theme.  One of my favorite places to hide out and smoke when I was in high school was by the Scioto River just outside of Green Camp.  Back then there was an abandoned railroad trestle (since demolished for the scrap metal) one could walk out and sit on, comfortably out of view.  In summer no one would find you if you parked behind the trees.  It was a lovely hideout.

Both of these bridges are long gone which is sad in a way but even I must admit they were dangerous to go wandering out on.  I remember driving over the first one, and it scared the hell out of me even in my little Subaru DL, the way it would creak and moan under its slight weight. That old iron bridge once spanned the Olentangy River.  Though I found its design and its dedication plaque intriguing, I generally tried to avoid actually driving over it.  The second is the railroad trestle where we used to sit and watch the river flow by.  One would not dare swim or wade in the Scioto River up in Marion County even today as it is polluted with creosote and Lord only knows what else, but it was peaceful to simply sit and observe the world going by- as long as there was enough of a breeze to keep the bugs off.  I wonder how many others wandered on those bridges- were they secluded places for lovers’ trysts or set aside for drunken toasts and late night rages against the dark?  How many trains passed over that majestic iron trestle carrying their loads of coal or grain or armaments- or bodies of the fallen dead?  If only the bridges could speak their secrets what stories they might have, yet they stood in somber silence until need or greed came to take their obsolescence away.

I can really get into a bit of a dark mood when my mind goes wandering in such directions.  I believe that we humans very seldom choose the best course we should take. It does disturb me that the past holds echoes of a future that could have been much brighter than today- a future that never was- either as a result of our insolence or ignorance or a combination of both. 

On a lighter note, I have been contemplating the great oxymoron that is man logic.  Last night I watched a show obviously geared toward twenty-something men called “Manswers,” in which puerile young men try to explain the secrets of the universe.  Yes, enlighten me on all the things I really need to know- such as the logistics of having sex while sky-diving.  Then it occurred to me that the probability of me enjoying either of those activities, together or separately is approximately the same as the probability of snow storms in hell.  Sky-diving is an activity that I highly doubt I could muster the courage to engage in.  Sex is an activity I would like to engage in but that nobody else (who qualifies and meets my standards) wants to muster up the courage to engage in with me.  I don’t think I’ll watch that show again.  It was too depressing the more I started thinking about it.

When Jerry loses something he expects me to find it.  If I lose something it is my own tough luck and my business to find it as it should be.  I just hate the double standard.  It also seems that Jerry needs to find whatever object he lost when I am sleeping, eating, “taking the Obamas to the pool,” or bathing, and he expects me to drop the activity at hand to find the item he lost.  Few things can bring me to a seething head of anger faster than having my activities interrupted so that I may go fix someone else’s negligence and/or stupidity, but this seems to be the story of my life. 

That’s depressing too.   I have enough problems without anyone else contributing to them.

Helpful Hints I’m Glad I Don’t Need, a Geezer-Friendly World, and I Just Need Some Cheese!

Leave a comment

 

Since I knew pretty much from the start that the illustrious Steve-o was going to be an only child, I gave my maternity clothes away as soon as I could fit back into regular clothes.   This is a good thing not only because the thought of enduring pregnancy and/or childbirth at my age (fortunately for me a moot point since the hysterectomy- yay!) is absolutely abominable, and because I can visualize Jerry as the “don’t” illustration in the instructional pic.  It’s fortunate I was not able to have any children with Jerry as he is worse than a toddler himself and he would have been absolutely no help.   I will grant that for some women a hysterectomy is a tragic event.  I have all the sympathy in the world for someone who has to have one because of cancer or trauma, or who has to have a hysterectomy in spite of wanting more children, or someone who ends up having to have a hysterectomy at a very young age.  But each individual is different, and for me the hysterectomy was one of the best things I’ve ever done to preserve my sanity and improve my health.  Had I known what I know now I’d have insisted on having it done 15 years ago or so as the repair work after my c-section was completely messed up (hindsight of course is 20/20)  rather than suffering through years of interminable miserable visits from “Aunt Flo” along with pretty much constant pelvic pain.  Also remembering hindsight is 20/20, I’d been better off had my c-section turned into a c-section and hysterectomy at the same time. Even if I had ever wanted to get pregnant again it would have been pretty much impossible given the way I was pieced back together after the c-section.  I spent 18 years in accumulating and intensifying misery and there are no words to describe my relief at not having to endure the pain and the infernal mess.  So for me- at age 40- the hysterectomy was a happy event.   I wasn’t using it any more anyway. 

I do have a lot of empathy for pregnant women though.  I would not want to have to deal with all that noise today- the expense, the car seat hassles, the late night squalling, all that.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m old or because I’ve been through it before or a combination of both, but kids are fine as long as they aren’t mine- and their parents exert some sort of discipline and control over them in public.  I absolutely despise people who let their rugrats scream all the way through Target or run around like they are being raised by wolves or something.  Perhaps that’s the problem right there.   Steve-o is at least past two major hurdles- he is potty trained and literate- but we need to work on the “gainfully employed” part of the adulthood equation.  All in due time I guess, but I really hate society and government’s cute little expectations that we should extend adolescence far beyond the teen years.  If  kid is supposed to be an adult at age 18, then why does the government think parents should pay for extended schooling and health insurance until they’re 26? What the hell is Congress smoking? Obama, granted, is a Marxist nut job, but come on!  When I was 26 I was working 12 hour days and trying to support my four year old son.  The government sure as hell didn’t help me with that- nor did I expect them to.

I do notice that more and more this is becoming  a geezer friendly world and it’s a bit disquieting.  Every time I turn around there’s all these commercials trying to entice seniors to change their Medicare coverage.  Now there’s even a delightful little device for those too lazy to wash their feet which I find hilarious.  I also get a catalog full of all kinds of medical and other notion type things marketed toward the over-sixty set. 

Somebody shoot me if I get too lazy to bother to wash my feet.  I may not be perfect- by a long shot- but I do take some pride in my personal hygiene.

Last night I had to make a run to Target to get some cheese.  I had forgotten I didn’t have enough cheddar cheese for both Jerry’s tacos and the taco dip I am taking to the luncheon tomorrow.  Normally I would have gotten it at Kroger’s but Kroger’s is out of my way on the way home from work.  Target has shredded cheddar cheese and is on the way.  So does WalMart, but the WalMart on Morse Rd. is not suitable for civilized people to enter at any time, (that place is a freak show from hell) let alone after dark and during the holidays.  So, knowing that all the department stores are dens of insanity this time of year, I bravely enter the Target store on my quest for cheese. 

While Target’s clientele does not contain nearly as much of the criminal and/or governmentally dependent crowd as WalMart’s, the crowd last night was by no means a pleasure.  I truly wish people would either teach their rugrats how to behave in public or leave them at home.  Duct taping their big yaps shut is also an option.  It seemed as if I were playing dodge-em all the way through Target.  Why do people think the store is a place to stand around and socialize or worse, talk on the phone?  I am capable of walking and talking on a cellphone. If someone as ill-coordinated as I can do it then anyone can do it, I assure you. 

Some helpful hints for parents of toddlers/preschoolers:

Do NOT give your three or four year old any package to carry through the parking lot.  He/she will only drop it and then start screaming and stomping his/her feet.  Worse yet, they may decide to roll around in the greasy parking lot slush which is going to be nine kinds of hell getting out of their hair and clothes.

Do NOT let your child munch on items you haven’t paid for yet. That is sending your child the wrong message.  If Sammy or Sadie is going to get the munchies bring something from home.  Better yet, teach them to wait until scheduled meal times so that others don’t have to watch your kids smear used Oreo cookie all over the cart handle.

Do bring LOTS of Kleenex.  Nothing is more gross than looking over and seeing someone’s rugrat smearing copious gobs of snot all over his/her face, the cart handle, the stuff in the cart, etc. and so on.  Control the snot.  Nobody needs that visual.

All I needed was some cheese.

Ah, the Bouquet of a Fine Whine, Canine Conditioning, and Some Pragmatic Coping Strategies

Leave a comment

Ok, the illustration is in French, but even with my very limited knowledge of francais from high school, I get the Alcohol Tree just fine.  Excessive use of alcohol screws one up royally and does a good bit of collateral damage at the same time.   Yeah, here’s my public service announcement for the day.  I haven’t gotten shitfaced since that legendary episode in 1993 when I found myself in a motel room bathtub- alone-  immersed in freezing cold water with a half-eaten Domino’s Pizza on the ledge.  Something about realizing what a total loser I was and that I’d have to go to work in a few hours wearing no makeup and yesterday’s clothes really put the damper on my drinking excursions. That’s probably a good thing because I was always a “forget it all” drunk, as in “how the hell did I get home last night?” or worse, “did I sleep with so-and-so?”   To my knowledge my conquest record while drunk is pretty much as lame as when I’m sober, which reassures me that I didn’t get any action I don’t remember.  Good thing I’m consistently pathetic in that pursuit as I would hated to have missed anything.  My drinking these days is limited to maybe a glass of wine every six months or so.  It lost its charm for me years ago.

Jerry, on the other hand, drinks enough for a freaking army all by himself.  This was my plight Thursday night into Friday morning (when I had to go in to work at 6:30, of course) – listening to him bouncing off the walls (literally) and blaring the local death metal station until 1AM or thereabouts.  At least it wasn’t the old-time country station, or I’d had to have sneaked downstairs to cut the breaker.  As long as I left the breaker for the furnace blower on it would have been OK.   I can tolerate death metal a lot better than Hank Williams Jr. or Willie Nelson, believe that.  I need to rig a kill switch for the stereo which I will do one of these days.   Saturday night was a most unnecessary drunk and stupid encore, though I got lucky in that he got too drunk to remember how to turn the stereo on.  I wish his so-called buddies would stop buying him twelve packs of beer, because he sees it as a challenge if there is more than one twelve pack in the house. 

Dogs on the other hand are far easier to condition.  As much as I hate to take a hard line with Sheena the water bottle is most effective.  Usually just the sight of the water bottle is enough to help her remember to choose to be a good dog.  It works really well to keep her out of the kitchen when I’m fixing food.  I know she has to learn better- hence the constant douching-  because having a dog trying to get her snoot into everything just isn’t conducive to being able to prepare meals.  I wish I had something like that for Jerry.  Maybe I should try the spray bottle on him and douche him a good one every time he picks up a damned beer can.  It’s a thought. I think Jerry would need something a bit stronger than water though- say vinegar, or Dave’s Insanity Sauce.  Yes, the dogs learn faster and with less effort.

Most of my dealing with drunk and stupid would fit into the “avoidance” category.  Usually out of sight with Jerry means out of mind, so if I hide in the corner of my room with the door closed and the light off he usually won’t go out of his way to pester me.  If he persists in annoying me then I have to ramp it up to “passive aggressive” repercussions.  One I’ve been toying with trying lately involves duct taping his ankles together.  I hate it when I think he’s passed out only to have him jump up and start raving and wandering again.  He usually does this after a quiet lull – and just when I think it’s safe to go to the bathroom he starts in because he sees me and then something deep in the reptilian part of his brain remembers he’s not annoying me so he needs to start in again.  I don’t mind being around Jerry when he’s sober, but it seems he only wants to hang on me like some twisted clingy alien when he’s drunk.  I absolutely detest that which is probably why he does it.

In his defense, Jerry has his good points, but they are nowhere to be found or even imagined when he’s shitfaced.  I know I have my vices so I probably shouldn’t be so critical.  But a word of advice for the drinking set- if you drink to excess, be assured that when you’re drunk you’re a dumb ass, and no one wants to be around you when you’re shitfaced.  Take it from someone who knows.

Greetings from Whine Country, The White Death Returneth, and I Finally Put Up the Decorations

Leave a comment

No, this is NOT my house.   Not only is my house far more modest (this Griswoldian display is from my sister’s Cincinnati area suburb- where people consider my yearly income to be weekend pocket change) but Jerry does not permit me to do much in the way of decorating for Christmas.  Since he is terrified of fire I cannot have a live tree, outside lights, or anything that he perceives as remotely flammable.  This decree reeks of I don’t know what, especially after the legendary attempt at fireplace lighting with gasoline, but when you live in whine country, it’s easier and quieter to comply with irrational requests as far as reasonably possible.

I didn’t feel like putting up even my modest decorations this year.  My grandma died a year ago yesterday which was depressing enough, and I’m so damned broke it’s not funny, et cetera and so on. But something in the back of my head made me do it.  Grandma always enjoyed Christmas and always decorated lavishly until she wasn’t able to- and then I would go and do it for her.  Grandma would have been disappointed with me had I failed to at least put up the tree and the Nativity.   So the tree is up, the buzzard is in place (long story,) the Nativity is on the mantle and the wreath is in the window.  It was strangely comforting to put the stuff up. I’m glad I did as weird as that sounds.  I like Christmas decorations- especially when they are Griswoldian and tacky.

I would have been in the west end of Marion today trolling for tacky Christmas pictures except for the weather- there is a minor snowstorm coming through and I don’t want to be stuck up north or worse- trying to get through the White Death on the freeway.  So here I sit all broken hearted…the rest of the line is “paid my dime and only farted,” but a. I don’t have a dime, and b. even back in the day when the department stores had pay toilets, most of the chicks I knew simply slid under the stalls.  I’m in my bed but trapped under Lilo who is enjoying her REM sleep splayed across my chest.   That dog can sleep anywhere.  I have no idea where her dreams are taking her but she is the most dream-active of our dogs.  Her little head shakes and her legs move as if she’s running.  If she has a bad dream she wakes up and then she’s disoriented and clingy for awhile.  This dream doesn’t seem to be a bad one so I won’t disturb her if I can avoid it.  Let sleeping dogs lie- and dream.

Yes, look closely- Lilo is crosseyed.  I can also add bowlegged.  But she’s so sweet.  She’s being patient with Sheena which is amazing too.  Sheena is like a big awkward puppy right now but Lilo doesn’t seem to mind which is surprising me.

So whine country is fairly quiet at the moment- Jerry’s asleep which is nice.  I like that phrase, “whine country.”  If one doesn’t take account of the spelling of “whine” it could sound like I take high faluting vacations.  “I vacationed in whine country” sounds so much different that what it really is, as if I am hanging out with buff young studs and sampling the finest wines in the Napa Valley or something.  It really means I put up with Jerry’s incessant whining for a week straight instead of getting occasional breaks from it while I’m at work.   Going on vacation with Jerry is NO vacation for me! It’s even more work than when I’m at work.   The only way I get a real vacation is if I do what I did last June- I went on vacation to my sister’s in NC with Steve-o, while Jerry stayed home with the dogs.   Works for me, except I missed the dogs.

I have a hard time with the holidays for a number of reasons.  Mostly it’s hard because I never have the means to be as generous with others as I’d like.  This year I’ll be doing good to give cards.  Steve-o has always been cynical around the holidays even when he used to get all the useless crap that kids always want and then end up breaking, destroying or losing before New Year’s.  That’s what happened to the model airplane.  We still don’t know where that puppy ended up.  Probably on someone’s roof.

This was the only pic I could get of Steve-o last Christmas.  I’m so stinking proud of my illustrious offspring.  Perhaps it was fortuitous that he was an only child.

Now Lilo’s eyes are rolled back in her head and she’s snoring.  At least she’s not drooling.  Yet.

 

 

A Nouveau Body Hair Removal Solution, Overalls Wardrobe Malfunction, and Snitty Wankers

Leave a comment

Well, well. I guess I shouldn’t combine my loathing of superfluous body hair, intimate knowledge of what flashpoint fires do to hair, and something I saw on an episode of Dirty Jobs.  Maybe with a bit of modification to the cow torch pictured here I can burn it off.  I’d have never believed that cow udders grew hair, let alone that dairy farmers remove said unwanted udder hair with a freaking propane torch until I saw that episode of  Dirty Jobs.  Why didn’t I think about the torching option earlier to remove my own superfluous and unattractive body hair?   I know torching is effective not only from the carburetor adjusting incident (my eyebrows were completely gone for almost three days, which is a feat right there) but also from Jerry’s drunken fun adventure with Wild Turkey, gasoline and the fireplace.  Anyway, I think the only thing keeping me from the torching option is a natural fear of open flame, but it does work on the cows.  Maybe someone could modify the torch to a tiny butane flame (similar to a lighter) you could torch at least the unibrow and perhaps other unsightly hair on the facial area with.  Just a thought.

Oh, and it’s probably not a good idea to flame clip around your cat either. 

I am wondering about Jerry again this morning.  Here in beautiful Central Ohio winter has descended upon us with a ferocity we seldom see this early in December.  It was 13 degrees (yes, I’m American, so it’s Fahrenheit- I’m only good with metric measurements as they pertain to nuts and bolts and things that are installed on cars) this morning which is way too bloody cold even for me.  My hands freeze and crack and bleed when it’s that cold even when I wear gloves outside.  I have plenty of Aquaphor but I’m just not that anxious to get back to slathering it on and wearing my white cotton gloves all night.   Anyway it is apparently not a good idea to try to put on your Carhartts you bought last July at a garage sale when you’re “Weekend at Bernie’s” shitfaced at 11PM.  I think he just doesn’t have the dexterity in his hands and/or the ability to stay still long enough  to fasten the straps that hold the bib up.  I know he doesn’t have this ability when drunk.  Perhaps if he tries to don the overalls while sober it might work better for him.  I don’t think they are missing any pieces but I will double check them tonight.  I am not going to dress a grown man.  He will have to get by with long johns and a parka if he can’t figure the Carhartts out.  I can’t seem to get the scene from “A Christmas Story” out of my mind.  Every time I picture Jerry trying to get those Carhartts on I see Ralphie in the snow suit, unable to put his arms down.  It’s cute when a seven or eight year old kid is trapped in a snow suit, but downright pathetic to envision a 53 year old man being held hostage by a snow suit.  If it’s that damned cold, stay inside.  Whatever you wanted to do outside can wait.  Until it warms up.  Sometime in May.

I am not his mother and I am NOT dressing him.

Today has brought its share of snitty wankers.  I wonder if it’s the cold or just the overall depressing holiday season.  You go into a store and of course everyone is in there and they are in no hurry.  As Murphy’s Law would have it the one thing I need to purchase is behind the two old biddies yakking it up about their hemorrhoids and cold sores, I am already running behind, and when I finally retrieve the item I need and make my way to the line I get the “team member trainee.”  Take it from experience, anyplace that calls their employees anything other than employees- “associates,” “team members,” “support staff,” etc. is a shitty place to work for.  Avoid working for these places like the plague if you can.  It’s the same logic behind calling a turd “fecal matter.”  “Fecal matter” sounds more important and polite than “lump of shit,” but in the end it’s still going to be treated like a lump of shit.  Anyway, by the time I get through the line I’m running late and by then I’m feeling like Target should be paying me for training their help.   Usually I am very satisfied with Target, but it’s the holidays and all the stores suck right now.  I’m just glad the “team member trainee” spoke English as a first language.  Had she been foreign on top of being new and still learning (not her fault- and to her credit she did a good job for it being her first day) I’d probably blown my volatile, misanthropic, Type A personality, stack.

I don’t see me living to get old.  But then again, pissy, impatient old people were my age once. 

There.  Now I feel better.

One Pathetic Dude, Puppy Class for Adults, and Technology Tards

Leave a comment

Granted, mug shots are not generally the most flattering photos out there, as the Smoking Gun will attest (gotta love that site) but this dude got my attention because 1. he’s local, and 2. there’s just something particularly tacky about having one’s prized pit bulls tattooed on one’s neck.  If he was into dog fighting, I hope his fellow prisoners have just as dim a view of dog fighting as they do of child molestation.   There are responsible owners of pit bulls, but when one sees pit bulls connected with criminal elements I know it gets my wheels turning in a bad way.  The only things lower than a person who arranges and participates in dog fighting (in my humble opinion) are child molesters, rapists and serial killers. 

Yes I own dogs that are considered to be protection breeds, (i.e German Shepherd, Belgian Malinois) so yes I am very sensitive to those who would condemn a dog because of its breed rather than to condemn the idiots who mistreat and misuse dogs.  Condemning a dog for the owner’s negligence or ignorance is akin to blaming a car for running off the road rather than blaming the drunk driver controlling the car.   Dogs were bred for thousands of years to fulfill certain human purposes- some dogs to guard, some to herd (often guarding and herding are functions of the same breeds) some for hunting, such as spaniels, hounds and retrievers, and so on.  Yet the ultimate usefulness of a dog is determined by a number of factors, most primarily what his human handlers condition him/her to do.  I don’t agree with all of the common wisdom in dog handling- there are some nut jobs out there- but the primary function of the human in the human-dog relationship is to be the leader, the one who calls the shots- to be the alpha in the pack formation- especially when dealing with multiple dogs. 

Right now Sheena is bouncing back splendidly from surgery, but is proving to be a a bit of a behavioral challenge because she’s basically having to go through “puppy class” or basic obedience, as an adult.  She is in the process of learning what one would normally be teaching to 8-16 week old puppies.   She knows her name and can sit on command at this point.  Getting her attention is the hard part as she is easily distracted.  It’s a lot easier to teach a more malleable and much smaller 12 week old than it is to condition a strong-willed three year old who has acquired some bad habits (trash-digging, climbing on things including the coffee table, inappropriately taking food, etc.) along the way.   One thing that Sheena does get very well is house training- no bathroom  mistakes and that amazes me, though house training usually is not much of a problem for protection breeds, and it does help that she has two dogs in the house who are already conditioned and know the routine.  Few methods of conditioning dogs are more effective than having access to other dogs who have already learned the required behaviors.   They learn more quickly, and perhaps with some peer pressure to conform to the norms of the rest of the pack, from other dogs.  Canine social structure can be used to our advantage.

Sheena is attempting some power struggles with Clara (to be expected as Clara is the reigning queen bee) and I am having to reinforce Clara’s position by making Sheena work for every privilege she gets. Clara already knows the drill but Sheena can be strong willed and pushy, especially where food is involved.   Clara can be rather laissez-faire regarding food unless of course, someone else wants it.  Then she will make it clear that it’s HER food, and she will eat it at her leisure- one daintily and thoroughly chewed bite at a time.  Clara does not eat like a normal dog.  Lilo is extremely food motivated (Lilo the Inhaler, or her more infamous alter ego- the Food Ho) but even she knows better than to infringe on the Clara bowl- she learned a long time ago to leave Clara’s food alone at least until Clara’s done with it- but Sheena is having to learn and sometimes she has to learn the hard way.  Clara has rolled her a couple of times, but hasn’t hurt her doing it.  I would rather correct Sheena than allow Clara do to it because Clara’s correction won’t be as gentle as mine.  Clara also knows that I am above her in the pack hierarchy and I should be responsible for dishing out discipline. Sheena particularly dislikes the water bottle- but it is redirecting her from undesired behaviors without physically hurting her (we do not use physical discipline on our dogs.)   A blast of water in the face is enough to get her attention.  I know, I’m a mean mommy, but Sheena will learn to adapt to the established norms for dog behavior in our house. It’s just a bit more of a process when a dog is an adult vs. a puppy.  It’s easier to redirect a 20# 16 week old pup than a 70# three year old, but certainly not impossible.  Dogs learn from the moment of birth until the moment of death.  Heidi did remarkably well for us in spite of little to no socialization or conditioning for nine years.  Even senior dogs can be socialized with a little patience.   I have to remember this when Sheena signals her desire to go out at 5AM by lustily barking her way all through the house until I make it to the door.  I’m glad she’s good about her toileting activities- cleaning up a 70# dog’s bathroom mistake is NOT pleasant by any means, and she’s dropped some pretty huge almost Clara-sized loads outside- but I’m not really thrilled with her waking Jerry up that early.  I have confidence Sheena will learn.  Jerry, now there I wonder.

Jerry managed to annihilate his phone last night. It was already most distressed to begin with, but his attempts to take the back of it off with a screwdriver were its death knell. I had ordered him another one- a very simple phone with a big keypad- but it will probably not arrive until tonight or tomorrow which means he is without a phone and without the means to transfer his contact list (guess what I get to reload… manually) until it arrives.  I tried to show him how to use my phone (LG Rumor Touch) but without success.  The touch screen confused the hell out of him, (I didn’t even attempt to show him how to use the keyboard) and frankly expecting him to be able to use it was sort of cruel to a dude with both tremor disorder and presbyopia. 

I am not the most technologically savvy person in the world, and I freely admit it, but even I can figure out a touch screen cell phone and even how to get on the Internet with it and check my e-mail and all that.  Maybe if I had more time and patience but Jerry is a bit of what I call a technology tard.  Even worse was the poor guy who called Jerry wanting to know why the convertor box Jerry sold him for his TV didn’t work.  I was trying to explain to Jerry that the box has no way to pick up signal unless it is connected with the coax for the antenna going in to the box, then the coax from the box going into the TV.  Connecting the TV into the box without connecting the antenna to anything wasn’t going to work no matter what the poor kid did. 

The only thing worse than the garden variety technology tard is the Darwin-award candidate technology tard- say the guy who goes up on the roof to adjust a TV antenna or satellite dish in a thunderstorm.  So far Jerry has managed to keep all his fingers and toes for 53 years which in and of itself is an amazing feat considering some of the dumb stuff he’s done with power tools.  I don’t claim to be good with any kind of tool but I know my limitations and I also learned the cardinal rule of power tools: “Don’t Drink and Drill.”  I remember the visual quite vividly from Matt Groening’s “Life is Hell” comics.  I think it’s from “Work is Hell” but I’d have to dig through it.  Jerry on the other hand seems to have to be drunk to get motivated to use the power tools and that scares the hell out of me.

I should hide the drill battery.  Note to self.

Nothing Keeps a Good Dog Down, and (According to Clara) Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Green

Leave a comment

I know, sort of gross, but not as bad as I’d anticipated.  Sheena had three incisions, one for the spay – that one is barely visible, one to remove one mammary gland and nipple (not terribly aesthetically pleasing, but since the mass was right below the nipple, it stood to reason that it should be removed) and another incision to remove part of another mammary gland.  For having what amounts to a hysterectomy and partial mastectomy all at once, Sheena is remarkably unfazed.  Wednesday night, the day of the surgery, she was a bit in pain but mostly still stoned from the anesthetic and all the pain meds.  Yesterday she was a bit slow and tired, but today she has pretty much been trying to act like her normal hyper self- in spite of still being on Tramadol.  When Clara was hit by a car last year and had to have surgery to repair her front leg she was pretty well zoned on the Tramadols but they don’t seem to phase Sheena nearly as much.  Then again Clara was seven years old when she got hit, and Sheena is about three, if that.  Age does make some difference.  What really surprised me is the Vets at the clinic said Sheena was in heat when she was spayed.  She showed absolutely no signs, but then some dogs don’t.  Spaying her now may likely have saved her life although there is a good chance the mammary tumors were benign.  Mammary tumors in dogs are fed by estrogen- so in theory removing the tumors and removing the source of estrogen should prevent their return.

I only have two more days of Tramadols for her.  She has several more days of Keflex (what a joy trying to cram those down a canine gullet- the capsules are huge, and heaven help you if the capsule breaks, because Keflex is one of the nastiest tasting antibiotics there is, and I should know because I’ve probably taken every antibiotic out there at one point in time or another) for which I hope I have sufficient peanut butter.  It sounds mean but the only way to get pills down most dogs is to bury them in a wad of peanut butter, then scrape the wad of peanut butter containing the pills on to the roof of the dog’s mouth.

Clara of course is jealous, so much so that I joke that her brown eyes are turning green.  Little Miss Green-Eyed Monster resents the attention Sheena is getting, although I am sure she doesn’t remember all the special attention she got when she had all those stitches and then that seroma that had to be drained every other day for a month.  I did not enjoy that at all but at least she recovered fully.  I think dogs bounce back a lot faster than we do.  Lilo has not been nearly as clingy but then she’s always preferred Jerry.

Clara at the pet blessing.  Her eyes are still brown, in spite of her occasional jealous tizzies.

Jerry is in there whining about trying to caulk bathroom tiles- he’s about 8 or 10 beers into it which means I’ll have a mess to clean up tomorrow. He’s already trying to wheedle me into farting around with it too but I refuse to enter in to his drunk and stupid inspired home improvement attempts.  If only he would do this stuff when he’s sober, and preferably when I’m not home to hear about it.