cougardom

the wonderful world of cougars, i.e. older women who like to have fun

12 Lbs., No Nuts, Likes to Hump Old Black Cats, Please Give Me a Home…

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I hate getting into all the drama involved with Jerry’s family.  Since Monday night I’ve been taking care of my mother-in-law’s dog, a seven year old male Shih-Tsu with one brown eye and one blue one, who seems to have a thing for interspecies love.  Either that, or the female dogs in the house are just a tad bit too tall for the logistics to work out for him.  Perhaps it’s  “any port in a storm.”   I feel sorry for the poor little guy.   I mean, if I had to abide by truth in advertising I’d have to describe him as follows:

12 lbs., no nuts, one blue eye, one brown eye, likes to dance for food, and hump small, old black cats.

He’s lived with my mother-in-law for the past two years, but now my father-in-law (aka: Taco Tuesday, because he will only go to Taco Bell on Tuesday – when they have the 59 cent per taco special for senior citizens) doesn’t want to take care of the dog any more.  She can’t because she’s confined to a wheelchair, which completely sucks- both for her, and the poor dog.

I have to wonder about the logic of offering discounts on tacos to old people who wear dentures, and whose sensitive GI tracts shouldn’t be overwhelmed with Mexican food to begin with, but Dad’s 65, wears dentures, and snarfs down Mexican food like it’s going out of style, so perhaps there is more to the geezer-Mexican food connection than I understand.   Maybe the old geezers prize the ability to fart copious green clouds of death-gas, or maybe that’s how they find their way back home.  Just follow the noxious green cloud.

In all fairness, in most regards, the dog is not a bad little guy. Unlike the Jack Russell who stayed with us for a couple of days (thank God we found him a home with the quickness!) and almost drove Clara and me insane, he’s pretty mellow for an ankle-biter.  He’s very pleasant and is good about going out with the other dogs and he gets into the routine fairly well.  I gave him a bath last night, which he acted like he enjoyed.    I am generally not terribly fond of ankle-biters (we have large dogs- large female dogs- for a reason) but for being both an ankle biter and a male, he’s actually pretty sweet, except for occasionally humping poor Isabel. Isabel is our thirteen year old, five-pound black cat.  Isabel is extremely laid back and not usually phased by dogs, at least when they’re not humping her.  So for the sake of poor Isabel’s sanity, I’d like to find him a little more suitable situation.

That’s one reason why I prefer female dogs- they generally don’t hump things.  Female dogs tend to be generally smarter, a bit healthier, and live longer than their male counterparts.  I also prefer large dogs because not too many people will screw with you when you are with a large dog, even if the large dog in question is harmless.  Sheena is a good example of a large dog who is completely harmless- uncoordinated, doesn’t know a stranger, and is nearly toothless anyway- but from a distance she looks intimidating.  The kids in the drunk-and-domestic apartments on the other side of the body shop think Sheena’s a wolf, and I am not going to do or say anything to stop that urban legend.  Clara, while not easily confused with a wolf, is also blessed with a formidable presence, and she is the one they need to watch out for.  Her coordination is perfect, as are her lovely complement of 42 teeth, she gives no warning, and she does not miss anything.

Sheena (below)- not a wolf- and 100% harmless.

Clara (below)- also not a wolf, but definitely worthy of her Belgian Malinois heritage.

I don’t encourage my dogs to be aggressive, but I will not interfere with their natural prey drive and instincts to defend their pack and territory.   In other words, if you jump the fence, the dogs will do what comes naturally.  Clara will go for your jugular, Lilo will go for your ankles, Sheena will stand aside and woof as she watches them, and Uno (the little male Shih-Tsu) if we fail to find a home for him, will probably lift his tiny little leg and pee on you.

Lilo (below) – definitely not a wolf- and in spite of her little diva tendencies, is quite the ambush hunter.

Speaking of Sheena, her surgery was successful, although I still don’t know how invasive it had to be, or what she’s going to look like when I pick her up tonight.  It will probably be two weeks or so before they get the biopsy results back from Ohio State so that is a bit of a worry.  I am so hoping this is the last surgery for this, even if she had to have the mammary chains completely removed.  No matter how extensive her surgery had to be, I hope she gets a couple days’ worth of Tramadols so she can get some rest.  She’s easy to pill, so I will request some sort of pain meds for her.  Last time she particularly liked having me put the ice pack on her stitches.  Clara wanted absolutely no part of ice when she had all those stitches under her leg after she was hit by a truck- but Clara and Sheena are totally different dogs.  Same size, but completely different mentalities.  Clara is almost impossible to pill, and she doesn’t understand that convalescence means “slow down and get better.”  She wanted to go running after critters at full bore a day after getting 42 stitches down the inside of her foreleg.   Sheena will take it slow and easy at least for a few days, and pilling her is as simple as folding a piece of bread around the pill and tossing it in her direction.

Wednesday morning after Taco Tuesday:

Windy Wednesday?

Schadenfreude, High School Revisited, and Counting My Blessings

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schadenfreude (n): Malicious enjoyment derived from observing someone else’s misfortune.

Leave it to me to come out of the clear blue sky with a new (to some) vocabulary word.  I have to say (confession time) that I have been at times most guilty of finding glee in other people’s disasters, especially when I observe those who appear to richly deserve a bit of cosmic justice.  I definitely have to confess to engaging in a bit of schadenfreude Saturday morning when I saw Jerry passed out on the bed, bare-assed, after an evening at the hell hole, his bewetted pants on the floor, with a piece of the front garden fencing still entangled in them.  It was all I could do to keep from grabbing the camera to catch some very unfortunate pics, because I know my uncontrollable laughing would wake his sorry ass up.  I learned years ago, let sleeping drunks lie.  It’s much quieter that way.  Besides, refraining from capturing the moment in pictorial posterity was as close to sympathy as I could get.

I should go ahead and fix the fence for aesthetic reasons,  but I think  as far as the “rubbing the puppy’s nose in his bad dog doody” element goes, he should have to do it.  It’s a bloody miracle that he didn’t destroy the rose bush or get lacerated to shreds on it.  He did manage to get some minor abrasions on both forearms, presumably acquired by dragging himself across the (concrete) porch, but other than his pride, he was otherwise undamaged.  To hear him tell it though, he barely escaped death because I wouldn’t answer the phone at 1AM to pick his sorry ass up.   As if I was put on this earth to mollycoddle drunks.

Maybe I am too mean, but I’m not enabling his drunk-and-stupid adventures, especially at the hell hole.  If he insists on going over there and getting both plastered and ripped off at the same time, he can drag his happy ass the half a block over there and the half a block back.  This also makes it easier for his buddy who works with him- and conveniently lives across the road- to observe, comment and engage in a little schadenfreude himself as Jerry staggers across the road and drags himself across the porch.  I have no sympathy for the drunk-and-stupid episodes and I’m not losing any sleep over the cuts, wet pants and other embarrassment he garners for himself by his lack of self-control. The drunk-and-stupids are self inflicted punishments, not like the Fickle Finger of Fate targeting someone who did nothing to earn their misfortune. 

I wonder if leaving him to wallow in his stupidity is teaching him anything. The definition of stupidity, after all, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  He’s probably not learning a damned thing by being left to drag himself, the fence and his dampened drawers in, but again, there is that dark entertainment factor.  I wish he would learn better, but if not, I am going to find the humor in it.  At least this time he only lost $40 because I took the rest of his money, and his plastic before he left.  At least if nothing else, I’m learning.

I decided I am actually going to go to my 25th high school reunion- not to gloat over others’ misfortunes- but just out of my own curiosity.  Some people have changed so much I’d never recognize them, while others appear to be frozen in time.  That’s not necessarily a good thing, and when I go to these sorts of events, I generally remember there are often good reasons why I haven’t seen certain people for decades.  I know I have changed- hopefully for the better-and I (and they) live in different spheres.  What meant the world to me 20+ years ago might only register on the periphery, if at all, today.

I have a lot less patience in my cougardom than I did as a young punk- and a lot less tolerance for bullshit.   I am thankful that age does buy a certain amount of gravitas.   I don’t know if what I say actually does carry more authority- because I’ve been saying the same things all along- or that other people are finally catching up to my point of view.  Maybe they’re just tired of challenging me, who knows? 

I am grateful that I am not, like one of my sister’s friends, 42 years old with a four year old, a two year old- and in the middle of a nasty divorce.   I have all the sympathy in the world for her plight.  She didn’t deserve to be treated the way her POS old man treated her, and I find no joy in seeing someone suffer like that.  I got the nasty divorce over with sixteen years ago.  Steve-o is potty trained and literate and hopefully someday soon will be gainfully employed.  It’s not so bad being 42 with a 20 year old kid, but I couldn’t imagine dealing with a toddler at my age.  Dogs I can handle, but not those damned car seats, or the whining, or the worries about daycare and how to do this and afford that, etc. 

Speaking of dogs I am still waiting to hear about Sheena.  She’s having a mammary growth removed today (second go-round with mammary growths) and I am hoping this is benign.  I thought having her spayed would resolve the problem but apparently not.  She might come back with a total mastectomy (removal of both mammary chains) or with just the one growth removed, depending on what the Vet thinks.  The thing that aggravates me most is that if she had been treated properly and spayed early when she was younger she would never have gotten mammary growths.  However, I am glad that we got her away from the goofy rednecks who kept on breeding her even though it’s downright stupid to breed a dog who is already a crossbreed and who has hip dysplasia.  I wonder if they are in jail or if they just skipped town.  The tetanus farm has been deserted, so who knows?

Travel Envy, It’s Summer- So I’m Busy, and 20 Years of Steve-o

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Yeah, I did get to go to Niagara Falls back in ’04 which was extremely cool.  If we decided to go now either I would have to get a passport, which I am loathe to do in these days of 1984 meets Logan’s Run, or we would have to stay on the New York side which is both expensive and dismal.  I don’t want my car stolen.   I am not arrogant enough to think that someone would specifically want to spy on me or steal my identity, but I do believe in Murphy’s Law.  Give Mr. Murphy and company time to screw about in one’s past records, and Lord only knows what might get added, deleted or screwed up.   I really don’t need to go to Canada that bad.  Besides, the food all tastes like Clorox up there for some reason.  I’m sure there must be some good cuisine in Canada, but it’s sure as hell not at Niagara Falls.

I thought taking Mom and Dad to North Carolina would be a disaster, but it was actually a pleasant long weekend.  The drive wasn’t as traumatic as usual – not a lot of traffic, and no rain.  The only thing that sort of sucked is that Dad didn’t want the stereo turned on.  It wasn’t incredibly hot either like it was last year, and we did get an afternoon out on the lake in the boat which was almost worth the trip.  How anyone can get sunburn in spite of marinating in Factor 50 is beyond me, but my back still itches.  I would hate to think how fried it would have been without sunscreen.

The only sort of drawback to summer is that’s when I’m the busiest- busy at work, busy at home and I don’t get enough time to do relaxing things like float about in the Cougar Pool (which is most delightful by the way) or read interesting books.  I’ve not even been able to be online enough to catch the whole Wiener scandal, which I really shouldn’t find funny, but of course I do.  Of course I adore travel, but I highly doubt I will get much more than a couple of day trips to the campground, up to Marion, or down to Cincinnati.  What I would really enjoy would be a Cougar Cruise, but I don’t see that happening any time soon. 

Steve-o’s 20th birthday is next week.  He wants to spend it down in Kentucky 4-wheeling through the hollers with his buddies.  He wasn’t born a southerner- but should have been one- as much as he is into redneck culture and activities. 

Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered to fix his teeth? 

Geezers Driving Old Buicks, and Pity Be On Grandma’s Car When She Dies…

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Yum.  I’m glad I am not relegated to driving 20 year old POS cars that only geezers dared to drive when they were new. The Buick guys used to joke that the Century got its name because that was the average age of the drivers.

In all seriousness, 20 years ago, there seemed to be an unwritten rule that it was uncool for the under-sixty set to buy a new Buick.  Buicks, Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles and Lincolns were Geezer Cars.  Legend had it they came from the factory already reeking of Absorbine Jr. and denture cream, and the radios were already set to the local AM talk radio station. Even I had the good fortune way back in the day when I had to drive 20 year old POS cars to score distressed imports that were at least once moderately cool and driven by the younger set in their day.

However, teenage kids are happy to receive anything that runs and drives, even if it reeks of lackluster design, stale prune juice, and used Depends.

Just add some chrome 22″ spinners to Grandma’s old Family Truckster and all will be well!  The irony is if you could afford a $5000 set of wheels, you could have afforded a lot better car.

Tricking out a not so valuable ride sort of reminds me of when I covered the dash of my ’77 VW Rabbit with black fake fur to cover the cracks in the dash. The difference is I was only out about $5 worth of fake fur and a few tubes of hot glue, and the old Rabbit didn’t make people think I was out after curfew from the assisted living center. I was even able to give a few Detroit iron muscle car aficionados a simple physics lesson with that car.  120 horsepower isn’t much, but the 1/4 mile isn’t about horsepower as much as it is low end torque.  A nice, light car, geared low with plenty of low end torque trumps a heavy car with a whole lot of horsepower, but not a lot of torque until it gets moving a bit- at least for 1/4 mile or more.  There was a certain satisfaction in beating out the guys with old Novas and Chevelles with that old ’77 Rabbit.

I won’t say the old Rabbits were perfect.  They were notoriously weird about electrical faults.  I always kept a stash of assorted fuses and bulbs because they were constantly being blown out.  None of my old Rabbits had working A/C, though I could have (in theory) put a new condenser in the GTI and got the A/C to work in that- for a few hundred bucks.  I should never have gotten rid of the GTI, but that’s water under the bridge.   All of the Rabbits at one point or another had brake problems of one sort or another.  All of the Rabbits I had, except the ’83 GTI, had to have the idle and timing manually adjusted every time the weather changed, which here in beautiful Central Ohio is just about every day.

The Rabbit pic above is  of a ’77.  My ’77 was a two-door and was sort of dog-shit brown, but my ’79 (American built, with square headlights -and it was a four door) was that same pastel blue enamel color.  Heaven help anyone weighing more than 70# and is taller than 4’9″ who tries to get in that back seat.

The Cougar Pool- Finally! and With a Name Like That…

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Ah, the seasons of Central Ohio.  It seems that we have made the yearly sudden move from Monsoon Season into Stygian Heat without missing a beat.  For those unfamiliar with the seasons of Central Ohio, they go as follows:

Winter.  Cold. Windy.  Lots of precipitation- snow, rain, freezing rain, sleet- and it’s always dark. Lasts from about Halloween until mid-February.

Snowbooger Grey.  Cold, lots of rain, but not quite cold enough to freeze, leaving depressing grey snowboogers, discarded clothing items, assorted trash, dead Christmas trees and other detritus everywhere.  Windy. Dismal.  Still dark.  Lasts from mid-February until early April, but seems to last six months at least. The absolute worst season of the year.

Monsoon Season. Rain. Rain for days at a time without seeing a glint of sunlight.  Windy.  Sort of cold.  Lasts from early April until late May or early June.

Stygian Heat.  Hot, hot, humid and hot. Lots of thunderstorms and rain in between the hot, hot, hot, to raise the humidity and make you swear it’s even hotter than it is.  Imagine living in a greenhouse.  Lasts from early June to late August.

Fall Monsoon.  Just like the Monsoon Season of April-May, only there’s falling leaves to go with the rain, wind and cold. Lasts from early September to Halloween.

So we really have five distinct seasons here as opposed to the traditional four seasons.  The constant?  Precipitation, and lots of it.  It’s interesting to live in a (nominally) drained swamp.

I am glad that the successful installation of the Cougar Pool has coincided with the onslaught of Stygian Heat.  It was most enjoyable to float around on my floatie yesterday when it was 90+ with the usual 100% humidity.  I could have used some more interesting entertainment besides watching Jerry picking weeds, chugging Natties and listening to his whining about the bug spray.  If it’s safe for cats, it should work OK on him, unless he starts foaming at the mouth or licking his balls or something.  Then I might have to revisit the cat bug spray option, but those kinds of side effects may be mildly entertaining, and therefore an added advantage.  The cat bug spray was a lot cheaper and probably works better than the high dollar bug repellent anyway, but I’m going to have to get him the regular stuff because he won’t stop whining until I do. 

I did play hell getting the Cougar Pool set up, and I discovered that the only place level enough for it to work was up on the porch.  I should have done that initially instead of trying to set it up in the yard, but I figured Jerry would be more upset if I put it on the porch.  He didn’t seem to protest nearly as much as I thought he would.  I think it would be funny to see him actually get in it but I highly doubt he will try.  Yesterday he said the water was too cold.  I thought it was rather nice, especially considering how hot it was.  Now all I need is a DVD player out there- and maybe a Super Soaker just for fun.

I find it a tad bit hilarious that a guy with the last name Weiner (damned funny in its own regard, especially for a politician) is in trouble for tweeting pics of his Vienna sausage to some young college girl.  When I see this guy on TV, several things hit me about him, and none of them are good.

He’s a Democrat.  Strike one.  Hailing from the party of William J. (Oral Sex is Not Sex) Clinton and Teddy (I Didn’t Know She Couldn’t Swim) Kennedy does not inspire confidence in one’s integrity or one’s ability to refrain from behaving like a back alley tomcat.   However, lest I appear to be too forgiving of the other side of the aisle, I understand many Republicans have made poor behavioral choices in this arena as well.  The difference is that it seems for Republicans lewdness is a liability, whilst tomcattery seems a simple rite of passage- and a way to gain valuable name recognition- for Democrats. 

He’s a whiny little twit.  Strike two.  Would I really want to see his teeny-weeny-weenie?  If you’re going to tweet a pic, make it a good one.  If you’re going to send pics of a package, Ron Jeremy would be a better model than say, Mickey Mouse.

His efforts to molehill-ize his mountain are only adding fuel to the fire.  Dude, the more you protest your innocence, the guiltier (and nuttier) you look.

He has bad hair, a whiny voice, and an extremely huge nose- not necessarily detriments when considered as single elements, but when added to the overall “package” (pun intended) they add to the just plain blecch factor of this guy.

If I had a name like “Weiner” (granted, it’s hard to forget) maybe I’d either change it to something less, uh, giggle worthy, or consider becoming a stripper.  Although I can see where the name “Weiner” would be great as far as name recognition goes, it’s not exactly name recognition in a positive way.  For instance, if I were to name a feminine hygiene product “Pu**y Fresh” the name would be memorable, but not in a good way.  It would be sort of like naming your kid “Adolf” so he stands out in his class.  He will stand out, but not in a positive way.  

I do wonder, however, how many of Rep. Weiner’s constituents voted for him simply because of his name- either out of pity or just because it’s funny.  I can hear this conversation in someone’s head whilst in the voting booth:

“Check it out.  Dude’s name is ‘Weiner.'”

“I gotta vote for him…heh-heh…heh-heh…” (internal Beavis and Butthead laugh)

Or maybe some people just break out into mental song (to the tune of “I Wish I Were an Oscar Meyer Weiner”):

“Oh, I gotta go vote for the weirdo guy named ‘Weiner’, ’cause that is what I’d truly like to be…”

-or-

“Oh, I gotta go vote for the weirdo guy named ‘Weiner’, ’cause Weiner’s what I’d truly like to see…”

Now that song is going to be going through my head the rest of the day. I know I am dating myself, but I am sure there are those out there who remember the Oscar Meyer Weiner Song.  Not too many people wish themselves to be hot dogs these days, but the ’70’s and ’80’s were more innocent times.  When the air was dirty, and sex was clean, or at least safely confined to the privacy of the brothel or bedroom, that is.

And we wonder what’s happened to this country.

Must have been the same stoners who voted for Obama. 

I just thought of a great public service announcement:  “Don’t Toke and Vote!”

Trucker Bombs, Overwork and Music Reviews

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I should always remember to have my camera ready whilst driving down Morse Rd.  I find the most hilarious and out of place things. For those unfamiliar with the term “trucker bomb,” Urban Dictionary defines it as:

Trucker Bomb (n):
A plastic container that a truck driver pisses into inside the cab of his truck during daylight hours to be later pitched out usually on the side of the road. This practice has come about by the increasingly strict laws about indecent exposure. Years ago if a truck driver got caught pissing on the side of the road by the Po Po, he was given a ticket, end of story. But now if convicted of indecent exposure, you must register as a sexual predator where you live. Much safer to piss in a wide mouth bottle and a whole lot legally less complicated.
 
Billy Bob Big Rigger builds a trucker bomb every day on his run though Ohio. After dark when the bottle is full, out the window it goes to be later detonated by the poor dick that has to mow the shoulder.
 
Given that most truckers dispose of these while driving along on the Interstate (though I do also see them deposited regularly along the exit ramp from Northbound I-270 to Morse Rd.,) it was odd to see one at the intersection of Morse and Sunbury Rd.s, just catty corner from the UDF/Mobil aka: the Armed Robber’s Late Night Wet Dream.
 
I also found it a bit odd that in lieu of the typical 2 liter Mt. Dew bottle it was a Sobe bottle.  Either it was a New Age trucker, or perhaps a young punk out partying who just couldn’t wait to make it to the UDF crapper.
I have to envy dudes on this point.  If they absolutely can’t make it to the nearest comfort station, it is relatively easy for them to take a tinkle in an empty plastic bottle.  This does NOT happen for chicks.  I find it exceedingly difficult to cop a squat out in the woods (usually because you end up pissing all over your pants) and most likely impossible to go in a drinky cup or anything else that isn’t a toilet. If a woman has to make time on a road trip, I think Depends might be the only way to bypass the gas station toilet without making an unholy mess.
 
This morning (yes, Memorial Day) when I would normally be visiting my grandfather’s grave (he was a WWII Veteran)  and then taking a trip to whatever party or BBQ was going on, I was actually at work getting the month-end stuff finished.  While it did bother me that I wasn’t able to make that road trip today,  I don’t mind too much because a.) I’m getting paid for it, b.) I was done relatively early, and c.) I have tomorrow off when everyone else has to be at work.  I don’t mind working alone.  In many ways I prefer it because I get more done when nobody is pestering me. Even when I am duly compensated (and especially when I am duly compensated!) I have to be careful of getting caught in the cycle of overwork.  Working into oblivion can become an addiction for me.   It’s too easy for me to get lost in the task at hand and forget things like eating, sleeping, maintaining contact with family and friends, etc. and so on.
 
Even for the last two weeks that I’ve been more or less living at work, I have had some time for guilty pleasures.  I am a huge Journey fan from way, way back, and I have currently been enjoying their latest release, Eclipse.  Working alone is especially nice for cranking up tunes on the MP3 player while I work -it might seem like multitasking in a weird kind of way, but I get more done when I am listening to good music.

As much as I rave about Steve Perry in Spandex, that was then, and this is now.  I can’t go back to 1981, but I can appreciate something new if it’s good.  Eclipse is good, strikingly good, and that’s saying a lot from someone who really hasn’t kept in touch with the music scene since about 1985.  One of the things I like about Eclipse is that Neal Schon pretty much had his way and this is a beautiful thing.  Neal is probably one of the best, if not the best living rock guitarist today, and getting new stuff from him (even better yet, as part of Journey) is awesome. It warms my soul to know that not every new song coming out is boy-band tripe, cop-killer-sister-raping rap, or sappy-yucky songs about girls kissing on girls.
 
Arnel Pineda is not Steve Perry.  That’s OK.  Arnel has a great voice and a lot of fire and can stand on his own merit.  He has an extremely wide range that he uses well- which I enjoy (this is challenging vocal material- take it from a student of voice!)  I like listening to him.
Tomorrow’s adventure is getting the Cougar Pool up and running.  I have it, but now I have to figure out how to get it to stay up and hold the water in.

Torrential Rain, Self Evaluations, and Other Unpleasantries

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I like self-evaluations about as much as a one legged man likes being invited to an ass kicking contest.  Usually our esteemed fearless leader forgets about the yearly evaluations that are supposed to occur in June (fine with me) until the last minute and then he hastily goes over the paperwork and signs off on it.  I like it when he puts as much thought into our performance evaluations as I do into football season.  I am not a terribly big fan of the scrutiny of others, especially if they are going to compare their scrutiny of my performance alongside my own.

This year by some stroke of bad luck he actually remembered evaluation time in May which is unprecedented.  So we have all had plenty of time to peruse the self-evaluation portion of this yearly torture, and he will have plenty of time to grill us all to see how closely our version of our performance evaluation lines up with his.

I don’t know where to land.  On one side it’s not good to come across as a braggart tooting on your own horn, but on the other it’s not good to be so self depreciating that it’s the intellectual equivalent of donning a hair shirt.  I may not be the greatest thing since Steve Perry in Spandex, but I am good at what I do, even when people get on my nerves.

The happy little form we have to use sucks, too.   I would prefer a modern, on-line form because my writing has devolved into an almost shorthand scribble type script, and I am pretty much the only one who can read it.  It didn’t used to be that way, but I can type three times faster than I can scribble.  Efficiency, you know?  The other benefit of typing is that it’s harder to see the frustration and angst in typewritten fonts than what is angrily reflected in my scrawling.

Oh, to find a happy medium on that one!

I never knew Michael Jackson owned a Honda dealership in Wisconsin.  WTF was Michael doing in Wisconsin, where it’s cold and there’s nothing but snow and cheese and the Green Bay Packers- where Liz Taylor wouldn’t have been caught dead (even before she really was dead)?  Dude sure got around.  I saw this unfortunate Honda CRV on Morse Rd. the other day and just had to get a pic of it. I should have gotten a pic of the dead deer right next to the Stabbing and/or Shooting Weekly UDF & Mobil Station  on the corner of Morse and Sunbury Rd.s too, and the abandoned clothes and shoes in the turn lane across from the Goo-Goo Car Wash.

I can’t believe some of the names I’ve seen plastered all over dealerships.  Some of them sound like social diseases rather than places you would want to plunk down thousands of dollars to buy a new car.  If my last name were Fagnilli or Butts, or some other double-entendre type sounding moniker, I certainly wouldn’t advertise it, let alone use it to promote my business!

I know May is still Monsoon Season here in Central Ohio but come on!  It’s supposed to rain all freaking week again which sucks, especially if you’re a large dog who wants to go outside.

The illustrious Miss Sheena will almost inevitably be in for another surgery which also sucks.  I found another small mammary growth that I’m having the Vet check out Saturday.  I know what her answer is going to be.   The growth will have to be removed and biopsied at the very least.  My personal preference- if I am given one- is since she has had mammary growths before it would probably be more prudent to remove the mammary chains and associated lymph nodes as a precaution and also to avoid future surgery.  My fear is if the growth is removed and biopsied and if it is something serious, then the mammary chains and nodes will still have to be removed later, requiring a second surgery and another episode of anesthetic.  I will have to trust the Vet’s judgment, but if I am given the choice, my gut feeling is to do the radical surgery now, get it over with, and only put her under anesthetic once.  Large dogs have a higher risk of anesthetic complications, and mammary cancer is very common in dogs, especially ones like Sheena who had several litters of pups and were spayed after two years of age.

The SOS clinic said she did well with anesthetic for the spay and partial mastectomy surgery back in December, which is good- and our Vet had no problems with Clara and anesthetic, which is amazing given that Malinois are notorious for being difficult under anesthetics.  I am still nervous about it though.

Poor Steve-o.  In a way, maybe.  He freaks out so easy over the weirdest stuff.  Today he calls me freaking out over $10  because he thought Mom wrote him a check for $35 instead of $25 (her writing is painful to read too) which I thought was a major crisis- until I discovered he hadn’t bounced any checks or anything really sucky like that.  It’s still a good day if your bank balance is positive, but he’s not old enough to have the life experience to know that yet.  My son has lived a sheltered life indeed.  The POMC strikes again.

So Saturday is not going to be much fun- shlepping Sheena to the Vet and inevitably making her surgery appointment, getting the sticker for Steve-o’s rail buggy (more money down the drain) so he can have his summer fun.   It makes me almost wish I could get drunk.

Deus Ex Machina, Alternative Forms of Entertainment, and What Customer Service?

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I have seen some very screwy dealership and car lot names in my life, but who came up with Blue Knob? Are they trying to attract ED and/or frostbite sufferers?  It just doesn’t invoke a feel-good message to me, and I’m a chick.

Maybe I’m just easily entertained.  One of the things that I used to like to do as a kid was to watch the train cars as they would go by.  One of the realities of my childhood, living in a town criss-crossed by several railroad lines, was that you had to wait on trains.  Today, on the rare occasion one does have to wait on a train, there’s not much to see besides endless coal cars and tankers full of chemicals or vegetable oil, but back in the day a lot of interesting things were shipped by rail. 

Cars are still shipped by rail, but today, because of vandals, the train cars are covered so you can’t see the cars inside.  One used to be able to clearly view the cars as they went by.  You could try to identify the models being transported which was always interesting, at least to me.  Heavy equipment was also shipped by rail, and that was interesting to watch too- excavators, road graters, bulldozers and so forth, tied down to flat cars, going to who knows where. 

If I didn’t have anything better to do and I lived in the vicinity, I would love to watch ships being unloaded, but the only port in Columbus is the airport. While it is interesting to watch the planes take off and land, the parking garage isn’t cheap, and I always worry that someone might think we are some kind of weird stalkers for just hanging out to watch the planes.  I keep thinking about the incident the last time we went to Niagara Falls (2004.)   Getting in to Canada was no problem (this is before passports were required) but getting back in to the States was not quite so easy.  As we were going back to the States from Niagara Falls (in Jerry’s 99 Tacoma with Ohio plates…) the border crossing official asked me where we had been, how long we had been in Canada, and to where we were heading back.  I gave her the applicable information and both of our drivers’ licenses.  Then she looked over at Jerry with a serious case of stink-eye, and said, “I need to hear you talk.” 

Fortunately the only language Jerry knows is English, complete with the Central Ohio Newscaster Accent.  Therefore it wasn’t really possible for him to be a wise-ass like I know Steve-o would be.  If  Steve-o were asked his national origin, he would probably make it a point to  cuss them out in German just to be arbitrary, but Jerry does not have that ability, thankfully.   He informs her that yes, his name really is Jerry, and he really is going back to beautiful Central Ohio.   Then she laughs a bit nervously, and tells us that she thought he may be of Middle Eastern descent, and that they were supposed to watch out for illegal immigrants from the Middle East trying to get into the States from Canada.  Steve-o, with his rather pale complexion and mousy brown hair, probably would not have been questioned.  Personally, I can understand the reasons behind racial profiling, even if I can tell the difference between someone from the Middle East and a Native American.  After 9/11, better safe than sorry.  If I were airport security, and I saw Jerry from a distance watching planes from the top of the parking garage, I would be pretty wary too.  How am I supposed to know he’s not a Middle Eastern terrorist, but a redneck whose family are mostly Cherokees from West Virginia, and who has lived in Central Ohio his whole life? 

I am still waiting on the Cougar Pool.  I know, I just ordered it Monday, but it’s starting to get hot around here.  The season of Stygian Heat is right around the corner, and I want to be floating about in the Cougar Pool, drinking iced tea and chilling in it soon.  Jerry is going to Lancaster tomorrow night, so I have my fingers crossed that I might be lucky enough to get it today or tomorrow so I can set it up Saturday. 

Last night I got my flowers and mulch for the front flower beds.  I got a flat each of petunias and impatiens, and they look quite lovely around the rose bushes.  I can’t say I was impressed with the experience of buying these items though.  Now I know why I avoid home improvement stores, which I will be polite enough not to name.  I found the flower flats I wanted, after wandering about a bit.  That wasn’t so bad, but when I went to check out, first of all there was only one lane open and about four people ahead of me in line.  Then that guy suddenly decides it’s time to go on break, so another guy comes up.  I had not been able to find the mulch, so when it was finally my turn to check out, I ask the guy.  He sells me (unbeknownst to me at the time) the absolutely most expensive black mulch they have, then tells me to pull around to the side of the building for another guy to load me up. 

What he forgets to tell me is there are about nine people ahead of me waiting for this one guy to load them up first.  I did not have time for that, and when I pulled around to the side I could see where the mulch was stacked, and how much it cost.   Sooooo, I find the item number on my receipt, get my happy hiney out of the car, and load up the two very expensive bags of mulch that I just paid for.  The saddest part about this is that nobody noticed.  I could have loaded up fourteen bags, if they would have fit in the trunk of my Yaris, and I still bet no one would have noticed.

I have no problem with a couple of forty pound bags of mulch, but come on, people.  I was honest about it.  I got two of the exact item number I ordered and paid for, and if I’d been asked for my receipt they would have been able to see that- but how many people have ripped them off?

There comes a point in time when businesses are going to experience an economic fact, which is the law of diminishing returns. One person can only do so much, and you are going to lose business if you try to spread one person too thin.  There is a point of balance where you have exactly the right number of people and resources to serve your customers and be profitable.  It’s my sneaking suspicion that too many businesses are trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon, and it’s affecting their bottom line. 

Apparently, the ghost in the machine is supposed to do it somehow.  Literally translated, deus ex machina, means “god in the machine,” and it refers to a literary mechanism in which the protagonist in a play is magically scooped up out of impossible circumstances to win the day.  Film makers still use it today in action flicks.  We all know in the world of the action flick, nothing is going to happen to the good guy that doesn’t work out in the end.  The problem is, in real life it’s not so simple.  The eleventh-hour save is not always a given, and not every old bitty is going to just go ahead and get her own mulch!

Back to Nature, Hardware Salad, and “Mother” Does Not Start with “S”

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Kids change a lot in the span of about ten years.  Ten year olds and (nearly) twenty year olds don’t really have much in common.  Ten years ago, Steve-o was collecting Beanie Babies and Pokemon cards. He slept with a night light until he was twelve because his evil biological grandmother decided he should sleep in a dark basement when he was four years old (that ended her visitations…) and that experience must have done something to traumatize him for a long, long time.  Admittedly my evil ex mother-in-law was pretty damned scary, even for adults.  I am glad she didn’t have life insurance on me and I didn’t have anything of any real value for her to inherit had I been stupid enough to put her in my will or make her executor of my estate.   No wonder her son turned out to be the poster child for OCD and all sorts of other psychological abnormalities.  (must…not…offend…Mother…)  I think she still has some pretty hefty life insurance policies on my ex and she would score big if he dropped dead.  She is probably still sitting on the million or so that she inherited when her various relatives all died- and left all their cash and other assets to her.  But enough about my evil ex  mother-in-law.  She is quite fine where she is, with her Hardware Salad and her measuring cup.

Today Steve-o is collecting Snap-On tools, various performance upgrade parts for his ’68 VW Bug, and empty Jagermeister bottles.  I think he has moved on from sleeping with a night light on to sleeping on compliant females, but even to this day he does not like to sleep either alone or in the dark.  Creepy.  I have to wonder if the old bat tried to make him eat Hardware Salad too.

I know I wanted to get off the subject of my ex mother-in-law, but Hardware Salad deserves a bit of an explanation.  I think she was trying to do Waldorf Salad or something of that nature, but Hardware Salad, as near as I can tell, included:

Pretzels

Carrot peelings

Apple pieces, core and seeds included

Red Grapes, including pits (I assume because non-pitted grapes are cheaper)

Assorted Nuts (nut assortments are cheaper than just walnuts)

Loads of greasy mayonnaise (acck, acck, acck, my throat is filling up with snot drainage just thinking about it)

Celery

Sauerkraut?  I swear that’s what it was- as a substitute for coconut???  I have no earthly idea.

Marshmallows (????WTF??)

Vinegar

All of the above is set in lime Jell-o, (???) and topped with a tiny teaspoon of watery, off-brand Cool Whip.

Between the grape pits and the pretzels and the occasional apple seed, (not to mention celery and I suspect sauerkraut,)  this had to be the most vile dessert ever known to man.  Thankfully on the rare occasion she invited you to dinner, she measured out portions with a measuring cup so that she could budget for every penny she spent on food.  It was only necessary to gag down precisely 1/2 cup of this stuff for politeness’ sake, and I’m assuming that one teaspoon more of it would induce projectile vomiting.  I only gagged it down because I was taught from earliest childhood that when you are a guest at someone’s home you eat what is served, even if it is lacquer thinner with bat turds in it. To do otherwise would be rude, and the Wicked Witch actually thought her Hardware Salad (I forget what she actually called it) was the best dessert ever.   I don’t puke easily, but that stuff was nasty.  I cringe to this day just thinking about it.  It’s sad that after all these years I can still see and actually taste this disaster of a dessert. Acck.  I hope poor Steve-o was never subjected to it.  The Graham crackers were bad enough.  It would have been OK if she’d had enough sense not to give a 20 month old toddler the entire box.

Steve-o looked a lot different before the Puberty Fairy  Demon hit too.  He had a pleasant soprano voice not unlike my own, complete with Central Ohio Newscaster Accent.  On the rare occasions when I would answer his phone (cruel, that, but fun in a mildly malicious sort of way) his buddies would mistake me for him.  Oh, the things his buddies would say to me until they realized it was not Steve-o, but Steve-o’s Mom, which brought about a distinct change in their subject matter and tone.   Then he woke up one morning six inches taller, with an unfamiliar and ominous sounding baritone voice, a hair style reminiscent of Robert Plant in 1971, 7/8″ earrings, back hair, a libido to rival Casa Nova, and an Attitude from hell.  That testosterone is pretty powerful stuff, apparently.

What an odd resemblance.  Above is Steve-o in the outhouse, below is Robert Plant sometime in the early 70’s.

There’s a long, long way between pic#1 and pic#2, believe that.  He parted with the Robert Plant hairstyle shortly after this pic was taken, although the earrings and the funky beard remain.

He looks better with short hair, and even maybe a little less evil.  If he does bother to read my blog, which I doubt, because he would have had a major tizzy fit about the Feces Fountain Incident being recorded for posterity, and for all to see, I’m sure he won’t like me using his Facebook pic.  Oh, well.  If you post your pic online without explicitly stating that no one else can use it, I guess you’re asking for it.  At least I didn’t Photo Shop it first and do something outrageous like put Boy George’s head on his body or something.

I am trying to decide which annual plants to put in my flower beds.  I think I will stick with wave petunias- they did well the last couple of times I bothered to plant flowers.  The rose bushes have a lot of buds on them and I am looking forward to the roses blooming.  That’s as close to nature as I like to get.  Flowers- and the Cougar Pool when it gets here. I am looking forward to that.

Welcome to the Private Cougar Pool, Living With Other Humans, and Related Aggravation

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Of course my private cougar pool won’t be this nice, (like I can afford that) but the key word is private, as in capacity: one old cougar, namely me. 

I had contemplated actually either getting a summer pool membership or joining the “Y” again, but when I saw the newspaper article saying that more and more people are buying pool memberships and staying home rather than going on vacations, I decided the only redneck stay-cation option for me was one of those small backyard pools. It’s 10′ in diameter and 30″ deep- nothing huge, and sadly, no diving board, but it’s enough for one old cougar in a floatie chair.   It would really torque me if I paid big bucks to either join the “Y” or get a pool membership, and then discover the pools to be  continually overrun with loud and rowdy rugrats to the point of it being more aggravating to go to the pool than to stay home.   The redneck backyard pool was cheaper than a pool membership,  there will be no screaming kids, and the most delicious part- it’s private.

I am a bit concerned about Jerry.  I’m always concerned about him because of his fragile emotional state, his taste for Natty Lites, and his remarkable ability to screw things up.  I’m almost confident it will piss him off to have a pool on the patio- because it’s not specifically for him.  There’s no fish in it, and it’s too small to fit a boat in it.  Jerry’s interests in water activities end with fishing and boating, so I doubt he will show much interest other than to complain about it.   I don’t mind if he wants to use it, (I don’t see it happening,)  but I do worry about two things if he does.  One, I don’t want him earning his Darwin Award by getting shitfaced and drowning in a 2 ft. pool, (imagine that featured on 1,000 Ways to Die,) and two, I don’t want him destroying it in one way or another- pissing in it, somehow cutting it, draining it or otherwise mutilating it.  One of the benefits of having a private pool is being able to keep out things you don’t want in it, such as piss, dirt, grass pieces, bugs, and shitfaced drunks.

My major concern of course is that no matter where I put the pool- whether I decide to put it in the yard, or on the patio which is closer to the electrical plug where I will need to plug in the filter and pump- he’s not going to like it.  He will whine about me using the patio even though all that’s on it right now is the grill (can be moved to the other side) and a crappy old table that needs to be thrown away anyway.  The patio is probably the best option because it won’t kill his precious grass or take up any dog-shitting area from the girls.  But knowing Jerry, if I put it on the patio, he will ask why I didn’t put it in the grass, and if I put it in the grass he will ask why I didn’t put it on the patio.  When we first moved in there was an old hot tub on the patio that was about the same size as the pool, so I know it will fit and it should work very well there.  There’s also more shade on the patio, so my super-white carcass won’t have to be exposed to too much sun.  I’ll still need the Factor 50, but I need that just to step outside in high summer anyway.

Sometimes it is better to ask forgiveness than to beg for permission.  This is one of those times.   The pool’s not moving once it’s filled up.  He will be in Lancaster this weekend, so if the pool arrives on time, this should be perfect timing for me to power-clean the patio, and get my redneck getaway underway.

Part of the problem of communal living is that other people do gross things that they don’t think are gross, but that in reality, are positively disgusting.  I gave up on bar soap many years ago for this reason, (few things are nastier than bathing with other people’s stray body hair) and that is a major advantage of body wash and/or liquid hand soap.  No one else has been fingering the body wash or the liquid hand soap, and there are no curlies in it.  Jerry can leave as many curlies as he wants hopelessly embedded in the surface of the soap bar, because it’s his soap.  I’m not using it, so it’s OK!

Maybe the thing with stray human hair bothers me because I am not a big fan of excessive body hair to begin with, and there’s just something gross about the thought of washing with someone else’s pubes.  It’s just counterintuitive.  I’ve washed, but with something that used to be attached to someone’s balls. Why bother washing if you’re just washing in used ball hair?    Then again, I could be becoming my mother and getting her OCD, but I doubt it, because OCDers can not stand to be around dogs because of the risk of getting dog hair on them.   I think Mom went nuts with the lint-grabber for an hour after spending less than five minutes with Sheena.  Granted, Sheena’s white hair against a background of black pants is not a flattering look.  Even so, dog hair doesn’t really phase me that much.  Dogs come with hair, and that’s just part of the reality.   It’s wicked to get dog hair out of the car, off my clothes and worst of all off the floor- my adventures with poorly sucking vacuum cleaners are both legendary and frequent, but compared with the aggravation and mess of living with fellow humans, dog hair is a really minor issue. 

Speaking of vacuum cleaners, Jerry thought he got a really good one when he got an ancient, but barely used, Hoover upright at an estate sale.  It works great- when it works- but the last time I tried to vacuum with it I ended up breaking two belts and pissing myself off enough to go back to using the other one which by some miracle has lasted two and a half years.  I have to constantly pull it apart and unclog it, but I think that’s going to happen regardless of what kind of vacuum cleaner I try. 

The vacuum cleaner is the only thing I can think of that sucks when it doesn’t suck.

I can also see myself if I live to be old- surrounded by dogs and cats.  Aunt Frances didn’t care much for people either, (except for maybe Jimmy Swaggart,) but she had thirty-odd cats in and out of her house at any given time.  I don’t think she liked dogs either, so for her it was just cats until she broke her hip and ended up in the nursing home.  That was actually sad, because then all she had to look forward to was Jimmy Swaggart. 

I think I’d much rather have had the cats.