“Normal?” – Not My Relatives! Wanna Pet My Kid’s Skunk?

October 27, 2015Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

Yes. It’s a skunk. Yes. It is sleeping atop my offspring.

I am more of a dog person than anything. I like cats too, and I have cats, but to me there is nothing like the relationship one can have with a dog.

I have no idea what got the POMC started in on skunks, other than he really doesn’t connect with cats, and he’s somewhat freaky about dogs. He was dog bit rather severely when he was nine. His right hand might look normal now, but that dog chewed it up like burger meat and he has permanent nerve damage. Dogs have pretty much given him the creeps ever since, which really sucks.

He had ferrets in high school, much to my mother’s disgust, because ferrets have a funk. Even I can smell ferret funk, which means they must smell pretty nasty to most people. Odor aside, they just never really thrilled me much. I’ve heard them described as “cat snakes,” which is about right. Dinky, sneaky little bastards as far as I’m concerned.

In the skunk’s defense, he is de-scented and the only thing about him that really smells is his shit. Skunk shit is nasty, nasty, nasty. The skunk himself, however, is very clean and doesn’t really have a smell to him.

Even so, I’d rather deal with a dog or a cat. Skunks have sensitive digestive systems and special nutritional needs. They have to have their food specially prepared (sort of like feeding a toddler) unlike a dog or cat who can eat prepackaged dog or cat food and be cool with it. It’s also a real pain in the hiney to find a vet who will deal with skunks. Their anatomy and physiology is nothing like dogs or cats, so the vets that will work with them generally cost up the wazoo.

Most vets don’t want to see anything that isn’t a cat or a dog. I can’t say I blame them.

Skunks are a vector for rabies in the wild, which is enough to scare off most people from owning them. However, the truth is that the only way for any mammal to get rabies is to be bitten by something with rabies. Domestic, captive born skunks don’t have rabies, and won’t get rabies unless something with rabies bites them. Captive born and kept indoors, skunks are just as safe to keep as a pet (and not a rabies risk!) as an indoor cat.

Harmless as Jezebel? I don’t give my indoor cats rabies shots because there’s no way for them to get bitten by something that’s rabid.

The dogs do get rabies shots because a.) they go outside and therefore in theory can be bitten by something rabid, and b.) state law requires it.

I am one of those weird people who can really go off on bizarre tangents at times. I bought – and read with fascination- this book some while back- Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus.. It’s a compelling read on a rather off the wall subject. I will have to let the illustrious offspring borrow this one if he’s in the mood for some enlightening late night reading. Of course my tastes in literature are mostly non-fiction (science and history) and often tend to gravitate toward the macabre.

I don’t think I have one “normal” relative. Not one. My son passes for normal most of the time, but they are all certifiable.

Mom is probably the one that’s the closest to the cuckoo’s nest- she’s bi-polar with a heaping helping of anxiety, OCD, and extreme naïveté to go along with it. Jerry is a laundry list of fun beginning with adult ADHD, Helpless Man syndrome, and ending with a rip roaring case of what I call “functional drunk.”

Dad’s gotten a lot more fun since he’s gotten old. It wouldn’t surprise me that like his own father he decides now that he’s 70 years old that, “I’m not old. I’m middle aged.” Nobody had the heart to tell Grandpa when he turned 70 that it was highly unlikely he’d see 140, but he did live to be 91. I guess it’s all about your attitude.

There’s a phenomenon with some older people where their frontal lobe (the “traffic cop” of the brain) sort of wears out and doesn’t screen one’s conversation as thoroughly as it once did, or probably should.

So Dad, who used to be rather tight-lipped and taciturn, has gotten rather cheeky as he ages. His oh-so scathing commentary is starting to remind me of my grandmother and great-grandmother (ironically my mother’s mother and grandmother, go figure) and it’s a hoot. It drives Mom nuts, on the rare occasion she actually gets the reference and/or the double entendre. I’m glad that most of the time it goes over her head, for her own sanity and well being.

Mom has her own special brand of near-senility which is even more creepy than my Dad flipping off traffic. She has always gravitated to the mega-weird parts of Catholicism which is downright scary, but the older she gets the more she watches EWTN, goes to Mass and Confession, and is grabbing on that rosary. Normally I would say religious disciplines would be a good thing, but she gets Really Weird with it. She thought that if she left EWTN on all the time full blast that the POMC would see the Catholic light and become a priest. Never mind that he’s pretty much agnostic and really creeped by “men in dresses.”

To top that off, she’s also blithely ignorant that it’s really, really gauche to ask someone who is a confessional Lutheran and who has done a lot of theological and spiritual soul searching to come on down to the Catholic cathedral to venerate some dead saint’s bones. Apparently the Catholic school she went to didn’t teach too much about Martin Luther, the 95 Theses, and the Reformation.

I had to decline the bone-gazing and necromancy out of conscience, but as far as she knows I declined because I had to do laundry. I’d rather tell a little white lie – though I really did do laundry- than go through a detailed theological dissertation on why I don’t venerate saints’ bones. I don’t need to hurt her feelings.

Even the POMC is borderline OCD. His car and motorcycle both are testament to that.

Both of my sisters could be called “castrating bitches,” due to the fact that they both can run a man like a railroad.

And here I sit with my own frailties and funky wiring.

A Common Sense Guide to Household Warnings

January 20, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Hell yes, it’s hot!

Ever since that deal with some ass pilot suing McDonald’s over hot coffee, manufacturers have been going nuts with the warning labels. Now I’m all about household safety, but the things you’re most likely to get injured with usually don’t have warning labels.

The first warning I would hand out is that: Alcohol Complicates Everything.

I can say this not only as a former binge drinker, but as a frequent drunk watcher. I get to witness the consequences of drunken stupidity far more often than anyone should. I see how one could put the cat in the fridge (thankfully Isabel, when she was living, had a loud voice- and was none the worse for her few minutes of Arctic exploration, as she lived almost 16 years) or run outside doing the St. Vitus Dance in one’s whitey-tighties because one is out of beer. I’ve witnessed a grown man take a piss in a cat box, in a closet, and on more than one highway berm. I’ve witnessed a grown man do a lot of things that no one over the age of toddlerdom should do.

Need I say, “Don’t Drink and Mow, Shithead”?

(hint: yes I do!)

I am not completely absent from the annals of drunk and stupid behavior either, as I probably will never know if I was clothed or not when I answered the door to that hotel room to pay the pizza dude. I just know I woke up about 3 AM stark naked in a bathtub full of freezing water and a half-eaten Domino’s pizza on the ledge. To my credit, this incident occurred in 1993, and this was the last time I was ever really shitfaced, as in forget-it-all-drunk.

Even today, I like a very occasional glass of a decent Merlot every now and then, so I’m not on a mission to encourage people to be tee-totalers. There is a huge difference, though, between a small before-bed nip of wine and quaffing down a fifth of Wild Turkey in the middle of the afternoon.

Sharp things are pointy. Pointy things can draw blood.

I have to say I’ve been party to sharp things/pointy things misadventures. I’ve put knives through my fingertips and palms (not intentionally of course) and have had more than one losing encounter with a box cutter. I am not generally a “bleeder.” I don’t bruise easily. Some days I have to poke my fingertip several times before I get enough blood to feed the meter (diabetics know what I’m talking about here) for my sugar checks. So if I’m dealing with cutlery or other things with points or blades, and I see blood, I’ve probably inflicted a pretty decent wound. It will leave a scar, and it will take awhile to heal.

Normally I wouldn’t think twice about my own dogs. I respect the fact that they are the same species as the grey wolf, although dogs somewhere along the line figured out that the humans with their opposable thumbs and ability to cultivate crops and livestock could offer them a far more cushy existence than scavenging around in the cold tundra for rodents and carrion.

Dogs have 42 teeth. Clara’s (even at age 12) got a formidable set.

The only thing that would give me pause regarding my own dogs is their reaction to strange or unauthorized human activity in their space, and even then, the fear in that situation would not be for my own person but for the blood stains and gory mess left behind on my property. I do have some concern that should I drop dead in the house alone that they may decide to consume the 145 or so pounds of rotting carrion that my carcass would provide. However, if I’m dead, will I really care if I become doggie dinner? I doubt it.

Now I don’t have pit bulls- my girls are primarily herding breeds (GSD X Malinois and GSD X Chow) and Lucy is not a herder at all but a harmless bulldog/beagle mix who just wants attention and doesn’t care who it comes from. But I will agree with guns and dogs as home defense. I hope to never have to utilize either for self defense, but it’s one of those situations where when you need something and it’s not there it could be the difference between life and death.

Now I know why the local Buick dealerships have defibrillators in the service department waiting room.

‘Lizbeth, I’m comin’ to join ya!

Coping Mechanisms, Dark Pragmatism and More Postmortem Pics

September 23, 2014Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I did draw hatchets, skulls and heavy metal band logos in my extensive high school boredom doodlings. This is why I know not to do it now.

When I get bored, I scribble and doodle. Sometimes I do it in a more figurative sense- typing is so much faster than writing long hand, at least for me- but drawing can only really be done the old fashioned way, with pens and pencils and markers.

The psychologists and guidance counselors had a field day with me in middle school and high school because of my rather dark themed scribblings and doodlings. When your primary emotion is “terror,” the secondary is almost always “rage.” (Repressed anger, anyone?- and this was decades before Columbine.) I would buy plain notebooks (even better if they had a canvas finish) and then I would draw macabre scenes all over them in a variety of colors. If the discussion went too slow or I got bored in class (pretty much every day) then I would write little snippets of prose or poetry along with whatever notes I was pretending to take inside the notebook. I didn’t have the advantage of having a laptop or a tablet or a smart phone in school. I graduated in 1986, when the entire school had three computers, all of which had a cassette player serving as a hard drive. By comparison, the Note 3 smart phone I have today would have been a supercomputer.

I should have learned my lesson regarding concealing incriminating evidence of my twisted thought life when I was in 8th grade. One of the boys decided to appropriate one of my more risqué notebooks and share its contents with the other boys. This was Not a Good Thing. The notebook got confiscated by a nosy teacher who wondered what the boys were laughing about. I ended up in an extremely awkward and embarrassing meeting with the guidance counselor that led to several months of camping out in the psychologist’s office every Tuesday afternoon. Since my mother worked for the school system and knew every single one of the teachers and staff, the repercussions of that indiscretion really sucked.

I still kept my funky notebooks with the outlandish scribbles on them, but I was more careful about what I wrote in them in high school, just in case someone would dare to screw with them. No one ever dared to. In high school, I found that when I ended up with large friends, who took a special delight in beating the daylights out of people who screwed with me, that my confidential items remained that way. I didn’t receive any unauthorized touching, spindling or mutilation to my person either, not after one unfortunate thug got her head shaved for spitting Skoal in my hair. The Skoal Incident- which took place toward the end of my freshman year in high school- marked the end of many years of harassment and beatings from my cohorts in school.

Some of my friends liked to fight. I didn’t. But by the time I had a car and smokes, I didn’t have to fight.

Granted, I was probably buying friends, (often with cigarettes) which isn’t a healthy thing to do, but it did save me from more than one ass-thumping, I’m sure. I was in survival mode back then, and it was refreshing to be able to go to school without being dumped head-first into garbage cans, having my hair set on fire, or being shoved up the stairs. The thought of being shoved up the stairs (concrete stairs with metal caps on the edges) makes my knee caps hurt even now.

Survival is what it is.

I probably shouldn’t have such a fascination for postmortem pics and/or the plight of the unfortunates of Walmart, but I do.

Pictures are expensive- sooooo- jump right on in there with the stiff!

She doesn’t look terribly fresh, but then again, she’s DEAD. How fast can the photographer get there on a horse?

The Victorians did pathos and high drama in a way that we just can’t stomach today, but as I’ve said before, back in the times before flush toilets and Clorox, death was in your living room. Death was your bunkie in more ways than one.

Maybe I should consider it an improvement in my emotional health that my primary emotion is “fear” opposed to “terror.” That might just be the mitigating effect of Prozac. I’ve noticed that my secondary emotion- “rage” – has sort of settled into a pragmatic anger. I try not to get angry unless that anger will do some good, but there are times when I just plain get pissed for no apparent reason.

I actually have some ivory tower time scheduled, although it seems sort of shitty that I have to schedule it in advance rather than just being able to drop off the planet for awhile, unannounced. This time I hope Jerry leaves me alone for at least a day or two. I could really use some peace and quiet with just Clara as company for a few days (months…yeah right) but I know Jerry too well. If I go to the campground he will feel compelled to follow me so I can fetch beer and make trips into town for KFC and so forth.

Man, that sounds good.

Nuts! No Nuts, No Clue, and Screw You Too

August 8, 2014Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Naturally good nuts. That’s good, because we wouldn’t want artificial nuts.

Unless you’re the owner of a neutered male dog, and you take his loss of sexual potency way too personally. There are, believe it or not, artificial nuts for neutered dogs.

I’ve never owned a male dog. I’m of the opinion that female dogs generally are smarter, live longer and have fewer overall health problems- even though spaying a female is a lot more expensive and involved than neutering a male. I have encountered more than a few male dogs that would make me hesitate to consider a male dog, but in fairness I’ve also encountered a few that I really liked. I find it really hard to dislike any dog, with the exception of my cousins’ psycho Chihuahua, Andy- but Andy’s been dead for nearly 40 years. If anything, poor Andy was an argument against incessant inbreeding.

You didn’t need them anyway.

I may end up with a male dog someday, but I wouldn’t consider having an intact male, even though neutering doesn’t guarantee placid behavior. Uno, the one-brown, one-blue-eyed, twisted little Shih-Tsu, who used to belong to my mother-in-law, positively tormented poor Isabel (who was a five pound, spayed, elderly, black cat) by chasing her all over the house and attempting to hump her constantly. He was neutered, but that didn’t seem to matter to Uno and his Red Rocket. I was glad when we found that guy a good permanent home- away from Isabel. He was a sweet dog, but humping the cat (aside from being counterproductive) is just plain creepy.

I’ve had three male cats, and they weren’t at all bothered about being nutless. Other than reduced longevity, (and males are bigger) I really don’t see much difference between spayed female cats and neutered male cats. I think the male cats I had were secretly relieved of being culled from the gene pool and therefore set free of the obligation to -well- screw like tomcats.

Thought I was going to post a gratuitous pic of feline copulation, eh?

Since I’m on the subject of nuts, (for what reason I have no idea) I have to comment on the illustrious, nutless wonder who is squatting in the White House. Normally, I can’t stand to listen to Obama speak, and if I feel I must find out what kind of garbage he’s spewing, I just read the transcript later. Unfortunately I was subjected to the Wanna-be-Imperial One’s press conference regarding the Ebola epidemic and his African summit while I was waiting on my car to get serviced at the Toyota dealership. Hindsight being 20/20, I wish that I had remembered my headphones, or that I had decided to wait outside.

Since I sat through every infuriating minute of it, I thought I would offer the rational person’s Cliff’s Notes on this particular address:

Let’s send billions more dollars in “aid” to Africa that will not be (and never is) used to do anything to ameliorate squalor, disease and poverty, but will be squandered on funding terrorists, supporting regional warlords, and empowering garden-variety thugs. While we’re at it, we’re just going to open our borders to every terrorist, scumbag and non-English speaking, uneducated indigent who can manage to traipse on in. Because terrorists need love too? Then the Naked Emperor cries and whines and wonders out loud why American corporations are clamoring to incorporate in foreign countries to avoid the evil IRS and its labyrinthine and oppressive tax system.

Oh, and we can’t send the Ebola medicine to Africa because it’s experimental…and they might die from it. Even though they are almost certainly going to die from the Ebola, why should we try giving a drug that might help? Someone might sue us or something.

Really?

I almost threw up all over the customer lounge. Thankfully by that time, my tire rotation and car wash were done and the service advisor had come to retrieve me. I just hope they torqued my lug nuts to 76 ft lbs. like the owner’s manual suggests.

On the way home I had a few insights on B.O.’s asinine rhetoric.

1. Why are we spending a red dime to support any terrorist harboring country? I don’t give a flying fart in a high wind what’s going on there. It’s not our problem. In fact, as cruel as it sounds, perhaps some of these third world holes could use some thinning of the herd. Especially when foreign aid never seems to get where it’s supposed to go, and the poverty and desolation persists no matter how many billions of dollars are thrown at it.

2. Why do veterans go without medical treatment, and American citizens are taxed so heavily they can’t afford their own healthcare (even though they work for a living) while our government pisses away our tax dollars to support terrorists and others who only want to kill us and send the world back to the Dark Ages? Americans’ money could be better spent on our own infrastructure and military, and to secure our borders against the terrorists and thugs, but what do I know?

3. Why is this illegitimate president still squatting in our White House?

Let’s All Go to the Fair (‘Kay…) as If I Had Faith in Humanity to Begin With

July 30, 2014Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I think that might be a skunk on her right thigh.

One does encounter the frightening side of humanity at the Ohio State Fair- or any other public festival-type gathering. It wasn’t as alarming as I have observed in years past, or perhaps I’m getting a bit jaded to the freak show. The Marion Popcorn Festival is coming up, which makes the Fair look positively tame. I’ve also found that it’s a lot easier to take pics with the Note 3 than with a traditional camera because people just think you’re texting or something when you are really taking pics. Maybe that’s mean of me, but I run even worse than I fight.

Toasty tobacco flavor!

I wonder if Red here is disabled or if she just figured it was worth $10 to ride around in a Mart Cart all day. I think she weighs less than 300#, so they probably don’t let her ride the cart in Walmart. She is setting a lovely example for her (grand?) son though. Even while she is lecturing another offspring (?) spousal unit (?) on the dangers of wearing just socks without shoes in public.

Told ya ta wear some shoes, dumbass!

The dog had Barbie dolls with better hair than poor Red. I say “the dog” because Suzie, the deranged Dachshund my parents had when I was little, appropriated certain of my sisters’ toys for her own personal use- when she was done eating their socks and underwear, that is. Suzie didn’t like very many people, but she adored me. Go figure. I never had a problem with her, but my sisters couldn’t touch her, or get their toys back once Suzie decided she liked them.

I figured, with Suzie, possession was 9/10. If Suzie wanted it who was I to stand in her way? Although I could do anything with Suzie, including getting toys back from her, I wasn’t about to do that for either of my sisters. I liked Suzie better than either of them.

Shorts and cowboy boots?

I saw a number of people at the Fair wearing cowboy boots with shorts. I don’t know why this particular fashion choice bugs me, but it does. At least she’s not wearing Daisy Dukes. And she was nice enough to cover up her back fat, unlike this unfortunate girl:

Girl, you need a rear view mirror.

Perhaps I am being a bit harsh on fashion choices- after all I dress for comfort most of the time, and especially so if I am going to be traipsing along outside in the heat. It wasn’t as hot as it normally is which may have cut down on the freak factor this year.

The talking Smokey the Bear is freaky though.

When I was a little kid I always wondered about Smokey’s preoccupation with forest fires. I knew too many kids who were only too happy to fry ants with magnifying glasses (yes, I did do that) or set stuff on fire with Zippos (Steve-o,,,) I always wondered why Smokey talked about not playing with matches, but never mentioned Bics or Zippos or magnifying glasses.

Not a flashlight substitute, either.

Then again, central Ohio is a swamp and it’s usually raining, or there’s some form of precipitation at least every other day or so, so wildfires generally don’t happen, and when they do, they generally don’t spread much. However, the perpetual dampness never stopped the slumlords from burning down non-profitable rental properties to the point that in certain locales it is expensive and well-near impossible to get home owner’s or business insurance. There’s always accelerants, you know, if you really want something to burn. Too bad the ass-pilots that use them usually have very little understanding of forensic science. They can tell you doused the place with gasoline before you torched it.

Smokey seems a little quaint and outdated for these times. Nobody wants to intentionally burn down forests, because you can’t get insurance on a random forest. Maybe Smokey should be talking about arson? “Hey, kids, only you can decide not to burn down your non-profitable rental properties, ” or, better yet: “Hey, kids, don’t drop your crack pipe and burn down your crack house!” Especially if you just spilled gasoline on the floor.

Mi underwear – Su underwear?

Somehow, some things just aren’t meant to be shared.

I haven’t thought about poor Suzie in a long time. She was always in fragile health and died at the relatively young age of 7 years. I believe her early demise was largely due to being willing to eat vast quantities of anything, including socks, underwear, marbles, Army men, and things my mother served that were sort of supposed to be food. Mom’s cooking was rather disastrous a good deal of the time, so there was a lot of food left over to go with Suzie’s Chuck Wagon.

On second thought, maybe we should have just eaten the Chuck Wagon.

mmmm…Meaty! in a meat by-product-y sort of way…

People Are Frustrating and Vexing, but Solitude Brings a Strange Kind of Fun

July 22, 2014Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I am not the poster child for things touchy-feely. I loathe strange people touching me (even getting my hair cut is an adventure, though I endure it because I can’t cut my own hair with any degree of accuracy) and generally I’m not too thrilled about being groped by those I do know. Unless they’re dogs, and that’s OK. Why, I don’t know, but dogs are safe, at least for me. Even when I was a little kid and was terrified of the world, from my sadistic oldest sister to unauthorized insect life, I had no problem climbing the fence and snuggling up to a 120# Rottweiler.

It’s not usually the big dogs you have to worry about. Unless you’re up to mischief, that is.

The only dog I can remember having any kind of problem with was Andy the Chihuahua, but he was likely the product of many generations of inbreeding, and from the moment he was whelped he was certifiably messed up in the head. He was my cousins’ dog, and even they couldn’t touch him. It’s a good thing that pathetic little Andy, with his high-pitched, constant and annoying yappy voice, severe underbite and thick cataracts, (I think the wretched thing was born blind) didn’t live past the age of five. I’m surprised he lived as long as he did. I think the only thing that saved him was that he was too evil for the cats to eat him. He reminded me of a wind-up toy with an over-wound spring. Such a toy will go like blue blazes- for a little while- then it just dies suddenly. I think it was reported that poor Andy bit the big one mid-yap. I don’t think he was very much missed.

Andy the psycho Chihuahua is the exception, not the rule in the canine world. Humanity is the exact opposite.

There is a sad irony that I feel safer with animals that technically are the same species as wolves (canis lupus familiaris is not far removed from canis lupus lupus after all) than I do with fellow humans. But I do.

I’ve gathered from my own observations that “normal” people (begging the question, “Who defines ‘normal’?,” though I know I am most certainly anything but “normal”) generally have an easy time relating to other “normal” people. While I’m usually looking for excuses to avoid excessive social interaction, as too much of playing that game wears me out, the “normals” blithely seek out more opportunities to be in each others’ faces. I have to work at the communication game. Really. Hard. I have to consciously know which façade to pull out, and what (figurative) costume to wear for which occasion.

I have to pay attention to things that come instinctually to most, such as eye contact and body language and tone of voice. Otherwise, if I’m not paying attention, I just stare straight ahead and bellow out everything in a loud monotone. I have acquired social skills- and over the years I’ve trained myself to practice them well- but that whole hoo-hah wears me down, just as the social dance energizes most people.

Sometimes I’d like to tell the whole world to bite me sideways and say screw it all, (and I would if I had the scratch to live as a recluse) but necessity dictates that I have to put up with other people and their shit. Maybe it’s wrong or arrogant or selfish of me to see things that way, but that’s just the way it is. That’s my reality-constant vigilance and constant anxiety, because I have to pay close attention to every word and every movement, at least when I am under others’ scrutiny.

Maybe that was where Shakespeare got the notion that all the world’s a stage. Performing is hard work, and sometimes I just don’t wanna.

I don’t have to play the game with dogs- or even cats for that matter. With them I can just be.

There are times I do enjoy the relational hoo-hah and find it a strange kind of fun, but it’s fun that I really only need in small doses, and even when I do enjoy it, it wears me out. Right now I’m exhausted, and in a way I wish I could beg off human contact for a few months or so.

What I really need is a nice, long solitary road trip.

I could use one of those trips where I leave, go somewhere randomly, do whatever, and then come back. The last time I really did that was back in 1987, and I caught hell for it. Of course, going 500 miles out with $150, in a car that had no air conditioning, leaked oil horribly, had 4 balding (different sizes and treads) tires and a top speed of 45 MPH wasn’t a good idea and I wouldn’t dream of trying it today, especially without a phone, but those were different times. Cell phones were expensive toys hard mounted in expensive cars back in 1987. I was a young punk and wanted to do what I wanted to do, even if I didn’t have much scratch and my car was a very distressed, high mileage ’79 Subaru DL. Today I would be afraid of being raped and robbed (well, in my case, probably just robbed and shot) if I would happen to get stranded. Today I have plastic (though I am quite loath to use it) a modern car, a phone, GPS, roadside assistance and a (always loaded) .357 Magnum.

I’m not nearly as trusting as I used to be.

Jerry would have nine kinds of fits if I did something like that. He would accuse me of being out trysting with some smoking hot young stud even though he (especially) should know I have the sex appeal of stale saltines and wet socks. In reality he would miss subjecting me to his tirades, and would miss me fetching his food and beer.

Yes, a solitary road trip would be most delicious. Even a day trip would be good.

God Loves a Hot Mess, and the Devil Is in the Details

May 9, 2014Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

All I can think is that God must love a hot mess, which is good news for me. The past two weeks have been rather crazy. I’ve had to make some difficult decisions, two of them in saying no to things and situations that would have been desirable- except that the devil is in the details.

I did get to say yes to the car, which I had been mulling about for awhile, and the pieces came together fortuitously on that one.

But I had to turn down taking in a beautiful black Malinois (still a bit despondent over that one) because Jerry insisted on taking in Lucy last October. I couldn’t say no to that, especially since we had lost Sheena last May.

Lucy, while she is a sweet dog, is definitely not a Malinois. Lucy is a hot mess of a willful, disobedient and destructive Beagle mixed with English Bulldog (why, oh why would someone interbreed that combo on purpose?) Clara, my (1/2 Malinois) sweet pleaser, obeys hand commands and head nods (she’s that intuitive) and Lilo, just knows and follows the routine. I am still carrying Lucy to her crate in the mornings. She does not go to the crate of her own volition even though she knows she is going to end up there one way or another.

In the words of the philosopher/theologian Mick Jagger: “You can’t always get what you want/You can try sometimes/You just might find/You get what you need.”

Sometimes what I want and what I need are two completely different things.

I discovered last week that even though I’ve been away from the automotive dealer scene for almost fifteen years, just how easy it would be for me to go right back to where I was before (different place, same type of job.) I was given the opportunity to do that. I really, really wanted to, but again, the devil is in the details. Thankfully I came to my senses and realized that 1. working straight commission is no way to live, because you end up living at work, and 2. it would be so easy to go back to that work-as-a-drug power trip euphoria.

The problem with that is when I live that way my entire identity becomes what (and how well) I’m doing versus who I am being. And that is some scary shit. That’s what landed me in my doctor’s office with ischemic attacks, bleeds in the scleras of both eyes and uncontrolled high blood pressure. That’s what got me the lecture from my doctor (when I was 30) that I wouldn’t live to see 35 unless I changed my lifestyle.

I made it to 45, so I must be doing something right, but in a rather unexpected and unsolicited job offer I learned something about myself that I don’t particularly like.

I like being in control. I really like it, and if I’m honest with myself I find that’s what’s been pissing me off for so long. I don’t like being talked down to. I don’t like having to work within inefficient processes and inane policies that I don’t have the authority to change. I don’t like being held responsible for bad outcomes that I had no hand in creating- and that I don’t have the authority to fix. I don’t like being controlled by people who shouldn’t be in the positions they’re in. I don’t like being in a position where challenging the status quo is an exercise in futility.

The bad thing is that in any environment where one has to deal with people, all of the noxious roadblocks to harmonious living, good business, and successful outcomes listed above are right there, wherever one may go. So it’s better to deal with the devil you know than to buy into a whole ‘nother demon who may be even worse.

I remember reading somewhere that the devil can be in all the things you really, really want. It sort of reminds me of when Satan tempted Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world- that somehow selling your soul is worth all the stuff you get in exchange.

I really don’t want to make deals with the devil.

While it’s not good for me to be the one in charge, it’s also not good for me to play the whipping post. If only I could avoid either extreme. I’ve been doing “whipping post” for way too long, which is what made my out of the blue offer look so attractive.

Maybe somewhere along the line I went from brash hard ass to completely losing my voice (in a figurative way) and that’s another vexing place to be.

Happy Lupercalia! Which is So Appropriate Because…

February 14, 2014Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Roadkill: It’s What’s for Dinner!

Valentine’s Day as a holiday has always sort of given me the creeps. It’s named after a Christian martyr who according to legend was killed by having his heart cut out. So we make nice little chocolates and cookies with hearts on them to commemorate this why? As far as celebrating holidays that have bizarre origins, it would be more fun to commemorate Bastille Day with scale model guillotines and flying Dennis Rodman ~~doll~~ action figure heads, but I’m weird that way.

The ~~doll~~ action figure came with two heads.

Valentine’s Day wasn’t always Valentine’s day. It actually began as a co-opting of a popular pagan holiday that was celebrated around the middle of February- Lupercalia. Basically it was “The Wolf Festival.” Along with a lot of drinking and fertility rites, that is. What makes this different from The-Game-We-Cannot-Name Sunday or any other redneck beer drinking holiday, except that even rednecks frown upon animal sacrifice? Perhaps the main distinction is that in redneck fornication, procreation generally is not the primary goal. Hence the importance of the Trojan Man.

Because this is all that stands between you and 18+ years of child support.

I don’t believe in romantic love. Not one bit. If Jerry buys me something it’s usually because it’s something he wants. The last thing he bought me was a Stoeger Condor Competition 20 gauge over/under shotgun. It is a sweet shotgun, but I think he enjoys shooting it (and bragging to the guys at the club what a great deal he got on it) more than I do. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a good shotgun, but it’s not exactly the gift that screams “hot teenage lust.” Not that “hot teenage lust” was ever on my agenda to begin with.

A holiday for dogs, on the other hand, isn’t a bad idea. The interesting thing about a “wolf festival” is that dogs are wolves. Literally.

Grey wolf taxonomic classification: Canis lupus lupus

Domestic dog (all breeds): Canis lupus familiaris

All the same species as the grey wolf. Even the ankle biters.

I’ve also said it before that since dogs are a subspecies of wolf, it’s imperative to respect that. If dogs are improperly treated and/or we humans don’t pay attention to their signals and body language, they can be deadly. Correctly handled and respected, they can become amazing companions, protectors and friends. I trust my dogs more than people, and with good reason.

Not to mention AIDS, chlamydia, genital warts and herpes!

The only thing that disturbs me about those old-time VD warnings is that they always showed women as being carriers of VD. Dudes spread it too. How do you think the women got it?

I always thought Valentine’s Day, with all the insinuation of love being in the air, as a perfect opportunity to warn against Venereal Disease. Here’s a little song from 1969, just in case anyone needs some VD awareness. It’s called “VD is for Everybody” and has a cute little video that goes with it. Just doing my duty to further public health.

Speaking of public health, as I was trolling along, I found another holiday worth celebrating:

I have some questions about Rabies Day.

1. Is this about getting rabies? If so, this could be a very painful and drawn out form of population control. I can think of much easier ways to “cull the herd,” such as leaving the stupid to their own devices, to earn their Darwin Awards without any interference from others.

2. Is this about getting rabies shots and/or preventing rabies? I can stand behind that. I definitely don’t want to get the rabies.

I don’t want to get the cholera either:

“Beware of Drunkenness- nothing is so likely to bring on Disease.” Amazing. Public health authorities knew this back in the 1830’s, that being drunk and dirty could bring on disease. I would like to know where you find hot lime, though.

I think there should be more public campaigns to advocate personal hygiene and cleanliness. It seems that being clean and well groomed is more of an exception than a rule, and then you wonder why you’re surrounded with the hacking, coughing, chronically ill masses.

Of course, as more and more of the people in this country are growing up raised by wolves, what can one expect?

SSDD, and If You Have to Ask, I Don’t Have Time to Explain

January 6, 2014Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

Depression sucks.

Same shit, different day.

I could of course, attribute my unshakable malaise by chalking it up to the horrible weather or the interminable dark that pervades this time of year. Usually my mood improves when the holidays are over, at least a little bit, and then goes back in the toilet around mid-February until about May.

Maybe it’s because my life is pretty much lived stuffing ten pounds of shit into a five pound bag. The worst part of that is that it’s usually ten pounds of other people’s shit that I allow to be unloaded on me.

The sucky part of that is that one of my closest friends (who I really need to have a nice, long conversation with again, and sometime soon) once told me that life boils down to what you cause and what you allow. I allow other people’s dumb shit to go on and on without telling them to piss off, and that’s my own damned fault. I hear a lot of bitching through the course of a day, and a lot of it is in regard to things that either I can’t control or can’t change. Hearing all that day in and day out tends to make me feel pretty discouraged and hopeless.

Then I go home and get to hear Jerry bitch about things that he should just deal with himself if they bother him that much. This is the same guy who has no problem spotting shit or puke or some unfortunate object that Lucy has reduced to smithereens- but who does have nine kinds of excuses for why he can’t clean it up.

Really? I so need this amazing shit-shoveling gnome in my house!

That, and my left arm is killing me right around the place where I broke it. I think that might be because of the cold (it’s a balmy 1°F out there today) and low barometer, but it hurts something fierce today. I dug out the big black brace I had to use for awhile after they took my cast off, and put it on, which seems to help. Then there’s always the gift that keeps on giving- all my joints are rather creaky and stiff today- thanks to the lingering repercussions of rheumatic fever. The good news is that I was one of about three people in the pool this morning. I’d be much worse off today, at least as far as mobility goes, had I not gone to the pool. The pool, opposed to the outside world, is usually somewhere around 80°, which is quite nice.

If money were no object, this would be my personal indoor pool.

And here would be a suitable personal pool boy.

Maybe not so blond, but the bod is right on. Nice pecs.

It would be a total blast to lounge about in a lovely pool surrounded by buff young dudes, if I had the means, but as the old saying goes, “Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.”

Of course the fantasy would only be complete if I could have a big screen TV in my pool room showing Journey’s Greatest Hits Live 1981:

Play ALL. All night long.

Believe it or not, I’ve actually done a fairly decent job of cheering myself up. For now.

Please, Lord, don’t let me come home to a massive debris field left in the wake of the “Mouth of the South” (aka Lucy) because Jerry was too lazy to put the dogs back in their crates after lunch…

Or to a to-do list of Jerry’s errands to be ran (outside of course,) in sub-zero temperatures…

Give a poor white woman a break for a change, eh? A quiet night with maybe a few military documentaries, or even a showing of Hot Fuzz or Super Troopers? It doesn’t even have to be a cop-themed movie- Borat would do just fine… something funny, something light?

An Argument for Psycho Control- and Workouts for Kids

November 22, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

One (very rare, may I add) positive to come out of the Obama administration was that his ineptitude and usurpation of Americans’ rights made me very much more aware of my both my first and second amendment rights. I never dreamed five years ago that I would ever want to own a gun, let alone apply for concealed carry.

Times have changed.

I don’t feel safe going anywhere after dark. That’s not necessarily Obama’s fault, because the neighborhood where I work has been going downhill for years, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt on that one. I don’t feel safe going out after dark because there are crazy people out there. If the crazy people have guns, then why do I want to be unarmed? Doesn’t it make more sense not only for me to be armed, but also for me to know how to use a firearm correctly?

This morning there was a shootout just down the road– in the WalMart I’m afraid to set foot in, no less. The shooter shot a little kid, a woman while she was sitting in the dentist’s chair, (?) and a cop. Shooting the cop got him killed- and saved the taxpayers some money- at any rate. I don’t like to see people get killed, but shooting a cop is just plain asking for it.

I don’t blame the firearm, or even the fact that this guy had access to one. I blame him and him alone. Triggers don’t pull themselves.

Gun control is holding on with both hands. Psycho control is what we need in this world, and unfortunately in the trees of civilization, there are more than a few fruits and nuts.

Really? Where’s your mother? In the rhino cage? That explains it!

When I was growing up (in a rural, poor area…) there were no fat kids, except one. That was Scottie-Scottie Two By Four. You know the rest of the rhyme- “couldn’t get through the bathroom door/so he did it on the floor/licked it up and did some more/Fatty-Fatty two-by-four” In middle school he was well over 200#. This poor kid was harassed so relentlessly that the summer between seventh and eighth grade he went to football camp, as well as he went on a crash diet and lost well near 7o#. By the beginning of eighth grade he was still big, but it wasn’t fat any more. The coaches had ran it all off of him. His parents were lard asses, which probably explains how he got so large- Daddy was about 400# and Mommy wasn’t far behind. Yes, the kids made some serious jokes about Scottie’s Mom and Dad having to do the wild thing on a steel reinforced mattress. There was also much speculation that they had to go out in the garage to do it because the floors in their house couldn’t take it. I don’t know if that was true or not. Some things are just not worth finding out.

The apple usually doesn’t fall far from the tree.

But most of us kids were thin according to today’s standards. Even though I was never allowed to play organized sports after I had rheumatic fever, (and nobody wanted me to before, because I sucked,) I still got lots of exercise. Self preservation is a good workout motivator.

My Mom liked to lock us outside and turn up the TV when she’d had enough, or just when she was spaz, which was a good deal of the time. Although I was never a fast runner, I was good at hiding. I had to work to avoid getting my ass kicked.

One of my favorite hiding places was with the Rottweiler down the street. I wasn’t afraid of him, even though he wasn’t always terribly clean, and his fleas had no problem biting me too. The other kids were terrified of him. Ass kicking or flea bites? Most of the time I took my chances with the unauthorized insect life. Mom really didn’t like it when I came home eaten to death with flea bites, and smelling like dog shit, but at least it wasn’t blood and broken bones. I did manage to get through childhood without breaking anything. I did get blood poisoning from scrapes, cuts, splinters and so forth, a few times though.

You put it together with whatever pieces you could scrounge.

Your bike was your transportation. Mom didn’t get a driver’s license until I was 12 years old, and even though the state of Ohio thinks she’s cool to drive, I’ll beg to differ. Riding a bike was safer on many levels than riding with Mom, even though there is a good deal of comic relief to be gleaned from her chronic road rage.

It’s sad but true- my son learned how to fly the one finger salute (age 5) by watching my mother road rage.

Thanks, Mom!

Now people don’t let kids ride their bikes unless they have so much protective gear on that they look like the freaking Transformers. And then they can only ride their bikes on the designated bike path, never on makeshift BMX trails in the woods or back along where the railroad tracks used to be.

Welcome to the Thunderdome! Oh, I was just riding my bike down to the carry out? Really?

I think part of the reason why kids of my generation got plenty of exercise is that we were pretty much left outside to fend for ourselves most of the time. Most of our families were poor. Most of our families had two or more kids, so if one went missing, it’s one less mouth to feed. Oh, well. Now people treat their kids in much the same way as some of the poor dogs I see in the vet’s office. They mollycoddle, indulge and literally “love” them to death.

It is cruel to let a dog get this fat.

Science is on my side here: obesity kills dogs. It’s a proven fact, and since a dog lives about 15 years give or take, it’s easy to see what happens when dogs are allowed to be hugely fat. But there are people out there who just can’t see the correlation, that overfeeding and under-exercising their dogs takes years off their dogs’ lives. Every time I take one of my girls to the vet’s office, I see obese dogs suffering from preventable health problems. The vet sees it too and it has to really bother her.

Perhaps people are viewing their kids not as liabilities or money pits, but as pampered pets. I don’t know which mindset is worse- leaving kids to their own devices and out to the wolves, or mollycoddling and indulging them.

Kids have to get out and get dirty. Kids have to have limits. One Klondike bar once a week is fine. Three after dinner is way too much.

Maybe if we could worry less about the psychos in our midst, we could let kids go out and play and be kids and not feel as if we have to indulge their every whim.

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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