Church No-No

There is a time and a place for everything. Church is usually not the time or the place for most things.

While in Texas visiting family, we visited their church. We were guests attempting to reflect positively on our regularly attending family. We failed.

Like all churches do, we stood to greet those around us.

Can I just say that I really hate those greeting times, and, to be honest, that is one of the main reasons I hate visiting new churches. I feel as if I am expected to excitedly greet someone who I know will never remember me and who wouldn't actually be talking to me at all if not directed to do so. We both feel the pressure to be chipper and clever in thirty seconds or less. It is like a giant social experiment that I didn't mean to sign up for.

Which is probably why things went so badly.

Reflect, if you will, upon the times in your life when you have had conversations with married couples. I'm sure it is not uncommon for the couple to stand near each other. Especially if they are from someplace else and don't know anybody. One of them, say the husband, might even place his hand on his wife's back for encouragement. He may even give her a small back massage while enduring the social awkwardness of carrying on a conversation with a person he doesn't know and will never see again.

Which is what Mike did that Sunday.

What he didn't know, though, was that while he was greeting those in front of us, I had turned around to greet those behind us.

My husband groped me during church. While greeting strangers.

We didn't make many friends.

Don't Startle The Dragon

I remember times in my life when I wasn't tired. Like when I was 11. Those were great times.

When I first married my sweetheart, I used to love the late night hours when the neighborhood was silent. In the dark, we would talk for hours. I would share my most special memories and deepest dreams about our future. He was usually asleep. I didn't know that then.

The point is that I was awake. And alert. I even remember laying in my bed wide awake just wishing I could fall asleep as I watched the time on the clock get later and later. I was alert. Was is the word I would like to stress. Because that hasn't happened for awhile.

Nowdays about 2 in the afternoon I begin counting the hours until bedtime and wondering if I will be able to make it. I fall asleep instantly, and good luck trying to wake me up in the middle of the night for any type of emergency.

We took a trip to Texas over spring break, and it was wonderful. We had some great family time that included one member of the family laying on an exercise ball while the other members of the family kicked the ball. We aren't hard guests to entertain. While we were there, Mike and I decided to go for a drive by ourselves. I was the navigator as we boldly faced the Dallas traffic, and everything was going smoothly. Until his phone rang. And he answered it. At that moment I considered myself off of navigator duty. He was otherwise occupied, and I know from many years of marriage experience that talking to him while he carries on a phone conversation is impossible. So I shut my eyes.

But I opened them very wide when Mike violently shook my shoulder.
"DON'T STARTLE THE DRAGON!" I yelled.
"What?"
"Oh," I said, slowly realizing that I was looking into my husbands confused face. "I mean, why did you shake me?'
"Because you're the navigator and I think we just missed our turn! Why are you ignoring me?"
"I didn't see you."
"You were staring straight ahead."
"My eyes were shut."
"With your sunglasses on I couldn't see your eyes. Didn't you see me gesturing to the road?"
"No."
"Didn't you see me pointing to the signs and asking which exit we wanted to take?"
"No."
"I was wildly and frantically pointing."
"I was asleep."
"You couldn't possibly have fallen asleep in the amount of time it took me to answer the phone, tell Danny I'd call him back, and hang up."
"I think I did."
"You were asleep? In like 3 seconds?"
"Apparently."
"And dreaming about dragons?"
"APPARENTLY."

I guess I am tired.

Sad Phone

My cell phone has me convinced that I am a raving drunkard.

The strongest drug I indulge in is Advil, and when I am in need of a good buzz, I partake of a Cherry Coke. All that sugar makes me crazy. So, there is really no reason to believe that I slur my speech or mumble incoherently. However, my phone seems to disagree.

Voice commands and voice texting are well and good. In fact, it is one of the most useful features they have recently added to phones. But when I text my husband that I am going to do errands on this side of town until Drake is out and the text actually tells him, "I'm just Gonna Nuzum errands over on this Phaethon until Jacobs out," he gets confused. He doesn't know how where the Phaethon is. Likewise, he had no idea where to pick up the "phone brushes" my text asked him to remember to bring home. When I was supposed to meet him and was close but going to be late, he was really thrown off with, "The closer and I Gonna be great." When Makenna asked where I was and I texted her, "I am homepage," it caught on and now she has checked in with me while she was at "schoolpage" and "workpage."

Voice texting has also come back to bite me when my brother tried to teach me all about a voice texting app. Apparently it works similar to a walkie-talkie. I thought I had the hang of it and tried to teach it to my husband later that night. Although I was sitting next to him on the couch, I told him to watch his phone for the alert, and I whispered a sultry, romantic message into my phone. He never got the alert, but my brother, whose name is also Mike, hasn't been the same since. I made it worse by messaging my brother the instant I discovered he had mistakingly received the steamy message meant for my husband and attempting to explain. The situation struck me as hilarious and I only ended up being able to laugh into the phone, which sounded a lot like heavy breathing. Then I deleted the app. I can't be trusted with it.

Since planning is really not my thing, I have been trying to take advantage of the reminder system my phone came installed with. I can simply say to my phone, "Remind me that Josiah has a doctor's appointment at ten on Tuesday," and my phone will willingly comply. But, the system is flawed for me. Because my phone believes I slur and mumble. Which is why I now am questioning whether rehab is for me.  My phone has reminded me to Boil Mange when I was supposed to get my oil changed, Memoree On Fence when I was supposed to go to Emery's conference, and Kick Up Fake when I was supposed to pick up Drake.


I have to admit that when these reminders pop up, it takes me a very long time to figure out what I am supposed to be doing. Since the reminders were made days or weeks before they pop onto my screen, I am usually at a loss.

And one time my phone threw me into a panic.

I rushed out to my car with my arms full when my phone made the cute noise it makes when it is trying to tell me not to forget something important. Juggling all the stuff I was carrying, I craned my neck to see over a sack full of items to return. There in black ink on the screen of my phone was the reminder nobody wants - Meeting with death.

I didn't throw it, but I did drop it. I don't think that phone will ever say a thing like that again.

And I totally missed my meeting with Beth.

Pajama Shoes

Life gets crazy with four kids. And two injured dogs. And a new house in need of a remodel. So I am not to be blamed for my actions.

My son has been mysteriously and alarmingly sick. This is a kid who mowed four yards in 100 degree weather and asked to take a nap in the bed of the pick-up over lunch because his throat was "weird." He had strep throat and a temp of 103. So when he says he feels sick, we panic. So I drove him to the doctor and they grabbed a sample of any form of liquid his body contains, did x-rays and an ultrasound. With assurances that the doctor would be in touch, I drove him to the last half of his day at school. As he hopped out of the car he spun around and said, "By the way, I don't know what time, but I have a band concert tonight." And with that he slammed the door and was off.

So I hurried home, sanded and painted five doors, installed some towel bars, took a shower with my injured dog so that I could pour hydrogen peroxide on her wounds, picked all the kids up, shoveled food into their bellies, sent Mike with Emery to her concert, tied Josiah's tie and sped off to his concert.

Josiah was dressed perfectly, for once. He usually is missing a bow tie or wearing white socks or something else I don't notice until I am sitting in the audience saying, "Yeah, my son is the one who doesn't look like all the other correctly dressed kids up there." But as he told me, "It's not that I forgot to wear my tie, it is just that everyone else accidentally wore theirs."

Also, how did I give birth to Thor?

My relief at Josiah wearing his complete uniform was short-lived because I soon noticed something terrible. But the problem wasn't him. It was me. I was still wearing my slippers. Slippers aren't shoes. They are fuzzy. They are pajama shoes. You don't wear them in public. At your kid's concert. Among his peers.

Unless you are me. Then you do.

Poor Puppy

Poor Puppy

Hip Wound

Just because I want to gross out all of the people I know, I mean because I feel so bad for my poor dog, I took pictures so the world could know her pain.

If you don't know, she was attacked by a bulldog thirteen days before I took these pictures. She sported gashes across her back, on both hips, at her neck, on her ears, and across her ribs. She bled for ten days. Now her wounds have stopped leaking, but they are quite serious and painful.

She is such a sweet, fat dog, it breaks my heart to see her suffer. She has never hurt anybody, and I think she is quite depressed about the attack.

Neck Wound

Hip Wound

She's still a sensitive girl and objected to me taking pictures of her ugliest moment, so there aren't many. And some of the gashes are hidden until you lift up the flap of skin that hides them. Which she doesn't like. But which I have to do in order to pour peroxide on her. And which makes me not eat.

Believe it or not, she is actually tons better.

Thanks for reading, and good luck trying to eat supper.

Bad Wolf

Since we moved to the country, my dog, Arrow, believes we have all traveled to Heaven together. He runs like he means it. He runs so fast and hard that he actually sprained his ankle. But that was because a small rat terrier barked at him. He can't abide with barking. Barking sends him into all kinds of panic. He has two reactions to being barked at. One is to run in the opposite direction like a missile and the other is to lay down and refuse to move. Neither are helpful, but both are funny.

We had some friends staying with us awhile ago, and these people deserve an award. As they were waiting to fall asleep we were installing their door.

Arrow was gone through most of their arrival and visit, but when he showed up, he showed up as a wolf. Apparently he had found a bog and had spent the entire evening drenching himself with slime. I did not recognize him until he did that crazy moan/groan thing that huskies do.

This caused a problem though because one of the visiting children did not know the wild wolf groaning at the backdoor was our dog. This poor child came running up the hill full of boyish joy until he caught sight of the imminent danger. The moment his eyes landed on the bad wolf (Arrow) he froze, eyes wide. And he remained frozen. There was no movement of any sort. No blinking. I'm not sure he was even breathing. He was okay though because there were four adults there to calm his fears.

Too bad they were inside laughing.

Dog Drama

I have written a lot about Arrow, my husky, but I also have a puggle named Nairobi. She is shaped like an ottoman. She's wide. She sleeps a lot and rarely ever causes a fuss.

Except for the time she got arrested twice.

That all started when Emery threw up on her. Nairobi was offended and began spinning in circles. To avoid the doggy-shake, which would have sprayed already used food all over the room, I lugged her into the bathtub for an immediate bath. I removed her collar, washed it, and laid it to dry on a heat vent. Mike took care of Emery while I scrubbed the dog.

That night the temperature plummeted to six degrees. Which is why I was shocked when my lazy, spoiled, pampered dog chose that time to run away. We called her name. We told her to "COME". We shouted out the names of food, but she didn't come back. We loaded up in our cars and drove the neighborhood. We called our neighbors, and they also drove the neighborhood. That fat dog had vanished.

Just at closing time, Mike went to the grocery store near our house to hang up the lost puppy posters we had printed off with her picture and our phone number. The manager noticed the picture and said, "That dog was in here earlier. She was running up and down the aisles, and we could barely catch her because she wasn't wearing a collar." Without explaining why the collar was not being worn, Mike obtained the phone number for the nice shopper who had apparently taken Nairobi home with her for the night.

The next morning we called the phone number.

"I think you have my dog," Mike said.
"I did have your dog," she answered, "but after I got home I called the Urbandale police and they came and got her."

"I think you have my dog," Mike said to the receptionist at the Urbandale police station.
"We did have your dog, but since she was found in West Des Moines and not in Urbandale, the West Des Moines police came and got her."

"I think you have my dog," Mike said to the receptionist at the West Des Moines police station.
"We did have your dog, but the rescue league came and got her."

So we hopped in the car and drove like lightening to the rescue league. We skidded to a stop next to the brick building where several large outdoor dog runs were fenced in.
"I think you have my dog," Mike said to the dog manager as we stood shivering in the cold.
"I did have your dog," he answered, "but she was sad and depressed and wouldn't play with the other dogs, so she spent the night with the cats."

When we finally acquired our wide-load, she howled for the entire fifteen minute drive home. Her mouth literally made an O shape, which I didn't know was possible. I believe she was telling me her woes of finally finding the mecca of all food, then being chased, then riding in two police cars, then encountering a whole mess of scary dogs, and then being treated like a cat. The insult. She never ran away again.

Even now that we live in the country and she has acres of land to frolic on, she mainly stays near the house.

But that went very bad for her earlier this week when a bulldog wandered into our yard and attacked her. She was mauled, frightened, and injured. She was so bloody she looked like a red dog. Patches of fur are missing, and even now, after four days and an intense trip to the vet, she is still bleeding so much we have to keep her in the garage. She has a cozy bed full of blankets we are continually washing. She hasn't eaten and will only walk outside with us long enough to do what must be done and then immediately return to her fluffy bed.

Two days after the bulldog attacked, he returned with another bulldog friend and they attacked Arrow. Luckily, Arrow's fur is so thick he only lost mouthfuls of fur. Which he needs to shed anyway. He was freaked out and bruised, but no skin was broken. He is such a scardy cat he managed to squeeze his body below our deck, which he has never been able to do before, and hide there until me and my broom convinced the bulldogs to, "GIT OUTTA HERE!" I already speak country.

The bulldog that attacked twice rode away with Sergeant Tim, and we don't know yet what will happen to him.

The other bulldog has been warned.

Me and my broom are waiting.