The Gulp

My ottoman shaped puggle often gets overshadowed by my regal husky. Sure, he is stunning and beautiful, but Nairobi has skills. She does things. She can snore like a large human. She can sleep through the day just as easily as she sleeps through the night. She can eat without chewing.

It used to concern me that she inhaled her food rather than chewing it. I worried that she might choke. But then an event, which I call The Gulp, happened, and my fears were eased.

It happened shortly after supper not too long ago. According to her usual custom, Nairobi was hovering  between the locations most likely to receive dropped delicacies of the human food variety.

Before I say anything more, I must explain that my husband has some strange quirks. One of them is that he is compelled to clean out the refrigerator at the first sign of disorderliness. The shelves are all placed at a strategic height that he has figured, and all the items go on the shelf corresponding to its height. When a short jar of pickles shows up in the tall spot reserved for the milk, he develops the twitches. When the mustard gets put on its side due to a small carton of yogurt showing up on the taller condiment shelf, he blows gaskets. It's just the way he is. We still love him.

So, while I was loading up the dishwasher and the kids were carrying plates and cups from the table to the kitchen sink, Mike was emptying, wiping, scrubbing, and organizing the refrigerator. This is not a rare occurrence.

Just as the dishwasher shut and the last perishable good was placed back into the refrigerator, Mike opened the freezer.

"What in the world is all of this clutter?" he asked, horrified.
"Just random stuff," I explained.
"We surely don't need everything we have stuffed in here."
"We might."
"Really," he asked. "We need this bag of bones?"
"Those are for the dogs. I use them as treats."
"Well, what about this large tin foil bundle? What is in here?"

When he peeled back the tin foil, he discovered that the bundle was full of leftover hotdogs - once grilled but long since forgotten. I had a vague memory of one of my offspring wrapping them in foil and freezing them, but the logic behind such an action did not spring into my mind.

Then it happened. One lone completely frozen hot dog wobbled on the edge of the foil for a fraction of a second before toppling over the edge. As if she were synced to the frequency at which food falls, Nairobi ran, ears blowing behind her, to intercept the hot dog. She opened her mouth and caught it before it hit the ground.

In spite of the fact that it was a rather long hot dog, in spite of the fact that it had been frozen for months, Nairobi swallowed it whole. As we all stared, frozen in panic, she calmly licked her lips and walked to her pillow for a long nap.

I told you - she has skills. 

Mixed Signals

Once upon a time there was a man who operated power tools. One day this man, while sawing a piece of wood, accidentally sawed his middle finger. It bled and bled. The man went to the hospital where the kind doctors stitched his finger back together and wrapped it up so it could heal. From that moment on, his children and friends called that finger, "Angry Finger" because it was wrapped to stick straight up, which was an insulting gesture to anyone who happened to pass by the man.


Meanwhile, in a nearby yard, the man's father-in-law happened to smash his thumb between two large rocks, which caused the thumbnail to pop off. It bled and bled. The father-in-law went to the hospital where the kind doctors stitched his thumb back together and wrapped it up so it could heal. From that moment on, his children and friends called his thumb, "Happy Thumb" because it was wrapped to stick straight up, which was an encouraging gesture to anyone who happened to pass by the man.

It was decided that the two men should never leave each other's sides because the son-in-law could go in front and flip everyone off, while the father-in-law could follow and give everyone a friendly thumbs-up so that all the insulted people would end up feeling oddly encouraged and happy.

And they lived happi
We'll see.

Busted

I am a person of science. I graduated with a degree in science, and I lean heavily toward logic and away from emotion. Over time I have had to tame the blunt manner in which I speak to people, and I have made great efforts to be more sensitive.

How can a highly compartmentalized mind, such as mine, bend around such nebulous ideas as thoughtfulness? By developing strategies.

I tried to read some books on communication, but I had to read the section addressed to men. I was not a fan of that.

Then I stumbled upon a genius idea - my phone. I have had some wild experiences with my phone, but now she is one of my best friends. She was only a handy device until I discovered the "remind me" feature. Not only will she remind me of important appointments, she will also remind me to ask important questions, like, "Remind me to ask Drake what kind of shoes he needs for show choir."


Even better, she has turned me into a thoughtful person. She reminds me to wish friends happy birthday, and she reminds me to send cards in the mail. There is, however, a con to this list of pros.

"Do you want me to answer your phone," Mike asked me.
"Sure."
"Oh, it's not a phone call; it's a reminder," Mike discovered.
"Will you read it to me?"
"Call your husband and tell him you love him," Mike read from my phone screen. "Wait, what is that? Did you set yourself a reminder to call me and tell me you love me?"
"Maybe," I mumbled.
"AND YOU STILL NEVER CALL?"

Doh.

All Things Animal

Drake loves all things animal. When he was little he would create elaborate traps so that he might procure a squirrel as a pet. He once caught a fly and tied a leash of dental floss around its tiny neck so that the fly could be his companion. He suffered through the nasty bite of a mouse in a loving attempt to feed the fat rodent to a cat.

We finally bought Drake some dogs. His love for his dogs runs deep. When he gets home he calls their names before the door shuts behind him, and they run to him like they've been shot from a cannon and attack him with jumping and licking. Which is why Drake never complains when I ask him to take the dogs on a walk. He gets the leashes, and the dogs jump like popcorn until they are fastened and out the door. He is sometimes gone for hours with them.

Recently I learned that Drake doesn't actually walk very far with them. He walks them to a nearby park and plays with them as if they were toddlers. He takes them down the slide on his lap. He puts them in the swings and pushes them. He can even teeter-totter with them. They vehemently object to the merry-go-round.

   



  Adopting Arrow from the Furry Friends Refuge gave us a good feeling - like we were doing our part by rescuing a homeless animal. However, when I see Drake with his eyes closed in a warm, furry snuggle,  I am not sure which of them was truly rescued.

Stunned Bird Triage

The animal kingdom must surely rue the day some smarty-pants invented glass. The invention of glass especially haunts the bird population.To a creature solely dependent upon the laws of nature and physics, glass must seem a mysterious, magical, and deadly phenomenon.

When we moved into the country, I spent the first several months running to investigate mysterious crashes only to find nothing broken, spilled, or even messy. The crashes were loud and often. And totally unobservable. Being a logical person, it took about a hundred crashes before I began to believe that our house was haunted.

Then, as I gazed contentedly out the window at my backyard, a delicate jay bird gracefully left his perch in my tree and sailed on the breeze directly into the window in front of my face. The gonging crash caused me to jump and scream, but also to finally solve the mystery of the incessant crashes plaguing my waking moments.

With extreme relief, I dialed my husband's phone number and told his voicemail, "We don't have ghosts! We have glass!" His relief was on the low side of epic, and I'm pretty sure it was due to a disbelief of my assessment. The ghost assessment and the bird assessment.

Until he walked into my bedroom holding a stunned bird.

"Guess what just happened?" he told me, as if I wasn't used to it.
"Let me guess. That bird crashed into a window."
"How did you know?" He asked, impressed.
"You wouldn't believe how often..." BOOM.

I couldn't finish my sentence because, literally, just then, a bird crashed into the window behind me.

I would like to thank the winged nation for showing my husband that I am a genius.

Phone Funny

I love being able to tell my fancy phone things to do. I say to it, "Remind me to pick Emery up from school," and BOOM - Emery gets to go home. Okay, it's not that I would forget Emery. But I have most definitely been guilty of forgetting things like doctor's appointment, mailing letters, and making certain phone calls. Now my phone helps me remember all these important things.

Recently my phone helped me find a self-defense class and register for it. It was Makenna's idea. She looked at herself and realized that her muscles were not impressive. Then she looked at the wide world around her and decided that she could do with some defense training. Then she suggested that I find a class and sign the both of us up for it because it just makes good sense.

My phone found that the Windsor Heights Police Department was offering just such a class and that I could register for it by stopping at the city hall and paying twenty-five dollars. I knew that the chances were very slim that I would remember to actually stop by city hall and do such a thing, so I enlisted the help of my phone to remind me.

The next day, promptly at 9:00 A.M., I received a reminder stating, "Go to buy the City Hall."

I love my phone. It thinks I'm that important.

Revelation

"I like fall a lot more than I used to because of you," Mike told me as we watched the leaves fall from the trees.
"What do you mean? I don't like fall."
"Yes you do."
"No I don't. It is the death of sunny, warm days and the birth of shivering."
"You like all the colors."
"Well, everyone likes the colors."
"You get really happy about flannel sheets."
"Um, there're soft and fuzzy. What's not to like?"
"And you love wearing sweatshirts."
"Again, soft and fuzzy."
"You like pumpkins."
"Yum."
"And you love all the hot drinks: hot chocolate, hot tea, hot apple cider."
"Again, yum."
"And you love having crowds of people over to watch football and eat football food."
"Yes."
"You like fall."
"Touche."

Apparently I like fall.