People Plan God Laughs

Broad Jumps, Part II – Building Them Stalled

I was almost done building all four of the skeletons of the broad jumps after work and found that the directions weren’t quite accurate in some parts. As in there are four extra pieces of PVC. Then I also found that the last jump skeleton had a glitch. One of the two 5-1/4″ pieces of PVC was smaller than it should have been, which made the jump bow. That would have been fine if it bowed before I pounded the PVC into the joints, but this was afterwards and I could not get all pieces apart. The directions say to glue these pieces together, but I can’t even get them apart to glue them! I’m not done trying yet, as I did get one elbow undone, but it got too close to 7 p.m., and my fur babies were hungry, so it was quitting time. But I was so close to finishing that whole skeleton project, and then, BOINK! There’s always a BOINK, isn’t there? Yep.

I think Raven’s got a urinary tract infection. That’s another BOINK!

Helen

Crating/Building, Life, People Plan God Laughs, Raven

Jul

2008

I’m Worried About My Corn

Helen

I was outside with my babies, and Baby herself was really hunting for something in the agility patch. Well, I figured it might be a Bufo as she has a propensity to find those disgusting things and grab them. Then the whole foaming of the mouth starts, and I have to wash her tongue for minutes and minutes and minutes till the foaming stops. So I really didn’t feel like going through that. I asked her kindly to go pee-pee, and then I escorted everyone in.

Baby’s a sly one, she is. When I call her in, she oftentimes hides in the shadows. She figures I don’t see her, and she figures right. She stands so still, if I don’t put the light on and search for her, I don’t see her. Tonight, I figured she was playing that game with me, so after everyone else was in, I put the light on and swept the whole Fort Doberdale campus.

Out of the side of my eye, behind a pine tree, I saw a shadow. It was scary, though, because when I got to the tree, there wasn’t anyone. And all my dogs were in the house. Then I saw out of the other eye’s side, my corn patch moving. Holy cow! What was going on? I summoned my courage and moved closer to the corn patch, and right there ON my budding corns was the outline of a frog. It was dark enough all right, for it to conceal itself. So I ran all the way to the back door and into the back room to get my camera. By the time I got back outside, the outline was gone. However, I figured to just point the camera at the corn patch and see what comes out in the dark room when I develop the pictures.

Well! There he is. In the lower right hand corner of both of these pictures is a frog! Now these guys are fine if they eat slugs and bugs, but if they eat corn and squash plants, I’m going to be irate. Listen, I already know that I’m going to lose my battle to actually eat this corn. If they ever mature, there are plenty of squirrels that will beat me to them in the wee hours of the morning when the sun is just rising and I’m not quite there yet. But in the meantime, I can dream, can’t I? Unless there are corn-eating frogs in my corn patch! Or I can’t sleep thinking about them eating my beautiful vegetable garden.

Whose great idea was this vegetable gardening anyway? OK, mine. I thought I’d save some dinero on the veggies by growing my own. But never thought I’d use up those savings on snail bait, neem oil, and extra bottles of Rescue Remedy for my own use.

Argh!

By the way, I’d taken a picture earlier of a frog on my window. It isn’t the clearest, but you can see what I saw. Something’s in that frog stomach poking out. Now I’m wondering if that’s the tip of one of my prized corn cobs!

Double Argh!

Helen

People Plan God Laughs, Trees and Plants

Jul

2008

P P G L

Helen

SHOOT!

I talked to the MB-F people, who are superintendants for Friday’s AKC trial, and they said Baby’s and my entry arrived after closing – at 2:25 – and they closed entries at noon, so they sent it back to me. Wow. That’s a first. I think I even Fedexed it, but I can’t pull Fedex up on the Internet this morning (infuriating!), so can’t check on that.

A little later in the day, I got a letter from the MB-F people. A letter? I mean a strip of paper with my check. Now on the paper they say the entry got there on 2/25! Which 225 was it? I don’t know. But I mailed the entry through US mail, as Fedex finally came up on the Internet and no record of my sending to MB-F was listed. Now if I mailed our entry through US mail from Broward county to Brooksville, which is in Hernando county, on the 18th of February, one would think it would take only a day to get from here to there. Seven days? It’s a 4-1/2 hour drive! Where’s my Rescue Remedy!

This is yet another entry for the People Plan and God Laughs category. I asked to take off Friday from work even. Eeewww kay, did I already say

SHOOT?

AKC, Baby, People Plan God Laughs

Mar

2008

People Plan, God Laughs

Helen

People Plan, God Laughs…that about sums up yesterday evening.

I got home and had all the dinner preparations in motion, as planned, when I opened the front door. The rice cooker had the rice cooked and warming, the 18 eggs with chopped Shitakes were beaten and chilling in the fridge, and cheese slices were stacked and ready to be plopped and melted onto the top of the mounds of dinners. All I had to do was go through the process of putting dinner together (30 minutes), doling out the bowls (10 minutes), and getting Baby and me in the truck to go to the Rodeo Arena for our Drill class (15 more minutes). I had about 30 minutes to spare for poop pick-ups, water bowl duty, and miscellaneous happenings.

One part transpired exactly as I planned it and when I planned it to happen. I opened the front door. The rest … eww.

The odor that met me at the door was reminiscent of doo-doo. And it didn’t take long for it to overtake me, and I didn’t have far to go to find the source. Lilian’s crate, right by the back door. Actually, and don’t tell me dogs aren’t brainiacs to some degree (like when it suits themselves), Lilian had turned rear end to the crate door and let her rip. She had diarrhea, OK? It was the most unpleasant thing to say the least.

After I went into my own drama queen scene, that was to get un-crated friends of Lilian to back away from the area, I grabbed the roll of heavy duty towel papers, a plastic bag, and got to work. Originally, I held my breath, but that was a bad idea. When I thought I would faint from lack of oxygen, I had to open my mouth to gasp for air. No, not a good idea.

I couldn’t open the back door yet because the other dogs would have charged through “it” to get out. The fresher air would have been nice, but the extra paws to clean were highly undesirable. Not to mention the pavers and ugh! No, I just suffered through that first part of the clean-up, and made sure everyone knew I was suffering. Oh, I’m good at groaning and ranting when it comes down to stuff like this.

Once I completed that little song-and-dance, I opened the door, and after the stampede, I turned Lilian around. She was still in her crate-on-wheels trying to maintain that princess Lilian look.

After the crate door was facing out, I opened it, and she sprung out. Glad to be free from, well, you know. And she had to go some more. Eegads!

I rolled the crate outside and started working feverishly on cleaning. The blankey was relatively untouched. Remember, she aimed it all outside the crate. But the Nylabone was touched. I put the blankey in the washer, and got the hose and soap and rinsed rinsed rinsed rinsed rinsed. Sometime around that point, I got the shakes. Yessum, that’s when I knew my plans – the ones I had all weekend to take Baby to drill class and work her recalls to the bone – the ones I pan fried special chicken treats for – the ones I was looking forward to all weekend – those plans were out that window.

I pushed Lilian’s crate back in the house, ate some canned chicken and Abuelita Corn Tortilla Chips, drank juice/seltzer, whatever, I knew it was going to take an hour for me to get back to “normal.” I persevered, though. Finished making the dinners, and by the time I got to the part where I was doling out the bowls, I just wanted to collapse somewhere. And I did. For all of 3 minutes before Raven started screaming from her crate. I didn’t have the umpf to stuff a Kong with banana to quell her savage beast long enough for everyone to finish their dinners. So I screamed back, but sooner or later (OK, sooner) I figured it was better to just get up and let her out. I did that.

By then, my driving time to the arena had been cut into and I was still not feeling well enough to rush around and pack everyone in their crates while I take off with Baby Puss Diva. So I ended up staying home, reviving, pouting and worrying the heck out of myself.

What will Baby do at the dog obedience trial on Saturday? Will she come when I call her in on the recall? Will she sit there and look up trying to figure out if she heard someone say something? Will she run out of the ring (again)? Now I know why I’m having acid reflux enough to cause this, that, and the other, which in turn gives me the shakes.

I guess Lilian was feeling left out being she hasn’t been blogged about recently.

I was thinking that last night. I would have rather not gone through this, however. If all she wanted was a little blog space, I’d be happy to give it to her!

<sigh>

What will Baby do on Saturday?

Eeegads!

Helen (click to e-mail me)

AKC, Baby, Lilian, People Plan God Laughs

Feb

2008