Life Is Good....

Friday morning I awoke early, 3:30ish AM, with a full and complaining bladder. No biggie, happens most nights... Don't open eyes, hop out of bed, five shuffly steps to the door, step over the doggie gate, ten more shuffly steps to the toilet, sit, pee, reverse order, still don't open eyes, go back to sleep.

Not this time. Just as I reached the doggie gate, I slipped on something, um, slippery. Crashed into the doggie gate. Hurt my foot. "What??!!". Open eyes. Limp on one foot into the bathroom, turn on light. "Shit". No, really, shit. My littlest pup has a case of loose stool. Just a hair shy of full blown diarreah. His bowels have been making fusion jazz noises.

Into the bathtub, under the fully open faucet went my little foot. Wide awake. Scrub, scrub. Grab some toilet paper, back to the now smeared pile, pick up what I can with the paper, back to the toilet, drop and flush. (fingers crossed, "please don't NOT go down") Grab rag with soap and go back and wash area, clean rag with soap, clean sink.

Back to bed. Wide awake.

Do you believe in signs?

Actually my work day went fairly well, with a couple exeptions. One being a totally neurotic over-reaction, which H helped me walk through, thanks H! And the other I would LOVE to share, you'd be rolling, and is perfect for this piece, but I'd rather nobody I work with know, so it will be omitted. Lets just say it has something to do with drinking an extra large coffee, and waiting outside an empty but locked house.

On the way home from work, I was thinking of the rest of my day: Paul and Sean had both made plans, so I would be on my own. Since I got out of work a little early, I would stop at the self storage place. After researching a few, I had made a decision on a place and was ready to sign. It worked well that I had a few extra minutes. I would stop at the restaurant on the way home and pick up my favorite 'stinky' pizza, a mediteranean, white pizza, covered in clams, shrimp, fish, scallops...its awesome. I would do my after work chores, then curl up with Jack Bauer and finish season six of "24".

It occurs to me: I have watched six seasons of "24" within the last twelve months. What this means is that I have effectively rendered six FULL days of my life totally wasted. Other than one cool line, when the president asks his chief of staff to fill him in on why something happened, and the chief of staff replied, "Sir, it is my job to protect and inform you. Sometimes one rules out the other." (I just loved that line, since it is applicable in my work as well. If I don't tell you something, I protect you from repercussions.), I have nothing to show for six full days I can never retrieve. Ah well.

Back to the storage facility. Thinking it would take a quick 15 minutes to sign for the storage unit, I pulled in. Let me just say, an hour later I was driving away from there with my agreement for a 10x20 storage unit, with the hairs on my body slightly raised. I think the manager is lonely. It must be a lonely job managing a storage facility. I saw pictures of his daughters, and heard stories about how he bought his oldest one a car after she finally divorced the bum she was married to. His wife never worked. (I simply had to correct THAT misstatement) I heard his political views, stories of his second job at the casino.....not entirely confident that this guys was not dangerous. Like stalker dangerous. It prolly be aight. Was just weird.

JUST about home, not more than two more miles. Got my stinky pizza, and a bonus piece of carrot cake. It's Friday! Wow. Feeling good. And then. My phone rings. Its Sean. "Mom, where are you?". Ruh Roh. "Mom, my brakes locked up when I was backing out of the driveway, and I got my car stuck by the house".

Beep. My phone is telling me it is going to die. "Sean, one minute, I'll be there"

I pulled around the corner and spied his car. Oh no. HOW DID HE DO THAT??!! The back of his car was about one foot from the side of the house, the chasis resting on the landscaping stones of a raised garden bed there. His rear right tire was off the ground, the rear left tire in the garden. Shock, then of course laughter. It came up from the deep. Not that I had a clue how to solve this dilemma, but it was sure funny to see. I made him take some pictures, which I don't have yet, but will share when I do.

So, Sean, my sweet. You did NOT get into that spot because your 'brakes locked'. Come, come, tell me what really happed.

Mom, that IS what happened.

Sean, that car needed to be going pretty fast to manage to get up and over that wall. My deductive reasoning tells me THIS is what happened:

You backed around, and when you were in the position to go forward, you stepped on the gas, the correct action to get out of the driveway. However, I suspect you forgot to put the car in DRIVE, and it was still in reverse, hence you ended up in this fine pickle.

We were searching for options to get the car down. Could we pull it with the truck? Could we two lift it off the wall? Three sturdy guys who work on the construction of our neighbors house were wrapping up for the day and came over to help. They were very polite, I think they had finished laughing before they came over. Sean probably wanted to crawl under the car. The four lads lifted the car up and pushed it off the wall with a thump. We said thanks, and Sean was on his way.

I'll have to bring over some cookies for them next week.

Lets just say the rest of Friday was uneventful, and totally pleasant. Finished season six of "24", ate my stinky pizza, and X, I gotta tell you, I don't know where this place gets it's carrot cake, but it was hands down the best I've ever had. Watched a few episodes of The Office. Paul hasn't acquired a taste for it yet, but I find it quiet funny. Went to bed.

Saturday morning I awoke pretty early, before the chickens anyway, to Rocko jumping off the bed, going to the doggie gate, and phtttttttttt, splrtttttttt....yep, a little loose stool. Ha! Won't slip in it this time, and then the smell slammed me. Oh-My-God. I laid there thinking, I have to get up and clean that. Okay, it can wait a minute. Oh no. I can't stand the smell. Under the covers, under the covers, dive, dive.

Paul got up.

"Paul, Rocko poohed in front of the gate, watch you step"

This morning, Sunday, Paul got up early before the sun, and I laid there and watched him shine a flashlight on the area in front of the door before he exited. Smart guy.

I think Rocko is better, but I can't help wondering why he was sick. I never give him anything outside the usual, for all his life. Iams dry kibbles and dog biscuits. So how does he get an upset digestive system. My first theory: he found something in Sean's room. Now the irony in this cracks me up. Doesn't one usually protect the children from the dog? You know, not letting the dogs lick their faces and the like so they don't get sick? I have to keep the dogs out of Sean's room so THEY don't get sick.

Saturday turned out to be an amazing day.

Paul and I were prepared for a rainy awful day. We sat together by the fire and shared work and life stories with our coffee that morning, and then Voila! The sun appeared. We couldn't get dressed fast enough. Outside, mateys! Lets get stuff done! My dog groomer returned my call requesting an appointment, and asked if I could drop them off at 10:30 that morning. Too cool! I'm going to start on the deck, really needs to be cleaned up. Paul is loading the truck for a dump run. He is back from the first one, and we decide to load er up again since the groomer is en route to the dump. We have just enough time to do that and trick the dogs into collars and into the truck. We drop them off. The groomer is in a decent mood this morning, quite the relief. One day, maybe I'll blog on groomer stories. We head to the dump. I LOVE going to the dump. One of the items we were throwing away was an ancient Nordic Track. We unloaded it in its proper area, and before we were even finished unloading the remainder of our junk, it was nabbed and loaded into someone else's truck. Okay, I think 'dump' may be the wrong name. I think 'junk exchange' might be more applicable.

Since the groomer is very strict about picking the dogs back up on time...two hours only, we planned that span. Quick, back to the house, load the truck for a trip to the storage unit since it is on the way to Home Depot. Done. Unload the bins, etc. in the storage unit, after getting help with the code to open the entry gate. jeez. Head over to Home Depot...only have one hour left, 15 minutes driving time each way, leaving 30 minutes to find our merchandise and check out. On this day, Saturday morning, the first weekend day which is warm and sunny. It was gonna be close. Heart racing, we find a parking spot, speed walk into the store, find what we need, AND check out...30 minutes exactly. Even managed to make it home with a few minutes to spare, leaving my starving husband to fix himself lunch. Filled out a check for the groomer and went to pick up the dogs. Returned, had lunch,. (leftover stinky pizza) and repaired a little flower bed under the birch tree, and planted pansies. Lots leftover...hmmm, where else can I put pansies? Found to flower boxes and a hanging bag. Gave the rest to my neighbor. Went back to work on the deck. Had sworn last year after power washing the deck that I would never do THAT again, but here I was. Spent the entire rest of the day up until about 4, bent over, making my deck look fabulous, and getting drenched. Paul did a wonderful job cleaning the garage, and took a well deserved break when guilt decended on him. He came to the deck, Honey? do you want me to take a turn here? do you need a break? I could barely straighten up. There was one strip left, but unfortunately it included the gate and lots of side rails. I said yes.

The power washer is man's worst invention. Or desperately needs design improvements. I use it on average once a year. I can never remember from the time before how to hook it all up and get it running. So Paul helps. Then I get going with it. It is on wheels, so it has increased mobility, right? HA! It is hooked up to the garden hose...spigot on house downstairs. It has a 3 mile long electric cord, again I'm assuming for the purpose of convenient mobility. AND the little hose that is about two and a half miles long for the sprayer. Three damn hose/cords. You don't think those things get all sort of tangled up? If I'm not effing tripping over the piles of hoses/cords, I'm untangling them cause I'm so stuck. Anyway, the deck is second story, hose is downstairs under the deck. I've got the power washer up on the deck ready to go, just have to hook the hose up. Paul left for the dump, so it is just me, trying to get the hose UP on the deck without it falling back down again, without having to disconnect it and drag the whole hose up the stairs and drop the end down. It was hard, but I did it, and not without it falling several times and the metal piece clunked me right on the head once. I'm so glad the constructor guys werent working at the neighbor's, because if they had seen that, they would have thought, 'house of fools.'

We had plans to go out to dinner last night, but Paul didn't finish his volunteer work until 6pm. I had come in and removed my wet clothes because I was pretty sick of being wet. Then folded a couple baskets of laundry and put away, so I could appease my OWN guilt because I knew how much fun Paul WASN'T haviing. We sat in the hot tub after. I took some pain killers first, cause I knew I was in for some sore ass muscles. And instead of going out, we decided to have frozen mac and cheese, kielbasa and french style string beans for dinner and a movie at home. I was sound asleep by 10pm.

Today - another trip to the storage unit. Maintenance cleaning in the house, then outside to finish the stairs on the deck, and clean up around the house. Not as nice a day today, but hell, it aint raining.

X, I hope you are feeling better. PT, I hope you get out for another soothing walk with Sadie, and H, thanks for listening on Friday.

Peace