For over a year, we’ve had no dog since our Shane passed. 9 days ago, we put an end to that miserable period by adopting a beautiful brindle Mastiff. Maya, short for Amaiyah, is a sweet, lovable, playful pup, a funny, silly big goof.
Unfortunately, those last two words are the problem.
Maya isn’t housebroken. No problem, except she isn’t learning. She has no experience with cats, and wants to play with them as if they were dogs. Imagine a lion playing with a rabbit – from the rabbit’s point of view. She’s had no leash training, and has one speed – fast-forward. The wife has bruises and I have a strained leg from her pulling and slamming into us on walks.
Yeah, most of those are piddly things. But there’s one other issue – she’s bigger than our Mastiff Sam was, and she’s only 7 months old. We, on the other hand, are both over 60 and have some mobility issues. The wear and tear of so much dog is too much for me to demand of my wife. Me, I’d gladly accept some bruises and aches, but Tamy has to work to support us, and I can’t ask that of her.
So, Maya is back with the lady we got her from. It’ll be calmer and simpler around here, I keep telling myself. But it’s no use. We may not have gotten Maya housebroken, but I sure am. Here, in a dogless house. Broken.
In this season of love, light, family, gifts, and warmth, we should remember that there are many who find no joy in this world. For too many, especially children, Christmas is just another day. So I ask you to remember that,
In This Season:
A Christmas tree is nothing more than a filthy metal pole topped by a glaring orange streetlight. Snowflakes are concrete dust from blasted buildings and ash from fires. A feast is a watery soup or a cup of thin tea. Holiday lights are strings of tracer rounds crisscrossing in the night sky. Candles aren’t festive, but the only source of light and heat.
In this season, we strive to be at our best. But why for just one day, or one week? The spirit of this season, regardless of faith or creed, should be our everyday goal, not something we drag out and dust off once a year.
So I will wish you all the best of the season, whatever holidays you follow. May the light and love of this season be yours, and I wish you and your loved ones all the best. And please, think of those who are less fortunate than you, and as always, please remember all those who stand guard during this season to guard our celebrations, and may they all come home, soon and safe.
I had hoped my return to blogging was going to be a humourous look at my aging process. Events on Tuesday evening torpedoed that, but gave rise to a partially-written emotional introspection, albeit with a hopeful ending.
Sadly, neither will happen here. Instead, please find a simple, and somewhat formalised, comment on recent events. Please don’t view the style as detached and uncaring; rather, view it as a necessary separation from extremely sorrowful events.
I regret to inform you that our newfound kitten, to be known as Tuesday, died Thursday morning, July 13, around 9:30 a.m. She was rescued from our back sidewalk on the previous Tuesday evening before 7:30 p.m. She had been abandoned by her mother, was about 2-4 weeks old, and was nothing but skin and bones. Despite our nest efforts, we could not save her from her circumstances.
Tuesday’s Child is terribly thin, Facing too many odds to possibly win. Wednesday’s kitty seemed full of hope, Yet was too tiny to truly cope. Thursday’s Baby seemed okay, But Death would soon come her way.
Well, dang, after being locked out of my blog for years, somebody makes a comment, and suddenly, the gates open up! I’d say Hallelujah, but I’ve got a rotten cold and have lost my voice, so I’ll jus type Hallelujah. Hallelujah!
See? Told ya I’d type Hallelujah! (No, I haven’t changed a bit. Yes, I’m still freakin’ nuts. Good for me, bad for you, so take cover!) 😀
I’ll do a longer post tomorrow, bring y’all up to speed. Until then, thanks to new buddy MI6 for getting the doors open, and welcome back!
Lord, I thank you for another at-bat,
Before I lay down my head.
Perhaps tomorrow won't be a strike-out.
Maybe a single or double instead.
I'm down in the very bottom of the seventh,
And batting way below .318
I still keep swinging best as I can,
Though a home-run I doubt will be seen.
But I still have a bit of life to go
Before this whole game is through.
I still hope to go on the road to Chi-town
And see Wrigley a time or two.
So Lord, please hear my baseball prayer,
Before I go to sleep 'neath the loam.
Let me hear the crack of ball and bat
And arrive, at the end, safe at home.
What you get when a homesick Chicagoan is watching Ken Burns' baseball documentary.😉
Where were you, when the water came,
And took it all away?
What did you see, when the water came,
And rendered our world all gone?
Where have you been, since the water came?
Rebuilding day by day.
Where will you be, when the water comes?
Right here.
Forever.
Home.
For all those, here and gone, who experienced the Tohoku Earthquake and the Fukushima tsunami.
(Note: This is about Hell, the religious place, not the town of Hell, Michigan. You know, the one just down the road from Climax. Which, yes, can be reached directly from Intercourse, Pennsylvania. The fact that Intercourse leads to Climax and then to Hell is a topic I will let wiser people debate. And now we return you to your regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.)
… and then just plug it in. Voila! You have now created your own cold fusion generator, and can enjoy decades of free electricity. But I digress.
I was watching a Tex Avery toon yesterday (something I highly recommend), when I took especial notice of a refrigerator in the background. It bore the name “Coldernell”, a typical Tex pun (“Colder Than Hell”), but it got me thinking. Always a dangerous event, but go with me here.
“It’s Hotter Than Hell” is an exclamation heard only slightly more than “It’s Colder Than Hell”. It’s hard as Hell, easy as Hell, tall, short, long, complicated, easy … Hell is all these things, all at the same time. What the hey? How crazy is this place? I mean. how does Satan dress? Fur coat and bikini briefs? No wonder it’s a place to avoid. You never know how to handle things from one moment to the next.
So behave yourself, or you may end up in a place both hot and cold, tall and short, and many other dichotomies all at once! 😈
(Sits here grinning, letting the readers wonder that the HELL he’s gonna talk about.)
I know I promised you guys a brief history of my past 3 years while I was MIA, but the more I tried to write something, the more I realised it would just be me crabbing about things going wrong. And who the heck needs that, when the whole bloody WORLD has been about things going wrong for a year-plus. So instead, I’m gonna try to give you updates about my world from a humourous point of view – or more accurately, views of my world through my twisted point of view.
New Neighbours – Yep, we’ve got a new set across the drive from us. Number 11, if I count correctly, in the roughly 14 years we’ve been here – and the house has spent almost 5 years of that time empty. (I guess I’m hard on child-molesting, wife-beating, perennially-drunk rednecks.) Hubby of new family is an African-American. (Sorry, I’m gonna be a bit non-PC and just say “black”. My fat fingers can’t handle all those letters. My apologies to all.) Hubby needs a car, even though he’s unemployed. You know, cigarette and beer runs to our version of a Kwik-E-Mart – the old Fresno schoolhouse. (Yep, we turn schools into 7-11s.) So does hubby get a fuel-efficient little Honda or some such? No, he gets a rear-wheel drive Dodge Ram with a V-8 in write-me-a-ticket Red with silver lightning bolts down both sides. A black guy, in Trump country, unemployed, on beer runs, in a screaming red muscle-car substitute. Welcome to Fresno, Ohio, where subtlety is as common as a college degree. (Sigh.)
Culture – We have a bookmobile that visits our area, coming in from the BIG town of Coshocton. (Go ahead, try to find it on a map. Use a magnifying glass – you’ll need it!) It’s actually kinda cool, using an old bus from the 1950s. They used to stop right across the street from us, which made sense as there are several families with kids around us. But now they make only one stop in Fresno. Where? At the old, closed schoolhouse-turned-Kwik-E-Mart. I guess an adult buying beer and smokes might need a copy of Dr. Seuss or Clifford. (Sigh * 2.)
Fresno Schoolhouse, From Wikipedia
Infrastructure – About 5 years ago, we finally got sewers out here, to replace our pain-in-the-butt septic tanks. Mind you, we still pull water out of the ground through wells at each house, but we take the waste water and ship it off to the next town. (West Lafayette, and before you ask, there is no Lafayette, North Lafayette, East Lafayette, or South Lafayette.) Anyway, they had to tear up the street out in front, that had last been paved decades ago but was in good shape. The township swore the plumbing company would repave the road. So in they came, ripping up whole blocks and screwing the locals over for just shy of a full year. Then, because they were running behind schedule and were running into winter, they hastily repaved the road and vanished. Now, there are numerous potholes, huge cracks, and one side of the road is at a different level than the other – sometimes higher, sometimes lower. Oh, and when they hooked up our sewer lines, they filled the old septic tanks with concrete so we couldn’t reuse them. So now, or shit tanks are well paved, and our roads are paved like shit. (Sigh Cubed)
So that’s a little insight into country living. Next time, I’ll tell you about the Amish around here – the greatest rules lawyers on the face of the earth! (I’ll explain that term, too, so don’t worry.) See ya soon!
Just a quick one here, folks. I’m so exhausted answering the thousands … um, hundreds? …. dozens? … Okay, okay, the less than 6 responses! (How many? A gentleman never tells – and I won’t, either. :p ) I’ll try to give you a quick overview of the last few years, including the loss of 3 of our cat collection. Yes, fate has not been kind. But I’ll try not to be too maudlin, just hit the highlights … well, more like lowlights of my absence.
So stay tuned, and stay patient for just a little bit longer. The voices are screaming to let their lunacy out, and I’m not sure how long I can keep ’em restrained……..
Hey Ho! It’s me again! Nope, not dead (though it was close a year ago thanks to Covid), not off to my homeworld (just a brief vacay before I came back to DiseaseWorld), but back here to terrorise and amuse, not necessarily in that order.
A Windy City boy, lost in rural Ohio, just shooting the breeze.
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