Bad Girl Kryptonite

Randi got unadopted because she was Bad Girl. In January of 2008, after her near death experience with Earl when they tried to kill each other attatched to a lead, Steff and Pete found a home for Randi. She got adopted to a family with a house on five acres near Fallbrook. It had a lake. It had other dogs. When Randi left Steff said, "If she messes this up she's got rocks for brain."

Scan of Randi's brain.

Randi messed it up. While Clark, Sarah, Earl and I were enjoying a peaceful weekend and imagining our lives as a family of only four, Randi was jumping over fences and knocking down old women. When I went to school, Pete said, "They're bringing her back." And when I got home Randi was once again in the backyard. I think she wanted to get back to Earl. I think she was like, "Man, Earl, you shoulda seen this place. It was the best vacation ever! Next time you have to go!"

I start every morning by reminding Randi that she got unadopted because she was Bad Girl. I say, "Who got unadopted because she was Bad Girl?? Randi. Randi got unadopted because she was Bad Girl." Or "Randi, did you get unadopted? You did get unadopted because you were Bad Girl. Who didn't get unadopted? Earl. Sarah. Clark." Pete says that unadoption happens occasionally, but I think he's just being nice, because who gets unadopted? Anyways, Randi was Bad Girl again yesterday, first by running amok in the house so she was forced to sit outside by herself and then by jumping up on Pete and knocking the three duck eggs he was holding onto the patio.

On the plus side, I think I may have discovered the secret to keeping Randi calm. Or she discovered the secret. She got herself tangled up in the vacuum cleaner cord, again, last night. Only this time it was just loosely hanging around her neck. I couldn't figure out why she was being so calm or why she was staying in the hallway. When my curiosity finally got the better of me, I discovered the cord hanging around her neck. NOTE: She was not in any danger of being strangled. It was barely touching her neck, but it was enough. I may place the vacuum cleaner cord around her more often.

Blame

It just occurred to me that as an educator in this region, I must be partly to blame for the fact that no one seems to know how to spell. Really, if we educators were doing our job properly would it be this bad? (I'd like to think that all these goofballs graduated from GHHS, or VVHS. Surely.) Irregardless, I will consider beginning all French classes with English spelling and grammar lessons. The kind where the sentence starts with irregardless and the students have to figure out what's wrong with it.

Diagnosis Please

What really gets me about this form I had to fill out is how many people had to read through this legal mumble jumbo before it went to print. I did the only thing any respectable person would do. I crossed it out and fixed it. (After seeing they couldn't even spell correctly, I most definitely did not agree to neutral arbitration.)

X-ray of my back

If I could figure out how to get the images from the MRI off the disc they gave me I'd post that too. If you can spell and use words correctly 13.2% of the time then you are qualified to diagnose what is wrong with my back. Just let me know where to send my co-pay.

Physical Therapy

I went to my first physical therapy appointment today. I've felt very little confidence since leaving my P.A. and being referred to the neurologist for my arthritis. My first appointment there was at 8:00am. I arrived at 7:45, but the doctor's office didn't open until 8:00am. I didn't understand how anyone could be on time for an 8:00am appointment when the office hadn't even opened yet. Then the girl in the front office wrote me a card that said my appointment was on "WEND 9:00am." Seriously, if your front officer person doesn't know how to abbreviate WED, confidence is not projected. I mean really. I hate to be the grammar police, but come on! I could understand if you were going to write out Wednesday and were unable to get all the letters in the proper order. It's a difficult word; I don't teach elementary school, but I'm sure it's at least third, fourth grade level which not everyone reaches. But for God's sake, WEND?? Then when I went for my EMG, the doctor, (or whoever) didn't introduce himself and poked me with needles and left me in the room when I thought I was going to faint. So I went to my first physical therapy appointment with trepidation. My appointment was at 10:00am. I got there at 9:45 am. At 10:15 the front office girl made a phone call and said, "I'm just wondering where you are because both of your new patients are here." I became concerned and annoyed and very thankful I had brought a book. Also, the girls in the office referred to her as "She." As in, "She wanted it like that. She said no." At 10:25 a lady showed up, and said "Thompson?" Didn't introduce herself. Didn't call me by name. Asked me what I was seeing her for and without looking at my paperwork, She proceeded to tell me what was wrong with my back. Scoliosis and which exercises to do and that I should join a gym and lose weight and get some exercise and take brisk walks. If I'd had feeling in my leg, I might have kicked her in the head. I am particularly sensitive to the assumption that I don't get any exercise, because though I know I look like I just sit around and shovel in the bear claws three at a time, I'm pretty darn active. (I wanted to yell, "Yesterday I biked 18 miles, ran a mile, lifted weights, swam and did yoga, how much more fucking exercise do I need?" And so then I was just pissed. I said, rather harshly, "I can't walk! I can't walk from here to the street without my leg going numb!" She said, "Blah, blah, blah, blah" and had some other girl show me some exercises I already do. I was done with physical therapy at that point and had to exercise my be courteous and polite skills, which involves me not talking at all and answering in one word grunts, so as not to be obnoxious. Why should I pay $10 to go do something I can do at my house? Then I had to spend another hour on the phone trying to get a referral to a different physical therapist and my MRI arranged which is WEND @ 12:30.

Also, there was a rather nasty verbal altercation in the Little Backyard this afternoon. I intercede moments before, I believe, the head bobbing would have resulted in UFC Deux- Uncaged and Free Range. What the heck could they be fighting about?

Randi being Randi in all her Randi-ness.

FYI

Do not enter into a staring contest with a duck. They don't blink and you will lose. (No alcohol involved.)

Voir Dire- French for my cash cow

It has became increasing clear that without mood enhancers/pain killers I would be incapable of finishing this jury Powerpoint for the Big Guy with both of my eyes still intact. Since I was out of gin, I tried to get Earl to give up the location of his pot stash. He would not. I tried to tickle it out of him, since he is highly ticklish. (All dogs have the special spot on their belly, but Earl is ticklish everywhere. On his nose, behind his ears, the pads of his feet. In fact I suspect he chews on his feet so much because he likes tickling himself while he does it.) I'd have waved cash in his face, but I didn't have any and he went back to sleep, so I gave up and went to Wal-Mart thinking I could get some alcohol there. Turns out the hard liquor is sold in the same aisle as the school supplies. Quite convenient, but apparently lots of people have Powerpoints to work on because Wal-Mart was out of gin. I did get some at the grocery store, 750 ml, which should get me through 119 slides. God, I hope.

I told the Big Guy that I'm going to turn this into a money maker by printing all the Batson-Watson-Wilson Rules onto a 3x5 card that I will sell outside the courthouse to potential jurors who wish to shirk their civic and constitutional duties. I didn't tell him that once I make my millions I would buy him a new motor home. I want it to be a surprise. My other scheme is to get the Big Guy to take me to the conference as his "assistant" to help him. In exchange he can buy all my dinners and gin and tonics and introduce me to all of the single lawyers there. I'm sure he will see that it is a win-win situation for him. No one will know he didn't do his own Powerpoint and my mom will get to make a wedding dress.

Quasimodo

In a turn of events, today, I am the damn disaster. Last night I whacked my knee on the coffee table letting Earl out so he could bark at nothing. Today my knee is swollen to the point of limited motion and just the thought of bike riding is painful. On top of that, my arthritis, or bulging disc, or herniated disc or old age has reduced me to a hunchback that can't sit or lay comfortably. I am a limping hunchback with the only thing to look forward to is a long day of formatting my dad's jury Powerpoint. (An upside is now I can tell people exactly what to do to not get picked for a jury.)

Incredible

Last night I finished The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. This guy. Once you get to the part where he actually starts to construct the windmill... I don't even have the words to describe his innovation. I mean, he has no drill, so he uses a nail attached to a corn that he heats up on his mom's stove. He digs up PVC pipe from the latrine, heats it up, then pounds it flat for the blades. All based on descriptions he had read in a book and figured out himself. I was overwhelmed by all the descriptions of circuit breakers and AC/DC, which is pretty much like reading blah, blah, blah, blah, blah to me. But geez louise, look at this guy's windmill. All so he could have a little light in his house and try to save his family from famine. Inspirational.

UFC- Duck Style

Ok, so when I first walked to the door, I saw EDub jump on top of PDub and pretty much crush her. I tried to take a good photo, but the settings were set to portrait because I was earlier trying to take portraits of Randi and Earl, which subsequently turned out not to be the right settings to capture the incredible duck chick fight in my backyard. Then PDub got the upper hold, or in UFC-speak "mounted" EDub, and put her in a "submission" hold, which is what the video is. I don't know why they were fighting. I don't know what this means in duck behavior. I don't know if I need to get an octagon and start charging. I. Don't. Know. It's a freaking zoo around here.




While UFC was going on in the Little Backyard, me and my dad spent some quality time working on his "Jury Selection: How to Pick a Winning Jury" Powerpoint for his presentation at the State Bar Conference in September. I told him I'd help him because like, iTunes, my dad has no working knowledge of Powerpoint and I said, "Big Guy, you can not do a presentation and not have a Powerpoint." Me helping him consisted of him telling me what to copy and paste from a very long document and me throwing myself around whining "Arghhhh, this is so boring!" or "Arghhh, that doesn't make sense!" or "Arghhhh, that's not grammatically correct! Didn't you lawyer people have a grammar class in law school?" or "Hey, let's look on Youtube for a funny lawyer video!" and my dad saying, "Will you concentrate," or "Get off of Youtube," or "Clark get off of me," and ending with "How about I just highlight what I want and you do this tomorrow." We both agreed on the last one, because I was ready to poke my eyes out with sewing scissors and seam rippers.

I have to work on formatting the Jury Selection Powerpoint tomorrow because one of my pet peeves is when things are not ordered or formatted properly and consistently. Like if you are going to use bullets in one part of something then the next thing of equal value should have bullets or if you have text that is two different fonts for no reason. I can't stand that. I am, according to the Jury Selection guidelines, a linear thinker and would be good for a prosecution oriented jury, but not a defense oriented one. I never get picked for juries anyways because as the last time I went to jury duty, my dad was the boss of the public defender. It's also a plus that I know so many people from my many looooong years coaching mock trial. Don't think I don't drop the Big Guy's name, title and shoe size, when it comes time for jury duty. I'll drop some big time names over in the Victorville Courthouse if need be.

(You can read some of the jury related humor that got vetoed from the Jury Selection Powerpoint, by clicking here.)

White Trash Name with High Class Tastes

While I was outside super excited because I had two duck eggs instead of one, Earl helped himself to the Parmesan cheese can on the counter. I walked in and saw this. I know I should be horrified, but I'm more like wow, how'd he manage to get the lid off? Next time I need help getting something open I'm calling for this guy. I'm waiting for him to get his nose stuck in it because I think that will be good times.

Shampoo and Air Dry

Not animal cruelty.

Noose

Pictures of the second time I caught Randi tangled up in the vacuum cord this week. Questions:

1. How does this happen?
2. Do I need to worry about her mental health?
3. If she gets caught and wrestles with the cord will she pull it out of the wall before she rips it from the vacuum cleaner?
4. Was Sarah involved in this shenanigan? And how?
   
5. Really?
   

Happy Anniversary!

In honor of EDub and PDub's one year anniversary at the Saratoga Animal Shelter, I scrapbooked a page about it because there are not many pages in the scrapbooking magazines about people's ducks. Kids, dogs, husbands, kids, boyfriends, kids, cats, dads, kids, moms, friends, kids, scraprooms, other people's kids, vacations, vacations with kids, but not so many examples with ducks.

Breakup

I'm breaking up with my imaginary boyfriend. Apparently he's been seeing someone else and wrote about it here. Bastard. I'm sure I can get another imaginary boyfriend pretty soon. I'm burning all the photos he's not in.

Sarah's Tweets

3:58am
@SarahAtSaratoga #Earl woke me up. I was dreaming about a house full of men.

6:57am
@SarahAtSaratoga Why am I always the last one to get a fucking bone around here?

8:13am
@SarahAtSaratoga Taking refuge under the deck. #R&E playing. I moved some barbed wire in their way. They're 2 stupid to notice.

8:20am
@SarahAtSaratoga #R&E looking down on me. Need to show them where to dig out so they'll be gone. 2 stupid to figure it out themselves. They still think the fence is electrified.

9:00am
@SarahAtSaratoga Moved to the garage. The mice don't look at me.

12:10pm
@SarahAtSaratoga Is it 2 much 2 ask that someone fucking tell me when she gets home so I can sit inside instead of in this crazy ass hot garage?

3:23pm
@SarahAtSaratoga More stinking Tour de France. This is why I never leave the bedroom.

7:12pm
@SarahAtSaratoga I can't get a signal when I hold this bullshit phone. I'll bite S. Jobs' balls if I ever see him even if he is a man.

Supernatural

I swear on my stack of Mount Everest books that Sarah can see through walls. Here's what happened: Sarah started barking outside. I got up to go let her in and when I got to the living room, I found Earl, standing, facing the door, staring at god knows what because he looked stoned. Sarah, outside, could obviously see through the door and was doing the "Stop looking at me!" bark. I let her in and then Randi followed her from room to room for about five minutes while Sarah did the "Stop following me!" bark, which is a homophone for the "Stop looking at me!" bark.

I googled "Can zombies see through walls?" which has so far been inconclusive; though I have learned how to protect my home in case of a zombie invasion. Click here to find out how to protect your home. Don't be caught unprepared.

Comparison

The Crazy Zombie Eyes on True Blood

Sarah's eyes.

I'm just saying that there's a striking resemblance. Is Sarah a zombie? I hope not because I do not want her to slice my chest open and cut out my heart and then cook it up in a soufflé. Nevertheless, I have taken precautions like putting the knives up where she can't reach them, not having a soufflé pan and finishing season two of True Blood so I don't have to think about zombies or vampires anymore.

It is more than likely that I will miss the final game in World Cup Soccer tomorrow to go fabric shopping with my mother. "But it's the World Cup," would in no way be accepted as an excuse or even a reasonable utterance for something as simple as "Why didn't you get the mail yet?", let alone something as serious as fabric shopping. Yes, I have a DVR, but I feel like I am going to be failing all of FIFA, not to mention the entire world by not watching it live with everyone else because I have been a World Cup Soccer match trooper. I may have missed two, three games in group play. I feel like a quitter. I doubt they will be broadcasting the game live from M&L Discount Fabrics. I may have to resort to trying to stream it live on my phone and let's just be honest, I'm not that kind of soccer fan. I'm still going with The Netherlands because they have better hair. Do they not have a Supercuts in Spain because they have some of the worst hair in all of World Cup Soccer.

Continued Assaults on the Morale of the Saratoga Animal Shelter

The ducks continue to live sans someone trying to lick and possibly eat them, but I only have enough gin for one more weak gin and tonic. Send reinforcements now.

Asshole

First, the ducks are fine. Second, it seems my fears that the crimes in the Little Backyard were related to mischief in the Backyard may be founded in truth. This evening as I was sitting down to watch my fourth episode of True Blood today, I heard Earl crying and some odd noises, so I jumped up and found Randi running amok in the Little Backyard. It took some yelling and chasing and nearly tearing off my nails to catch her and then I threw her back out and watched her try to scale the fence again. This is only a problem because the fence is not currently electrified due to the fact that the weeds touch the wires and then short it out. I've not had it plugged in in months. And since I've spent way more time watching True Blood and other things than working on the weeds I had to hurry up and quick make a plan. In the space of about 15 minutes I speed weeded the area that separates the Backyard from the Little Backyard, rewired the gate and fence and plugged in the fence. Then I went and sat on my new used patio furniture and waited for Randi to make her move. She did not. I know the fence is electrified because of a special sensor tool thingy so you don't have to actually touch it and shock yourself because that is not fun. I am concerned for these reasons:

1. When I returned home today with my new used deep seating patio furniture, that is really too big to fit on my ghetto patio, I found a yolk, somewhat gelified on the patio and I thought hmm how did that get there? I figured EDub must have laid an egg after I checked this morning (she was nesting again) and then a crow or something got it. After watching Randi's foray into the Little Backyard I am wondering if maybe she got in there and took the egg. This is only comforting in that if she did she didn't eat the ducks as well. I should mention that even when she was in the Little Backyard she was mostly just running amok and not chasing the ducks and was certainly not eating them.
2. Tomorrow is the only day this month where I have to be anywhere. And by be somewhere I mean, if I don't show up to help my sister move I will surely be disinherited of 30 sewing machines and I can't take those kind of chances. Any other freaking day and it would just be me sitting in my house, alternately sewing, reading, swimming, watching the Tour de France en boucle and wondering when the fuck someone would call me to do something. But no. Now tomorrow I have to worry that I am going to come home to a massacre in the Little Backyard. I did see Randi jump away from part of the fence, so I'm hoping her ass got shocked. She did seem hesitant to try any more mischief.

Beginning tomorrow, I will have to make a better effort to clear my yard of weeds. I was unpleasantly surprised to learn that 8-9:00pm is the perfect time to pull weeds. The wind has died down and it's not hot.

I am annoyed at this new movie Diner for Schmuks with Steve Carell because it is based on the French film Le Dîner des Cons which was fantastic and this new one looks like shit.

WEEEEE!

Me and My Pack (the name of our new rock band) rocked Guitar Hero this afternoon. We only got booed off the stage when I tried the drums, so we stuck to the guitar on Smells Like Teen Spirit. Clark refused to participate. When I put the microphone by him he jumped up like I was going to try to take his temperature with it.

WEED OR FLOWER?

(I chose flower for all, otherwise I'd be obligated to do something about it.)

Cesar Part Deux

Cesar was back over today. I think Clark made some major headway because he didn't start barking at Cesar until he was in the house for at least 15 seconds. What he did do was cower like a little girl and make like he was going to pee because he was so terrified. Then I tossed him outside. Earl made friends with Cesar by trying to be lovey and asking for weed. When Cesar didn't have any he tried to take his shirt while we were swimming. Then they proceeded to be the four most annoying dogs ever. Sarah barked and the other three climbed at the window until I considered shooting them all with my non existent gun that I don't keep in my actual gun closet.

I just witnessed a very nice fireworks show. I guess in Apple Valley the Fourth of July is more of a suggested time frame than an actual date.

Waking Up

When I'm working waking up is a fairly innocuous event. The alarm goes off and four pairs of eyes open up and call bullshit while I get ready and then I throw them out when I leave. Right now since I'm not working there are a couple of ways I wake up.

1. Earl looks at Sarah. This is where I hear some low grumblings, then three sharp barks from Sarah and I yell, "Earl! Stop looking at her!" Then Earl moseys back over to where I am on the bed and lays back down, like "What? I didn't do anything." Sometimes this happens as early as 4:00 am. I don't know why he insists at looking at her while she is sleeping and then pissing her off, but he does.

2. Sarah just starts barking. It's a different bark, than the Earl and Randi are looking at me bark. This is how I woke up this morning. She'll decide she wants out and will start barking for no good reason other than to bark. Then I get up and throw her out, and then three minutes later she barks to be let back in.

Either way, if I want to sleep in it pisses me off. Since I don't have children and according to this Daily Beast article have a .0005% chance of ever having them, I feel like I should be able to sleep in on the very rare occasions when I want. (If I sleep til 7:00, I feel like I've slept in, so it is very rare that I sleep past that anyways.) This morning I was just annoyed because I did want to sleep in and Randi and Earl just wanted to look at Sarah or lick every part of my body that was exposed. Eventually, I just opened the front door so they could all move freely about, hoping that if an intruder came that they would protect me.

Sound Proof

I had to film through the door, so as not to alert them to my snooping. This new noise really is bizarre.

Quackers

If I had to describe the noise that the ducks typically make I would say it is more like "beep, beep, beep" accompanied by aggressive head movement. BUT, this morning the Pack and I were awakened to a different kind of noise. I woke up thinking, "What the hell? Why does it sound like a duck quacking?" And so we got up to go investigate. Clark moved his satellite ear to better capture the sound. Sarah investigated by not getting up because she can't hear anything anyways. Earl conducted a thorough inquiry by chewing on his feet. Randi investigated first by staring at the window in the bathroom and moving her head quizzically, à la dying dinosaur Earl then by jumping up at the window in the door to look outside. I investigated by looking out the window to confirm that yes, indeed, my ducks were making a noise that resembled real duck quacking! EDub and PDub are talking!

I think I lost my library book of Where Min Win Glory. Maybe I left it at the doctor's office. I hope this doesn't get me banned from the Apple Valley Library. I'm not overly distraught because I didn't really like it that much anyway. Too much description of football plays. Ugh. So now I've moved onto Juliet, Naked. Which makes me seem like a speed reader because it has wide margins.