Harassed

This morning Randi and Earl were harassed by two crows.  I was rearranging my Pinterest boards when I heard an inordinate amount of crow squawking and so I left my boards and exited the building to investigate.  The squawking was so intense that I was sure my backyard had been transformed into Farmer McCall's farm and that Thomas the Train was going to show up to shoo away all of the crows like he does in Thomas' Muddy Matters DVD.  Alas, my backyard had not been transformed and what I did see was Randi staring curiously up into the pine tree where two crows were very busy squawking and throwing sticks down at Randi.  The two were viciously ripping apart my pine tree and then tossing the sticks and needles onto Randi's head.  She didn't care and neither did I because I hate the pine tree. During this time Earl paced anxiously a bit farther away.  I was just about to go inside when the crows took off and it was immediately apparent that one of the crows was injured and because of his injury was unable to fly very high off the ground.  You can imagine how Randi and Earl felt about that.  The crow managed to get himself up onto the electric wire behind the house, but then swooped down again; this time so close I lost my breath and Earl got so scared he ran into the house to hide.

One time Clark and Sarah attacked a crow in the Little Backyard and maimed it.  Clark had crow feathers in his mouth.  It happened so fast I can't even say how it happened.  I do know that the crow couldn't fly away and was unresponsive to any of the options I tried to provide it.  (I mostly tried to get it to hop on a shovel so I could put it in the front yard.)  I called my dad and when I told him that there was a maimed crow in the backyard he said, "Ok.  Here's what you need to do.  You need to get a shovel.  And then hit it over the head and kill it."  I don't remember exactly how I responded to that solution, but I'm pretty sure it involved screaming.  In the end I just left the crow in the backyard;  his crow cronies were circling around and making me nervous and I had to be somewhere.  A couple of days later the neighbors called animal control when the crow managed to get into their yard.  If I'd known that was an option I would have done that myself.

This morning's crow harassment was all after Earl pulled a dirty, dirty move this morning.  He got up off the rug, cried at the door and so I got myself up out of bed and opened the door for him.  When I got back to my room he had swooped in on my spot on the bed.  Trickery.  And I fell for it.


Wednesday after gymnastics me, my dad and Max took the cart out to see the pigs before they went off to the fair this weekend.  There may have been some disappointment because there were no cows, but to be fair every time some screamed "moo- cow" I responded with, "No moo-cows; just hamburger now."  The entire way back from gymnastics was filled with "Moo-cow!  Grandpa. Pig!  Grandpa.  Oink. Oink.  Grandpa! Grandpa. Pig.  Moo-cow."  We also saw some chickens and sheep, but the best part was the pig on a diet.  I think it's safe to say your weight is out of control if you're a pig on a diet.

The desert is beautiful.

New Shelter Policy

To:  Shelter Members

RE:  Mandatory Outside Time

It has come to the Shelter's attention that certain members are spending too much time inside.  Therefore, during the shelter director's convalescence all members will be required to participate in Mandatory Outside Time sometimes refereed to as Mandatory Alone Time in an effort to balance domestic bliss.  Mandatory Outside Time will start at the director's discretion and will be of variable lengths.  A reminder that Mandatory Outside Time is mandatory and all members must participate at the same time.  If you have any questions, please see your union rep.

Earl Demands We Switch Vets

Weight News

Yesterday when my dad showed up to take me to the doctor he said in a grave voice, "I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but it doesn't look like the diet's working.  Randi looks bigger....quite a bit bigger."  I would have tried to cover her ears, but that would have caused muscle spasms so I crooned, "Oh Randi, he just called you fat."  No dummy, my dad responded, "No, no I didn't.  I just said she looks bigger."  I think he's right.  I think Randi is bigger, but I'm not sure what else to do about it.

In other weight news, I did a major rookie move at the doctor's yesterday.  I got on the scale and it showed quite a bit heavier.  I said, "That's not right!  Not right."  The nurse didn't really care.  Then I realized I had weighed myself wearing my purse, shoes, and heavy coat!  I was kind of loopie so I asked if I could weight my purse to see how much I really weighed.  The nurse was said no, I could take off my purse and re-weigh myself, but that seemed like a lot of work so I opted to imagine my purse weighed 8 pounds.

Randi as a bolster pillow Saturday night.

Shila in her I'm most comfortable position

Side view of the most comfortable position

What I was cleaning up when I hurt myself

I don't know how this dog could be any cuter

Proof that everyone was discombobled Sunday because normally Jessica is not a dog magnet.

How my dad did dishes yesterday

That In Which the Hapless Heroine Gets A Week Off Of Work

Last week I feeling a little overwhelmed by the fact that I was running every where and didn't have time to do anything and I haven't been home in what seemed like weeks.  It was so bad that on Wednesday, after having been up at 1:30am stressed about how I was going to get everything done, I cancelled my college class because I thought, I just can't do that today too.

Saturday I walked 8.25 miles - six minutes faster than I had a month ago.  I planted my garden (though I didn't put in the water system because I was tired) and I watched a movie and stressed out because I didn't think I'd be able to finish my book before the library was going to take it back.

Sunday morning I got up, made coffee, started a load of laundry when I noticed that suds were coming out of the washer everywhere.  I quickly grabbed a towel and got down on the floor to mop it up when my back collapsed.  That's the best word.  It went from straight to concave.  I screamed.  Randi and Earl came running.  I yelled some more.  Randi licked my face.  I tried to get up.  Earl licked my face.  I finally managed to get myself in a seated position and tried to reach for my phone, but that didn't work.  Randi and Earl continued the licking.  Eventually I was able to get up and get in a chair and I called Sara and Bill and told them that I wasn't going to be walking.  Then I hobbled to my room where I took a muscle relaxer and pain pill and called my dad and asked for some help.

My mom promptly came over and exercised her tried and true method of non-stop talking until you submit to whatever she wants.   She got my walker out of the garage so that I could at least get around some.  I couldn't even stand up without it yesterday.  I screamed and grunted every time I had to get up or out of bed.  I took more pain pills.  My mom talked about calling an ambulance.  I said, "No."  The dogs proceeded to be the four most annoying dogs in the world.  Unsure of what was going on, they paced, jumped, demanded to be outside on a rotating basis; so as soon as someone would sit down the next one would be at the door wanting out.  My mom insisted I have a babysitter while she went to dinner with her friends and Sara and Jessica came over to babysit me and then my mom came back and spent the night with me in case I fell out of the bed.  That could have been possible, but with the muscle relaxer and pain pill combo, there's no moving at all.

This morning my dad took me to the doctor, where I could at least walk around without the walker and the doctor said pretty much that the monkeys had been too active jumping on the bed and I had hurt myself.  No, duh.  I had an X-ray that showed that nothing was wrong with the gigantor pins and bolts in my back.  She gave me more pain medicine, a shot for pain and swelling, a prescription for prednisone and an off work notice for one week.

The good news is that I didn't do anything to my back and I'll definitely be home enough to finish my book before it needs to go back to the library.  No way I could drive right now.  First, I'm all doped up on pain meds and second, my back is still cramping.  I'm moving a lot better today than I was yesterday, but I still look like I belong in the geriatric wing of my house.  The bad news is, well, there's quite a bit of pain involved, but that's about all the bad I can come up with.  I'm not sad about having an unexpected guilt free week from both my jobs.  Sure, I'd rather not be grimacing in pain every time I move, but I'll take it.

Two, Deux, Dos

Last week Max turned two!  Yea Max!!  To say Max's birthday was a fucking disaster would not be exaggerating.  It was a damn miserable day.  My parents did their best and purchased everything online and at Toys R Us that was within two years of being age appropriate including but limited to:  a 4x4 truck, a basketball hoop, a bike (that they gave him a month ago because they couldn't stand it) and everything Thomas the Train available.  I didn't even want to get the Little Guy anything.  I said "Dad, it's too much."  He said, "It can never be too much."  While opening presents most of the adults in the room tried to pretend that we were having a good time, but that degenerated into hysterical screaming when my mom put the Thomas the Train cake on the table and Max couldn't have the "choo-choos."  Hysterical screaming became full-blown hysterical crying when the birthday boy accidentally stuck his fingers in his cake and scared himself during the birthday song.  After that the whole evening just degenerated into screaming.  Happy fucking Birthday.

Beep- Beep

Doing as good as the Lakers

Distraught over the cake

Happy about his Thomas the Train backpack.

With Aunt Beth who is now blond.

The second part of the birthday week was going to the train museum at Griffith park.  My dad thought it was funny, funny, funny that he was taking me to the train museum, since I have been vocal about how boring I think trains are.  At the train museum, I looked around and said, "Yup, trains are boring." While looking around I noticed that all of the visitors to the train museum happened to have a Y chromosome. One dad walked his daughter up to the model train display where the toddlers were overcome with joy at watching the model trains and said to her, "Do you want to look at the trains?"  And she yelled, "NO!" And walked away.  I thought, you go girl!  Max had a great time and learned to say "All aboard!" but I stand by my original assertion that trains are fucking boring.

All Aboard

A dog a guy tied up.  Not gonna lie, I kinda like this picture.

Choo-choo

Friendly Subterfuge

I've spent a large portion of my time the past couple of weeks doing things without people knowing.  The first was having the handymen come over and work in my parents' backyard while they were gone.  It happened like this:  I went to my mom and dad's house to spend some quality time visiting and instead what I got was a laundry list of things that had to be done in the backyard before they could put up the new pool.  This laundry list of items was interspersed with arguing, bossiness and left me feeling like, "Why did I come over here?"  I hate when my parents argue.  So I came to an executive adult decision and started asking my mother a thousand questions about what exactly she wanted done and then as soon as they left I met the handymen at the house and I said, "This is what needs to be done."  So they did it.  I had to sit at my parents' house for two and half days, but I did get the wireless on my dad's TV set up and I didn't kill myself (surprisingly) in my mother's (not) hoarder sewing room.  (Not to be confused with the quilting room, or the damn sewing corner in the living room.)  My mom has so much crap in her rooms you can't even turn around without tripping over something.  I told my dad he needs to put his foot down and institute a get one, get rid of one policy for her.

On Wednesday before I went to my meeting where I was sure I was going to need to find my happy place, Bill and I went for a five mile walk.  I had to walk five miles as part of my 1/2 marathon training, which is going pretty good, in that I've been getting up and going to the gym once a week and making sure I'm exercising and yesterday Sara and I walked 10 miles.  Anyways, we were walking and I yelled, "Bill what is that!?" and pointed and Bill turned around, looked and said matter of factly: "Yeah, that's two moth's having sex."  Right there on the trail.

Look closely.

This is the note I left my parents for a surprise.  

In between sitting at my parents' house, me and Earl did some partner yoga.

 Clark was certified by quality control.

Shila moves her bed into the hallway in her sleep

Me and my main man with the pillow Jessica made me for my birthday!

 Yesterday on our 10 mile walk Sara and I found a skeleton.  I don't know what it was.