Fleetingly Carol

Ah! Love is in the air! Happy St. Valentine Day, Dear Reader. I hope your day was filled with more amour than mine. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm having a great day, but, you see, Old Man isn't home right now. He's working at his very difficult job in his cozy warm office. I'm at home minding the dogs. It all started a couple of months ago. You all know about Girlie-girl, our little black dog who lives in the house. Well, we also have a very big, very black, dog who looks like she is a very mean, eat-you-alive dog in the backyard. I have asked and asked Old Man to get rid of the dog, but, just like a man, he won't listen. I am afraid for the burglar who gains entry to our backyard with the intentions of entering the house through a window will be terrorized and possibly do himself harm trying to get back over the fence when he sees Lady the sad fact is that if the burglar will just be still and let Lady sniff him, he'll have a new best friend who will show h

I know you enjoyed "Fleeting Waterworks Revisited" that I wrote a few days ago. I know because I laughed out loud as I wrote it, so you had to enjoy it. At least that's what I thought at the time. I posted a link on that ubiquitous social networking site that everyone uses to keep up with family, neighbors. You know, the one that took over the gossip across the backyard fence. It's wonderful to keep up with faraway family. I thought it would also be a great place to share with some 'friends' the link to my latest blog. I went to my page, wrote an inviting small paragraph that ended with the link to the latest blog. Then, I did as any good blogger would do, I waited at the stats page to watch the number of hits climb. Only, they didn't. Not one jot. I closed Blogger and went to wash the evening dishes, brush my teeth, and generally wound down for the evening. Of course, before hitting the sack I had to check in the stats page again. I mean, someone mu

Beauty relief (as opposed to comic relief) If you have not had the opportunity to read Fleeting Waterworks, you should do that right now. It will be necessary in understanding Fleeting Waterworks Revisited. Go ahead. I'll wait. La dee da da. La dee da. La dee da  ^da^  da dee da da da. Are you finished already? Ok, let's go. As you can see, I have weak, um, er, pipes. Oh, the trouble this causes. Have you ever been talking to someone and they suddenly cut the conversation and disappear? You thought you had said something to offend, didn't you? Well, dear Reader, I can assure that the most likely cause of the sudden departure was a weak floor. I have the very bad habit of waiting until it is almost too late before I get up to do anything about the overflow. I like to get things done in as timely manner as possible. When I stand up to use the facilities, I also like to have a plan of further action that makes it worth getting up from my comfortable chair. The

What would you do without water? I mean, what if the water utility turned the water off to your home? What would you do? That's what happened at my work last week. The city was doing some work on the infrastructure and had to turn the water off to our side of the street. Thankfully, the water was still on in the building across the street. Dear Reader, just in case you have not guessed yet, I am of an age where a working restroom is critical to my wellbeing. I tried drinking very little, but I drank two cups of coffee before going to work, not realizing relief was going to be so fleeting. Then it happened: the Urge. I stepped out the back door, no one was around. Squeezing muscles as tightly as I might, I began to put one foot in front of another.  The steep steps down the loading dock proved to be a challenge.  Try this, Dear Reader, find a set of steps, squeeze your buttocks tightly and step down. You cannot keep that hold. Go ahead, try it. I successfully navigated the s

Practice makes perfect. That's what they always told me. So, to write better, I must write, write, and write some more. This blog has been here for two reasons. The first was that I needed to do something light-hearted to get through the seriousness of life. I've written about some of the difficult times - Aunt Mildred, Super-Girl, Old Man's Dad. I've tried to tell the stories with a bit of humor to take the edge off whatever was bothering me at the time. It has been successful. Many people like my Old Man stories. Some are made up, some are not. The second is to practice my writing. As I read over the previous paragraph, I see too many short sentences. Did I graduate first grade yet? It's been a couple of years since I wrote anything. I plan to get back to it. I'll try to write a little every day in the hopes that my writing will improve. If you would like to help out, in the comments below please let me know what you would like to read about. Thanks

"The hardest part was yet to come." It's been a while since I checked in. I hope everything is well with you, Dear Reader. Things seem to be calming down in our little corner of the world. "The hardest part" that was "yet to come" has come and gone. And Princess and I have been busy ever since. Old Man, Younger Son and Awesome Grandson made certain that Princess was safe that awful night. The next morning, I went out to the dog run to see how Princess was doing. Since the storm was gone, she was considerably more calm. She allowed me to check the pads on her front paws. Everything checked out alright. Then, I couldn't help it, Dear Readers, but I fussed and fussed and fussed, then hugged and petted the poor puppy. Wagging tail, licking tongue, wiggling body all told me that the fear from last night was gone. I put the leash on her, and she was so very happy as we exited her pen and began to run. The first task is to teach her to behave

The Devil had passed, but not Princess’ memory of him. She stayed with the shakes, like the DTs. She shook so violently inside the crate, I was afraid for her.  The wild dog came out in her as we tried to approach the crate to check on her wounds. We couldn’t open it for fear that she would escape and try to dig a hole in the floor or couch again. Old Man and I decided it was time to call Eldest Son. He told us that if we couldn’t keep her, call him. We couldn't and we did. Eldest Son had just lost his job, his car was repossessed and was in no way able to come to our aid. He lived several states away. We talked and we cried. We came up with this solution and that solution, but none were acceptable. He finally said the most feared words, words that I knew were coming, but didn’t want to accept. He had a friend who practiced veterinary medicine and who lived close to us. Eldest Son said he would make the call. As we were talking, Eldest Son was on speaker-phone so Old Man cou