Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

It's that time of year again and we've come to realize our dog Dudley can't stand bells!  Every time a commercial comes on television with bells ringing in the background, he just about falls out of Daddy's lap.  We'll be driving down the road and a Christmas advertisement will come on the radio and he starts barking wildly.  I was taking some Christmas decorations out of a box the other night and came across a string of Christmas bells that hang on the door.  Poor old Duds came running from the other end of the house barking like the house was on fire.

Scarlett, the bloodhound that lives down the road, wears a bell around her neck.  Dudley can hear her coming from a mile away.  And when the neighbors hook up their horses to the wagon for their Sunday country rides, Dudley just about has a complete come-apart when they ride past our house with the bells jangling from their harnesses.  It's all we can do to keep him from busting through the screen door to chase after them.

Last night I had to swing by the grocery store for a few things.  Duds was in the front seat, sound asleep.  I drove by the front of the store in search of a parking space and we passed the Salvation Army bell ringer that was standing at the door greeting everyone.  Dudley shot straight up from a dead sleep barking so loudly that I nearly ran right into the buggy corral.  Good grief!  Scared me half to death.  I had to park the truck as far away from the front of the store as I could, just to get him to stop barking.

Just for meanness, I should tie a jingle bell to his collar and see what he does.  On second thought, I better not.  He'd probably go into convulsions chasing himself around the house!

Thankfully Tuckered Out

We've had a lot to be thankful for this month of Thanksgiving.  Mom and Sister got to come spend the holiday with us and Dudley was overjoyed.  This is the first time he got to meet his Grandma from Okie-homa and he loved her from the minute she walked in the door.  The feeling was mutual, of course, and Grandma lavished him with love the whole time she was here.  We had a wonderful meal, lots of giggling and relaxing time, sat outside by the fire, shopped like crazy and spent a leisurely Black Friday visiting out-of-the-way boutiques and taking a country drive down to the Amish market to load up on homemade goodies.  Hubby got some hunting time in and loaded our freezer with fresh venison.

Dudley's bedtime was later than usual as we all tried to stay up as late as possible each night, getting the most out of our visiting time.  He'd move from one lap to another trying to get comfortable so he could fall asleep.  The last night he barely hit the bed before he zonked out and was snoring away.  The week flew by and before you know it, we were saying our tearful goodbyes.  The visits never seem to last long enough.

The day after everyone left, the house seemed so empty.  Dudley walked from room to room looking for his ear scratchers and belly rubbers.  He looked so forlorn when he plopped down after his search turned up nothing.  No more Grandma and Auntie Tiff.  Heavy sigh.

Thank you Lord, for our family time.  Thank you for all the love and fellowship.  Thank you for providing for us and for blessing our lives.  Thank you for the peace in our hearts and for snoring bulldogs.

Motherhood: Not for the faint of heart!

I would have made the world's worst Mother!  Having this puppy, makes me realize this more and more every day.  I'm over-protective, worrisome, and project hypochondria on the little bugger at the slightest sign of a runny nose or if he even looks at me funny.

They say Mom's have eyes in the back of their heads and are all-knowing, but obviously that doesn't include me because Dudley swallowed a sock once without me even knowing until later that night when he threw it up, whole!  I didn't even know a dog would eat a sock, for heaven's sake!  I shouldn't be surprised though, as he eats anything and everything he can get his mouth on.  Bugs, rocks, leaves, twigs, dirt.  He thinks everything on the ground is food, I guess, whether it tastes good or not.  I was in horror the first time I caught him chasing and then eating a spider on the porch.  He even tried to eat a wasp once, even after it stung him.  Good grief!

If he's out in the back yard playing and gets within three feet of the fence I'm having a come-apart.  I'm scared he'll get in with the donkeys and they'll stomp him to death.  Hubby has strung wire all along the bottom boards of the fence to prevent him from squeezing underneath, but still I start hyperventilating anytime he even gets close.  Hubby tries to reassure me and get me to relax, but I just can't seem to do it.  "Just let him be a puppy!" he says, or "Stop stressing out!"  I'm trying, really I am, but if anything ever happened to that precious angel, and especially if my donkeys had something to do with it, I'd just die.

Today I had him with me at the office and he was just snoring away.  When he woke up, I took him downstairs for some fresh air, then fed him some lunch.  When I went to clean him up afterward, I noticed one of his eyes had no pupil.  One eye was perfectly fine with his normal sized pupil and the other had none at all!  Of course this scared the peewiddlywaddles out of me, so the first thing I did was look on the internet for an explanation.  Can you imagine me with a human baby, looking everything up on the internet and then believing everything I was reading?  We'd be bankrupt from all the emergency room visits in the middle of the night!  I was just getting ready to load him up and run him over to the vet when I looked down and his eyes were back to normal.  Whew!  Not sure what caused it, but it sure scared me there for a minute.  See what I mean about projecting hypochondria?  I instantly think the worse and that he's somehow contracted some rare and terrifying condition that can't be cured!

I just can't imagine what a bundle of nerves I would have been if I had ever had a real baby of my very own to care for.  Motherhood is such a big responsibility and I honestly don't think I was cut out for it.  I know they say the instincts just come to you naturally, but I'm not sure I believe it.  It sure makes me admire all the mother's I know, my own included.  Mothers deserve diamond encrusted, solid gold medals for all they endure.  One for every year they are mother's, and then some!

Katie Who? (Part Two)

(story continued from yesterday's posting. . .Happy Halloween!)

The next morning, the sun shining through the windshield woke Katie with a start.  The sight of the old house in daylight was ten times worse than it had been the night before.  Now she could clearly see how badly the house was in need of repair, and how overgrown the yard had become.  It would take a miracle for her to ever get this house fixed up enough for her and Boo to make it a home.  She let Boo out to sniff around and do his business, and she went back inside to survey the rest of the house.  She found a bathroom off the kitchen, a small bedroom with a single closet, a pantry and a set of stairs at the back of the house that she assumed led to the second story bedroom.  Assume was the best she could do though, as halfway up the staircase the stairs had sunken in on themselves and there was no way for her to climb them to view the upper level.

She wrenched open the back door of the house and looked out into an overgrown yard with a pathway that led to a little shed.  The shed had a pump and a rusty old sink and shelves lined with dust-covered jars.  Outside the door there were clotheslines hanging from two wooden posts, so she figured this must be what was used as a laundry room, minus the convenience of an electric washer and dryer, of course.  Beyond the shed were several small outbuildings and what looked to be a falling down old barn, and woods that seemed to go on forever.  She remembered the attorney had said the property had more than 20 acres of land and from what she could see now, it was mostly wooded.

Katie and Boo spent the day exploring what they could of the buildings and barn, finding them to be in much the same condition as the house had been.  They tripped over rocks and stumps and saw old farm implements buried in the weeds and overgrown with shrubs and brambles.  There was a pathway leading into the woods, so Katie decided to see how far it went in hopes of finding a clearing of some sort they might discover.  Together, they walked down the pathway, deeper into the woods, Boo running a short distance ahead sniffing and marking so he could find his way back.  Instead of the clearing she had hoped for, it seemed to get darker and darker the farther they walked.  The light through the trees was minimal and she could hear rustling in the bushes and saw birds overhead, flittering from branch to branch.  A twig snapped and Boo ran off in search of whatever critter had dared into their surroundings, leaving Katie on the path alone.  She walked on, knowing that Boo would eventually come back to her, hoping he wouldn't have a soft bunny hanging from his jaws.  The path started getting narrower and more overgrown until suddenly it didn't seem to be much of a path anymore, so she turned around to go back.  That was when she heard Boo's distressed bark far off in the distance, so she called him to her.  His barking got louder and more high pitched until suddenly it stopped with a terrifying yelp.  She called his name over and over but there was nothing but dead silence in return.  Katie ran off the path toward the spot where she'd last heard Boo barking.  Tree limbs whipped her in the face and sticker bushes clawed at her arms and legs.  The woods became thicker and thicker the farther off the path she ran.  She tripped over a fallen log and hit her head on a rock and was knocked unconscious.

Later, when she finally came to, Katie sat up and put her hand to her head.  It came away wet and sticky, so she knew she was bleeding, even though it was literally too dark to see the hand in front of her own face.  She remembered Boo's yelp and got herself to her feet and called his name.  All around her was darkness.  She could barely make out the trunks of the trees, and gingerly she walked on, calling his name.  An owl started hoo-ing above her in the trees and the sudden sound of it sent a chill up her spine and stopped her dead in her tracks.  It was a mournful hoo hoo-ing call that echoed through the woods.  Pretty soon another bird answered the owl with a long screeching kay-teeeee! kay-teeeee! and the owl would answer back, hoo! hoo!  The hair was standing up on the back of Katie's neck and she wished with all her soul that Boo would come bounding out of the darkness to be by her side, to lick her hand and guide her out of the woods.  She started to cry and run at the same time, desperate to find her way out of these dark and scary woods.  Her feet felt heavy and clumsy as she tripped over rocks and fallen branches.  In the back of her mind she thought to herself how no one would ever find her because no one even knew she was here.  Without Boo, she was all alone.

She stumbled again and fell to her knees in front of a mound of rocks.  She felt around with her hands and the rocks were smooth and covered with moss and seemed to form a curve.  In the darkness she heard a whimper and soft whine and knew it must be Boo.  The sound seemed to be coming from in front of her, where the rocks curved into the ground.  She inched her way closer to the rocks, crawling on her knees and then she felt the rocks give way and nothing but empty air in the darkness on the other side of them.  She knew it was a hole, probably an old well in the ground, long ago abandoned.  Boo whimpered again and she realized the sounds were coming from down below.  Boo had fallen into the well!  She leaned over and strained with all her might to see into the darkness for a glimpse of Boo, but it was so dark and all she could see was black nothingness.  She called his name and her voice echoed back up to her from the deep hole.

All of a sudden, Katie sensed a presence from behind her and before she could turn her head, she felt something shove her hard from behind.  She lurched forward into the darkness and tumbled down the well.  She landed hard on the rocks and dirt below.  She laid there a minute, trying to catch her breath as the fall had knocked the wind out of her.  She tried to raise herself up, but realized she had broken her arm.  The pain sliced through her like a knife.  With her other hand, she was able to prop herself into a sitting position.  She felt something soft under her legs and reached out to find Boo's lifeless body.  She pulled his head into her lap and cradled him with her good arm, tears streaming down her face.  She looked up into the darkness and glimpsed a sliver of the moon in the sky through the trees.  Far off in the distance she heard the eerie call, kay-teeeee hoo!  kay-teeeee hoo! and she knew it was the last anyone would ever hear of her again.

Katie Who? (Part One)

In the spirit of Halloween, another scary, silly and rambling story for you to get you in the mood.  Happy Haunting!

Moving to Owl Hollow was supposed to be a new start for Katie, recently widowed and finding herself alone for the first time in 15 years.  Her life had revolved around her late husband Sam, who was taken from this world too soon at the hands of a drunk driver.  Sam and Katie were high school sweethearts who had married just after graduation and although they had never been blessed with children, they lived life to the fullest and were completely and absolutely devoted to each other.  When Sam passed, Katie's world crashed down around her and she fell into a dark depression.  It wasn't until she received a letter from an attorney in Owl Hollow, Tennessee that she began to emerge from her grief.  The letter stated she had inherited a property from a late Uncle she hadn't even known existed.  She had no family or close friends.  Her own parents had died years before in a boating accident, and she hadn't known her mother even had a brother.  She'd never heard of Owl Hollow, and as far as she knew, she had never been to Tennessee.

Katie sold the home she and Sam had shared in the Pacific Northwest and loaded their black Labrador Boo into the Jeep and headed south.  Boo sat in the front seat, anxiously awaiting their adventure.  He was Katie's only comfort since Sam's death.  They had a long drive in front of them, so she patted his soft head for good luck and off they went.

Several days later, after lumpy beds in rundown motels, a night spent sleeping in the Jeep at a campground when they got lost, and horrible convenience store coffee and far from nutritious meals on the go, they finally pulled into the town of Owl Hollow, population 303.  It didn't look like much as she entered the town.  She passed a small gas station with two pumps, a hardware store that had seen better days, and a tiny cafe' with a sign boasting "The Finest Frog Legs and Catfish on Friday Nights!"  There was a bank, a small variety store, a market, a barber shop and a post office with a sign out front that said "Attorney Upstairs" with an arrow that pointed up a rickety set of steps along the side of the building.  There was a tavern at the edge of town and an old six-room motel that had long ago been boarded up with a sign that read "No Vacancy."  After passing this, the road kept going on but all you saw were mailboxes at the end of long driveways with no sign of the homes they belonged to.  There were thick woods all along both sides of the road and occasionally Katie and Boo would catch a glimpse of a light or two peeking through the trees, the only evidence that homes did truly exist along the way.

A few miles out of town, Katie finally saw the cemetery the attorney had said would mark the spot where she would turn to find the homestead she had inherited.  She turned left at the cemetery onto an old dirt road and followed it into the woods for what seemed like another five miles until finally there it was in front of her, a small two bedroom farmhouse with peeling paint and a deep porch that wrapped around one side of the house.  There were no lights to welcome them, so Katie pulled the Jeep right up to the front of the house and let the bright beams illuminate the walkway and porch steps.  Boo seemed to have lost his sense of adventure and cowered on the seat next to her with his ears down and an anxious look in his eyes.  Katie took one look at him and said, "The feeling's mutual, Boy!" and patted his head for reassurance.  She opened the Jeep door and jumped out and Boo reluctantly followed.

Katie hadn't thought to ask the attorney how long it had been since someone had actually lived in the home.  She just assumed it was habitable and that she could move right in.  One step up onto the sagging porch told her it had been quite some time since someone had actually spent time here.  She could see now that there were vines growing all up through the floor boards and wrapping themselves around the porch rails.  The front door of the house wasn't even closed all the way and as she pushed on it, it slowly creaked open on rusty hinges.  She shined her flashlight into the entry way and saw furniture covered in dust, moth-eaten curtains hanging from the windows and what looked to be nests here and there along the baseboards where critters had taken up residence over time.  As they stepped over the threshold, Katie and Boo were shaking like leaves on the trees and goosebumps formed up and down Katie's arms.  She walked through what appeared to be a small living room and into an old kitchen with curling linoleum floors and cupboards with doors hanging listlessly, their contents spilling onto chipped formica countertops cluttered with debris.  Katie turned the handle at the sink and was rewarded with a few rusty drips of water, but that was about it.  No electricity, no running water and obviously no solid roof over their heads as she looked up toward the ceiling to note that she could actually see the moon shining through a huge hole in the rafters overhead.

Katie decided there would be no more exploring for her and Boo until morning light, so she turned and walked back out the front door to the safety of the Jeep.  Another night would be spent cuddling together in the front seat, but they would make the most of it.  At least they had each other.  What had she gotten them into by moving them halfway across the country to this dilapidated old place?

(read on tomorrow as the story ends with Part Two. . .)

Prison is a Place - Book Review

I've often thought about what it must be like to be imprisoned.  Although I believe for the most part, criminals deserve to be punished, what a terrible thing it must be to be stripped of their freedom.  I know for one, I wouldn't be able to bear it.  Not to have privacy and comfort, or to be denied the ability to go wherever whenever you wanted.  I've always been a bit claustrophobic myself and can't imagine how that would be magnified to be constrained to a cell.  I won't even go on a cruise because I don't like the thought of not being able to get off the ship at any given moment.  Same thing with air travel and being trapped on a plane.  I can hardly stand it.

One of my co-workers, Brent Andrews, edited and published a book recently that was written by a late friend of his.  The friend had been in prison for a long period of his lifetime and had apparently always intended to have the book published, but it never was until Brent happened upon the boxes of manuscript, pages and letters.  Brent spent months putting it all together and the book has just officially come off the press.  After reading it this past weekend, I know the writer would have been proud.

The book is called Prison is a Place and it's by Harley M. Sorensen.  Harley had a difficult life from a very young age and he made some bad decisions along the way and ended up in prison.  He spent over eight years of his life behind bars, but to hear him write about it, it wasn't as bad a place as I always imagined it would be.  Of course this was back in the 60's and things were done differently then, and as he points out several times throughout the book, the prison he was in was one of those rare prisons that has a smaller than normal population with very few unpleasant incidents among inmates and good interaction with prison staff and authority figures.  He made the most of his time there and worked as much as he could, spending his time writing and playing chess, among other things.

One of the projects he worked on while in prison, and the subject content of his eventual book, was to reach out to a local teacher in hopes of corresponding with a class of students to get their ideas of what they thought prison really was.  He found a young teacher willing to embark on a letter exchange and it was fascinating to see what the students had to say and what Harley said in reply.

I especially liked the exchanges between Norman, a silly, smart-alecked boy and with Debbie, who I'm sure grew up to be valedictorian of her class and maybe even went on to be a prison administrator herself.  She was wise beyond her years and Harley seemed to enjoy them both.  Reading all the exchanges was enlightening in so many ways. 

As I read the book, I kept thinking to myself how this type of letter exchange would probably never be possible in today's society.  Parents would highly object to their children corresponding with a convicted felon and teachers would be forbidden to even consider such an assignment.

Brent, I'm so proud of you for getting this book out for everyone to read.  I know Harley would have been so proud.  It would be interesting to find some of these kids now that they are in their 40's and 50's, to see if they even remember Harley and his letters, and to see what each of them has become.  I wonder if he influenced them at all?  I hope he did!

Stormy Soul and Foul-Weather Moods

I don't know what in the world is wrong with me these days, but it seems like every last thing gets on my nerves and makes me grumpy.  You name it, it annoys me:

People who drive waaaaaay below the speed limit, who won't use their turn signals and who don't pay attention because they are on their darned cell phones.

People who talk on their cell phones inside public places.  Like we want to hear their mundane conversations while grocery shopping, or standing in line, or in a bathroom stall.  What did we used to do before we had stupid cell phones?  I know for one, there was a lot more peace and quiet in the world!

Cell phones.

Rudeness, inconsiderate people, people that talk too much, people that interrupt.  People that ask the same questions because they weren't paying attention the first time you told them.

Dogs barking (and barking and barking and barking)

Unruly children. 

Gum smacking and people that chew with their mouths open.

Voice Mail and Caller ID.

Talking to someone who has onion breath.

Hazelnuts and Brazil nuts.

People that drive too close.  Go around me if you're in that big a hurry!  Hopefully there will be a cop hiding around the next bend and you'll get a ticket.

Gossipers that run their mouths about everyone else because their own lives are lacking somehow.

People that yell.

Litter on the sides of the roads.

Loud commercials on tv.

Computer problems and the technicians who can't seem to fix them.

And that's just today!  Here's hoping tomorrow is an uneventful and less grumpy day.  I want to get back to my cheerful and happy self.