Wanna Play, Gotta Pay

We're way behind schedule. Usually, we uncover the pool and begin the process of replenishing the water, vacuuming it, getting the chemical levels up, and eliminating the unpleasant green-brown sludge so that it's sparkly-clean and heated by Memorial Day weekend. This year the weather has been disgusting until the last week, so we only got started today.

I usually get all the petunias and such in the barrels and planters on the deck and around the pool area on Mother's Day. Not this year.

So, this morning was "get the back cleaned up and resembling somewhere we'd actually want to spend some time during the few brief warm months we have in this godforsaken state" day. We went out around 9:30 AM, and in three minutes I was sweating last night's Jack Daniel's out of every pore. After removing dead plant debris from one pot, I said, "I'm tired." I was. I don't enjoy tasks that require bending, squatting, pulling, or standing for extended periods of time. And definitely no lifting.

But I persevered. I pulled five quadrillion dandelions from the mulch, broke up the dirt in the pots in preparation for fresh petunias tomorrow, pulled dried gunk out of the rock waterfall, and removed fossilized dog poo from the planters. (Seriously. I have no idea how they do that, or why they'd want to. Made me wonder if it would be possible to designate one barrel planter - with a liner - as their potty barrel. I shall give further thought to that later.)

Then it was time to uncover the pool. No matter how much of the water you pump off the cover, you can never get it all. And water. Is. Heavy. We got the thing pulled clear down to the shallow end by the steps, but the remaining water was gathered in the doubled-over cover like a giant, swampy water balloon. And it. Was. Heavy. We tugged, pulled, dragged, heaved, and strained. I do not enjoy any of those activities.

Me: I want to stab it. (Because if we poked it, some of that stupid, heavy water would spurt out, and maybe it would be light enough to drag onto the cement patio. It would also put sludgy leaf debris in the pool, but I didn't really care.)

Tom: We can't stab it. (Party pooper.)

Five minutes later, the pool cover was still thwarting us. I was sweaty, and my clothes and exposed skin were covered in half-rotted pool slime. Which, as you might suspect, smells nasty.

Me: I still want to stab it.

Tom: Get me a knife.

He stabbed it, and nothing happened. So now we've assaulted a perfectly innocent - if highly annoying - pool cover for no good reason. Fail.

Me: We could tie it to the Blazer and drag it out.

Tom: No we can't. (I don't see why not.)

Me: Well, we've got to think of something, because I'm all out of strongs.

So we sat there, clutching the wadded-up cover so it didn't slip back into the depths of the pool, and pondered.

Me: I could get in there and push. (I'm envisioning scrunching the legs of my sweats as high as I can and standing crotch-deep in icky, cold green water. But it might work.)

Tom: It's cold.

Me: I know.

Tom: And dirty.

Me: I know. But do you think it would work? (Pause) Or do you just think it would be funny?

Tom: I'm weighing my options.

I was still deciding whether to find some shorts or a wetsuit or some hazmat gear and get in the pool when Tom got another idea. He took the sump pump that he'd been using to drain the cover and shoved it down inside the "pouch" to pump out some more of the water. I spent the next twenty minutes out in the yard in the horseshoe pit staring at the end of a hose.

A word about the horseshoe pit. We have two. They're bordered by railroad ties and are filled with pea gravel. They were here when we bought the house. We have no knowledge of or any interest in learning how to play horseshoes. We finally sawed off the metal pole-things that stuck up in the middle, which I suppose is where you would throw the horseshoes. We were worried that when there was snow on the ground (like, 9.5 months a year) one of the dogs might be walking along, sink down in the snow, and impale themselves on those metal poles. Because it could happen. So, the poles got sawed.

But, back to the hose. As Tom jiggled the pump in the depths of the pool cover/water balloon, I reported on whether or not water was actually coming out of the hose and draining into the pea gravel. I made astute observations such as "Water!" "Trickle!" "Stopped!" and "Bug in my hair!" This was a very important task, but it involved too much standing, so I was glad when Tom said I should come back and see if we could pull the rest of the sludge-ball out of the pool.

We did. Barely. And as always, the last little bit made the fold flip in such a way that brown sludgy water and about seven tons of rotted leaves dumped out on the patio. Then we dragged the cover out in the yard so it can be hosed off, dried, folded, and stuffed in the shed until September. Which it now is.

So now I can get a book, a drink, and a gallon of bubble bath and retreat to the tub. Since the only muscle I exercise with any sort of regularity is my brain (and yes, I know it's not technically a muscle - it's a figure of speech) I'm totally going to pay for this tomorrow. Fortunately, all I have to do is sack out on the Sofur and watch the Indianapolis 500 and Charlotte 600. We're talking at least twelve hours of continuous live racing coverage.

Oh, no, wait. Since I bailed on petunia-buying today, I guess I have to do that in the morning. And be finished by the time the 500 starts. Curses, foiled again.

But at least the pool is uncovered. In a week or so, it might not even be green.

Have A... Oh Never Mind

Some things in "polite" society are so trite and insignificant that it's hard to be annoyed by them. Like when sales clerks, customers, or bank tellers say, "Have a nice day." They aren't really concerned about the quality of your day. It's merely one of those pre-programmed phrases that pop out of people's mouths because there's really no reason to say anything, but they feel (or have been made to believe) that they have to say something. Personally, I'm fine if you just hand me my credit card receipt or deposit slip and mind your own business. But that's just me.

Though I must admit that the clerk at the Holiday station failed to say "have a nice day" one morning as I was departing with my convenience store sandwiches and cigarettes, and it kind of freaked me out a little bit. It was almost as if by not saying it (as she had every other single time I'd been there, which is a lot) she was wishing that I'd have a totally shitty day. Which I thought was terribly passive-aggressive of her.

If somebody sneezes, most people are going to say "bless you." Well, fine, this one bugs me, because I am not remotely interested in anybody's blessing. I also don't say "bless you" when somebody sneezes, so they probably think I'm the rudest person on the planet, but believe me, you do not want my blessings. They'd probably turn you into something with fangs and a tendency to burst into flames in direct sunlight.

When one person says "thank you," the automatic reply is "you're welcome," which I don't mind so much because it is at least an acknowledgment of some deed which was performed. There's presumably something that precipitated it, and it's a verbal courtesy. While we're not typically a very courteous society, this one little ritual seems to be hanging in there. More or less.

If somebody says "Marco" among a group of 100 people who have ever been in a swimming pool, and who grew up in the United States (because I don't know if this game is played elsewhere), 95 of them are going to yell "Polo." They can't help themselves.

OK, I don't know for sure if that last thing is true, but I'd love it if one of you would perform a study and get back to me on that. Bonus points if they all wear smiley-face t-shirts.

But, for some reason, one slight variation of the "have a nice day" thing drives me insane. I can't stand it when people go that extra step, evaluate the calendar, and say something like "have a nice weekend," or "have a nice holiday." It's annoying and a wee bit creepy.

Why? Is it really so much different from wishing someone a nice day? I think so. Do I believe that this person actually gives a rat's ass about my weekend or my holiday? No, I do not. They don't know me, and it's not like they're going to call me on Monday and go, "So, did you have a nice weekend like I wished for you?" And if anybody ever does, I am totally moving to a remote homestead on an otherwise uninhabited island off the coast of Nova Scotia. Which I might do anyway. And install a moat, because a moat would not only be an additional barrier from other people, it would also be so cool to be able to say "Oh, I can't make it tonight. The drawbridge fell into the moat, and the electric eels zapped it to smithereens." You don't often get to work the words "drawbridge," "moat," "eels," and "smithereens" in the same sentence.

What I don't like is the very fact that these holiday and weekend well-wishers put the effort into determining if there is some particular "nice" wish they need to bestow. It also implies, since it lacks the mindless triviality of "have a nice day" that the weekend or the holiday in question should, in some way, be special. What if my weekend and/or holiday are uneventful - or even unpleasant? Holidays, in particular, bother me because so many of them are religion-based. Why should a stranger assume I'm doing anything out of the ordinary simply because their deity or other religious personage was born, died, was martyred, rose from the dead, or materialized the world out of a gob of snot on some randomly-assigned day? I'm not. Don't assume.

It kind of makes me want to call all the businesses I go to on a Friday, or a 3-day period prior to any holiday, sometime the following week and tell them - in excruciating and possibly graphic detail - exactly how my weekend or holiday was. Bet they wouldn't make the same mistake the next Friday.

So. It's Friday, May 22. The eve of Memorial Day Weekend.

Have a nice holiday.

Or not.

I don't really care.

(PS: Did you know that if you enter "have a nice day" in a Google image search and have your SafeSearch off - which I always do because life is so much more fun that way - you get some very, very... interesting image results? Heterosexual men will not find it nearly as fascinating as I did.)

And I'm Not Afraid to Use It

Somewhere in the bowels of my house is a remnant of The Boy's childhood. Actually, there are lots of remnants, since the closet in his old room is crammed full of Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joes, and (for some reason) numerous empty liquor bottles and a machete. I mentioned I had a largely hands-off parenting style, right? Yet somehow he morphed from Sprog to Mostly Normal Adult Human Being without any serious trouble.

These things continue to reside in his former closet, despite the fact that he now has a house of his own, which is both larger and nicer than ours, and he could totally pay off his student loans if he'd come get this junk and sell it on eBay because he was extremely anal about retaining the original boxes for his collectibles.

But it's not these allegedly priceless collectibles to which I am referring. The childhood remnant that is most on my mind these days looks a lot like this:


Buried amongst Pogs and Transformers, if only I could find it, is a six-shooter rubber band gun. And, unlike the one in the photo, mine has a double barrel, effectively giving me twelve shots of rubber-band-shooting capability.

You might wonder why I need this. Why would I risk rubber band misfires that could sting my fingers or - theoretically - put my eye out? I can answer that in one word.

Brody. (Visual Aid Below)

(You might wonder about the plant stand. It's long, long gone. Nothing with a destruction threshold below titanium can be within twenty feet of the bay window.)

I'm thrilled that spring has finally sprung and doesn't seem inclined to throw us a random blizzard for Memorial Day (because you're never entirely sure in Minnesota), but it has definite drawbacks. Such as The Neighbors, who continue to labor under the delusion that they are within their rights to venture out of doors in their own yards.

Brody disagrees. Loudly. And often.

He's a four-year-old Great Pyrenees, and as such is charged by doG to continually monitor and protect the perimeter. Which is defined, in Pyrish, as anything he can see, hear, or imagine. In the past few weeks he has annoyed everyone within hearing range (Wright and Sherburne Counties) and barked the household (me) deaf. Seriously, I can barely hear myself screaming, "Brody! Shut UP! Brody, down! Brody, it's FINE. They live there! Brody, shut the hell up or I am going to pull off your tail and stuff it in your muzzle!!!"

I might retain some hearing if I were one of those dog owners who could just leave my boys outside all day. At least then he's not fifteen feet from my ears while warning off invisible ninjas or small children on tricycles. But I'm not. I'm disgustingly responsible that way. So I go out into the yard, chase his fuzzy white butt inside, and deal with the consequences.

The other hazard of owning a hyper-vigilant Pyr and a bay window is screen damage. As previously reported, by the end of last season we had zero intact screens remaining. Tom got all do-it-yourselfy a couple of weeks ago and put fresh screen in all the frames, including the one he had to glue together because Brody had disassembled it one day when the UPS guy came. I anticipated a screen-life-expectancy of about 24 hours, but Tom devised a brilliant plan. In order to allow fresh air to enter the house and keep bugs out, he figured we really only needed one screen. So he installed one screen panel in the segment least likely to meet with destruction. Brody has knocked most of it out of the frame, but has not so far torn it.

But I'm still going deaf.

During the few minutes I've spent writing this post to the present point, I've shouted, "Brody! Knock it OFF!" no fewer than forty seven times. Forget the Dog Whisperer. I'm the Dog Yeller.

Tom's Christmas Wish List included a slingshot, a paintball gun, and a monkey, all of which were intended to assist in Brody Bark Control. I almost wish I'd gotten him the monkey. Except pretty soon the monkey would be deaf, too, and unable to hear the barking he was supposed to halt, so I'd still need the paintball gun, but I'd fill the pellets with waterless shampoo so at least Brody would be clean.

Which brings us back to the rubber band gun. I'm going to find it. And use it. Save the lectures about animal cruelty, because this is self-defense. Plus, it's probably way more humane than duct taping his muzzle closed till frigid weather returns and drives all his tormentors inside again.

I do hurl throw pillows at him to divert his attention from his window outpost. I figure whoever decided to call them "throw pillows" in the first place must have had a Great Pyrenees. And a bay window. But cushy projectiles lack a certain attention-getting quality after a while.

If you are familiar with Pyrs, you know that they have a very, very, ridiculously thick coat. They have the kind of coat that makes groomers run screaming or rub their hands together gleefully in anticipation of the astronomical fee they're going to get to charge you to deal with all that undercoat. So I could twang millions of rubber bands at Brody's tail-wagging, spinning, bouncing, hysterical butt with no fear of hurting him. But I am fairly certain it would get his attention.

Imagine your grandma wearing a gorilla suit. Or maybe a Bigfoot suit, because the hair should be longer. Personally, I don't want to think about grandmas wearing Bigfoot suits, but it's necessary as a point of illustration. You could shoot Granny in the ass with a rubber band gun all day long, provided she's wearing a Bigfoot suit (because otherwise it would be elder-abuse, and sooner or later Wilford Brimley is going to come to your house and stab you to death with a diabetes testing device) with no lasting harm. Then you could probably get her to bake you a bunch of cookies, but you might not want to eat them because they'd be all full of fake-Bigfoot hair. But if you have a Great Pyrenees, you're used to eating food with a higher hair quotient than your average 80s rock band, so you won't mind.

When I locate the double-barrel, six-shooter rubber band gun - and some rubber bands - Brody is in for a big surprise. And if it doesn't work, I have a backup plan:

(Rubber Band Howitzer, absolute genius.)

And if that doesn't work, I'm going to see what Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey is doing these days.

Still Got Nothin'

Sorry, FFFans. Wherever my head is these days, it's not thinking up blog topics. The dogs' adorability and/or naughtiness has been of the customary variety, not blog-worthy. Things that are happening are either too annoying or too dull, so I haven't had anything fascinating to say.

When I do have enough sanity (or insanity?) to write, I'm working on the book. I'm in chapter 10 at the moment.

Just for fun, or to give you a reason to at least continue to check the blog, I thought I'd post an excerpt from the first chapter. This is the part where Abby and Seth meet, under less than ideal circumstances. She is actually on her way into town to give her tickets for his concert that night to a friend, as the other friend who was supposed to go with her had unexpectedly canceled. Their second encounter isn't much less hostile, but it improves rapidly from there!

And now, for your reading pleasure, here is an excerpt from Make or Break, by... ME!

(Note: Underlines indicate italics in a manuscript.)

On Buchanan Street, she spotted the tour bus parked on the left side, in front of the club. She thought she could see figures moving around through the windshield, and squinted, trying to determine who they might be.

Her attention focused on the bus, she suddenly caught something entering her frame of vision on the right, and only had an instant to register alarmingly familiar long, golden-brown hair and vivid blue eyes before slamming on her brakes. The person, who had apparently stepped from in front of the equipment trailer she had failed to notice, leaped backwards and narrowly escaped impact with her Jeep.

The guitar case he was carrying, however, was not so fortunate. Abby’s fender caught it and ripped it from its owner’s hand, and it disappeared under her right front wheel with a nauseating crunch. Stunned, Abby tried to pull to the curb behind the trailer, but after throwing the Jeep into reverse she realized the flaw in her logic. The guitar case, once again victim to her right front tire, reappeared after another small bump and oddly lyrical grinding sound.

Oh, holy shit. I just ran over Seth Caldwell’s guitar. Twice.

Abby maneuvered the Jeep into the general vicinity of the curb and got out, too shocked to know whether to throw herself to the pavement in remorse or run for her life. Seth crouched at the edge of the street, picking through the shattered remains of what had recently been an acoustic guitar.

She dropped to her knees beside him. His hair had fallen forward, blocking her view of his face, but he pushed it back and turned to look at her. The intensity of his blue eyes might as well have been laser beams, the way they bored into her. Was it possible to be thrilled and terrified at the same time? Apparently so.

“You killed it,” Seth rasped. “You fucking killed my guitar.”

There was no way she could argue with that. She’d never seen a deader guitar. “I’m so sorry! I was looking at the bus and didn’t see you. I can’t believe I almost ran over you, and pulverized your guitar. It’s just that I’m having a really lousy day, and I was irritated, so I was kind of distracted…”

“Irritated? You were irritated? So you flew down the closest thing to a main street that this town has, and ran over my 1997 Taylor Cujo, which I’ve had for not even three weeks?” Seth began scooping the remains of the instrument back into the badly mangled case, his gray t-shirt stretched across his shoulders. He somehow managed to maintain the full force of his glare the entire time.

Abby stretched out a hand to help pick up the mangled bits of guitar, but Seth shifted his body to block her. “Don’t. You’ve done enough,” he snapped.

This did not strike Abby as a gracious acceptance of her apology. In fact, he was being kind of an ass. She felt her Irish temper begin to kick in, which was something like the Hulk’s, but without the green skin and purple pants. “Look, it was an accident, okay? I was not out to damage you or your guitar. And what the hell are you doing just stepping out into traffic anyway?” She stood up and scowled back at the angry musician.

“Traffic? What traffic? About three cars drove by in the last twenty minutes.” Seth tried to close the lid on the case, failed, and shoved the whole thing toward the curb.

“Stop yelling at me!”

“I’m not yelling.”

“You are definitely yelling.” She caught a glimpse of something at his neck and did a double take. “Are those ear buds? You were listening to music? That’s why you didn’t hear me!” Her voice rose about three octaves.

“I could hear fine. And that doesn’t have anything to do with your shitty, reckless driving.” He ripped off the buds and shoved them in his pocket.

Abby shook her head, then walked to the open door of her Jeep and grabbed a business card from her purse. “Here. Get your guitar fixed…”

“Fixed? It’s fucking mulch!”

“… or replaced, and send me the bill. And for the last time, stop yelling!”

“There are only 124 more of these guitars on the planet, and it took me six months to find this one. You think I can just ‘replace’ it?” His voice, she noted, had a certain amount of anguish somewhere beneath the fury. Seth stood, and Abby tried not to flinch as he snatched the card from her hand.

“I’ve said I was sorry. It was an accident. I’ll pay for it, or not. It’s up to you. And now, I have to go.”

“Well, that’s the first thing you’ve said so far that wasn’t completely stupid. Out of my sight would be a real good place to be right now.”

Suppressing a shriek of frustration, Abby turned toward her Jeep and tossed back over her shoulder, “I can’t believe I finally meet you, and we end up squatting in a ditch yelling at each other.” She slammed the door and pulled away from the curb. Her last glimpse of Seth as she headed down the block to Monique’s vintage clothing store, was of him standing by the equipment trailer, eyes wide, and a puzzled expression on his face.

Lame Excuses For Not Blogging

I know, I've been totally MIA since we got home from the Royal Wedding. I can't even claim it's because I've been writing thousands and thousands of words for the book. It's just been strange. Work sort of spontaneously combusted - not literally, but it might as well have. While I was gone and since I came back, we've "enjoyed" the following:

• One technician suffered a miscarriage, having been unaware that she was pregnant.
• One technician is engaged, and is going to try a 4-day/3-day commute schedule because she's moving over 2 hours away to live with her fiance. (I predict this will not work, and she'll soon find a job closer to him.)
• Another staff member has been hit with wage garnishment for child support. Not that she wasn't/wouldn't pay it. Ex is just a major asshat and wants her to have to deal with the experience of having wages garnished.
• Computer repairs were ongoing, and may or may not actually be resolved.
• One technician, 6 months pregnant, was in a car accident and didn't tell us! She said it was a family member, and didn't mention that she actually spent the night in the hospital having her premature labor stopped.
• Same technician went into premature labor at work yesterday, which is when I learned about the car accident. (Send positive thoughts that mom and baby both come out of this OK.)
• Our Healing Touch for Animals practitioner/vet assistant is leaving to start her own business. She'll continue to do Healing Touch for us one day a week on a contract basis, but I'm losing about 24 staff hours a week out of my available resources, plus the mommy-to-be, whose status remains unknown.

There's a bunch of other little stuff, but them's the highlights. Or lowlights. Or no-lights. When I'm not at work, I've been 95% brain-dead. I tried to write on Tuesday, and Seth and Abby refused to cooperate, so I left them in Dash's office until tomorrow. Serves them right. Dash is a little hard to take, if well-intentioned.

The happy spot for me right now is that we did buy tickets for the 6/18 Cross Canadian Ragweed show in Bloomington, Indiana. Wooooo hoooooo!!!!!! Hotel reservations made, and other reservations pending. Tom may go on a little solo journey several days before, and then he'll fly into Indianapolis. I'll drive down from here (10 hours), pick him up, and we'll go on to Bloomington on 6/17.

Naturally, the plans are ongoing. Tom wants to get one or the other of these...


...so we can get it signed before or after the show. He's extremely good at making that sort of thing happen. Mostly, I want another picture of me with Cody, and my favorite "front and center" spot at the stage for the concert. Reports are that this is a great venue, and I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Then there's the hope that they will eventually put a Minnesota show on the summer schedule, and I'll get to see them twice!

Wish me brain wattage. If I ever get any, I'll write something funny, and get Seth and Abby out of that damned office and back to her house.

Because I Haven't Done This Lately

Cross Canadian Ragweed
 
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