NO TRIP FOR YOU!!!

It's frigid outside.  FRIGID!  As you may have gathered, I'm not a fan of cold weather, but this is absurd.  This is beyond cold.  This is Mother Nature farting in our faces.  She can be a very nasty mother and these past few weeks have proven that.  We were supposed to make an escape to warm, sunny southern California to see the daughter and son in law this weekend.  Guess who's still under the weather?  Graham.  Graham doesn't want us to leave him in Mother Nature's freezer, so he decided to continue coughing so we wouldn't leave.  Also, the vet said the stress on leaving him in his hour of need would further complicate matters - something we don't need.  And because he's a Standard Poodle with a tremendous sense of humor, if we left him in his hour of need, he would probably eat all our shoes, raid the pantry, and maybe even steal the car.  Poodles do things like that.  They're like bad teenagers.  Neither do I want to upset the balance of his recovery.  His recovery has been a very delicate path to negotiate, and I need him to stay on that path.  So I'm happy to stay stuck inside my house in frozen Charlottesville.   That's another lie I'm telling.  I really wanted to go to LA.  I love that place.  After the daughter moved there and before we visited, friends kept telling us we would hate it.  Too big, too crazy, too much traffic, too whatever.  I love it.  Yes, it's big and crazy and traffic heavy, but the tradeoff's are fabulous.  The lovely year round weather, the flowers that grow as big as dinner plates, the fantastic people watching, the airplanes overhead.  I bet you didn't know the huzbin and I are airplane spotters.  Yep, we're the freaks identifying airplanes.  Back in the old days, before 9/11, you could sit at the end of runways and watch them fly over your head.  If you're from my home town, did you ever lay on the end of the runway and watch the planes come in?  We must have been out of our minds.  At least the huzbin and I sit NEAR the ends of runways, not on them.  We now have to park a good distance away from the runways.  However, we're quite lucky that we have kids living in large metro areas with large airports that allow us to see fantastic airplanes while we sit in the comfort of a yard or back porch.  We spot when we drive or while we're taking walks.  We're very good at stopping what we're doing to look up and identify the airplane going over.  The son in law mocks us.  The daughter rolls her eyes.  The son pretends he doesn't know us.  The daughter in law thinks we're nuts.  But the grandchild??  He loves airplanes!!!  And he loves to have his mommy and daddy take him to the airport to watch the airplanes!  Could this be genetic?  A freak "watch the airplane" gene??  Actually, I'm feeling the pull right now.  Time to get the binoculars and hit the window. I'm leaving you with a doodle painting.  This is what I do when I'm lying talking to my mother.

Love is in the Air!

Here we are, a few days before VD.  Yep, VD is everywhere.  Every big box store, every drugstore,  and of course all the flower shops and the chocolate shops in my town are pushing VD.  VD can be evil.  It begins the day after Christmas and builds and builds and builds and God pity the man who doesn't produce something edible, fragrant, or sparkly on VD!  As a matter of fact, VD is our wedding anniversary.  Very special day.  Mind you, I don't expect edible, fragrant or sparkly on my anniversary (even though I received a beautiful bouquet of my favorite flowers yesterday).  The huzbin and I swing a different way.  We're more into trips to see the kids and grandchild or replacing a dead appliance or paying $3,000 to the vet for poodle pneumonia recovery or somesuch fun thing.  Our life is so exciting.  We did take the plunge and purchase a new king mattress for the new king bed.  Yep, here we are approaching our mid-60's and we're finally marching into the 70's.  And the only reason we decided to make this change is because above named poodle is sleeping in the bed with us and running someone out of the bed.  The huzbin and I are cuddlers - something was going to have to give.  The poodle was beginning to give me the fish eye and I knew my time in the old bed wasn't long.  We've now become "those" people.  People who obey the dog.  People who allow the dog to run the household.  His illness has been horrible for the past three weeks and we've let him forget every bit of training because he was too sick to function.  He spent 4 days and 3 nights at the hospital because he had to be med monitored round the clock. We weren't sure he was going to come through this illness.  After he came off IV meds and fluids, his vet said in order to get him to eat, allow him to eat anything.  HA!  Now he's snubbing dog food.  Who would want to eat dog food after eating scrambled eggs, cooked chicken, peanut butter, lunch meat, ground beef and steak???  He's now turned the corner of his illness and is on the road to happy health.  Of course, he's snobby and untrained now, much like the huzbin was back in the day.  But I broke him and I'll break the poodle, too.  The huzbin had an excellent trainer and the poodle has an excellent trainer.  We'll be back to normal quite soon.  It will involve lots of love.  The timing of this event has been very appropriate - right around VD.  There won't be candy or flowers or sparklies, but there will be loads of love.  And when you're a poodle, what else could you possibly want??

Valentine's Day

Here we are in February.  It's a cruel month.  We're in the depths of winter and it's cold, dark, cold, often wet, frosty, cold, icy, just blah.  It's one of those months we just want to get through.  That's what adult me thinks.  Little girl me loved one particular February day - Valentine's Day.  I just loved the classroom Valentine's Day parties that were held in my elementary school.  Before we could have the party, we had to create the large Valentine "mailbox" from which all the Valentines could be "mailed," retrieved and passed out among the classmates.  This creation usually occurred the day or so before Valentine's Day during art class.  We were fortunate enough then to have an art teacher come and help us make our mailbox.  And to add to the fun, each student would bring a shoebox and make his or her own small personal Valentine box to take home.  This box would be full of the Valentines we would receive.  Making the Valentine mailbox and smaller box was my favorite activity of the celebration.  Mrs. Perry, our art teacher, would bring lots of art supplies from which we could create the most beautiful boxes.  The larger mailbox was always a team effort.  It was always completely covered with tissue paper, doilies, different sized red construction paper hearts, and other tidbits Mrs. Perry had brought for us.  After we tackled the large mailbox, we would work on our personal boxes.  Of course, glue ended up everywhere - no glue sticks then, and there would always be a kid or two who felt the need to eat a little glue along the way.  We could decorate our boxes as much or as little as we wanted.  I was always so proud of my box and loved to admire my handwork.  Next came the mailing of Valentines.  Each kid would go up front and put his/her Valentines into the large mailbox.  There would be assigned "mailmen" to pass them out later.  We would then have a foodfest.  Some of the room mothers would bring in fantastic treats - heart shaped pink cakes and red Kool-Ade. Whoa!!!!!  A kid's dream!!!!  After we feasted, the Valentine's were passed out.  I remember one particular year I sat in my seat, excitedly collecting Valentines from my classmates and I opened one envelope.  BAM!!!!!!  WHAT THE WHAT????  Some jackass kid had dared to print "I love you" on the back of the Valentine!!!!  The shock!!  The horror!!  The anger!!!  My face blazing, I took that card and stuffed it in my box.   My mother always enjoyed going through the Valentines with me when I got home and seeing that little message would have brought forth a bombardment of misery from her, her friends and our relatives. I had spent the previous Saturday afternoon choosing the perfect Valentine for each kid - the girls got the pretty, sparkly ones and the boys got the lower tiered, blah cards and I was NOT going to let this stupid boy upset the societal balance I had fabricated.  I realized I needed to act quickly.  I looked all around and saw that each kid was completely absorbed in his/her own sugar fueled heart shaped madness.  I was safe.  I took that card and tore it to pieces.  Better safe than sorry.  Better to break one boy's heart than to endure any mention of this "love" by an adult.  Times were tough.  He should have used chocolate, not words.