Friday Cemetery Blogging

But hopefully not void.

This has turned into an interesting week. Remember my dad? Who just had the highly entertaining open heart surgery? I was at work Tuesday afternoon when caller ID showed that his church was calling. When I answered, the nice lady on the other end of the line said, "You're not gonna believe this."

Dad fell off his bike and broke a rib and punctured a lung.

When I got to the hospital, he and my mom were worried sick. About the dog.

Dad rides his bike every day. The dog runs along side and, dad admits, occassionally pulls the bike down the road with his leash. GB is one huge, strong dog. This time dad was making a wobbly turn on some gravel when he and the dog got tangled up. Cue ambulance.

The dog was fine. The bike is fine. Dad is gonna live. And I got to spend some quality time at the hillbilly hospital.

Yeah, that fence is six feet tall. GB is standing on a stack of firewood.

Oh, geeze...

She's got baby breath.

Not to be confused with puppy breath...

Uh-oh...

When I got home from work, this was on the back porch.

I think the dog might have eaten a baby...!

Spring Break

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Know what this is? This is the FIRST tombstone I have EVER seen with R.I.P. on it.

I thought it was cool.

Happy weekend, everyone!

The Dog Whistler

Katie was lying on the couch. The dog was gnawing on her various extremities. Her father and I were busy with our own pursuits, which is another way of saying we were doing our best to shut out the inanity of the Disney Channel.

Katie spoke:

"Emily told me how to be the alfalfa."

All was quiet as Jackson and I both tried to process this information. I looked at him. He looked at me. We both looked at her. Then back at each other. Then we looked at the dog, who also seemed confused by this statement.

Katie blinked at us expectantly.

I looked at the dog again. Jackson said "Alfalfa?"

"Yeah!" Katie said, helpfully.

I was still looking at the dog.

"Oh!" I said, as the light finally dawned. "The alpha dog!"

"Yeah," Katie said again. "If you're the alfalfa dog, you can't let your dog crawl all over on top of you while you're playing!"


Her SAT scores should be really interesting. (Although, she did qualify this weekend to go to state in UIL calculator competition.) ((However, in the interests of accuracy, it should be mentioned that her father is still trying to convince her there is a difference between calculator and calculus.))

Friday Cemetery Blogging

The picture this week is from the Big Flat City Cemetery. I love long, tree-lined drives. The best one I've seen in Andrews, Texas. There are two long lanes bounded by huge old elm trees in their city cemetery. They shade the entire cemetery and they make the whole place about 15 degrees cooler than anywhere else in the area. On any given summer evening you can find a dozen or so people walking in the peaceful coolness. I heard the county commission wants to cut the trees down. I have no idea why. Rampaging stupidity fueled by extensive in-breeding and years of pesticide abuse is my guess.

It was rainy and snowy for most of the day today. My favorite kind of weather. Stick-Boy, the least unreliable of the local weather guys, says we might get more of the same tomorrow. I certainly hope so.

Tonight was the last night of our DWI classes for a while. I'm gonna miss that particular group of drunks. They were a lot of fun. I learned some neat things about some of them, including one of my own guys who is frequently on my list of people I would like to hit with my truck. He talked to me about how he loves to read. He never finished high school, but he just finished Dante's Inferno. For the second time! He's about to start on the Odyssey. We had a really good conversation about Joseph Campbell's hero theories. Who wouldda thought??!

You know you've spent too much time watching the primary results...

...when the dog and cat are getting in on the heated debate.

Steve won. She always wins. I think she channels Dick Cheney.

Zoe channels Barney the Dinosaur. It's not pretty.

The gods must not be all that upset...

Along about 3:45 this afternoon, I experienced a miracle not unlike that of the loaves and fishes.



"I just found peanut M&Ms in my desk!" I announced triumphantly to no one in particular.

"Woooow," came the reply from Mindy next door.

A few minutes later:

"They don't even taste old!" I said. "They don't really taste all that fresh either..."

Mindy darkened my door frame, holding a small box in one hand and two bright green foil-wrapped somethings in the other. "I'll trade you a box of conversation hearts and two marshmallow bunnies for two M&Ms," she said.

"I'll give you four M&Ms if you give me the hearts and keep the bunnies," I told her. "I hate marshmallows in all their permutations."

"I hate 'em like this," Mindy agreed, eyeing her bunnies disdainfully. "I love them in Rice Crispy treats, though."

"Not me!" I said as I munched another M&M. As I was searching the package for a blue one, a light dawned in Mindy's eyes.

"Hey! Let's take a couple of jars of this community service peanut butter and open 'em up. We could jam the marshmallow bunnies down in the middle and reseal 'em."

"Ooooh! Good idea!"

"We'll use creamy peanut butter. That way it'll be easier to get the bunnies down in there."

"Yeah!" I was getting excited about the idea. "We should microwave the peanut butter first."

"Yes!"

"And freeze the bunnies!" I said.

"Oh, good! Then we can push the bunnies down into the hot peanut butter and it will be perfect!"

"Yeah," I agreed. "We should put them in ears first."

"True," she said. "That would be a lot easier."

"Yeah, little bunnies headfirst into the peanut butter, nothing but their feet sticking out of the top. It's like a Marshmallow Mafia hit."



We ate some more M&Ms. Then we went back to work.