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May 30 Bedtime with the poodles5 Toy Poodles are in our king sized bed. They all lay at my feet in the dark. Some of them are sitting up still as we have just gotten settled. Their little heads are sillouhetted against the green light of the TV's cable box making it look like a city sky line on a grey smoky night. I am laying on my stomach like I am being frisked against the wall as the dogs settle into any space possible they can find. One lays ON my back, the other finds the rounded curve beneath my arm pit quite comfortable. Another in between my feet. The other 2 are somewhere, ah, one is laying his head on my pillow. The same one who looks at me, then him, then me again when we are trying to spend "alone" time, LOL. Evidently, we are one. Us three that is. Which as a 'mother' It doesn't bother me. But Porridge, another one of our toy poodles has developed the 'talent' (as they each have at least one), of presenting something. Could be anything. He will pick it up and bring it to you so joyously and wag his little stubby tail until you praise him. Each time it is the same response from me. In a high pitched voice..."Is that a (insert object here)?????? Do you have a (insert object here)??Is that your (insert object here)????? And in this instance. "That's YOUR empty toilet paper roll. Yee-esssss!" And then some baby talk, a scratch under the chin, pat on the head and he goes on his merry way.Actually, I have to kind of scootch him on his merry way. But when you are trying to spend some "alone" time, it is hard to be romantic if you don't turn a blind eye to this sight, especially when an empty toilet paper roll is being jutted into your ear.
Little did I know I was going to be awakend at 2:30 in the morning to them wanting to go out. Evidently while I slumbered they had taken a unanimous vote as they were all seeming quite eager upon my wakening. My vote didn't have a chance. So I open the bedroom door and the herd tumbles down the stairs and outside as I let them. I look around and enjoy the evening air with furry eyes (too much time on QnA I guess). Confident they have all answered natures call, I call them in. Timber, my husbands favorite boy dog, the only one with a full tail is way off near the field eating the turds that my black lab is pooping. I can tell because I see a black shadow and a white wagging tail at her backside. You nasty thing. I call but he doesn't come. So I brave a few steps into the wet grass and get a quarter way there and admonish him. "Yucky boy, Timber. You are a yucky boy!" Just to make sure, I grab his head in my hands and take a sniff to make sure I wasn't mistaken. Yep, dem turds alright. Ugh! Big Lab turds at that. I just can't understand. "You are staying downstairs the rest of the night. Sorry boy" I put the baby gate up beneath the stairs, pick each one up and put them over it and they all head up stairs one by one, leaving Timber and Sadie the lab, his treat provider down with him for company. May 28 Boring and CreepyDo you know what's boring? Walking through the mall on a Wednesday night. It was late. The sales people were pulling closed the gates to their stores and I had found absolutely nothing. The hot pretzel I was nibbling on offered no inspiration whatsoever. I was just about to back pack it to the other end of the mall where i was parked when I happened to stumble upon Sears. I lingered outside of it for a moment like a curious lab rat that smells a piece of cheese. The bright lights and pastel colored loofah gloves next to the sloughing creams drew me in and I decided to give it a chance. The next thing I knew, I was strutting tall, with a pair of size 8's in a drawstring bag that I had just bought on clearance. Little did I know then what great conversation starters they would be. For the next two years it was "Oh, thanks, yeah, I got these at Sears....." I'd rather get complimented for my Dollar Tree flip flops. MUCH more cooler than SEARS. Than the heels started getting scuffed up. Customers would come in and catch me at my desk coloring them with a black sharpie. Classy, huh? Records Vs. IpodsMy parents were cool even before they had us children. I know because I saw their record collection. Before they were forced to pay dues to a neighborhood association and play host to relatives who decided to 'get away' to the South for a few weeks, they rocked out. It may have been doing the Mash Potato or Watusi, or singing "My Baby does the Hanky Panky" but they were still cool. As a little girl, I'd hold the square shiny albums in my hands, turning them over and over examining every facet of the images on them.I'd even smell them. They had the faint smell of corn tortillas and cardboard. I'm a smell addict, by the way. But, let me tell you a few albums I remember them having: Sly and the Family Stone,The Fifth Dimension, The Sandpipers singing "The French Song". Bobby Vinton "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World". It didn't matter to me what genre they were in. Nothing was uncool. I even listened to the Mormon Tabernacle and Joe Finn Sings Irish. It didn't matter that I wasn't even a thought when these artists and musicians created their masterpieces, I was going to listen to them. On a record player! What the heck, it was music and I was all ears. A sponge. Moldable and ready to sing along in my childish voice. Well, think about it. What were my other distractions? Lincoln Logs and Lite Brite? A yellow calculator shaped like an owl? These all rocked too, but I was mesmerized by Johhny Mathis and listened to A Winter Wonderland, gazing at him wearing skis laying on the snow. And we danced to the Popcorn Song, bending at the knees to the beat.In the earlier years when music was just being introduced to me, and us three kids would sit around our Aristocat record player and listen to Barbara Streisand "No more Tears" and Donna Summers "No one Gets the Prize". We'd tab through the thick black discs, the 45's from a red patent leather case that resembled a lunch box. I'd hear Chrissie and Freddie constantly proclaim "That's my favorite song" to every song they heard. One day I decided that I needed a favorite song too, and to my parents amusement, I announced that it was "Feelings".One Christmas, each of us kids received a record as one of our gifts under the Christmas Tree. My sister received Debbie Boones "California", my brother Freddie got KISS, and I got the Beatles. I memorized the album covers. Debbie Boone sprawled on her bed in a peach silky nightgown. The crowd on the KISS cover. And of course John, Paul and Ringo. We wore those records out.I think children in today's world miss out on this experience. With the invention of the ipod and all the burning of Cd's, they will completely bypass the whole experience of holding the album, smelling the newness and feeling the smooth cover with their hand. There is just something to be said for having to put the needle in the groove, or having the record skip. Hearing the crackle. Having to stay close to the record and lean your ear in to get the full experience. Ah, but it can't be better, I suppose, if the kid's don't know any better. You can't miss what you don't know. One day, they may say that they themselves had the ultimate experience and how their kids are the ones missing out with telepathic listening chips embedded in their heads. But the bottom line is music is music. As long as that lyrical halo is being passed down from generation to generation, what ever form it comes from, it'll always be influential and play a role in defining who we are. Hence, why I still dance the same way today as I did to the Popcorn Song. That's NOT cool. Summer BreezeThe breeze is strong, like the breeze before a summer rain. There are a lot of clouds in the sky but it is bright and the birds are singing. I feel like I am standing at the waters edge at the ocean, my hair wafting back from the air. It is intoxicating, and i can't keep an inhale long enough before I have to breathe again. I am looking out the screen at my back yard and the country fields that stretch for miles. This spring day reminds me of summer in my childhood. Of hot granite roads beneath bare feet. Sucking on Honey Suckles along the way as we walk to the lake, the shadows of the lush canopy and dancing limbs overhead. We would walk on these shadows to avoid the hot road all the way down to the lake where we would swim. A scratchy towel around our necks, my friend and I would enter the grassy entrance which felt like we were walking on white bread. The water, lukewarm swallowed our little bodies until all that showed was the beebops on our pig tailed heads. We did flips and "hiney boppers", and came up for air, laughing. Tara did her slow motion "sexy" pose, where she'd rise up from under the water, hair plastered across her face with pouty lips and dripping lake water, her childish chubby body betraying this sultry look. Her finger on her bottom lip, she'd tilt her head down and she'd bat her eyelashes at an unsuspecting Peter Sjulander in the distance. We would laugh like crazy. "No, wait" I'd say. Then, I'd try it. After that we'd stumble out of the water picking our bathing suits out from our butts, slip on our sneakers and trudge back up the long hill back home, giggling and kicking rocks along the way. Those were carefree childish days. Before we turned into adults. Before we got our own opinions and became aware of how to act like ladies and care. Before we knew to get offended. Such is life. But the smell of summer will always remain the same as I stand before the screen looking out my back window inhaling the sweet breeze, thanking God for my life. Embrace the SilenceA backdrop of pine against a blue sky Tree frogs singing Grasshoppers tapping their front legs thoughtfully and looking up at the sun A brown leaf left behind dropping like a note in front of me A white haze of a 12:00 sun bathing the land warming the top of my head My footsteps crushing into the moist red earth Velvet caressing of the soft wind through my hair The sweet smell that the breeze carries The birds that descend the branches watching me and singing their welcoming song A Godly song just for me I accept it with grateful tears |
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