fleeced

Someday soon, I will have time to write again. This is what I keep telling myself.

Until then... the last month in photos. Installment 1: visit to the groomers.

A few weeks back the boys got a haircut. The groomer, on the phone, quoted me $60 for each of them. When I picked them up however she raised an eyebrow at me and sputtered, "Um, your dogs are, um..., well..., um..., they're BAD!"

Uh, tell me something I don't know.

So she did. "I'm gonna have to charge you another$30 for all the extra time it took to groom them."

I laughed, because that's what I do anymore when these goons stick us with yet another bill to pay. And then I promptly blamed Court for the entirety of their behavior maladies.

So, don't be suckered in by these winsome faces. They may look cute but those dreamy eyes are actually feverishly lusting after the piece of chicken I'm holding above their head - my new torture tactic to make me feel better about the extra $30 I'm out.

spring special

"Well since you asked, I'd really like to have one of those 10-piece Chicken Nuggets from McDonald's."

my life as a big yellow truck

10 generous mover-people + two drudging days + one glorious caffeine drip = move complete

And oh what a relief THAT is.

Because moving? Just plain sucks.

This particular move hailed every opportunity to remind me just how it's such a perfectly unpleasant nightmare. And because of that I can safely say, this is our last move. We will be buried in Colorado.

No, actually, we will be buried wherever that blasted truck ends up. I sincerely hope it's Colorado but if for some inexplicable reason Court ends up in Hoople, North Dakota or Yoder, Kansas with an unloaded truck, that's it, we're done. I hope you'll visit.

On the positive side, what an amazing little family we have here in Seattle. These people justifiably could (should) have said drop dead when we asked for moving help yet AGAIN. Really, we are way overdrawn on what's reasonable in this regard.

But instead they arrived one-by-one with chipper spirits, able bodies and coffee(!!) and voiced not one complaining peep, not even about the new oafish sleeper sofa and ginormous treadmill we've added to our inventory since we last called on their services.

They are just fantastically fabulous and honestly it saddens me to be reminded of this just as I'm up and leaving them in 10 short weeks. It would be easier if they weren't so great so I could be all THANK GOODNESS I'm leaving those LOSERS behind.

But alas, they are wonderful and I love them.

So, at last, the house is empty.

My entire life - husband, dogs, worldly possessions - is whirling across the country at an 80 mile-an-hour blur.

The dogs are riding in the cab of the truck - as in on the same seat -with Court. I'd love to be a fly on the vinyl for some of the precious moments these three are undoubtedly sharing. Court already called from the road to tell me the dogs have twice eaten his lunch.

HAH!

Welcome to MY world buddy. Those two little scamps have been eating my proverbial lunch for five years now.

Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll dump THEM in Hoople, North Dakota.

easing my way down from the ledge

Last night I dreamt I was stranded miles above the earth, clinging to the feeble top of a swaying spindly tree while fear nipped at me from head to toe. A large crowd had gathered waaaayyy down below and I could hear the distant pleas of people telling me to come down.

Easy for them to say.

This was one of those dreams where, when you awake, you have that unsettled feeling that something is really wrong.

I laid still for a second, eyes big and thoughts darting. "Ok, ok, what's wrong with me?" Then came the flood of relief. "THANK GOD I'm not flailing recklessly atop a woozy fairytale plant."

This, as one might imagine, was comforting.

But, it's not a bad way to start the day because honestly how much worse can things get when you begin by thinking you're waving around on a reedy limb at an ungodly altitude. Or, I guess it would be a godly altitude. Hah.

Anyway, nothing elusive about this dream. You'd think my subconscious could throw me some weightier metaphors to interpret.

In other news, yesterday we completed our final inspection requirement. Great big planetoid HOORAY for that and one more reason to consider coming down from my figurative ledge.

This last inspection item wouldn't be noteworthy but for the service guy mentioning he'd never before seen anything like our air ducts.

As in, they were so jammed full of clumped dog hair that he nearly needed to bring in special equipment.

Truly, this surprises me not. And truthfully I'm thankful for whatever dog hair darted into those ducts because honestly there have been days where ONE MORE strand of dog hair and I'd have lost it. You'd have heard puppy squeals across the Great Divide.

Speaking of dogs, this is Uncle Buster, my Grandpa's dog. The more my dogs torture me with hair, saliva, blood, and other reckless behavior, the more I love Uncle Buster. He doesn't lick, doesn't incessantly demand attention, nor does he shed all that much. And, there's only one of him.

I like Uncle Buster. In fact, I'd come down off the ledge just for him.

one more post like this & court may call off the adoption

Sometimes I see these sweet faces and I'm all "ohhh... and ahhh..."

And then I remember THIS:


and suddenly I'm all this:


And adding to the list of transgressions that tempt me to Google the words Bye Bye Doggie, it was $90 to have the Freddy Krueger scene detailed out of my car today. Thankfully, there wasn't any eyebrow-raising from the detailer guys. But just in case, I wore a pink shirt and shiny lip gloss so I'd come off all not murdery and such. And it worked: when I said "dogfight" they didn't even blink an eye. Hah! So FYI for anyone who might 'need to know' - Pink Elephant on Denny Way: car full of blood and NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

And really honey, I promise never to bring up euthanizing our real children. Really. I would at least send them to live with your mother first.

no good deed goes unbloodied

Lessons learned today:

• Do not be suckered by cute puppy faces
• Put your underwear in your dresser drawer where they belong

My girlfriend sent me these Sugarland lyrics which are rather fitting when I reflect on recent events:

"Ain't no rhyme or reason
No complicated meaning
Ain't no need to over think it ...
Life don't go quite like you planned it
The fact is psssh It happens"

The last three words are really the only relevant ones. Run them together and you get the idea.

And yeah, it does happen.

Last night, overcome by a rare burst of canine kindness, I decided to load my two very big dogs into my very small car. The sun had already set and it wasn't the time of day I'd normally consider for a pooch outing but they've been rather housebound lately and I was a bit smitten with all their puppy eagerness. So I caved and decided to take them to the park on the way to watch American Idol with Grandpa.

So I herd them into my (new!) Golf. We go to the park. They frolic and play. They feel good. I feel good. Life is good.

I drive to Grandpa's. We watch American Idol. It's dark when I drive home. I can't see the inside of the car.

This morning, I wake up, go through the morning drill, and head out to my car.

And Holy Cats.

My car looks like someone was murdered in it. Blood everywhere. A large pool of blood on the carpet and splatter (splatter!) everywhere. Windows, doors, dashboard, seats. I scan the car to see if any windows are broken, graphic images of savage stabbing racing through my mind. (I watch Law and Order- splatter only happens with violent death.)

While sitting in this bloody mess, processing, my phone rings. It's my dad (also my realtor) calling to tell me the buyers "just want to stop by today and see the house again and is that okay because they'll be there at 3pm?"

Poor Dad. Bad timing.

"Uh, no IT'S NOT OKAY."

Silence. "Why not?"

"For starters I'm sitting in blood and really nothing is okay when you're sitting in blood. Secondly, my vacuum cleaner is broken, remember? My house is covered in dog hair because this house is SOLD."

"I don't think they'll care about that," my dad says, apparently skimming over the "I'm sitting in a bloody crime scene" bit.

"Okay, well. Do you think they'll care about the underwear hanging from the vacuum? Or the pile of three-day-old dishes in the sink? How about the toilet I probably forgot to flush? Maybe they will care about that?

So no THEY CANNOT COME IN TODAY."

My dad, a rather gentle soul, goes quiet. "Is everything okay?"

I look around my bloodied car, pick up my blood splattered makeup compact, and sigh.

"Sure. Everything is just fine. Psssh It Happens."

psychic vacuum

My vacuum cleaner broke yesterday. This was a big deal and not because I paid $550 for it. Lately, with our house on the market, I use that gangly contraption more often than I shower.

There are two reasons for this enslavement and they are named Dakota and Gemini. Keeping our for-sale home free of puppy grime is a constant effort, particularly during this snowy and rainy weather. These two canine bundles of filth fling a cloud of dirt and fur everywhere their eight grubby paws go. One day without my vacuum and fur is piling up faster than Octuplet Mom is populating the earth.

So you can imagine my anxiety when it goes kaput. I was feverishly vacuuming prior to potential buyers coming to view the house. True, I was nearly done. But what about tomorrow? How would all the hair be removed tomorrow?

I shook the vacuum. Turned it on and off. Bounced it up and down on the floor. "Work, work, woooorrrk," I pleaded. But it stood there, stoic and unmoving as if to say, "Relax sister, my work here is done." (I'm not sure why but I imagine that with an Indian accent.) Exasperated, I picked up the remaining hair by hand (you should really try this sometime) and made a mental note to add Vacuum Repair to my already long list of to-do's.

I left the house just before the realtor was supposed to arrive. Now if you're selling a house in this market you know better than to get too excited about your house actually selling. Our house hasn't been on the market long and there's been very little interest in it. So while I was pleased that people were coming to view it, I wasn't very hopeful and was really more preoccupied with finding that vacuum repair man.

But it turns out my little vacuum knew something I didn't. Those people made an offer on our house and we're now under contract with a closing date of April 15. Later that evening my vacuum and I twirled in an ecstatic little happy dance while singing, no more vacuuming, no more vacuuming...!

But don't worry, I will keep showering.