I'm at it again

I have been grooming.....slowly but surely........several nights this week. I have no photographic evidence to back me up because my shitty little digital camera and it's 8 gazillion batteries can never keep a charge long enough to take a friggin picture! But, trust me, the Poodles are beginning to look less pound-puppy and more........um, let's just leave it at "less pound puppy". I have 2 more to groom tonight and then all 5 hoodlums will be done. Ahhhh, the sweet joy of not being locked in the basement like a modern day, upside-down Cinderella. I will be lovin' my weekend.

On a somewhat more serious note, I had to skip out of work ( personal time, accounted for SIR!!) for the funeral mass of a friend/former co-worker's mother. She was verrrrry old, like 97 or so, and had been ill for many years, so the family was as prepared as a family can possibly be.... which is still not prepared at all. I was glad to be able to attend to support my friend, but being in the church brought me to a place that I don't normally like to be in.....literally.

I know I will probably get all kinds of shit for what's to come in the remainder of this post, but I really don't care. I rarely EVER post my views on religion, politics, other inflammatory subjects. Not because I am afraid of the fallout. Not because I don't have deep, mind-numbing, soul-searching, intellectual thoughts on the topics at hand ( keep the snarkiness to yourselves.....I AM capable of depth!). It's mainly because I don't really care what other people's belief's are, so I naturally figure that they wouldn't care about mine either. Therefore.....no need to discuss them. That, and the fact that I have a very strong opinion on just about EVERYTHING, be it right or wrong. Yep, there's that. I'm not in the business of trolling for friends/supporters/sympathizers, so I usually state my mind quite effectively and with little hesitation. However, age and maturity ( I would like to think, but I do also have my detractors on that one) has taught me a few things about that *I'll tell you exactly what I think* gene that was apparently inherited from my paternal side. Mostly I have learned that I can get all riled up about a subject that is very *important* to me, can listen to everyone else's opinion of my opinion, and in the end, I still feel the same way I originally did. For me, not so productive. So I keep it to myself.

Except for today. As I sat in that church, watching and listening to the rituals, the pontification ( appropriate choice of words, no?), the quiet weeping of the family, the "up-down, up-down, turn around, clap your hands and say a prayer" quality of the mass, I realized once again that I simply hate church. I honestly do. I don't say that to inflame anyone, to belittle their beliefs, to criticize those who have strong faith-based lives. For me, personally, organized religion is all about ancient, patriarchal rituals that are often more exclusionary than they are comforting.

I was raised a Catholic, as were multiple generations of my family before me. I was baptized as an infant, made my Holy Communion as a kid, my Confirmation as a teenager, and relented to allow my daughter to be baptized when she was a baby. I caved to familial pressure on that one, even thought, at 18, I already felt that the Catholic Church, and religion in general, was not a comfortable place for me. I also attended Catholic High School for 1.5 years ( forced, I may add, by a family in which all the grandchildren went to Catholic High School). After spending the majority of that time getting into enough trouble to be asked to leave....permanently, my Mother finally agreed to remove me voluntarily and she at least got half her tuition returned. I HATED EVERY MOMENT OF THAT 1.5 YEARS. Every single one.

I don't have any "Mama, the priest touched me in a bad, bad place" stories, no overtly negative connotations with religion......just this long-standing sense that I didn't belong. It's just not for me. That is not to suggest that I don't have my own beliefs because I do.....they just don't jibe with what most others see as "the truth according to God, Allah, whoever, whatever". My Mother scoffs at this idea, as if, when the subject infrequently rears it's controversial head, I am saying these things to spite her or to be negatory. I am not. It's just the truth. I don't begrudge anyone else the peace that they insist religion or faith brings them. I have just never felt it and I am hard pressed to believe that it truly exists.

So sitting in the church today, watching my friend try to keep her composure as the Priest discussed the virtues of her now-deceased mother ( whom he had never even met, by the way, so how did he know her virtues?), I was again stricken by how little patience I have for the pomp and circumstance. How, when I die, I wanna' be shoved into the oven, packed into an urn and put on a bookshelf in a loving display. I don't want strangers and grief-mongers to sit in a church and listen to a sermon about the type of person I was. To surreptitiously peek at my casket and decide if the family was too cheap to pick the deluxe-seal-a-meal model.To gossip about what I really died of and where my money will be going. If they didn't already know who I was before I died, why would they be there anyway?? I don't want any of it, and I don't think I ever will.

End of sermon.

I really hate it when I stay up

to watch something that is supposed to be good and it ends up sucking. Take last night, for example. Came home from a full, busy day at work, cleaned up my yard, fed 5 dogs, ate dinner, bathed 2 dogs and groomed them (magnificently, I must add). I finished just in time to wash up, give the pups a last call in the yard, and settle in to watch the Terri Irwin, the wife of the now-deceased Crocodile Hunter
interview with Baba Wawa on 20/20. Now, no collective groans from the crowd. I am not, by nature, a sentimentalist. Not even close. I have actually been accused ( unfairly in my opinion) of being hard-hearted. I disagree. I simply feel that if someone is annoying or troublesome to me in some way, I excise them from my life like a surgeon would with a cancerous tumor. Simple as that. If people see that as unfeeling, well, then get me the scalpel cause' they need a little removing too.

However, for some odd reason, the death of the Crocodile Hunter has been very captivating to me, and not in the normal car-crash "let's slow down and see if there are any mangled parts" way (there is a reason I worked in an Emergency Room for 11 years.....I LOVE that stuff!) I just was very saddened over his death in a way that I normally reserve for people I actually know ( and sometimes even like), and I don't really understand why. I just was. I watched the memorial service and cried. I felt badly for his family. I was really interested in what his wife had to say in this televised interview, even though Baba annoys the living hell out of me.

So, there I sat, tissues at the ready .....just in case. And I watched. The whole hour. I was left with a sense that almost the entire interview was scripted on Terri's part. It was almost as if she was reciting a well-rehearsed scene. It was a little disturbing to me. There were a few moments of what appeared to be genuine emotion, especially when discussing her kids, but the rest was like an everyday interview about how girl meets boy, falls in love, has children, goes on adventures and then loses boy to tragedy.

By the end of the hour, I regretted having watched the show. I was better off believing that there was a grieving wife in the Land Down Under, truly missing her man and doing her best to keep the pieces together. THAT I can understand. I think maybe we all can. That overwhelming sense of loss, uncertainty, soul-baring grief. The scripted, rehearsed part......not so understanding about that. Maybe she's just been in front of the camera a little too long, but last night, for me, a shared connection with another human being who has traveled a similar road was lost.

I shoulda' just read a book.

I promise it won't be all doggie all the time

but , Trevor



( seen here practicing his "I promise I won't touch the Christmas tree or village look". I fell for that one too) had his first brush with "dietary indescretion" yesterday. Or as we owners of *big* dogs call it ( after we do the secret handshake and accompanying dance), Trevor learned how to "countersurf". Actually, in his case, it was more like "tablesurf", but it served the very same purpose as far as my boy was concerned. He got food......for free!!! Well, not exactly a belly full, but half a stick of butter has to count for something, right?

So, there goes all of my self-inflated, dog-training-to-perfection, egotistical bragging that my Standard Poodle " would never even think of countersurfing". As I may have mentioned once or twice, these damned dogs have a way of making asses out of us, and Trevor is workin' his program but good lately!

As it shakes out, the story was related to me by my mother when I got home from work. Trevor was hanging his head in shame (or indigestion, your bet is as good as mine) the whole time she was telling me. You see, my Mom is lovingly called "Mrs. McTwitter, the babysitter" ( let's see if any of you smarties know where that is from) because she has the Poodles from 12 noon until 4:30 when I get home. They are muuuuuuch more, let's say......animated, no.........gregarious, no..........the ugly truth is, they like to take advantage of Gram. They try to get away with all sorts of shit that they would NEVER try with me, Madame Corporal Bitch. I always encourage her to be tougher with them, demand good behavior, make them work for treats and privileges, but it falls on deaf ears because she is a softy------so to come home to a tale of an attempted overthrow of authority is not terribly unusual. I figure it probably all comes out in the wash anyway.....she babies them and I basically terrorize them (not really but please don't tell them, they think I am evil and I like it that way. It sooooo improves their listening skills)

HA, take that you pack of hooligans!

Anyway, back to the story. My Mom was cooking, but decided to take a break for a few minutes in the living room. She said that she barely heard the sound of something moving in the kitchen, but couldn't place what it might have been. All the Poodles were supposedly out in the yard terrorizing squirrels and neighbors alike, but when she heard the noise again, she yelled " what's going on!?"

That was when the guilty party tried to make his escape.....to his crate.......which can only be accessed by passing my Mom in the living room. As if that wasn't bad enough, Mister Theiving-Ways-Trev was licking his lips the entire shameful walk to prison, so she knew SOMETHING WASN'T RIGHT.

When she got into the kitchen, she found that the butter dish was the distictive but muted noise she had heard. It's glass, and when it moves on the wooden table, it makes a noise we are all familiar with in our house cause' we sure do LOVE our butter. Only, the dish had been ever-so-delicately moved from the center of the table to the edge, and one half of the stick was gone. Cleanly. no teeth marks, no tongue swipes pressed into it's creamy goodness.......no evidence whatsoever! The only clue was a guilty looking Poodle with buttery soft lips and a self-punishing nature. She called Trevor out of his exile on crate island, and she told me that as soon as she held up the butter dish and asked him "what's this?" ....he headed for the hills again, blasting through the Doggie Door to cavort and race around the yard (something he finds far more amusing than I do whenever he's in trouble).

Shortly thereafter, I came home and had my hopes and dreams for a counter-surfing-free Standard Poodle crushed. For kicks (and to get the conniving little bugger back), I spent the next hour or so whipping out the butter dish every time Trev entered the room, only to watch him spin and duck and jive to avoid being killed by a crazy lady wielding a Land-O-Lakes pound o' flesh!

Hope that sneaky bastard gets the runs but good.

I'm forced to divulge the secret

since none of you guessed correctly. Actually, none of you guessed at all. I am referring to my post last week about the health screening that my department held. It was a Prostate Screen.......wheeeeeeeee! Imagine the fun of that!! And I didn't even have the privilege of being one of the men with a doctor's finger in my ass. Some days it is pure luck that I was born female and last Thursday was one of them. Please remember to remind me of that the next time I have a GYN appointment.

In all, we screened over 160 men for free and we found 39 with some semblance of abnormality that had previously been undetected. We are following up on all of them and providing the necessary care. That's a good thing.

A bad thing is having to stand on your feet for 4 hours straight while the screen was going on.......after already working an 8 hour day. My feet were rather dissatisfied with this development and made sure to remind me of that for a few days afterward. In fact, they kinda felt like I was doing this every time I stood up:



That did little to improve my normally cheerful and outgoing attitude, and the additional joy of having to attend Sadie's agility class the following night was just icing on the proverbial

Now, don't go gettin' all huffy on me, thinking that it was just mere weeks ago that I was deliriously happy over the IDEA of rejoining agility. I am, I swear I really am. But the thought of having to run around the indoor ring
with an Agility addicted Poodle who is and always will be faster than me......when my feet are screaming for mercy------well, suffice it to say, that was not on my top 10 things I hoped and prayed for last week. But, being the wonderful and devoted owner that I am ( and the fact that I have to prepay for the classes so I'll be damned if I miss any unless of course, I truly die and then I will make my mother request a refund for my estate),I went to class and pretended to enjoy myself while my speed demon of a girl ( pictured here sitting still for a moment but only because she had surgery to remove most of her hip 10 days before....and I had LIVER treats)

kicked my old ass the entire time! My view was of her tail whizzing by my calves for an exhausting hour. That was, when I could catch my breath long enough to un-blur my eyes from the sweat rolling down my forehead. It was more fun than a human should be allowed to have when they pay for it. By the next morning ( Friday), I was near crippled with foot pain and I STILL had to go and work and spectate (is that even a word?) at our local breed Club Specialty Show. Working entailed standing on my feet for 1.5 hours, helping to prepare and serve lunch. Does the fun never end? Spectating entailed standing on my feet for 5 more hours, watching all the Poodles strut their stuff in the Obedience, Agility, Rally and Conformations rings. That actually was fun, but I cut out early because I knew my feet were spreading noxious and toxic pain waves to my brain, and I was near death.

As luck would have it, it rained and was generally miserable all weekend, so I did little-to-nothing the entire 2 days, which, if you know me and my history of ADD, that was a tough one, but my feet appreciated it and shared their enthusiasm over my new found laziness by relenting their attack on my pain centers. It had the potential to be a relaxing weekend if I could have found a way to turn off the worrying in my head over all the things that still needed to get done. Groom the dogs, clean the house, take pictures of "stuff to be sold on E-Bay and Craigslist, clean the house, fix my car door, clean the house. Have I painted a descriptive enough picture? Now, there, there. Don't lose any sleep worrying over me. The county will not be coming anytime soon to condemn my palace, but when the dust is visible enough to leave yourself a love note ( well who the hell else is gonna' do it?), it's time to break down and clean the house. Of course, maybe I can find a neighbor with a kid who has a house-cleaning obsession.

That would be great. However, I would insist that my house-child be properly dressed, unlike the tyke in the photo. I mean, who would want your hired help whizzing on your rug as they vacuumed it? That would kind of defeat the purpose. I saw a kid on Ellen Degeneres once who had a vacuum obsession. He was about 3 and he could name all the brands of vacuums and he collected them. His parents fostered this obsession. They claimed that he vacuumed and vacuumed and vacuumed from the time he could toddle about the house. Can somebody find me a kid like that? Anyone. I'll pay to have them shipped here. My feet will thank you, my house will thank you and I promise to pass the good Karma on. As a matter of fact, I will make a solemn vow here today. If you rent me your Merry Maid of a kid, I will be certain to examine the hands of all of the Prostate Screen doctors and only choose the ones with short fingers for our next community screening. How's that for passing it on?

I guess he was just setting me up

After I spent so much time yesterday bragging about how sweet Trevor is, this morning he is walking around and around and around the house...........squeaking a big red doggie pacifier toy........relentlessly. Incessantly. Unendingly. Unnervingly. Annoyingly.

ARE YOU GETTING THE PICTURE????????????

I MUST GET OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!!!


So sorry, I am back now after dispatching that stupid toy to the deepest recesses of hell in the coat closet with the locking door. However, I still must get out of here because today I have the day off from work. I am attending our annual Poodle Club specialty show and I can't wait to be surrounded by Poodles all day. What's that you say? I can just stay home? Hardee har har.....a bunch of comedians.

Talk to ya'later.

My squirrel and I gotcha' covered

( WARNING.......DOG TALK AHEAD!! IF YOU DON'T LIKE DOGS, ESPECIALLY OF THE POODLE PERSUASION....GO THE HELL AWAY!!!!! IF YOU DO LIKE DOGS, BUT YOU'RE NOT SURE ABOUT POODLES, GET A BRAIN AND REMEMBER THAT THEY ARE ACTUALLY RETRIEVERS! IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT THE HAIR!!)

For those of you that don't know, I have 5 Poodles. Yup, you heard me right......5 of them. One big and 4 little. My big guy, Trevor, is 21 months old and he is the first Standard Poodle I have ever owned. It's been quite a learning experience. Even though he's the same breed of dog, he's very different then my Miniatures in a lot of ways. Here is Trevor:



He's a very mellow kinda guy and has recently developed a very wry sense of humor. Now I know there will be some doubters out there in Blogville who don't get how a dog has a sense of humor, but let me assure you (cause you'll look just awful if you stay up all night ruminating) that Poodles most definitely DO have a sense of humor, and they usually use it to embarass the hell out of their owners ( but that's another whole Blog in itself).

Back to Trevor. At 21 months, he is, I have been assured by those MUCH more knowledgeable than me in this stuff, still very much a puppy. However, the past few weeks, I have started to notice a certain maturity about him. Just glimpses here and there, but definitely signs that he's a BIG BOY now. For example, he has recently taken to laying------full out-------across the hallway outside my bathroom door when I shower in the morning. Now, for my faithful Blog followers ( and I think we might possibly have hit the double digits), you might recall my story about laying some linoleum on my bathroom floor. For those of you who did not have the pleasure to read that Blog.......don't look at me! Blame Blogger. Blogger stole my other Blog and refused to return it!! That's right Blogger, you sneaky bastard, I'm still waiting for ya'. Watch over your shoulder cause I'm still pissed about your theiving ways.
So, as I posted once before, I have an exceedingly tiny bathroom in an exceedingly tiny Cape Cod house. There is barely enough room for a single person in there, nevermind a 'fluffy" single person ( single by choice, not cause I'm some kinda 1200 lb beast, OK?) and a 52 lb Poodle. But all has been well because Trevor rarely ventures into the bathroom. He merely lays outside the door, checking hall passes and waving his metal detector while I shower safely inside......blissfully unaware of the dangers he may be saving me from.

Until this morning. I was in my closet, um, bathroom , getting ready to shower for work and I saw a big Blue (yes, Blue is a REAL Poodle color, not kidding) snout poke it's way through the partially opened door (open for ventilation, not to provide visual entertainment to the neighbors----perverts!). The snout was followed by an entire Poodle body. Trev was quite pleased with himself, checking carefully to be certain that I had not gone down the drain. He inspected the tub for safety before I shooed him out quickly and he resumed his bodyguard duties outside the door. As soon as he heard the shower start, in came the big head again, looking around. He did not come all the way into the room as he had already been told to "get out" and he is good about rules that way.
I again booted him out the door, this time saying " Trev, you weasel, get outta here!". He seemed fine with that and left politely. This time, I shut the door a bit more, but decided to wait. Within about 15 seconds, I only saw a snout sniffing through the crack of the door. He would not put his entire head in. (He understands reprimands and tries to avoid them at all costs. He's no dummy.) I just quietly pushed the door shut a little more and got into the shower figuring he had finally gotten the message (or he had actually seen me nude and decided that his eyes were aflame and the pain was not worth the risk of looking again).

As I showered away, I heard the distinctive creak of the bathroom door. I pulled back the curtain in time to see this come flying into the room:



Not the entire toy, but one of the squirrels. And it was not lookin' quite as cute as they do in that picture. In my house, with those 5 Hooligans, the squirrels are kinda'.....um how can I describe....well.......mutilated. They are usually hairless, tailless and stinky. They are often sans squeaker and usually have a generous coating of yard dirt lovingly applied. So, to see that THING fly into the bathroom, I honestly thought he had found a dead field mouse and was chucking it my way as a warning...... " keep tossing me outta here sister and I'll do the same to you". It was only after I realized what it was that I also realized that Trev was dispatching his most prized animal-like toy to my aid. If I wasn't gonna' let him keep me safe, he would send in the cavalry.....of 1......a rotten little toy with the power to keep me healthy and vital and ward off the shower demons!! I was very touched and I think I might have wept, but it could have just been the water from the shower.

That Trev, he's quite the guy!!

Now this won't hurt a bit

I will be veddy, veddy busy for the next few days. So busy, in fact, that I don't have time to discuss it, so I will give you the lowdown in pictures.

I work here:

It is a hospital who's mission is to treat the poor and underserved in our community. My department focuses on Outreach and we have a mission to get medical services out to the underserved public. We are holding a health screening. It is specifically targeted for African American males .

We had hoped to enroll 50 men from the community in this screening. As of today, we have over 200 enrolled. 200 men who will be greeted by this happy, happy sight when they arrive:

Then, they will be taken to a room, told to strip and their next sight will be this (generously covered in KY):

By the time they leave, I imagine a sea of 200 traumatized men looking something like this:

It should be LOADS OF FUN and I simply cannot wait for the partying to commence.


Let's see if you can all guess what they are having done! Go ahead, give it your best shot. We"ll only laugh when you are out of earshot, and will only call you names on other Blogs that you don't read. I dare ya'!

If you made your way here

It's probably because I was hanging out at your Blog, either acting generally creepy by reading but not saying anything, or being a complete smartass and commenting on things I know little to nothing about.

Anyway, welcome back. For those of you wondering "who the hell is this person", "why does she have a familiar profile" , "is it Tuesday", "did I put on deodorant this morning"?; .........I'll fill you in.

I was " I'm An Alligator" until a terrible, angst filled slip of the finger the other day. I somehow managed to delete my original Blog, and in my ongoing battle with Blogger the Bitch, Blogger prevailed and refused to relinquish my Blog back to me. Let me just say this Blogger.......I will catch your ass one day, and when I do, it ain't gonna be pretty. People will be callin' you BooHooer after I'm done! HA!!

So, I'm back, but with a new name, a bigger and better and faster and smarter and richer format, but now I'm beggin' for some friends. I had just dipped my baby toe into the cruel, cruel clique of Blogging when my most personal and precious memories were ripped from me by that no-good Blogger ( yeah, you bitch. I don't forget easily. I'll be outside waiting) I had proudly reached my 71st reader. I know because I was watching that counter with immense pride. I mean, in this whole wide world of readers.......INTELLIGENT HUMANS.........71 of them decided to read my page. Thankfully, there is no separate counter that lets you know how many of the 71 bothered to return. I might have cried. Nah, I probably would have said something like " well, screw them, they don't know literary genius when they see it on the Net. Assholes!". Yep, that's much more like me. Never known for an abundance of kindness.

Soooooooo, please come back, oh dear very best friends of mine. Come back and read. I neeeeeeeeddddddd my counter to bypass 71 readers. It's the only way I will survive. My fate lies and your capable hands (and retinas).....




SO DON"T FUCK IT UP!!!!!!!


Thank you for your support.