Squirrel Hunters

I have two squirrel hunters in my family, a furry 6 lbs four legged one and a two legged human one. Every morning the two of them stand behind the patio sliding glass door, B.B. gun in hand, ball cap turned backward as not to obstruct the view. Coco takes her stance at the bottom of the door lying quietly in wait,watching for the band of 6 rodents to show up for the sunflower birdseed. Quietly they stand there, waiting for the moment. Pop ! Pop ! Pop ! goes the B.B. gun. Shoot ! missed again. This goes on for at least one hour each morning, it has become a ritual started several years ago when the rodents chewed up a few bird feeders and when that was not available started chewing on the roof.
Today was no different than usual, they took their stance, waiting....Pop ! Pop ! Pop ! only this time I did not here shoot ! missed again. I didn't think much of it until I passed by them standing in the door on my way out. There standing in the door was human hunter, furry hunter was at his feet, they were staring out onto the deck. I looked over at them and the human hunter says "I got one". I go over to the door look out on the deck and there on the bench lay a "dead" squirrel. Flopped over on his back. I asked human hunter "is he dead or stunned", human hunter says "dead, I think". I asked him not to leave it on the deck or throw it in the yard. I head off to work. Later in the morning I call from work to see if there have been any more victims. This was when the story got funny. Human decides to shoot a few more rounds when he notices the "dead squirrel", twitching. It continues twitching unit it lands on the deck floor at which time the furry hunter notices him. Now she begins to chase the critter and DH begins to chase the dog. The critter now with one gimpy leg is skittering across the deck like a one legged critter with Coco yipping and DH yelling. By this time the critter manages to find an opening in the deck fence and flops off, crawling into the ivy to hide out from the two fearless hunters. I just about laughed out loud because I have seen DH and Ming chase a rat and wondered who was more afraid of whom.

Spicy Blogs

I must admit life is very interesting on other peoples blogs mine always seems so mundane. I think I wll try spicing mine up a bit as soon as I get some spice to write about.

Dinner

Well it is Saturday night, I have just had a long week. I arrived home from Va. on Monday evening with a bad cold. I am not sure if I got it from sitting in the airport for 8 hours Friday or 5 hours Monday but never the less I was sick. I'd taken off Tuesday to rest from my travels but ended up taking an extra day Wednesday since I was still feeling puney. While I was gone DH fixed gourmet meals for himself and MD28 but as soon as I got home it was business as usual. Gogmom2 always says tell them here are the ingredients,fix the meals but that never seems to work. They just sit there wating for someone else to cook.

I finally get tired of waiting for someone to voluneer so I get up and cook.

Today I stayed in my room and DH finally showed up at 2 pm to fix a sandwich and disappeared until 9:45 pm up stairs, ostensibly working on his book, when he finally came in the bedroom and commanded the TV, I readily dispatched him to the guest room to watch the fight. MD28 has been sitting in the kitchen most of the afternoon, she finally fixed herself a hambuger.

Now everyone is in their respective space watching TV.

Me I am on the computer blogging.

Travel by Plane

Traveling by plane has become a nightmare. Friday I left home at 9:30 headed for the airport ans a trip to DC with hopes of arriving at a decent time. My flight, at 11:40 am to Cincinnati went well, but when I got there I checked the flight board and found out the flight was delayed one hour , OK, I felt I still had time to get to DC to make the rehearsal dinner but I would be late. Within a few minutes the board changed again we would now be leaving at 3:30 instead of 2:30 and at a new gate. Rush to that gate, by the time I got to the new gate the flight was now delayed again. So instead of leaving at 3:30 I would now be leaving at 5:30. I now know I will miss the dinner, it started at 6:00. So I call my daughter tell her to go a head and I'd call when we landed. Little did I know we now had another gate change and it involved going to a new concourse. So now I have to take a shuttle bus to that concourse. OK so now I have been in Cincinnati 7 hours and it is now 8:30 pm. The board now says we board at 8:40...no 8:50.no 9:00. Yeah we are on the plane it is 9:00...oh no we are not taking off until 9:30 make that 10:00 pm, finally in the air, arrive in DC at 11:30 pm. I had started this trip at 11:40 am...
OK you thought it was over no on Monday as I started back home the same scenario played out. Left DCA on time 10:00 am got to Atlanta, there I had 3 gate changes, one concourse change and spent a total of 5 hrs on the ground there. I was due in LR at 2:25 but got in at 5: 25. Finally got home at 6:30 with a vow the next time I travel it will be non stop.......

A Family Wedding

Just got back in town from another family wedding. This one was on my fathers side of the family. The father of the groom is my first cousin, an orthopedic surgeon, his wife is a Psychiatrist. The groom is an orthopedic surgeon himself, following in his fathers footsteps. The new bride is an RN. The guest numbered over 350, it was possibly the biggest wedding I have been to in a long while. The wedding it self was a catholic mass at 10 am, the bride and groom are catholic, she is from El Salvador and her family came up for the wedding, he is from the DC area. Following the ceremony there were lots of picture taking and chatting in front of the church as we waited for the bride and groom to make their appearance. We finally proceeded to the Mayflower Hotel in downtown DC, a walking distance from the Church. They had planned a reception that included a one hour open bar with horderves, ( or as Fred Sanford us to say horse divers) . The bar included any kind of branded drink you could name including Champagne. The "horse divers", included jumbo spiced shrimp, crab puffs and baby lamb riblets all finger foods. After an hour of drinking , snacking, picture taking ,glad handing and catching up we headed across the hall for the actual reception. There were round tables of 10 set with all the necessary table ware. The chairs were ones I was familiar with, because we and to hunt for them here in AR. Dinner consisted of your choice ( made in advance) seafood brochette of shrimp/scallops or a small cut of prime rib. The vegetables were baby green beans wrapped in a bundle, bok choi, 4 strips of baked new potatoes and a small summer "hat" squash. The bread was the usual affair a variety of specialty types and those yummy crackers that and long and loaded with seeds. The best part was the butter was shaped like a heart blended with strawberry jam and it was soft. We got our choice of red or white wine. Tea or coffee and water. We toasted the bride and groom with Champagne. Finally after much dancing and shaking our booty to a live band, the bride and groom cut the cake , it was white with marzipan icing and fresh raspberries in the cake. When you thought you could eat no more they opened a curtain and there were 2 chocolate fountains, one dark chocolate and one milk chocolate and a variety of fruits , cookies and angel food cake you could dip in the fountain. The decorations were fresh Flowers on the tables and the dance floor had a spot light with the bride and grooms name spotlighted on the dance floor.

Coco and her Red Rubber Ball update

I am not trying to emulate the Chronicles of Hershey but only share the story of the "Red Ball".

The back story is that Coco had a ball it was multicolored with knobs on it, that way she could get a great grip on it. Well the minute I'd walk in the door from work Coco would find that ball no matter where it was last seen she knew exactly where it was. She would proceed to follow me around banging the ball on my foot. Let me tell you, it was hard so it hurt. It did not matter if I had shoes on or not the ball would be bopped on my foot. So one day I took the ball and hid it. She was so funny, she'd walk around on her hind legs trying to see up high up on top of the table or the counter looking for that ball. Eventually I'd feel bad and give her the ball back again. One day she dropped that ball on my foot and I said that is the end of that ball.

While I was at PetCo, the Dillards for dogs, I found a replacement ball, a soft red rubber ball. The problem I did not realise when I bought the ball was it had the tendency to feel wet and cold when it was rubbed or dragged over your bare foot or up your bare leg. True to form as soon as I walk in the door she takes off looking for the red ball no matter where it is. When she finds it she is relentless...Oh and it has nice big holes in it so she can grab it and hold on for dear life. I have swung her around, lifted her off the ground and she will not let go. Now I am in search of something that is not wet, cold and hard to get away from her.

The bridal shower was a hit. It started at 10:00 am and was over at 11:00 am. My kind of Saturday shower. I was expecting at 10 am some kind of breakfast food but what we got was a traditional shower cake and pineapple punch. There was coffee and tea but I was looking for fruit, muffins and juice. So off to Sonic I went as soon as the shower was over.The bride to be got a lot of beautiful gifts from the guest. There were about 15 women there. My only beef had nothing to do with the party but with the bridal registry at the local store. Dillard's ! I had gone there last week to purchase two gifts, the wedding gift and the shower gift. Everything I wanted was already purchased or at least the registry was updated to say so. Well you can imagine my surprise when the gifts were opened, mine was among the first group, there were 2 of the gift I had gotten. Now I know the young lady who waited on me took my list and scanned the gift in because I watched her so I can only surmise the other sales person had not scanned in the other gift. Some one needs to alert the sales folks if it is a wedding/shower gift from the registry scan it in.Any way I had a good time and cannot wait until the wedding ,which is an hour drive from here in the woods no less. Oh well I had fun.....

Friday

It has been a busy week and now the weekend approaches. I have a full one as usual. Tomorrow I am headed off to a bridal shower at 10 am, who has a shower at 10 am on Saturday ??? Any way I am obligated to go, the mom and I have been friends for almost 18 years, we worked together and she lives in my neighborhood. I have known the bride-to-be since she was a young child and she even calls me her second mommy. Her first wedding was a small one, out of town with only family. It lasted 7 rocky years. I think the guy was a nut from the beginning but she was anxious to get out of the house. Those marriages seldom last. This one I think will be better they have been engaged for a year.