Sheba

My husband brought a dog home. Does that sound like a re-run? It is a different dog. Not Redneck.

My husband was working. He and the man working with him heard something in the street. When they went to look they saw a dog who had obviously been hit by a car.

They went to comfort the dog who was injured and scared. It would not let them get close. It growled and snapped and tried to bite. My husband got an old blanket out of his car and threw it over the dog so he could pick it up.

He took the dog to the vet. X-rays showed that her (yes it was a she) leg was broken in three places. Her hip on that side was shattered and looked like a jigsaw puzzle.

The vet set her leg and put a cast on it. There was nothing he could do for her hip. He told my husband to keep her as still as possible for the time it would take for her to heal. So he brought her home.

 The vet also noticed that she had numbers tattooed in her mouth. He would check to see if he could find her owner. He never did.

Of course my kids were happy to have her. She was not as happy to have them. They named her Sheba.

Sheba was a Doberman Pinscher. A very pretty dog.

My oldest son was especially thrilled to have her. He wanted to make her his dog.

For the first couple of days Sheba slept a lot. As she began to feel better she began to move around a bit. She got pretty good at maneuvering with the cast on her leg.

She still was not overly fond of the children except for my oldest son. She also liked my husband. She was not fond of me but she stayed out of my way.

One day we decided to go to the store. Sheba had come into heat. Redneck was a randy little male so we had to find a way to separate them for a couple of hours.

We locked Redneck on the back porch. Sheba had the house because she was still healing.
They were successfully separated so there would be no danger of puppies.

 When we returned home and opened the door running to greet us with big smiles ( I swear they were smiling) were both Redneck and Sheba. How did they unlock that door and open it? I have no idea.

Even though we were worried about Sheba carrying and delivering her puppies with her injuries she seemed to be just fine. In the allotted time she had 5 or 6 cute little babies.

Some looked like Redneck. Some looked like Sheba except where a Doberman is tan they were a pretty reddish color.

After Sheba had her puppies she became even more emotional than she was before. She only wanted my husband and older son near the pups. She did not even want the other three of my children to sit on their father's lap.

She would growl to show her displeasure. I told my husband I would not have a dog that was a danger to my children.

After the puppies were beginning to wean Sheba was even worse. Then came the day she snapped at my daughter as she was climbing onto her father's lap. I gave the order that Sheba needed to go.

My son was unhappy. I told him he could keep a male puppy.

My husband found a new home for Sheba and the rest of her puppies.

Sheba was a beautiful dog. She was simply too temperamental for a household full of children. She was quite happy in her new home.

Redneck

My children were still fairly small when it happened. I think the oldest was in 2nd grade.

My husband brought home a dog. It was a little red hound.

Its name was Redneck.

Redneck was on the small side of a medium sized dog. His coat was reddish and the hair was sort of long.

The kids immediately loved him. And he loved them.

He liked to play with the kids and slept in their room. Running was his favorite thing to do. He was very fast.

The one thing we had a problem with was him chasing cars. It was not until I saw him chasing a motorcycle that I realized he was not trying to catch it or bite the rider. Redneck was racing the motorcycle.

He always stayed on the sidewalk, not in the street. When he got to a fence a couple of houses away he would just stop. The race was over.

Redneck did not just bark. He would start out barking but it turned into baying every time. He sounded like a coon dog that had its prey cornered.

Redneck would disappear occasionally.  There was a junkyard close by and there would be a new litter of little red puppies.

Then one day he disappeared and did not come home. We heard a rumor that the owner of the junkyard had shot and killed Redneck. We have no proof that is true. But Redneck is gone.

Under The Hat

My great-grandpa was bald. He had a ring of hair around the edges that you often see. He was so cute.

Grandpa had a beautiful full head of hair. Grandpa was the son-in-law. Grandma was Great-grandpa's daughter. She also had beautiful long dark hair.

All of my uncles on that side of the family were bald.

I read that certain kinds of baldness run in families with the gene being passed down by the mother.

My mother had beautiful dark hair. Daddy also had a full head of hair even though he wore it in a flattop most of his life.

My older two brothers both had lots of hair. The younger two are both bald. The oldest of the two seems proud of his baldness although that could be a defense mechanism. My youngest brother is not fond of being bald but he accepts it.

My youngest brother is only 5 years older than my oldest son. They have been very close all of their lives. At one time they even worked together.

One day at work they were teasing each other the way good friends do. My brother said something and my son shot back that at least he wasn't bald.

When my son saw the look on his uncle's face my son realized for the first time that being bald bothered his uncle. He knew he had hurt his feelings.

My son still feels bad that he did not know how much it bothered my brother to be bald.

I guess I should mention that I have three sons. All have all their hair although one of them has thinner hair than the others. At his age I do not think he will be bald and his hair could be thinner
because of the color .

At any rate my son learned to pay attention to what he is about to say and consider how it might affect someone else. 

KA-BOOM!

I am a long-time practical joker. I do not intentionally play mean jokes on anyone or anything that will cause any kind of pain. All are done in the spirit of fun and to make everyone laugh.

When I was in high school my sister and I were wandering around downtown one Saturday afternoon we came upon a novelty store. Of course we went right in.

Whoopie cushions, stink bombs, cigarette loads, and fake vomit seemed to be the most popular. We browsed around not intending to spend any of our hard earned money on silly stuff.

Unfortunately I could not resist. The cigarette loads were so inexpensive... a little bit of nothing in fact.

Both our parents smoked. We would never have considered putting a load in Mom's cigarette. There are advantages to being Mom. We decided we would try to 'get' Daddy.

Again unfortunately they were out of cigarette loads. They did have cigar loads however. We bought a small package of cigar loads.

The loads look like little bits of broom straws. They are quite small. I still do not understand how they make the small explosions they are meant to make.

We managed to sneak Daddy's cigarettes away from him. He smoked non-filtered cigarettes so we decided the load would have to be placed in the center so it would not explode at his lips.

As we put the load in and pushed it to the middle with a toothpick we again remarked about how small they were. Maybe a couple more loads were needed. So we put two more in.

We snuck the cigarettes back and Daddy did not realize they had been gone.

My sister and I sat on the floor playing a game while waiting for him to light the cigarette. Soon he pulled it out of the package. He put it to his mouth and lit it. 

We tried to surreptitiously watch so we would not miss the little crackle like the ones we had seen on television. Then we could all have a good laugh and Daddy would think we were so clever.

Suddenly his cigarette exploded like a small firecracker.  Bits of tobacco and cigarette paper flew everywhere. My eyes must have been huge from shock and then fear. I know my sister's were because I could see them.

Daddy was furious. He was demanding to know who did this. My sister and I just sat there like a couple of statues.

We never admitted to trying to blow the nose off the front of his face. After all those years had passed I did not want him to know it was me.

Weather Notes

All we have been hearing for the last few days is how cold it has been. And it has been cold.

I live in Iowa but I am as far west in Iowa as you can go. It has been cold. I stayed inside.

I grew up hearing about the terrible storms here on the plains. Sometimes whole groups of people succumbed to the weather.

There is the story of the teachers who tied themselves to their students so they would not be separated by wind and snow. Farmers would run guide ropes between the house and the barn so they could tend to the animals without being lost.

Houses would be buried completely by snow. Sometimes tunnels would be dug to outbuildings.

And the cold. I remember cold days and walking to school. Nothing this extreme of course but to a small child it felt that way after a mile or so.

Thankfully schools were closed all over the place. It was too cold for children and animals to be out. It has been days since I have seen an animal or a bird out the window.

So today was a bit warmer amd the weekend is supposed to be comfortable. Before the temperatures drop slightly again.

I am glad. I need a few groceries. Besides I am feeling a little cabin fever. A drive into town will be just the thing.

I hope all of you are safe and warm too.

I'm A Nut

I guess you could say I am child-like in many ways. I like children's music and children's movies as much as they do. Playing card games and board games are the joys of my life.

I am an impulsive person. Whatever catches my eye is where my interest will go. My mother said I was flighty.

I often told my children that I know it was a trial to have me as a mother because I tend to go off on a tangent at times. They assure me that they thought all mothers were like that.

Checkers and chess are fun games. My grandfather was a good checkers player. He and my mother showed us how to play. He explained that it was very important to keep the back line of checkers in place until you absolutely had to move them. I tried but it is difficult to keep them back when all my other checkers were being taken.

I really like chess. The planning and the different pieces moving different ways make it a game of logic. The problem with chess is that I will examine the board before making my next move. I will imagine a move and try to anticipate what my opponent's response will be and what eventual results will come from it. I look and study. I plan and observe.

Then out of the corner of my eye I see a move and grab the piece and move it. Usually it was a move I had already rejected. I made a stupid move and would end up losing the piece and eventually the game.

But there are times when I appreciate being impulsive. When my children were little and their father was on the road during the week we would often pack up and head for the park. There were trees to shelter us, a creek for wading, and plenty of room to run and play. We would cook on the grills placed strategically near picnic tables. Even though we lived at the edge of town and had a spacious yard the days at the park were fun for all of us.

I'm also well-known for driving along and suddenly spotting something I want to see. I stop and see it. I may have to take a detour and spend some extra time but it is usually worth it. I have found some interesting places to visit and fascinating things to see by doing this.

I encourage everyone to be impulsive once in a while. I do it too often but you might be amazed at the joys you will experience by doing something out of the ordinary once in a while.

As the song by Leroay Pullins says

I'm a Nut, I'm a Nut,
My life don't ever get in a rut
Well Hell, my shoulders are sore and loose
That I ain't got the sense God gave a goose
Now Lord I ain't crazy but, I'm a nut

And I like it!

But I Am Better Now

In the last episode you read that I hurt my knee and could hardly walk. My poor son was so sick.

Well it got worse. I caught whatever it is that he has. It seems to be some sort of respiratory thing. It is not a cold because the noses weren't runnuing. 

So here we were both of us miserable and I could not walk. We mostly stayed in our rooms. I would get up long enough to grab a bottle of water and go back to my room. I think my son did the same.

Coughing was the major activity of the day. I slept for a while then watched TV until I went to sleep again. 

I was so tired of being in my room. I forced myself to get up and hobble to the living room just to get out of that room.

Neither of us was eating. Food sounded awful. I lost about 12 pounds. My son says he has lost close to twenty.

Now that I have whined and complained I can tell you that I feel much better. My knee is still sore but I can walk comfortably without the cane. My cough is almost gone. My appetite is improving.

My son is still sick but he has begun to eat. I think as he is able to eat more than a couple of bites of a tortilla he will feel immensely better.

By the weekend I should be completely well. Hopefully my son will be close behind.

I will try to write a happy post next time.