A Bear Market - Part 1 (CAMPING STORY Summer Rerun!)

(Inspired by a post about dog peculiarities.)

No one loves their dogs more than I love mine but, the reality is, JoJo, our Border Collile/McNab, is only incensed about people breathing or moving when she's wide awake. At that time, she's all guard dog and barks faithfully at all our friends. But when she's asleep and no friends are around, all bets are off.

I once called her to give her a hug goodnight. The rest of the inmates here at the asylum had already bunked down. No Jojo. I called again. Nothing. I searched from room to room and called outside, up and down the street. MIA. I shook the over-sized bed bugs out of their sheets and mounted a posse. I didn't want to panic alone. Flip flops were employed. Car engines started. Frantic hollering commenced. No Jo. In one final moment before complete bedlam prevailed, my son, the Wild Man, threw his covers around looking for his coat. There was Jo, tucked in, eyes rolled back in her head, sound asleep, and oblivious. She lifted heavy lids and peered out just long enough to say, "HeLLO. I was warm. Could you knock it off and put the blanket back?"

It was just this type of edge-of-your-seat, sound-the-alarm guarding that allowed a mother bear, and her two cubs, to grocery shop in our car one night while we were camping.

I don't know about you but I think most moms sleep with one ear open from the minute the doctor says, "It's a girl! Or a boy! Or this shouldn't be such a hard call!" Dads, on the other hand, tend to only wake up in the middle of the night when you, sleep deprived and weary from nursing the baby, roll over and latch that baby on to HIS chest. If you haven't tried this, you should. Thus, my now normal sleep state is to hear dust collecting on the furniture.

And when you are camping in the black of night, in the middle of the forest, and you hear a "thunk" in your sleep, even though neither of your two watch-less dogs perk up an ear, and your husband snores on in near comatose disregard, you trust your gut.

"Grizzly.....did you hear that?"

Now, I have to tell you that Grizzly may sleep like the dead but the moment there is an opportunity to use flashlights, guns, knives, bazookas, or inter-gallactic missiles, he is awake. Immediately. And armed.

"What'd you hear?!" he immediately interrogated.

"Well, I don't know but I just thought I heard a "thunk" outside, by the car," I stated cautiously as he seared my retinas with his flashlight. Now he was ripping open the zipper on the tent.

"Robynn, stay where you are," he ordered, staring through the door flap. "There are bears in the car."

It would seem relevant, at this point, for you to know the dogs still weren't barking and were, in fact, snoring right beside the kids.

Now the statement, "There are bears in the car" is not a sentence I had ever considered forming or hearing. So I had never presupposed my response. I did, however, immediately know it did not include staying where I was. I don't tend to run away from things that scare me anyway; I run toward them because being scared just makes me spitting mad. And I had children to protect.

And Cheetos. And Hostess Ding Dongs.

What I wasn't prepared for was what I saw next.......

To Be Continued......

Copyright 2009

Punxatawny Phil and Gopher Guts (Summer Reruns!)

Don't you just hate those days when a gopher has a death grip on your shoe and you can't launch him off no matter what?

I am thinking of gophers today since it's Groundhog Day and Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, officially sentencing us to more cold weather. I'm in California. If it gets any colder in Los Angeles it'll be summer. Winter never fully arrived in some parts of our state. If you're in London, what with the blizzard and all today, you probably think Phil is a bloody genius and wish we would swap him to you for Madonna. Frankly, I think we should leave things as they are. I don't know what you ever did to deserve Madonna but hey, she's yours to keep. She says she wants to go back to New York now that she's gutted Guy Ritchie. If I was NYC I'd hang out the "No Vacancy" sign.

But speaking of things you don't want, I'm glad our gophers aren't as big as Punxsutawney Phil. Your leg could get a cramp trying to shake them off. It was hard enough trying to dislodge an average sized rodent.

When our house was being built every gopher in the neighborhood waged war with the encroaching humans. The gophers were tough and big and carried small semi-automatic weapons. One afternoon, we pulled up to our house to check the progress and the Godfather met us at the curb. He stood up and stuck his chest out. Grizzly Adams, my husband, yelled and stamped his foot in a show of brutal authority. The gopher clutched his heart and staggered, fell down laughing, then leapt to his feet, possessed-red-eyes flashing, and buried his Bucky-the-Beaver incisors into the toe of Grizzly's sneaker.

My husband is no Jackie Chan but he's got pretty sophisticated ninja moves when vermin are attached to his lower extremities. He whirled and kicked and jerked and whacked and sprinted down the curb, still sporting two long teeth and a pair of beady eyes, and that wasn't even counting the gopher. I very helpfully ran along yelling, "Get him off! Get him off your shoe! Kick him! Fling him!" These helpful utterances offered him valuable insights that might not have occured to him otherwise. But it didn't matter. When the rubber hit the road, it did so with the thud of vibrating gopher flesh and there was no sign of retreat.

As I looked around wildly for a stick or missle launcher, Grizzly gave one last massive kick. I watched our miniature nemisis sail through the air as though shot from a cannon. With a final show of dominance he stuck the landing and dusted himself off, glaring down the road at us. I always hoped he was the one my cat laid at my feet several years later.

Kitty Baby made it her life's mission to divest the neighborhood of this evil element. She relished her job. It wasn't enough to merely kill the things. She felt if you could not enjoy your work there was no point doing it. She frequently showed up in the backyard circus playing "Flying Trapeeze," in which she would throw the gopher and then fail to catch it on the other side. This provided hours and hours of great cat fun. When she grew bored, she would skin them and lay them out on the front porch for the rest of the rodent clan to view. In her spare time she made jaunty little hats for herself out of the leather.

I like to think she was avenging me from a childhood attack.

When I was seven I walked to second grade by myself everyday. It was about two miles and that was a lot of time to think up hair-brained ideas like how great it would be to catch a gopher in a paper bag. The thought first occured to me when I spotted a furry brown thing scooting along the ground one day. It was my foregone conclusion, as it was when I saw any animal, that it was lost, desperately lonely, and would undoubtedly die but for my timely intervention. And then there were the show-and-tell possibilities. No one ever pulled a wild rodent out of a sack. I was sure to be popular.

The next day, with brown lunch bag firmly in hand, I set out for school hoping my gopher rescue would go off without a hitch. As soon as I spotted him I dumped my lunch and closed in. He saw me and sat up. I lifted the bag for rapid capture. I was successful except for the fact that I had caught him by the teeth with the fatty part of my ring finger. He was firmly attached. I screamed bloody murder and ran like my tail was on fire. He wasn't the least intimidated. I shook my hand, my arm, the earth on which I stood. We were one.

I think he gave up when I entered the third grade.Supposedly I never contracted rabies. But I have raged around and foamed at the mouth a few times to the point that the shed and being shot have been mentioned in my actual presence. Which reminds me of the time I had a feral cat plastered to my head via teeth and claws and actually did get rabies shots. But that's a story for Halloween when my booster is due.

Copyright 2009

False Teeth and Pastors (Summer Reruns!)

My pastor has been on my mind and heart lately because he has been through so much in recent days. He is an incredible man with a true heart for God and for people and, when that's who you are, you go through a lot. He lives his faith. He's the real deal.

So naturally, this has led me to think of false teeth. Not that he has any, false teeth I mean, he has actual teeth (though I haven't tried to remove them so I'll do that and get back to you). But I had another pastor I dearly loved when I was four years old and he had enormous false teeth. This one fact can highly recommend you to four-year-olds, especially if you take the teeth out on demand. You must then extrude them from your mouth just far enough to resemble a scene from "Aliens." At this point you should snap and clack them a few times, and then suck them back in. What is not to love here?

I constantly demanded that this fabulous talent be demonstrated and he never let me down. In addition, from my diminutive perspective, he was at least thirteen feet tall. I would ask to be lifted up and he would perch me on his shoulders. This afforded me a view of the surrounding countryside as well as a direct look into his snapping jaws. I could bend over, twist my head around, and watch from two inches away with abject horror and complete fascination.

I had no idea this man was my pastor. His name was Brother Whitaker but every single man in our little backwater Southern Baptist church was Brother Something-Or-Other. Nothing about the title caused me any sort of appropriate awe or reverence. I presumed he had been created for my entertainment. Apparently, I paid no attention in church or I might have noticed him in the pulpit. I was too busy flirting with Ronnie Miller.

Ronnie Miller was about 18 years old and as handsome as a movie star. And he sported his own teeth. My mother always sat towards the front but Ronnie was in the back. Every time I would sashay by, and I made frequent excuses because I needed to take a good, long look at him in all his glory, he would talk to me. He would never fail to tell me he was going to marry me when I grew up. I believed him without doubt. On Sundays, I would smooth out my crinoline and shine my patent leather shoes to be sure I looked like marriage material. And he would not fail to remind me that we were an item.

One Saturday, he two-timed me and married a girl named Sharon. He walked her right up the aisle I had walked down a hundred times just to stare at him. She had nothing on me as far as I could tell and it made absolutely no sense. My heart was a shambles and I never loved again until I was eight. Even now I run into him at get-togethers and always remind him that he left me at the altar, sort of. That's how un-petty I am.

I soothed my little soul with dental entertainment. Brother Whitaker and his choppers were good medicine. Food helped, too. One time he took my brother to church camp and let me ride along up to Hume Lake. Those were the good old days when kids could stand in the front seat and launch through the windshield when you had to stop fast. Along the way he bought me a whole pack of Oreo cookies and a carton of milk. These were rare treats in my life. By the time we had traveled up and back and spent nearly a day, my milk was sour. I took a big drink, spit it across the room, and howled. In typical good-guy fashion he took me to the store and bought more milk. Some guys know how to treat a lady.

I will always wonder what became of Brother Whitaker and his teeth. He and his wife left our church not long after those days. I doubt he ever found a more appreciative audience for his special talent but he certainly laid down a fondness in my heart for pastors who are willing to go above and beyond.

And now, having come full circle, I appreciate a pastor who tends to my soul and does not feel the least compelled to share his dental work with me. So, maybe I won't check his teeth. He has been a gift from God and you should never look a gift pastor in the mouth, unless you're four.

Copyright 2009

Toothaches and Technology (Summer Reruns!)

I have a major toothache. My Bluetooth is killing me. In fact, it may be listed as the cause of my demise on the coroner’s report: “Death by safety device.” Ever since the new California law was passed last January I have become the equivalent of a six-year-old with car keys. I weave, I slow down, I park in the fast lane of the Freeway, I accelerate while making tight, left turns on overpass exits and go Dukes-of-Hazzard over the side walls, launching into the air. The landings are taking a toll on my car’s suspension and my spinal column. I’m doing all this in the name of safety while I attempt to use my “hands-free” equipment.

I had none of these problems before. One hand drove and one hand held my phone. I used voice commands and could actually utilize my eyes to watch the road. Now, I drive with my foot while simultaneously looking through my purse and pulling everything out searching for my Bluetooth. Once I’ve located it, the dangerous part begins.

As I left San Francisco recently, I headed out on the Bay Bridge. My girlfriend called me to firm up directions to her house in nearby Benicia. Just as she was telling me which lane to get into, the earpiece went dead. This meant I had to get the charger out of my purse while trying to navigate three lanes of speeding, maniacal drivers perched hundreds of feet over shark-infested waters. Once plugged into the cigarette lighter I now had to insert the other, miniscule end into my Bluetooth. This is best achieved with a skilled surgeon, floodlights, and magnifying glasses equal to the Hubble Telescope. Somehow, while nearly sitting on the steering wheel, I made the connection. I took my seat, hooked the thing over my ear, and, just as I was about to give it a command, the coil of the charger sprang back into place and launched the device off my head and into the next dimension.

There are severe issues with voice recognition as well. This is an example of a recent conversation:

Bluetooth: “Please say a command.”
Me: “Call.”
BT: “Command not recognized. Please say a command.”
Me: “Dial.”
BT: “Command not recognized. Please say a command.”
Me: “Call.”
BT: “Well why didn’t you say that in the first place, you idiot? Please state the name or number you wish to dial.”

Now, at this point, Artificial Intelligence basically takes over the planet and we are all at its mercy.

BT: “Did you say ‘Humpty Dumpty?’ ”
Me: “No.”
BT: “Did you say ‘Howdy Dooty?’ ”
Me: “No.”
BT: “Did you say ‘Jabba the Hut?’ ”
Me: “Yes.” I have discovered this will actually activate the command known as “Jamie at Work,” thereby connecting me with my husband.

He is experiencing a dysfunctional relationship with his safety-accessory as well. He said he couldn’t hear anything in the Bluetooth over the roar of his truck so he went with the type that mounts on the visor. This, too, was supposedly designed to be simple to use while driving. All you do is push a button to activate and start talking. But he still can’t hear anything so he just yanks it off the visor and shoves the whole thing up to his ear. It is approximately the size of a clipboard. This comes in handy when he has to attach it to his hair and hang it off the side of his head. He says when he is pulled over by the police he will protest saying he is, in fact, using a “hands-free” device.

After I left Nancy’s house from Benicia the next day, I made a final attempt to connect with the outside world from the confines of my car. I had checked messages and knew another friend, Teresa, was trying to reach me.

Southbound I-5 stretched out before me like a comfy couch, my headset was charged; all systems seemed to be a “go.” I managed to navigate my way through voice commands and actually connect with the right person. The only problem seemed to be the volume. I mean the volume in the way a jet engine might sound two feet from the fired-up burners, only much louder. It was the demon now flanking my head. I pushed every button to no avail. I was apologizing, while attacking my ear, when the thing flew off again, this time landing under the seat. “Keep talking!” I yelled, zooming down the freeway using the sound of her voice for homing assistance. With my legs hanging out the driver’s side window, I hung upside down to peer under my seat and found it hiding behind an In-and-Out Burger napkin. I had only changed lanes seven times and driven under a big-rig once. No harm done. I resigned myself to the roaring volume and, with my right hand, held the thing three feet from my head, still managing to suffer hearing loss.

With my nerves jangled and a ringing in my head, I pulled into Starbucks in Los Banos. I figured I needed a hot cup of coffee to complete my driving maneuvers. While safely stopped in the parking lot I managed to fix the problem du jour and attempted to phone my children. “Command not recognized while flip is open,” my nemesis taunted. “Flip is open?” I yelled. “Which flip? Phone? Bluetooth? WHAT?!” “Command not recognized. Did you say, ‘Beans and weenies?’ ”

I feel much safer now with my Bluetooth. I know everyone else does, too. We’re all keeping the law as we narrowly careen around one another in death-defying destruction derbies. Maybe next they can invent something to help you drink your coffee while you drive down the road. I don't know….maybe a spigot right above your head could automatically pour boiling java all over you. You could lick at the drips while your skin falls off.

Copyright 2008

Summer Repeats

Being so Hollywood-like in terms of my VAST popularity (ahem......) it would follow that I shall now presume upon your good nature and broadcast my reruns.

We find ourselves in the bosom of felicity. Why you ask? Because we're going camping! All of a sudden. Just like that. No preplanning. The time off simply dropped into our laps. And our housesitters have not a CLUE about blogging (translation: even older than ME) so there you go. I cannot cajole them into guest hosting. Consequently, I am forced to stage repeats and will also apologize in advance for my absence on your blogs. I know there are many new readers here so, hopefully, the repeats will be entertaining for you. For my old friends, maybe you will enjoy the second showing or else feel light and airy with one less blog to keep up with. Reruns will begin Saturday. I wish you all a relaxing summer week and will probably rejoin you before you even know I'm gone!

W.A.S.P.P.P.

No, not the "White Anglo Saxon Protestant" type. Minky recently redefined it into "Whirring Angry Stinging Pestilence from the Pit of Perdition."

On Monday, Minky went one round with these little beasts of barbary and lost badly with a TKO (technical knock out for you non-pugilistic types). And I think it was our fault. She loves to snap at flies and we have encouraged her every time they find their way into the house. It has become part of her job description. We forget she isn't very discriminating when it comes to small, buzzy, and wing-ed. I think that tripped her up early Monday morning when she was outside.

Grizzly called my name while I was still in bed and he was downstairs making coffee. He is up early for work and sometimes finds me already at my desk. But if not, he does his thing (after turning off the snooze button at least eight times and no I am NOT even CLOSE to exaggerating), and takes off for work.

There are only a few exceptions to this routine. They all involve horror. The very second my name is called or he appears at my bedside, something has gone desperately or freakishly wrong. It stops my heart every time. My only response to hearing my name under these circumstances (or when he uses that tone) is and will forever be, "WHAT'S WRONG?!!!"

A sample list of his responses:

"They've attacked the World Trade Center." (Clearly the worst one ever.)

"Somebody bashed out the window of your car."

"There's something dead down here (cat hunting by-products)."

"I think Bess is home." (A beloved cat who had been missing for months - it wasn't her. It was a demon in white fur who summarily tried to rip my head off. He doesn't always check his facts before mustering me in my groggy state.)

I have never been summoned to breakfast, say, with the table all set and waiting for me. No exquisite sunrise has been announced. No bouquet of roses ever beckons. No, my name in the morning equals calamity. I really think he better balance this out one of these days or I may suffer a major coronary before hitting the floor running.

Monday morning, I heard my name. "It's nothing," he intoned. "I just want you to see something." Uh-huh. I bet it's not breakfast. "Minky's face looks swollen. I gotta take off and I just wanted you to keep an eye on her. I think she got bitten by a black widow and it could be crawling around the house somewhere." Okay then, honey. Thanks. I'll go back to bed now. Why would I worry? Have a good day. I'll try to remember to fend off poisonous attacking arachnids as I watch our dog go into anaphylactic shock. Bye-bye, now.

I took one look at Minky and either something bit her or she had taken up the habit of chewing tobacco and had perfected the art of stuffing her gums. The left (your right) side of her face was swelling. I grabbed the not-so-great camera (because I still can't remember we have a better one) and snapped this:

She looks a little concerned.

I hauled the kids out of bed and said, "Hold her while I shave her." I was, of course, looking for the telltale sign of two puncture points indicating spider fangs. Looking through hair is impossible so I needed access. Shaving is my immediate answer. If you ever develop head lice, don't come and see me. There'll be no nit-picking. I will shave you bald. Here's how poor Minky appears this morning:

Doesn't she look depressed? Well wouldn't you if I'd only shaved HALF your face? I promise, if I see you, I'll shave your whole face, eyebrows included. Oh, and the vet commented I removed her whiskers, too. Critics. I was trying to save her life. From a black widow. Who was stomping through the house heat-tracking us.

In the next few hours after Mr. Shock-and-Awe left for work, Minky's face swelled to three times this size and her eyes became red and puffy. I had dosed her with Benadryl but it didn't do much. So, it was off to the vet for a MONGO shot of Benadryl and then a steroid injection. And by then we could see little pin-pricks rising under her chin and on her snout where it became obvious the black widow was non-existent and a wasp, or wasps, had been the culprit(s).

Minky will be a wiser dog now, I hope, though she won't be ready for any close-ups on the silver screen with her unfabulous hair-don't. And the house has been temporarily restored to a bastion of safety against marauding black widows, and that is a comfort.

However, Grizzly remains a serious threat to my health.

(Legal disclaimer: Grizzly insists he also mentioned wasps as a possibility. My hearing was temporarily disconnected after I heard "black widow." The End.)

Copyright 2009

Observational Twitter 18

Famous Quote:

"Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love." ~Albert Einstein

Obscure Quote:

"Gravitation is absolutely responsible for my falling arches, falling ratings on the 1-10 scale, and frankly, I think it's clear my plummeting IQ score is involved." ~Robynn


P.S. I'm AWAKE! (and headed to a party...but then....where ELSE could I possible be going? Oh, there was that scintillating few hours at the vet with Minky, on Monday, when she got into a wasp nest and her nose swelled up like a light bulb......)


Copyright 2009