A Homeschool Family

Spent the weekend having too much fun with our friends from Bakersfield. Jeannette and I have grown up together since we were TINY. I HAVE to tell you guys a story about the two of us but I actually need to spend some time writing it and I've been playing instead. (I'll do it later this week.) So, in the meantime, here's another Tim Hawkins clip. He was homeschooled his whole life and WE are homeschoolers so, we've both earned the right to poke fun at ourselves. Enjoy! (It's very short and the guy that plays the dad IS Tim. :) ) This is also what much of the world thinks we do and are, which I find almost funnier than the video!

Things You Don't Say to Your Wife

Oh, I just love you guys. I went and read some of your comments again and you are either too good to me or you downright split my seams with the things you say! And I'm feelin' pretty happy, and silly, and generally willing to laugh over anything stupid so I dare NOT look in the mirror!

I get to see an old, funny, wonderful, and very best friend and her hysterical husband this weekend and when we get together, I am always in danger of hospitalization from laughing so hard. They're coming in tomorrow from out of town and J'Nett and I have been friends since we were four-years-old. She used to beg me to let her play with my waist-length hair and braid it while we sat staring at the tv. Back then I didn't want ANYBODY messin' with my hair - and it looked like it. Now, I'm a much more grateful woman. Do you want to play with my hair? Do my nails? Rub my feet? I'm there. And I'll be there for you, too.

On the Fourth of July we were at a party where a dear friend had a bad headache. I rubbed her neck and shoulders to try and help and gave her some tips on how she could sit in the tub relaxing, while working on her neck. Someone said, "That's pretty hard to do to yourself." I replied, "Not nearly as hard as gettin' your husband to do it!" and then we all agreed and had a good laugh at our husband's expense and they were all sittin' 10 feet away and having a good laugh at our expense. Good times.

So in honor of good times, good friends, and good marriages that let you poke good fun at each other - isn't good a good word?! - let me share a good video with you (from Tim Hawkins) that should give you a good laugh. It's short, so don't be scared. I'm leaving to go shopping and I'll take my thesaurus to bed with me tonight so I can come up with another good word.

Have a good weekend! Good-bye!

Well, Just Lookie Here!

I’m movin’ all uptown and everything!

Well, this is uptown for ME. My dear, sweet, good friend, Debbie, over at Jadehollow, made me the little button you now see to your right under the “Grab My Button” banner. You can copy my HTML code underneath it and add this onto your blog if you love me with your whole, devoted, undying heart like me and want others to be able to find me easily. For that I will pay you vast sums of money in foreign currency thank you sincerely and try to be less annoying.

Now this is the sad part: Debbie made this over a month ago. She spelled out EXACTLY how to apply it so that the truly computer deficient among us (she was looking at my picture) would be able to follow her VERY-easy-and-beautifully-simple instructions. Did I find that helpful? Well, I would have if I were just merely deficient. However, I hold the World Cup title in this category.

I kept meaning to contact my IT department for support but she kept graduating, and going to parties, and being a general teenager, so let’s just say she’s been backed up. But this historic night I actually invoked my rare thought processes and remembered to go back to Debbie’s email, get IT in here, and utilize all this good information. And look what “we” accomplished!!

NOW HEAR THIS – IT BENEFITS YOU!

Because Debbie got sick of listening to me whine and groan and complain she wanted to help me troubleshoot all these Blogger problems, she sent me to a place called Southern Hospitality for information on a program called “Windows Live Writer.” Debbie said it was absolutely the best thing since raccoons rode on hogs’ backs (you’ll have to see her post yesterday to know what the heck I mean. Those folks got some STRANGE stuff goin’ on in Georgia….!) She guaranteed me I would love it and stop using salty language (doesn’t that make me sound like I’m 90? I’ve got a 5th grade boy and a 90 year old woman – geez – it’s gettin’ BUSY in here). All I can say is, I DO love it! I can feel myself cuttin’ down on salt now, dangit (oops!). And then I found out Debbie herself wrote a post about this on Sunday (which I somehow missed) and it is even MORE informative and it's called Windows Live Writer - Oh, How I Love Thee. She will teach you how to do extremely creative things with your photos.

So if YOU hate struggle with Blogger and moving photos around, or would like to work in a much more professional, user-friendly program, then head on over and get the down-low and the download.

And Debbie? I’m sorry I’m so late to the party but you KNOW how I like to make an entrance!

Observational Twitter 19

Published Quote and Lofty Adult Observation:

"The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands." ~Quoted by Alexandra Penney in Self

Obscure Quote by Woman Who Channels a 5th Grade Boy:

"The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands. Squeeze as hard as you can until all the blood goes out of the other person's hand or they cry "Uncle" and then you're the winner." ~Robynn

Ah....it's gonna be a good week.......I'm havin' fun already!

The Answer to Yesterday's Post Question....

The answer, my friend, ain't blowin' in the wind.....it was on the lips of my children. "Do we HAVE to go to the fireworks? We're having a REALLY good time here with our friends." So, there you go. The answer is, "No." I can't do both. But I'm popular with my kids tonight since I didn't drag them down to the school. I guess that'll do. But I have a rockin' plan for next year. And they're doin' it, dang it!

Happy Foursh-a-Guh-Lie!

Thus it will ever be called and pronounced in our household, thanks to The Wild Man. Around two-years-old he came alive to the realization of Independence Day, The 4th of July. And we're corny enough to still use his tiny-boy description. Do you do that? Do you continue to call anything by the name your kiddos dubbed it when they couldn't quite pronounce things? Bo called french fries "ep-ripes." So, that was what we called them for awhile. TWM came along and they were "eye-yies" ("yies" rhymes with eye - just couldn't figure out how to spell it.) Consequently, we occasionally say we're goin' to In-N-Out for cheeseburgers and aye-yies, or ep-ripes. Maybe we can't let go of their babyhood. I'm okay with that.

The Foursh-a-Guh-Lie was TWM's day. He dreaded it like a root canal and looked forward to it like Christmas. When he was two and three and we went to big displays, he cried through the whole thing and clung to his dad like I cling to the memory of being a size 3 (I was once, for half-an-hour, and you'll never take it from me!). He screamed and ducked while we assured him he was perfectly safe. As soon as he got in the car, he asked when we got to go again. Ah, that's my boy. Much of his life has included the old love/hate relationship. He takes after his mother.

The next year when he was four, we took him to Buchanan high school where they were putting on their first fireworks display. We set the blankets out and tried to peel our son off long enough for him to enjoy the bang and pow of it all. He held us in death grips. Whoever ran the operation had not accounted for the burning cinders that fall from the sky and had set up the firing point far too close to the crowd. We were in the path of Pompeii. As curled up pieces of burning paper floated to the ground and the occasional chunk of cinder landed on the beach blanket, Grizzly and I shot each other looks knowing that if we ran, he would be forever scarred. So, we silently weighed physical scars against emotional ones, and stayed put. Bo got into the action and helped us stamp out the little coals as we all assured him it was perfectly wonderful and nothing could be more normal. I must say, we haven't been back to Buchanan since, though we're considering it tonight.

Girzzly was always into fireworks and TWM couldn't wait until the stands went up. He watched for them weeks in advance and marked their coming with the exultation of a Kodiak bear during a salmon run. Bo was pretty excited herself and was ready to fork out her little dough for the promise of sound and colors and fire. I was the dud and wondered why people would spend wads of money on things that would burn in a matter of minutes. It seemed nuts but my big kid influenced my little kids and I could either join in the fun or get over myself. I embraced the latter.

For years we met the neighbors out in the street and had a quasi-block party of it. Then the main neighbor stopped participating and things sort of fizzled. Also, our firecrackers from New Mexico were offered up to the fire gods (also known as the local police - however, they do much good so of course, we love them! Do you hear that, local police?!) one year. They had been sitting at the end of the block with their lights off and when they heard them, they pulled up and stuck out their hands. They then went home with them and maybe some of their famlies got to use them. I like to think so. At least they would be put to good use.

You have to be careful because nearly everything is illegal in California and the police are charged with making sure we all know it. If you live here, you try to accept being boiled alive slowly, like that proverbial frog, and protected from yourself endlessly. For years you couldn't even get those little, black things we called "worms" when I was a kid. You know the tiny discs you lit with a match and they grew and grew in crazy long shapes? Those were downright deadly, I guess. I think the movie "Tremors" was based on their wanton thirst for human flesh. What other reason could there be? (We got them back a few years ago.)

We continue to be thrilled and amazed we still get to light matches here. But we do. And that was another right-of-passage.

Grizzly was working out of town when one 4th came along and Bo was certain they could handle the fire part of the works. One neighbor joined in for a bit while Bo and TWM duked it out over who should serve as fire king or queen. They are so precious together. :) Soon, another neighbor showed up and his bossy kid outbossed my kids and we couldn't get our hands on our own fireworks. Where's a husband when you need one?

Then we started celebrating with friends at a party where we all chipped in for a fireworks display. Soon, that party got moved to the home of other friends (the husband being one of the police officers we know and love) and then we just watched fireworks from the distant country advantage of a very dark night sky and no personal displays. The fire danger is too high out there. But the fun and friend factor is also high with 50-70 of our closest friends so the kids have usually voted to say good-bye to the displays and hello to socializing. But we still bought a few things and lit them up when we got home.

I don't know this year, though. This was the first year TWM wasn't counting his change and took the erecting of the stands in his stride. No big deal. What? What does that mean? This is HIS DAY! Have we kept him from the thrill for too long? This makes me ambivalent about the party. One fire-fanatic is grown and the other is on his way and taller than I am. I may need to revisit Pompeii and remind them of the former days with a night-sky rush. This ISN'T just another day, after all. It's Independence Day. It's the Foursh-a-Guh-Lie!

I have a little pang. Is there any way we can do both? I'll let you know.

Welcome Back My Friend to the Show that Never Ends!

I have so many useless fascinating things to tell you that I absolutely couldn't get started. Pay attention now. Raptly. Pay rapt attention. What a weird word. Where the heck does THAT come from?

Hold on.....I'm looking it up........okay, here it is....."from the latin 'raptus'.....to carry off, seize......synonyms: ecstatic, spellbound, bewitched. Also having to do with a gift giving tradition: 'I rapt your presunt cuz I coodnt find a gift bhag.' Additionally, has been used to describe a mind-numbing form of lyrical quasi-melody - Rapt Music - most glorified through massive misogyny, i.e., 'I get my kicks from beatin' chicks, but only those with a great big booty, who think I'm fine though I got no looty.' "

I may have mixed some usages as well as spellings. Disregard the former directive to pay attention. Do not pay anything in the way of attention. You would be wise to click over to the other blog you wanted to read now.

Do you see how troubled I am?

First, there was the little fact of leaving paradise at 7500 feet in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Remote camping, no one around for miles, days of 65-70 degree weather, pristine air, crisp nights. And then there was driving down the mountain and descending into Hades, aka as Fresno, average summer temperature: 158 degrees. We came in on one of the cooler days at only 108.

After that came my directive to everyone to put everything away that didn't need to be washed.

One sock went into one drawer.

I have four hundred loads of laundry to do. Well, that's a lie. I've done four loads. That makes 396. I'm more encouraged now that I see it in print. Every sleeping bag - and we took eight because there are four of us - and all blankets we've ever owned (and a few I could swear we were only considering at the store) must be de-dirted, de-smoked, de-haired, and de-sapped. De-sgusting. But wait! There's no time for all THAT......hurry and get your daughter to her de-tooth appointment!

But not before you turn in final transcripts to the college! Yes, that's right! How did you forget THAT little tidbit? What? The transcripts I turned in don't include her graduation date? Do you think she did this complete four years and 28 college units just for fun? Doesn't it LOOK like she would have graduated? But of course, we would love to resubmit them in the corrected form, you darling, you (truly, couldn't have been sweeter about it, darn it).

And oh yes!! What was I thinking?! How in the WORLD did I forget to fill out the FAFSA (financial aid) even though we won't qualify for grants and subsidies for college? We are the working middle-class. But I have exactly 12 hours to get it done before the cut-off date for the entire year (and possible exclusion from other scholarship opportunities, you Raving Robynn dunder head!) and I am so happy to sit down and look at financial information for several hours because it's actually my hobby. I love numbers. That's why I'm a writer.

And oh, thank you! A flaming arrow to the eyeball from someone who not-so-subtly criticizes the amount of time I spend writing. To some, it's kind of a useless hobby unless you get paid a gazillion dollars. And you can't get paid a gazillion dollars unless you hone your craft. So I write and duck. Encouragement! It's a gift!

And what's that daughter? But of COURSE we must go shopping for special food you will need for your non-chewing recovery. How did I forget that? This will undoubtedly disqualify me for that "Mom of the Year" award I was coveting.

And yes, you smart-alec dentist billing diva tersely informing me the bill will be more than you originally advised. If you use the term "We alREADY have to write-off our NORMAL charges" one more time, I may remove YOUR teeth without the benefit of anesthesia. Your use of the word "write-off" represents a poor command of the English language and reveals your loose grip on reality. It is, in fact, what you agree to with our insurance company in order to get the business they send your way. It is actually the amount you will receive for doing thirty minutes of work - $1800. That's right - start to finish - anesthesia to empty sockets - thirty minutes - I couldn't believe it when they called my name to collect my daughter. That's $3600 dollars an hour to you and me, Mr. and Mrs. Average Person. If you do not feel $3600 dollars an hour is adequate compensation, please take it up with your boss, the DEVIL. And do not attempt to further admonish me. I am a dangerous woman with 396 loads of laundry waiting at home.

And what? Now? My back goes out? Ice-heat-ice-heat-ice-heat. Housekeeping going rapidly downhill.

And poor daughter! In pain, throwing up, miserable. Ice-ice-ice for daughter. Call the doctor at 11:30 p.m. He is very nice and has no tone. He KNOWS he makes $3600 dollars an hour. He is a happy man.

Of course, my son! Let me drive you to your sleepover! I'm sorry I'm an hour late in delivering you. What was I thinking, doing, annihilating? Let's go! Isn't life exciting?!!! I'm so sorry you can't take the X-Box 360 with you. It costs a lot of money you cannot afford if you should drop it. And your dad and I don't want you playing video games for the ENTIRE visit like you did with your friend at our house last time because you couldn't walk after attempting to remove your complete knee-cap in a wondrous boy adventure! Wasn't that fun?! I sure hope you have ANOTHER one of those marvelous male moments! LOVE YOU! Bye-Bye!!

What daughter? Are your teeth (well, sockets, to be exact) okay? Are you ill? Why are you calling while I'm taking your brother? Oh? We have company coming by? Oh, isn't that just the best? Oh, no really! She's a darling girl and we love her and it is so sweet of her to think of you. But did you buy mommy an hour so I could hose out the house? What? You didn't? Oh, that's alright. Nothing bothers me. I'm so easy-going. I still feel like I'm on vacation!

There you have it. We're all "rapt" up in life just now. And I've been a tad crabby in the sense that an alligator can grow slightly impatient if you continually pull his tail, gouge his eyeballs with a stick, and remove steak from his mouth during the chewing/swallowing process . But I'm moving out..................................OH! of it, OF IT! (sorry I was daydreaming there for a second), and feeling positively effervescent. And I KNEW you'd want to share in my ebullation. Is that a word?

Hold on, I'll check.

I'm BA-ACK.....!

Hello, my friends!!

I'm down from the mountain and happy to report there were no bears in our vehicles this time. Of course, I'll be catching you up on what did happen but we had a fantastic time. This morning though, Bo goes in to get her wisdom teeth out so I'll be nursing her back to health for a day or two and then plowing in again and dropping over to your places. Can't wait to catch up with you all!! :-)

With Love,

Robynn

The Ice-Cream Man Cometh (Summer Rerun!)

It will be 98 degrees in Fresno by Monday. Two days ago it was 68. Welcome to much of California.

The beach areas and some far northern locations are usually spared. The rest of us just pray for death. Summer tends to come unexpectedly and with a vengeance. I don't know WHY we don't expect it. It happens every year. But each season we optimistically anticipate mild temperatures while failing to remember this pertinent fact: volcanoes will not erupt in our vicinity because they can't take the heat. Occasionally some outsider will make the comment that at least it's a "dry heat." Yeah, well, so is a blow torch but I'm not volunteering to stand in front of one.

And with the searing weather will come the ice cream man. This will not be the ice cream man of my youth. Gone is the fellow with the friendly, toothy smile and white Garrison cap perched at a jaunty angle on his head. Gone is the alluring truck with lovely decals advertising enticing frozen concoctions. Gone is the perfect ice cream treat that when unwrapped, looked exactly like the picture promised it would.

I think Stephen King designed the ice cream truck and driver that now prowls the city streets of California.

It would seem apparent the legislature passed a bill requiring all said trucks to be in a demolition derby before hitting the road. This should be followed by a "Thelma and Louise" style vault over and into a canyon.

When the truck body is appropriately mangled, it must be abandoned, in the rain, for at least a year. This will create the rust and dirt needed to create the "war-zone chic" effect. The decals will have been applied on the assembly line so they are now barely visible and scuffed beyond recognition.

The music blasted from the truck as it travels through your neighborhood will be as damaging to your nerves as electrocution, but far slower. It will warble and dip so as to never hit its proper pitch, even by accident, and won't pause even when parked. And the truck will not visit your area once a day but will be on a continuous merry-go-round loop passing by at least 400 times.

Should you be a thrill seeker and, horror-of-horrors, let your kids approach and buy something, you will be most fortunate indeed if your ice-cream has retained its original shape and/or coatings. More likely it will look like a science project comparing the ice-age effects against global warming; continuous freeze vs. melt and thaw.

You will also discover the ice-cream man comes in, primarily, two frightening flavors.

The first will be an ex New York City cab driver. He will hate you for trying to do business with him but you will only know this by his contorted angry countenance and volume of voice. You will never understand a word he says and when you order a Missle Pop you will receive a Drumstick. You are not allowed to protest or he will run over you. Sometimes he will have a wife sitting in the back of the truck to retrieve the items he barks out. Hopefully, she will be unchained.

The second flavor will be the reason my children will require future therapy for trauma and are never allowed to make purchases from the rolling danger wagon. They were taught when they were little to run back inside if they heard the music because I didn't even want the driver to know children lived here.

It was a friend who informed me about this type years ago. Her brother was released from prison and got a job driving an ice-cream truck. He said lots of ex-felons did this. And many of them were sex-offenders. Her brother had done time for drug charges. That was concerning to me considering he hadn't overcome his problem. But sex-offenders, including rapists and child-molesters, are allowed to drive ice-cream trucks where would-be victims come running to them. If you find this hard to believe go here. The A.C.L.U. is all for it. Apparently, they don't have children. Or brains. For a complete list of things to be terrified of with your local ice cream driver, go to "Do You Really Know Your Ice Cream Truck Man?"

Why can't we get this guy?

Or this truck?


Or this one run by a whole family, even their children, in Grand Forks, North Dakota?



Not on my street, I can tell you. I want little children hanging out of windowed ice cream trucks happily advising would-be customers. I want to believe in happiness and families working together for the common good. Maybe they even homeschool and have little desks set up in there. Can't I believe that if I want to? Can't they come to my neighborhood?

All of this occurred to me as I dropped into my friend's blog this morning. She takes interesting shots of life around New York City and you can see my inspiration here at her blog called "On The m104." She took a picture of an oncoming ice cream truck. I knew by the shiny chrome grill on the front and sheer gleaming cleanliness it exuded, our worlds had nothing in common.

So bring on the heat California. You're going to anyway. And when the urge to soothe my fevered brow seems to be provided by the creamy goodness of icy decadence, you will find me roaming the aisles of the frozen food section at Whole Foods looking for my fix. If the ice cream man comes prowling into the neighborhood, we'll be locked in the house, thank you very much.

Disclaimer: My sincere apologies to any ice cream truck driver reading this who drives in California and whose person and truck do not fit this description. You have my utmost appreciation and gratitude. Please come to Fresno. We might erect a statue in your honor.

(I have a long history with ice cream issues. If you'd like to read about about my childhood waywardness, you can go here.)

Copyright 2009

Life on the Farm AIN'T Kinda Laid Back (Summer Rerun!)

Well, life on the farm is kinda laid back,

Ain't much an ol' country boy like me can't hack,

It's early to rise, early in the sack,

Thank God I'm a country boy.

Well, a simple kinda life never did me no harm,

A raisin' me a family and working on the farm,

My days are all filled with an easy country charm,

Thank God I'm a country boy.

When John Denver penned these now famous words to his song "Country Boy" he had, apparently, never spent time out at my mother's place.

She and my step-father live in the country. They moved there when they married. I was nineteen and on my own for years. This was their exclusive hideaway. They intended it to be just the two of them and a variety of animals for food and companionship. And they achieved their goal. It just wasn't exactly from the pages of "Country Living" magazine.

I started thinking about it when I saw two dead opossums on the road this morning. 'Possums and city life don't mix well but two is a lot in one day. I wondered if they were escaping my mom's place.

Critters come and critters go and my mother has never been incredibly sentimental about separation. In the fifteen years I lived at home we moved fourteen times. Animals came and went as the wind blew. If they were a problem, they were gone. If we couldn't have them at the next place, they moved on and so did we. She was well suited for the life-and-death decision making that sometimes comes with country life.

It served her well.......I guess.

One country-charming, pastoral day, she awoke to find a coyote had broken in to the hen house. Feathers and squawking chickens were fluttering everywhere. One old girl had gotten the worst of it and the outlook was decidedly Colonel Sanders, if you know what I mean. Mom grabbed her up and, with the expertise of a washer woman, wrung her neck and dispatched her to that big frying pan in the sky. Round One.

Several hours later one of the ducks was looking decidedly dejected. She moped and laid and leaned. Mom was resolved that the suffering could not continue and the most likely issue was an impacted egg. With shovel in hand, her make-shift guillotine forever separated Ducky's mind from her problem, so to speak. My mother proceeded to perform an autopsy. Yep. Egg impaction. Round Two.

As the evening wore on, she and my step-dad turned in for the night. They were awoken by a beastly ruckus in the backyard. The dogs had cornered a 'possum and had gone completely hoodlum with it, bullying it and tossing it to and fro. By the time my mother showed up, well, the grim reaper even paid attention and started taking notes. She felt a .22 would make the quickest work of it but it was the middle of the night and that might alarm the neighbors. She surveyed the yard for options and landed on it: a barbeque skewer. I'll spare you the details but suffice it to say, chicken-neck-wringing and duck-head-detachment are practically children's bedtime stories in comparison. At least the poor thing was long gone when she went back to bed and left it for the dogs. Round three.

All I have to say is this: Whenever I'm not feeling well, I steer far clear of my mother's place. I'd advise you to do the same.

Copyright 2009

Let the Games Begin (Summer Rerun!)

I love San Francisco. I would make up almost any excuse to hit the Bay Bridge and watch The City skyline loom into view. Restaurants, museums, architecture, miles of rolling hills and narrow streets, cable cars, crystal air, the Golden Gate. It’s all there. If you have to endure Frankenstinian medical procedures to experience this, really, so what?

Yesterday I played another round of, “What the Heck’s the Matter with YOU?” at UCSF. In this game contestants dress in bizarre outfits designed to reveal their rattiest underwear while simultaneously enduring pranks thought up by the producers of “Fear Factor.”

All I can say is it was dark in my bedroom at 5:00 a.m. as I rummaged through my dresser drawer. Don’t we all keep at least a few pair of underwear that really should be thrown away but we know, when the laundry piles up, we might need them? They aren’t really fit for being in an accident but they will cover your posterior well enough for sweatpants and yard work. Well, those are the ones I wore. Of course, there was no way to discover this until I stood in the torture chamber preparing for my first round of competition.

The torture chamber is purposely deceptive and distracting. It is splashed with brilliant sunlight and designed to put you off guard. The room is fairly small but elegantly decorated. One wall displays an open-aggregate column with an arch right out of a castle motif. This would distract you except for the opposite wall which is solid windows overlooking San Francisco, the Presidio, and a huge expanse of the bay. And all this from an 8th floor perspective. The day must also be perfectly clear to enhance the effect.

It was in this environment that I donned my costume: the flimsy gown we all know so well. The one Dave Barry describes as making you feel more naked than if you were naked. However, when your underwear has gone as far south as mine had, you actually long for nakedness. Too bad. My only hope was the thought that perhaps I could lie on my back for the entire procedure and use my half-gown to cover my front half. As the “doctor” walked in she smiled and told me to roll onto my side.

Now, I put “doctor” in quotes because she wasn’t a full-fledged doctor yet. She was still in her residency. This is important because they don’t really want someone highly skilled to perform these tests. It might make the procedure entirely too painless to be entertaining for them.

As I lay gazing into the distance at the Fallon Islands, imagining myself running free and unseen in brand new underwear, I heard her voice, thick with an East Indian accent, announce, “I’m going to administer a series of shocks.” What she meant was a “series of shocks” in much the way a police officer means it when he yells, “STOP!” just before he tasers you.

In this round they are checking you for nerve responses. If your nerves are somewhat damaged your only response might be to bounce up off the table, smash into the ceiling, and land back on the table. Or you may launch face-first into the window and contort your features. If your nerves are all completely intact it could be bad for them because these shocks will catapult you across the room, leaving you in a standing position, where you are then free to beat them about the face and head with their own equipment. Fortunately for them, mine were not at the top of their game.

We repeated this step several thousand times with her shooting at me from every corner and jumping out from behind chairs. When she would find a particularly damaged and painful place, she would then proclaim, “I am going to do this nine times in the same spot.” Apparently, they don’t do it ten times because the smell of burning flesh is too unpleasant for the physician.

Next comes the bonus round.

In this event, needles are shoved into the muscles of your legs and feet. Just when you think you might black out or lose control of your bladder, the almost-a-doctor tells you to contract your muscles by using them to push against something. You volunteer the back half of her brain via the front half, but she only offers her hand. Now, at this point, you get Charley Horses big and violent enough to compete in a rodeo. She will then leave the room and come back with a real doctor so he can participate, too. He will say things like, “Let’s pull this needle out and shove it in her eyeball” or maybe he just mentions repositioning it, but it will all sound the same to you.

He pulls the needle out and jams it in somewhere else and when you don’t celebrate this by singing, “The Hills are Alive!” he will exhale dramatically, punctuated by his tongue flicking back and forth between his lips. They will continue to tag-team like this for another twenty minutes knowing they are safe since all their needles have effectively sewn your muscles together.

When they leave the room you and your ratty underwear are free to crawl over to your clothes and salivate on them. They will then return to tell you your test reveals more abnormalities but they have no idea why. At this point they will thank you for playing and invite you to return in six-months where they will introduce the newest event: “Toenail Removal for Fun and Profit.”

Your parting gift is the realization you may now head into the heart of The City to let it heal your wounds.

That’s what I did. The kids and I had already strolled the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park that morning. Now it was time to limp toward comfort food and fortify myself for cultural pursuits.

The price of admission for this scintillating soiree may have been dear but, hey, so is beautiful San Francisco. I'll be back and I guess I have to bring my toenails with me.

Copyright 2009

A Bear Market - Epilogue (CAMPING STORY Summer Rerun!)

Hello there. Jojo here. Your canine correspondent. My motto: I will dig as deep as I have to for the truth or a moldy rotten bone - whichever comes first.

It has been on my heart, and weighin' heavy, that lately some things in the truth department have been twisted and bent, or left out altogether and frankly, I'm disgusted. Nice people like you outta be told when they're havin' their chains yanked. There are heroes livin' here who aren't appreciated or even recognized. I'm not namin' names but I think you'll recognize a hero when you see one. I'll let you in on what's REALLY goin' on behind the scenes and set the record straight.

You all probably know my mom's been laid up. What you probably DON'T know is I've been the one keepin' it all together for her. And I'm doin' it in spite of the fact that she has completely ignored the dog's-honest-truth about those bears and the role certain parties played. But abuse has never allowed me to shirk my duty. So first, here's what's goin' on around the house.

I think it's plain to see by this hopeless look on my face that I have my hands full. And let the record show that I am only layin' on the couch to keep that hooligan, Minky, off of it. Dogs aren't supposed to be on the couch around here and I will lay here as long as I need to, to keep her off.

Because not only is she gettin' her out-of-control self up ON the couch, she's stealin' my dad's coffee cup right out of his work bag. The fool dog likes coffee. No one can leave a cup of it sittin' around anywhere but that she's got her fat schnoz stuck right in there and drinkin' it. If I hadn't caught the culprit right in the action, my dad woulda grabbed this out in the mornin' never knowin' she had drug her lollin' tongue all over it. And she tries to pull off this real innocent look while she's in the middle of the crime!

She even tried to steal his cup and drag it away where she could have coffee all by herself. And you know once you start drinkin' alone it's really all over with. I believe she has all the makins of a bonafide juvenile delinquent. But nobody cares much for what I have to say. Even about bringin' her home. They even tried to tell me she was for me, a present of sorts, to keep me young. Wow. Some kinda present. Apparently, makin' a list is pointless. But movin' along.....

While all this was goin' on, I was tryin' to take care of my mom. She was just layin' around lookin' all dejected and miserable. And though she hasn't been fair with me about some things I'm gettin' ready to tell you, I can't help but treat her honorably 'cause that's just who I am. I went to her bed and took her this:

Now if that's not one fine specimen of a good, broken-in bone that anyone in her right mind would love, I don't know what is. But did she chew it? No, she just said, "Ew! Get that disgusting thing off of my blanket!" and threw it on the floor. I took this abuse and turned the other cheek. I just knew my next idea would do the trick.

The doc always tells you to have a lot of water when you're sick so, I led her to the toilet and told her to get a drink. She just looked at me and then sat down on my water bowl. Nice.

I racked my brain and came up with the suggestion we go to the park and told her she could roll around in that nice poop I found over there the other day. I did. It was great. But with her? No sale. She's even still mad at me for jumpin' in. The woman canNOT be comforted. And frankly, I'm outta ideas. So, I figured, I'd post for her and give her a break and, in so doing, I would tell you the truth about the bears and my sleepin' habits.

I read the bad press I got about not waking up when I'm called or when things are going on. This is ridiculous. You need to know that I slept through her calling me when I was in bed with The Wild Man that night, because it is good for her to practice not gettin' so hysterical. I knew she wanted me but she needs to relax and learn to handle her panic better. I wasn't gone. I hadn't run away or been dognapped. And when I heard all that caterwallin' I decided then and there: that is NOT healthy. So I just kept my eyes closed and played dumb. I'm sure you can see my good work and motivation here.

And as far as sleeping through the bear, that was exaggerated, too. I knew the bear was out there! If I had growled or barked, these people of mine would have gotten up and tangled with them. I was trying to keep it quiet. What's a little car damage when your family is at risk? No one gives me any credit for having good sense.

And not only did they not give me credit, they put me in the minivan and went back to bed! I was NOT afraid. I WAS afraid that pitiful excuse for Yogi and her bratty kids wouldn't come back and let me tear a souvenir out of their backsides. That's the look my family saw on my face. It had nothing to do with the smell of bear in there. In fact, I was able to stand on the door handle, open the door, and head out to hunt those mangy maulers the rest of the night. We had a few serious tangles and I left them bloody and horrified. When I was satisfied they wouldn't come back for the night, I got back in the van and conked out. These people will never know what I did for them because I'm not one to brag on myself.

The next night it was me leading the charge in the bear hunt. I tried to drag Grizzly the right way but you can't tell him anything. He's got a gun and a flashlight. Apparently, that trumps guts, a nose, and pure brawn. I don't need a gun. I hate guns. I bark and try to tell him they're dangerous. I've hated them ever since he and The Wild Man got Nerf guns for Christmas when I was only a couple of years old. How I got caught in the cross-fire I'll never know but I had to take a bullet for both of them. And they want me to be excited about this craziness.

I got drug in all the wrong directions the whole night. And all the while Yogi was stalking my mother. I know it was a vendetta for my activities the night before. That she-bear knew I was out looking for her in all the wrong places and she had plans to digest my mother figure. Thank goodness my mom heard that wicked thing behind her and I was able to bark and charge forward. It was my sheer ferocity that saved her but, you didn't hear it from me.

Anyway, I'll get back to figuring out how to help her out around here. I thought about saving her some of my dog food this morning but that seriously challenges all I know to be sacred. I had one piece left....I even took a picture of it and sat for a long time givin' it some serious thought......

And then I remembered how she spun this story against me. She'll just have to do without MY dog food. That'll show her. I'll keep you posted if I see any more flagrant lying.

And don't worry. You'll ALWAYS get the straight story from me. From Jojo - The HONEST one.

Copyright 2009

A Bear Market - Part 3 (CAMPING STORY Summer Reruns!)

We still had another night to go. We knew they'd be back. And they were. This time we would be waiting for them. So would Bear Bait.

We slept restlessly but the kids slept great. They were a little miffed when they woke up and realized what had happened and no one woke them. JoJo was a little miffed, too. And a lot older. But the kids had fun checking out the mess and JoJo hit pay dirt eating what the bears had left behind.

We saved what food we could. They had left two packages of Little Debbie Snack Cakes completely untouched. That should tell you something about Little Debbie. Grizzly was happy. He had breakfast. But we had to make a grocery run. We found enough left to snack around on for the kids and I but by lunchtime, everyone wanted real food. We decided to hit the dining establishment at Huntington Lake before we headed to town.

We drug ourselves into the Lakeshore Lodge restaurant looking like we'd just stepped off the set of "Deliverance." I think the Wild Man was even missing some teeth at the time. And Hannah Bo and I have exceptional hair. Get it dirty, add a little moisture and you can see the family resemblance between us and Albert Einstein who gave "big hair" a whole new meaning. We had been camping for six days with only baby wipes for pretend baths. We beat our clothes and dusted off but the fact of the matter was, we were disgusting.

We just didn't care.

We chatted up the waitress who tried to serve us from as far away as her arm would let her. We ate heartily and tipped well. It was the least we could do. And as I've been known to say, I always try to do the least I can do.

Our full bellies gave us renewed energy and we began to plot and plan for the evening events we knew were coming. We stopped by the campground offices which were down the road and across a main bridge. We found out there had been another bear incident. A guy had left dog food in his truck and mama bear bashed the window in and sent the kids after the goods. It made us glad we had forgotten to roll up the window. At least it wasn't broken. But, now that they knew the food was inside, they wouldn't let a window stop them. The ranger said to expect them. Maybe smart people would have gone home at this point but we have never been mistaken for smart people. Besides, we wanted to squeeze the life out of our last day. We weren't about to hand it over to a bear or three.

We grabbed enough grub to get us through another night, including marshmallows, hot chocolate, and coffee. Our plan included sitting around the campfire long enough to let them head for the car and then we would chase them off. If we had to sit up half the night in the cold, we at least wanted to be fortified with caffeine and sugar.

We convinced the Wild Man he had to go to bed by ten. He was eight at the time so his droopy eyelids helped seal the deal, and Lassie was more than willing to climb to the bottom of his sleeping bag and keep his feet company. But Hannah Bo was determined to make it all night. She had always been a night owl and this was worth staying up for. Grizzly had a plan and excitement was in the air.

Grizzly frequently has plans.

There was another camping trip, this one out in the wilderness of the National Forest, with no one around for miles. We were getting overrun by mice. We didn't know it until a few days later but someone had dumped some garbage near our site weeks earlier. It had become a mouse haven. We found HB's purple knitted gloves with the fingers chewed out. When we opened the engine compartment of the van, we found a little purple glove nest on top of the battery. The mice ran up and down our tent trailer in the night. The pitter-patter of little feet kept us up and aggravated. Grizzly was done.

He sat outside the next night with his shotgun in one hand and his night vision monocular in the other. Meanwhile, I laid on the bed with a three-year-old Wild Man, sound asleep, and a very excited Hannah Bo wearing her dad's gun muffs clamped on to her head. He would yell, "Ready?" and I, in my gun muffs with my hands pressed over Wild Man's ears, would yell back, "Go Ahead!" and we'd hear the roar of the shotgun's report. This happened about six times. Grizzly would watch for movement through the monocular and then blast away at the mice. It worked...uh...great.

The next morning it was evident that the world was now safe from folding chairs. They were shot to heck and were the only thing he hit. The mice rebuilt the nest on the battery the next day.

So we were primed, once again, to take on our latest forest nemesis. Grizzly would be armed in case things went terribly south but there would be no shooting. We just wanted to keep them from destroying our car and show them they couldn't bully their way in everywhere and damage property. It seemed like a humanitarian mission. We had pots and pans and noise makers. We would honk the horn and scream and yell.

Wild Man drifted off to sleep and the three of us hunkered down around the fire. The campground grew dark and quiet. It wasn't well populated because it was mid-week and off-season. A few fires could be seen in the distance but they slowly flickered out. Our conversations grew fewer and more hushed as the night crawled slowly into the wee morning hours. No signs. No sounds. Grizzly grew restless. He felt eyes boring into him but couldn't see anything. He decided to scout the perimeter and weave in and out of the trees. HB wanted to stretch and go with him. They grabbed the night vision monocular, with JoJo at their heel, and headed out.

I wasn't about to leave my son or the car so, with my .38 snuggled deep in my pocket, I pulled my parka in tighter, my hood up farther, and tucked down into my chair (one without shotgun pellet holes). And I waited. All that could be heard was the occasional pop or crackle of the campfire. At times I would hear or see my three bear hunters working their way through the trees. Eventually they would come back, wait for a bit, and then head out again. Grizzly was getting frustrated. There was just no sign. He absolutely knew the minute we hit the sack they would be at the van. I mentioned that mama could have easily treed herself and the babies and be watching them every time they passed underneath, and they would never know. That gave him a new mission: scouting out trees with the flashlight while he hunted.

The hours drug on and 5:00a.m. approached. We thought maybe we would see daylight before we turned in. Grizzly decided to make one last trip through the forest. Hannah Bo and JoJo set out with him. With my chin resting on my chest I fought sleep. My bones had turned to columns of ice and I wasn't sure I could move if the need presented itself. I found out I could.

Off in the far distance I saw the sweep of the flashlight and knew the posse was headed back for camp. At the same moment I noted a sound right behind my chair. My eyes shot open wide and the hair on my neck stood up. I froze. Was that just a little animal making its way through the underbrush? Don't panic. Then came a very heavy footfall an arms length from me. I screamed and jumped from my chair. By that time, Grizzly was within shouting distance up the road in front of me.

"It's okay!" he yelled. "It's just us!"

"No it's not!" I cried out.

Thunderous paws ran down the hill behind me as I turned to watch.

"She was right here! Right behind my chair!" I shrieked. And she vanished into the forest depths.

The breeze had been blowing gently toward me and she hadn't caught my scent. I was downwind. My dark green parka had blended in perfectly with the night. I have no doubt she never saw me. But the jig was up. We scared each other to death, equally.

Dawn was a short time away and we all crawled into our sleeping bags, exhausted. We were confident she wouldn't be back with so little darkness left. It would be long enough to give us a few hours of sleep. We drifted off finally, warm, snuggly, and dim-wittedly victorious.

I have no doubt there is a bear out there right now, with a blog, telling all her readers about how she almost ate a woman once instead of a Ding Dong.......because the description applied so perfectly to both.

Copyright 2009

A Bear Market - Part 2 (CAMPING STORY Summer Rerun!)

I wasn't prepared for what I saw next.

The whole van was rockin' like a frat house on Friday night.

Two cubs were inside while the mama stood on her hind legs, face pressed to the window pointing out the items she wanted them to throw out to her. They had entered through the driver's side window but she was too big and fat to fit. I feel her pain. But you can never be too fat if you're a bear. They don't spend anytime feeling badly about themselves because they don't fit in windows. In fact, they do this thing called "hyper feeding." It happens as winter is coming on and they will eat as many as 20,000 calories a day in preparation for hybernation. I think I did that last time I went to Baskin Robbins. I don't think I hybernated but I'm pretty sure I lapsed into a coma for a few days.

Now, you may wonder, "Why in the world did you two idiot dingbats leave the window open on your car?" And you would be perfectly right in asking such a succinct question. That's why I hang out with you.

Here's how that happened. Grizzly went to bed first, with the kids. He figured I'd make sure everything was secure for the night, being the mom and all. I was staying up for a bit to sit by the fire with the dogs and have quiet time. I figured he, being the man and all, would secure our perimeters before turning in. So naturally, neither one of us did anything. We frequently work well together like this.

We had heard there were some bears around and half the sites had lock boxes. Ours didn't. We were told to keep food out of sight. Not a problem. We always kept everything in camping boxes anyway. Just so you know for your own personal information: a camping container to a bear is like gift wrapping a box of See's candy. It just heightens the thrill anticipating the creamy center.

As we looked out the tent we could see the bears having a heydey in the van. One of the cubs had thrown a bottle of cooking oil out to mom and she had ripped off the the top half and poured its greasy goodness down her throat, over her face, and onto her paws. She then pressed that same big fat face up against the windows of the van, along with plate-sized paws, and left lovely pressed-art pictures of herself.

The ground was littered with crackers, chips, pop tarts, flour, butter, pancake mix, and syrup. All of the items were in various states of having been demolished or devoured. I must interject that we do not normally keep all this c-rap around our home and I am an organic cook most of the time. However, camping requires copious amounts of Death Food in Boxes. (Sounds like a good name for a band.)

Grizzly ran out into the freezing night yelling and clanging pot lids. Of course the guns could not be fired. This is California. Guns are just for looks in a campground. You can't shoot bears or discharge a weapon. If we had left the guns in the car then the bears could have legally shot us, sat in our chairs, smoked a cigarette (not that we had any but they travel with them), and slammed back a beer to wash down the Ding Dongs.

But we hadn't left the guns in the car so the master mind of the heist ditched the babies and took off into the trees. The cubs scrambled around inside the van hunting their escape hatch, the window, and then bailed out as fast as their bloated bodies would carry them. The dogs were now awake. Reluctantly. I know I keep saying dogs and have only mentioned JoJo. Our other dog du jour was Lassie. Now Lassie was a four pound chihuahua who never really belonged with our family. My persuasive aunt had talked us into keeping this walking snack food but chihuahuas are not exactly your great-outdoors camping types. She spent most of her time in the mountains shaking and praying for death to overtake her. (We have since rehomed her with my aunt where she is receiving therapy for post traumatic stress disorder.)

With the bears out of sight we lifted the back hatch and surveyed the damage. It looked like a bomb had gone off in a Walmart. Camping boxes were ripped in half (what the heck? All they had to do was lift the lid, for Pete's sake!). Same for the ice-chest. Top removed at the hinges and it wasn't even locked. Bloody meat packages lay with only hints of what they once contained. Flour was everywhere. Bear hair hung from the ceiling. Bear musk hung on the air. Puncture holes decorated the interior and my emergency brake, now flattened out, had reported for its last emergency.

We knew they were watching from the perimeter. It was three a.m. We didn't want our car destroyed. What would YOU do? I know what we did. We swept off a spot on the back seat, rolled up the windows, and called JoJo to lay there and do guard duty until the light of day. She would forever after be known affectionately as "Bear Bait." You've never seen a dog with bigger eyes than one who is about to be left by herself in a car that smells like a bear is sleeping in there with her. I'm not sure we made the right decision. JoJo is positive we didn't. But the car was safe. At least for the rest of that night.

We still had another night to go. We knew they'd be back. And they were. This time we would be waiting for them. So would Bear Bait.

To Be Continued........

Copyright 2009

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