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             On Friday, my husband decided he wanted fried soft-shell crab, fish, shrimp, and squash for lunch (this is the South, and bayou country, folks.) He decided to take advantage of my last day before I start my diet. Not wanting to fry seafood in the house, we turned the a/c on in the garage while we were cooking. Our garage is like an apartment, not your typical garage. I went into the house for eggs and when I came back, I could not believe my eyes. My husband had let the dogs in. My immediate thought was who is this man, because he is definitely NOT my husband. Where is he and what did you do to him? He let them in on purpose! Anyone who knows my husband would think he had lost his mind. He does NOT like the dogs to be inside the garage, much less the house. I, on the other hand, let them in every time he leaves (it’s no secret. I’ve been caught enough times.)

            My other dogs knew that when Papa left, they could come inside. As soon as Jeffery cleared the gate, they were sitting at the back door waiting. Sentry got to where she just sat and watched him drive down the driveway. She didn’t even bother to hide the fact that she was waiting to come in!

            Then, after lunch, he left to run errands and left the dogs inside (the garage AND his man cave.) When he returned a couple of hours later, he comes into the house and asks me if they are ready to go out. God, please forgive the look that came over my face and the thoughts that went ever so BRIEFLY through my head. I rolled my eyes and asked him if he had asked Ryka and Calypso if they were ready to go out. You gotta love this man. He thinks my dogs talk to me. If the sprawled out positions they had adopted, were any indication, they were in la-la land and NOT ready to go outside in the 90+ degree heat and thousands of percent humidity (the South).

Later in the day, I did manage to coerce Calypso outside. I had plans to mow the yard (a lawn is small, we have a YARD) and I needed to play “scoop the poop”. She loves to follow me around and I’m attempting to teach her to poop next to the trees so I don’t have to use the shovel to put it there (I know, yeah, right! One never knows what they will succeed with.) I shovel the poop and dump it by the trees. I tell her that is where she should do her business. So far, it’s not working. One can always wish.

I do not think (in fact, I KNOW) hubby did not waste any time scooping the poop the week I was in New York. I could have filled a dump truck! I have TWO German shepherds the size of Texas (ok, not quite, but almost.) I’m beginning to think they are in competition with each other to see who can make the biggest pile of business (poop!) Was that a little too much information? Probably so!

I was visiting different blogs the other day and I came across a story about two sisters, one of which is expecting and hates revolving doors. I laughed when I read the story because after my recent trip to New York (more stories I afraid) I can so relate. I am always afraid that I will get trapped in one and just keep going round and round and round. Please tell me someone else has had this same nightmare!? Has anyone ever tried to go the wrong way through one? Yes, I tried, many times. Seems, if there is no one ahead of me, I cannot tell which way to go and inevitably end up pushing the wrong way before I figure it out.

It became a joke between my son-in-law and I this past trip. He went through a door and was headed on to our destination when he looked back to see if we were following him (my daughter, Jessica, and me.) I gave him the most pathetic look I could muster up and the saddest voice I could use and I told him, “Son-in-law, do not leave mother-in-law behind because I almost got lost in the revolving door and couldn’t get out”.

There was one incident when we were walking into a restaurant and I got to the door first and stopped. Son-in-law walked up and looked at me to see what was wrong. I just looked back at him, waiting. It took prompting, but after I said, “Jeffery is not here to open the door for me, so it is up to you.” He shrugged his shoulders, chuckled, and opened the door (I will succeed with him.) I let him know that as long as there was a man around, I would never open the door. I would wait. Katie is one of these modern girls who like to open their own door and not wait for a man to open it for her. I am failing miserably to keep her trained in this Southern tradition, but I still keep trying.

On our last trip to New York in October (husband and I) there was a little incident with the bathroom. I cannot believe I am going to post this, but it was and continues to be a funny story. It is one of those stories that every time you tell it, it is embellished a little more.

I found out the hard way that if the bathroom door is closed and the light is out, it generally means it’s empty. It makes sense NOW, but when you do not know the rules…strange things happen. Let me start at the beginning. Most folks in New York do not have air conditioners. They live with the windows wide open, including the bathroom window, which, in their apartment, is huge and located so when you sit on the toilet, you can have a conversation with several different floors of residents in the next building. Fortunately, the bathroom side of the building faces the bathroom side of the neighboring building. This means that you don’t have many visitors. I have yet to see one, but there is always the possibility.

It was dark outside and I was going to shower. I did want to take the time to lower the window (it is quite heavy and awkward, it’s an old building) so I closed the bathroom doors (there is a hall door and a bedroom door) and left the light off, knowing that no one could see in (I am Princess Modest so you can only imagine what was going through my mind.) What was NOT going through my mind was that son-in-law would come barreling through the door! I screamed, he screamed, we all screamed, and it WASN’T for ice cream! Fortunately, I had a towel wrapped up tight around me (Princess Modesty.) He went one way; I went the other.

This trip, I wanted to make sure there was no repeat so whenever I went into the bathroom, I hollered out, “son-in-law, mother-in-law’s in the bathroom”, and he would respond with, “okay”. Then, when he went in, he thought it was only natural to let me know. It worked out beautifully. I’m sure you are asking; why not just lock the door. My answer would be, “I don’t know”. When there are four people in the apartment and one goes missing, in my mind, it is not too hard to figure out they are in the bathroom. Closed door – knock?

During the retelling of this story, (you know that there HAS to be many retellings) it came to light that my poor little sweet daughter had a similar experience with her father-in-law, only it was worse. Her mother-in-law told her to put something in the bathroom. Katie asked if anyone was in there and she said no. Katie walked into the bathroom and her father-in-law walked out of the shower at the same time. Let’s just say at least I had a towel on and it was dark! My daughter will be forever traumatized by the event.

Life is never dull for Lucy Jr. either.

On another note, on Monday we had rain! Yeah rain! The birds were singing, the trees were dancing, the flowers were blooming, and the grass was growing. Okay, I admit that I could only hear the birds singing, but we desperately needed rain. We have had drought conditions for almost three months. The surrounding areas have gotten rain, but for some reason, here in Valentine, we miss it. We sit on the porch and watch it go by to the north and watch it go by to the south, but not over us.

We have had rain everyday this week so far! It is so exciting. I gave the dogs a bath. Calypso loves the water. She loves the soaking and then she loves the scrubbing. She sits and licks me the entire time. I love it. I stand there and just talk and talk to her (she sits on top of the picnic table – easier on my back) and she just looks at me as if to say, “I love you too, Mommy.” Ryka is a different story, although this time she was much easier to bathe than normal. She hopped up on the picnic table, sat, and let me soak her. I guess it helps to be using warm water. I had to put Calypso in the kennel because she is so jealous. I think Ryka was enjoying the one on one with me without having Calypso nipping at her legs (this is Calypso’s new thing – try to get under Ryka and bite her on the leg.)

Ryka, for some reason (maybe my trip last week,) was very amendable to a bath. She sat there while I soaked and scrubbed her. Of course, there was lots of licking going on since I was face level with her (her licking, not me.) I was able to talk and talk with her as well. Calypso, as punishment, had to sit in the kennel and watch Ryka get the attention for a change. Needless to say, I was soaking wet, but there were two squeaky clean dogs!

That’s about all for my week. See ya next week!