This is how I feel about how cold it is today. I love spring so much and am counting the days until I see a daffodill. They always start blooming sometime during the last week in February and to me, when I see the first one, winter is automatically over. I don't care if it snows 3 feet after that....winter is still over, because I have seen my flower. 5 more weeks!
My dog eats dirt. Actually, Lucy will eat just about anything, sometimes with disgusting and aromatic results. When I carted home a pickup load of horse manure for my compost pile, she thought it was a giant pile of doggie treats. In the picture, who know what she is licking off the plate. It can reasonably be assumed it was food someone left sitting around, but that I can understand. What I don't get is this. The last few months when I let her outside, she heads for the lawn (such as it is) yanks off small pieces of sod and eats them...dirt and all. At first I thought the cat had a favorite spot on the lawn and that she was, shall we say,... opening gifts. But on closer inspection, it is clear she is simply consuming what meager topsoil I have in my front yard little by little. Today I had to listen to her whine all day with what I can only assume is a painful stomach, judging from the rumblings I heard emitting from her midsection. I tried to explain to her that she might consider cutting down on the dirt, but she just looked at me with mournful brown eyes. Although dirt is at the top of her current list, if anyone is looking to get rid of tinfoil, plastic, corn cobs, litter-box scraps, heck, any kind of scraps, or needs their horse stall emptied....Lucy is your dog. Seriously, we can arrange that. I can say this for her; she does not eat the bathroom garbage can contents or underwear. My other dog, Daisy takes care of that department.
"Who, me?"
It is rare thing to end up with the perfect person for you. Or could it be, in the cases that seem perfect, that they have, individually, tried to be that perfect person for the other one, and that that is what makes the magic? I have pleasantly fascinated watching my daughter Brianne and her husband, Daniel make what I consider to be an amazing marraige. (that's them holding hands in the picture....awwwww) I have noticed a few things. They talk to each other about every decision and are great about coming up with something that works for both of them. They go out of their way to do nice things for each other; especially surprises, sometimes it is very simple, sometimes it is more elaborate. They are willing to look at things from the others' point of view, forgive each other, appreciate each others' differences and have a great sense of humor. Another thing I love is that seem to treat every little thing they do as this great adventure. I can see the strengths in each of them being blended into something wonderful. I stayed with them for 3 weeks after the birth of their first child. This is a little unimportant exchange that spoke volumes to me and is a favorite. One evening Brianne was assembling a fan. Daniel and I were just quietly visiting at the kitchen table while she sat on the living room floor surrounded by fan-parts. She became frustrated when it was not coming together like it should. As she became more and more agitated, getting herself worked up into a snit, Daniel watched her, smiling. Then he turned to me and said "I love when she gets like this....she's so... cute!" He really meant it. He continued to watch her bluster with a happy, content look on his face. ( She always drove me crazy and, frankly, scared me slightly when she was in that state growing up.) She did get the fan together and was quite proud of herself. I have thought about it and decided our God-given agency to choose how we react to life's events is a blessing we often don't use wisely. I chose to let her draw me into her frustration, he chose to simply enjoy her and let her work it out. Anyway, my whole point it that they make each other more important than themselves and the result is magic.
What I want to know is...Why is it when I cook a grilled cheese sandwich, our fire alarm blares at top volume, but when there are 5 fire trucks sitting in front of my house putting out our chimney fire, it doesn't make a peep? I miss using our fireplace, especially since tonight is our coldest night of the season so far. On Friday as I was talking on the phone, I started to hear very loud banging noises coming from the stairwell area. Thinking the cat was either getting violent or Russ decided our bedroom upstairs needed swept and was banging the broom around with his enthusiasm; a thing that actually does happen, I checked it out. Nothing, and yet the noise continued. I got off the phone, went downstairs and told Russ something was really wrong and I didn't know what. We took the flashlight outside, shone it up to the top of our 3 story A-frame and discovered smoke oozing through the mortar of the stones. We called the fire department which ordered us out of the house immediately. By then the smoke had been joined by a large glowing ball at the top which occasionally shot out sparks on our very old, fire hazard, cedar shake roof. Not good. The first trucks to arrive could not access the chimney since it was up so high and they could not climb the roof since the pitch was so steep. They ended up sending for the Joplin ladder truck, which had a difficult time backing itself down our narrow windey driveway. When they were able to extend the ladder and climb up, they dropped a dry-chemical pack down the chimney to extinguish the fire. The firemen who arrived earlier had emptied the firebox, which had already helped a lot. I bet it was an hour before they dropped the dry-chemical. So...now we have to have the chimney cleaned and inspected before we can have any more fires and we are very sad.....and cold. The whole time, the fire alarm never said a word. Go figure. Perhaps I can coax it into action by serving grilled cheese tonight?
