Lives in a Shoe

Great-Grandson Zayden

The beautiful son of my granddaughter Natasha:

 
Looking at him melts my heart. 

 

You Have to Wonder: Where Are The Parents?

In Haymarket, Virginia, high school kids brought candy canes to school and, while singing carols, distributed them to fellow students.  School administrators explained what should be obvious to all: "The candy canes are weapons because you can sharpen them with your mouth and stab people with them," and further informed the budding sociopaths  "not everyone wants Christmas cheer...suicide rates are up over Christmas, and that they should keep their cheer to themselves, perhaps."    

Fortunately the Oklahoma City Police Department is on the ball.  Thanks to a tip from a sharp-eyed teacher, a 13-year-old boy was arrested Friday for using a permanent marker while in class at his Oklahoma City middle school, a violation of an obscure city ordinance.  The student was "writing on a piece of paper, which causd it to bleed over onto the desk."  The horrifying details are here .

HO HO HO - Awwww...

 
Today is Boxing Day and we could all use a good rest.

I don't know whose photo this is -- I found it on Maggies Farm.

You're a Big Boy Now, Isaac

--- and it's time you eat hay and grain.

When the calves see me coming up to the barn they both start to MOOOO.  For awhile I was giving Isaac only one bottle, at night, instead of one in the morning also.  But came time to wean him.  The first day he was not given a bottle he was outside mooing loudly.  He skidded into the barn where I waited with a bucket of grain.  He looked at me and very quietly said "Meh?"  So cute I almost backed down and got the bottle again.  But no.  It's time for him to grow up.  Do you see how irresistable he can be, with his little pink nose and those long eyelashes?

 

Isaac Hayes and Mickey Moo Valentine Join Our Herd

During the summer these two calves were working at the Petting Farm at two or three fairs.  Their previous owner, Sherry, told me she thinks they had been petted by about three thousand kids by the end of the season. 

How did they end up in my herd?  It's all Diana's fault.  She just fell in love with little Isaac Hayes (his name was Skylar then) and got all weepy when she thought about how betrayed he'd feel when his turn came to be slaughtered for meat.  Isaac is a Hereford, a beef breed.  His friend Mickey Moo Valentine (who has a heart-shaped mark on his left flank) was also destined for slaughter.  But Mickey is a Holstein steer, not robust enough for meat other than some ground beef -- it would be different for him, and he'd be more valuable if he had been born female.

So -- knowing that these two little creatures would require quite a fair amount of extra work on my part, I still agreed to take them home and keep them as permanent pets, as part of our little herd along with Margaret Thatcher and Elmer Cudd ("Bubba"). Mickey was already eating hay and grain, but little Isaac was still being bottle fed, as Sherry explained his mother had rejected him.  So twice a day I went up to the barn to give Isaac his bottle.  Here's Diana feeding him -- Isabelle, Giulia and Leah watching; Tanya supervising -- the bottle looks as if it came from a Looney Tunes cartoon:

 
Mickey Moo Valentine below right.  He is quite a bit taller and more slender than Isaac.

Here are the two of them together:

  
Mickey has horns growing in, which will have to be removed.  Isaac is "polled", meaning he has no horns and curly hair on his little face.

Babe's Wall

She's been dead a year now.  I miss her every day.   

 

Photo is seriously goofy -- I just got Photoshop software and don't yet know how to fix things.

I've been fiddling around with it for about an hour now.  One of the first pictures I pulled from my camera was of Diana, her three granddaughters, and my daughter-in-law Tanya.  I'm goofing around with lighting and effects when all of a sudden a little box appears over one of the granddaugter's faces.  "Who is this?" it asks. 

I know about face recognition software and I'll probably like it -- but out of nowhere like that I have to say was creepy.

 

Bizarro World

   Theocons and hedonistic liberals seem to be meeting somewhere in the middle for an amiable do-si-do.   Consider: 

   1.    Washington state, then the Feds, have ordered Four Loko off the market.  Why?  To protect the CHILD-ren.  Never mind that alcoholic beverages are already illegal to sell to kids or even to young adults under age twenty-one.  And never mind that a can of Red Bull and a vodka-rocks would have pretty much the same effect.  Banning a legal product for adult use on the basis that it's dangerous to children could apply to lots of things, like Happy Meals with toys inside, or fast food restaurants in poor neighborhoods.  Oh, wait...    

    2.    Pat Robertson has advocated decriminalization of marijuana.  "We're locking up people that take a couple of puffs of marijuana....We've got to take a look at what we're considering crimes... I'm not exactly for use of drugs, don't get me wrong, but I just believe criminalizing marijuana and criminalizing the possession of a few ounces of pot...it's costing us a fortune and it's ruining young people."

 In other news, on Planet Htrae, Bizarro Lois Lane tugged on Superman's cape and messed around with Jim.

Hints from Hello-EZ

How to seal a plastic bag and make it air tight.

 
Cut up a disposable water bottle and keep the neck and top.

Insert the plastic bag through the neck and screw the top to seal.

 

More secure than a rubber band or twist-tie.

Thanks to Diane Hawley for the idea and the photos.

Apple Cup 2010

This year Washington State University lost to University of Washington.  The law office has a party tradition -- open to Cougars and Huskies alike. 

Glamorous Princess Zoe the bulldog, a languid beauty, attends every year.  Gown and neckline treatment by Marcella.  Carriage courtesy of Melissa.  Nails groomed by Germaine.  Transportation by Catherine.

 
  Better view of costume detail, below.  Note the incorporation of the crimson and gray of WSU Cougars with the purple and gold of the Washington Huskies and the sparkling jewel-like sequins scattered throughout.

 

 

Goodbye, Buddy

She was adopted from the county shelter by our neighbors -- maybe about five years ago.  She was a fat old dog then, a chocolate lab maybe.  Her name, oddly enough, was Buddy.  They thought to make a barn dog out of her but Buddy was way, way too sociable for that.  She did live in the barn, and sometimes slept the night there -- but Buddy was a neighborhood dog.  Everybody knew her and we all loved her.

 
 
She was a demon at knocking over trash cans.  Every trash day, all up and down the road you could see cans, meat wrappers, garbage of the rankest description strewn along the culvert and at the foot of our driveways.  On Wednesdays she was "that damn Buddy".  But now I can see that she was doing her part to stimulate the economy because one by one, every neighbor was forced to buy bungee cords or locking garbage cans -- a mini economic boom right here in Mount Vernon.

Buddy had a route -- she would check in with the neighbors to the south who had cat food on their porch.  She took all the cat food, too, along with the tiny china dishes it was served in. 

One Thanksgiving eve I set a fifteen pound turkey on my front porch to thaw.  Got up early ready to stuff the thing and start it cooking.  But -- no turkey.  No trace of it, either.  George and I talked about how it could not have been a coyote or a raccoon because there was no wrapper mess, just an empty roasting pan.  Could it have been a homeless person who was hungry?  Months later Dee, Buddy's owner, was telling a funny story about how Buddy had a collection of dishes in the barn.  And once, said Dee, she looked out the window to see Buddy dragging a large turkey, still in its wrapper, toward the barn.  She said it was a mystery to her where it came from.

Although we never heard Buddy bark we did hear her Yip -- she had stolen a live crab from a bucket where they were awaiting George's boiling pot.  She was across the driveway, and it was dark, but with flashlights we could see that the crab, unwilling to be a dog's dinner, had grabbed Buddy's nose.

When my beloved old Duke was in his last year and creaky with arthritis, he would Woof at Buddy in the front yard.  Buddy would respond by slowly walking down the driveway toward the end of our property.  Duke would creak after Buddy, who looked over her shoulder at him as she matched her speed to his tottery steps.  She'd reach the street and Duke would Woof again and turn back, duty done.  Buddy handicapped herself, charity in action.

Buddy came with me almost every night when I went up to the barn to feed the cows.  It was just a routine with us.  The cows knew her and had no fear of her.  Then she'd hang out on our deck, sometimes staying the night there, sometimes under Marcella's deck, sometimes in her own barn.  Our cats lounged beside her in the sun, without fear.  There is a path in our front lawn where Buddy came and went.  I'll be sad when it disappears.

Neighbor Tim mentioned that Buddy was fourteen years old -- pretty old for such a fat girl.  The picture was taken on the very last good day she had, last week.  She went downhill after that and died during the night on Friday.  She had come to us when she was in pain and we made her as comfortable as we could.  We will all miss her -- all of us in her informal neighborhood family, and certainly her real family across the street.  She was one of the sweetest dogs ever -- I hope she knew how very much she was loved.