laugh every day

I was woken up at 7:15 yesterday morning by my sister Lydia. Daddy had pulse rate > 180 Tuesday evening and had spent the night in the hospital. They didn’t think he had had a heart attack - but his heart rate had been off the charts. They were giving him meds to slow it down - but slowly—because he overreacts to medicines. As of Wednesday morning, resting, his heart rate was about 100.

During the third phone call, Rascal went bonkers trailing something in the yard. I was on the deck – still in my nightgown – to get good reception on the cell phone. The trail Rascal was following eventually led to my neighbor Louise’s outhouse. After several minutes of sustained barking it was obvious, whatever it was was still inside the outhouse. (The outhouse is not used anymore—probably since running water was installed in the late 1970’s. It is a lawn mower storage facility now with a definite cant to the right.)

I got off the phone, went and got a leash, shoes and a Milkbone and came back out. I could hear every dog in town. They were going nuts wanting in on the game.

My guess was it was an opossum or a raccoon. For what I heard it could of been a black bear. Then Rascal managed to get in the outhouse and it started rocking and rolling. Even the trees around it were shaking. For what I saw, it could of been a Tasmanian Devil.

So in-between (and sometime during) two more calls about my dad, I was out behind Louise’s house in my flannel night gown, with a chicken carcass, chicken, Milkbones, deli sliced turkey, rawhides, saying things like “come here sweet Rascal…. ” I was in white socks and fake Birkenstocks too.

I was quiet a sight I am sure. I had so many other things on my mind I didn’t even think about it until later. When I did—I looked down at my feet and decided if whatever it was started coming out over the outhouse door, I was leaving the Birkenstocks where they sat.

Rascal was in such a state that sometimes she couldn’t stand the tension anymore. She’d come out of the outhouse and run around and around it 8-10 times - like Sambo’s tiger - then dive back in. And the battle for Armageddon would start again. The old rickety outhouse tilted more and more to the back and the right—but it didn’t go over.

We missed a prize winning opportunity to be on America’s Funniest Home Video.

I got within about 10 feet swinging my chicken carcass - but honestly, I was afraid to get closer. All I could really see at any point in time was Rascal’s white rear-end - with her tail going 999 RPM—through the hole she had busted into the side of the outhouse. The sounds were scarier than any scary movie I have seen in 40 years. And the whole building was rocking.

After about 45 minutes - I was about ready to call animal control - Rascal yelped and had it out, and it was on the ground and she shaking it. I got close enough and was relieved to see it was an opossum. (Opossums very rarely carry rabies.) I went on back to the house then. I knew as long as I was out there she was going to show out and maul it—if I walked away, she’d be bored quickly.

She was.

I got dressed for work—and as I was leaving, my other neighbor Louise called me. Rascal went with me. Louise was sick (but is feeling better now). She is 90 and had a stomach virus and couldn’t figure out how to get her daughter on the phone. Luckily, I had been by Sunday and wrote my cell phone number on a pad beside her chair. I called her daughter and helped her until her daughter got there. Many people help take care of my dad. It was good to be able to replay the favor. When I left, big, scary, outhouse busting-in Rascal wouldn’t come. She was propped up against Louise’s recliner, and had the look, “You can’t pay me to leave.” Her next temp assignment was going to be staying and taking care of Louise.

This morning the opossum was gone. Rascal’s shaking didn’t
kill it. It had been “just playing opossum.” I was glad. It had put up an admirable fight.

I got the email from my nephew first thing: Daddy is doing fine—he will go home from the hospital today.

Miss Louise of great age is feeling better she says and wants me to stop in for some soup and corn bread.

A friend’s co-worker is writing a country western song. I included it below.

I got a Monk email below from a mysterious person named Leon. I have given you the link.

I just owe my neighbor, young Louise, some boards for the outhouse and everything will be all perfect again. Well, except for the outhouse’s accelerated cant to the right. And my accelerated trot towards insanity—with or without Birkenstocks.

b.

====================
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Of dogs and outhouses]
Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 14:52:34 -0400
From: Robin W.

I have now begun to write my own country and western song.

Oh, there’s a possum in the outhouse;
There’s a possum in the john.
I don’t know what he wants in there
But I wish that he’d move on.

The whole dang building’s shakin’
And it’s tiltin’ to the right
I guess I shouldn’t have thrown away
That Ex-Lax Sunday night.

Robin “and that’s just the chorus” W.

=================================
Subject: Leon sent you a Monk-E-Mail!
Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 08:38:25 -0400
From: Leon

Leon created a Monk-E-Mail just for you. Now what did you
do to deserve that?

Click here http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/?mid=9105515> to
see your message.

Late Sunday afternoon, about an hour before sunset, I went walking on the river with Rascal and the 5 cats. The cats are, oldest to youngest: Jasper, Nigel, Peaches, Buttons and Bodie.

Bodie is a yellow tabby with yellow eyes—about a year and a half old. He is still growing into his parts—a lanky, it-all-doesn’t-fit-together-right-yet teenager.

There was a mudpuddle—sort of just a damp place on the trail where some leaves were. It stormed all day yesterday. There were about 10-15 butterflies drinking at the damp place. Yellow and black monarchs, yellow butterflies, black butterflies—about a dozen of them. Like a kid at Christmas Bodie ran into the middle of them. For just a moment the yellow, once-awkward kitty was surrounded in a cloud of yellow and black butterflies.

The yellow matched his yellow coat.
The yellow matched his butter yellow eyes.
The yellow matched the yellow of the sun.
The yellow matched the yellow woods of April.

Monk-E-mail is the funniest thing I have seen in a while! Your own monkey look-a-like lip-sync’s and delivers your message. Send it to people you love (or not). Here’s one I created, just for my 43Things friends:

http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/?mid=7278628

Kissy, Kissy! b.

1 - I was reading my entry - a serious entry but I got funny in the middle of talking about major medical and the cost of addiction. ”...shotgun shells, lawyers, bail…”

http://www.43things.com/entries/view/665567

2 - A friend sent me a funny cat video - an attachment to an email. I can’t insert it here… but I can post a link to another movie.

http://www.boredmuch.com/view.php?id=839

3—I wrote my friend back:

“I laughed as hard as the night I couldn’t get out of the water bed at 2AM, on Christmas Eve, at my sister’s house in Alaska. Santa Claus was downstairs. I had the flu and jet lag and I needed to go to the bathroom - and maybe the emergency room - but I was going to start with some tea—but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to get out of bed. I had only been awake since 5AM Eastern Time the day before. My sister was trying to help me. Started telling me how she had to do it when she was pregnant and, whether from the jet lag or the lack of oxygen or the late hour or my physical position, I got tickled and the whole bed shook. Then she got tickled and we neither one could do anything but laugh. But we needed to not wake the kids and, the quieter we needed to be the more hysterical we got. I don’t know how many minutes we lost.

When we finally figured out how to get me out of the bed (lay on the edge and flop over like a dead fish—very graceful), I didn’t need to go to the emergency room anymore. I didn’t even need tea. I did still need to go to the bathroom as I had NOT wet the bed. It was a Christmas miracle on several counts.

So I am going to save this video clip and play it the next time I get the flu—QID. Especially since my sister sold the water bed at a yard sale and got a Sealy Posturepedic at Costco. (Another story for another time.) (This story thing is a family trait.) (Just promise me if you ever need to buy a mattress at Costco talk to me first or it may end up in a ditch down at the fairgrounds.)

c. “

4—And finally, my fourth laugh out loud. This entry inspired me to add this goal… Barbie kite, red sweatpants…. Thank you Holley! You’re funny girl!

http://www.43things.com/entries/view/655191