One Frustrated Fur-Momma

Do NOT bring your dog aggressive dogs to an off-leash dog park.

It says that, right on the front gate.

That means, if your dog is going at my Boxer, through the gate, before you even get him off leash or let him in:

Don't let him in. (Does that look like a face that should be attacked?)

If you get your dog in the dog park, and it is snapping and growling and its hackles are up:

Take him back out.

If you have two German Shepherds that are huge and behaving in such a manner:

Get them out faster.

Ya'll know I don't have a problem with big dogs. I really don't. In fact, they're my "dogs of choice." But, for crying out loud! These people! (He's cute. You can say it. Sweet Diesel boy).

That DOESN'T mean take them off their leash and let them go after my eight year old Great Dane.

That DOESN'T mean watch as they go after him with teeth bared and hackles raised, sounding like a chain saw. (Does he look up to defending himself from bratty dogs, uncontrolled by their stupid owners? Of course not. He's all love.)

It sure doesn't mean watch as they broadside him into the mud, and only allow him up to limp away, bleeding from the tail and his legs scraped up and covered in mud.

And, for God's sake, if all that DOES happen--

TAKE THEM OUT THEN.

Do NOT leave them in the park to torment my babies!!

Blue-dog is ok. His tail is the worst scraped, and his joints are a little sore. Thankfully, we gave him a puppy pain pill and rinsed out his scrapes. His precious tail has lost some hair, and he's tired and sore. But, thankfully, he's ok.

I apologize for this completely unrelated to anything rant.

But, I'm not a dog hover mom. I believe dogs will mostly work it out themselves if given half a chance.

EXCEPT with Blue-dog. He's my rescue puppy..my old love. My cuddle-bug during the day when I'm the only one in bed.

He's my sweetheart who stays right by me, walking at the dog park, rather than out mingling. Every now and then, he'll play, but mostly, he just wants me or Steven.

And, I can't handle him getting picked on.

Rant over.

Sorry again.

Tomorrow, I'll post an update on life in general or something and leave the dog park rants to some other frustrated fur-momma.

Cross Your Fingers, We'll Need It

SOOO much has happened since my last post. For real, it's been crazy.

To start with my cousin, T, with her three month old baby came and stayed the week with us last week. She just left yesterday morning. It was a bittersweet week, to be sure. I so enjoyed that baby. I loved waking up and hearing him in the other room, playing. My boxer, Diesel-dog, was a perfect nanny nursemaid. He smelled dirty diapers and snorted, then looked at me like, "Uh, Mom? You wanna do something about this?" and if I didn't get the message, he'd do it again. And again. He would check on Chase periodically, especially if he was sleeping in his play-pen, and the adults were in the other room. I came in at one point because I couldn't find my dog, and there he was, laying beside the play pen, watching carefully. Chase toppled from his bottom onto his stomach, and Diesel leapt to his feet and whined at me until I set the baby back to rights.

I've said before that I work night shift--I worked all this week, so(I didn't get MUCH sleep), but I tried to sleep during the day. Unfortunately, anytime Chase cried during the day, Diesel would leap up onto my bed and frantically lick my face until I woke up. At which point, he would jump from the door to the bed, until I got up to check on the baby myself. Didn't matter if he'd stopped crying. Didn't matter that I told Diesel that T was taking care of him. (I swear, sometimes this dog knows EXACTLY what I'm saying.) When the baby left yesterday morning, Diesel pined. He searched the house, smelt the play pen, and the toy they forgot. He was nearly frantic, poor dear.

(Not my dog, but I doubt T would want her baby plastered all over my blog, and they found this position particularly comfortable.)

However, T was a little difficult for me. Mostly, because I'm very family oriented. I want us to all be doing something together. Dog parks, the library, board games, family movies, what have you. I all but couldn't convince her to leave the television. When her baby was awake, he was stuck there in front of the T.V., same as her. I found it very discouraging. Steven was a life-send though, because he made a formula run at 2:30 am, while I was at work, when T ran out. She texted me, I called him, and he never made one single complaint. He rocked the baby, he cooked dinner holding him, he crooned to him and watched out for him. I think he's going to be a good daddy someday. :) He still managed to juggle cooking us all dinner, packing my lunch, and seeing to the dogs when I ran out of time. I'm telling you, he's been a rock for me this hectic week.

Part of the reason it's been so hectic? My cousin, L, just moved in over top of us last night at 1 am. This has been very difficult for me. Two more polar opposites you've never met. I'm not a health buff, but I certainly care to be relatively fit and clean. She's niether. She refuses to do anything but watch television and play computer games. She and her fiance moved here without jobs, and no jobs on the horizon. Remember J? My ex-stepdad that I'm still close to? Through a very twisted, NOT incestual turn of events, he's her dad-dad. They don't speak. They can't stand one another. She's rude and crude and doesn't have a whole lot going on upstairs.

About a year and a half ago, she was living at home with her mom. She was internet dating a guy from Vermont.They were offered the very house we live in now. She took a sledge-hammer to my dear great grandmother's kitchen table, painted crosses and her name all over the house. Brought in a "witch" to cast a love spell.

I was terribly close to my great-grandmother. It kills me to think how L desecrated this house through all that. Mamaw would have wanted something so different. I've worked very hard, since L turned down the house to move to Vermont, to make it something she'd be proud of. Fast forward. She and the Vermont boyfriend moved back in with her mom. Fast forward again, about two months. She disappeared, alone, in the middle of the night. Computer, gone. Car, gone. Clothes, everything, gone.

Discovered later, she moved to Nevada, leaving a note saying she couldn't live with our family's women anymore. Now, several months after that, she and her new fiance have moved in above me. Without jobs. She entered my house with a cat litter pan and the declaration, "I come bearing cat shit." Those were the first words out of her mouth.

How in God's name are we going to stay here with them? Ugh.Ya'll cross your fingers for me and Steven. We're gonna need it.

A Daddy's Advice--When Your Dad is Insane.

I don't talk much about my father on here. I've hinted at my ex-step-dad. I've mentioned my real dad maybe a few times. This may have given the impression that we aren't close. In reality, that's the farthest thing from the truth.

I love my dad. He's crazy--like, clinically, has the papers to prove it insane. When I was young, I so wanted him to be normal that I shoved him out of my life. Now, we talk every day. It's not a very father-daughter relationship, but I know for a fact that he loves me. And, if I listen, carefully, and with a grain of salt, he has some very good advice and comments. Granted, they're quite...uhm..crude..sometimes, lol, but often, like him, at the heart, they're good.

Today, I've been mulling over mine and Stephen's bumpy waters over the last...well, nearly a year, really. All the ups, all the downs. And I remembbered a conversation that Dad and I had, right at the heart of everything.

I was crying and angry, bitter as gall. "I just...ugh! I hate him sometimes!" I spewed.

"Well, I reckon you do," Dad said in his typical hill-billy drawl.

"And you shouldn't stay with people you hate!" There was a pause. "You disagree?" I asked, all ready to fight, to defend my position.

"Well, I figger you hate everybody at some point. And I figger that's because ain't nobody not gonna let ya down."

"So, you're staying I should stay? I don't know, Dad. I think I just fell in love with the wrong person."

"Bullshit," he answered immediately.

"You don't think I did? He CHEATED, Dad," I reminded him.

"That maybe true. But, ain't what I'm saying is bullshit. You don't fall in love, Grace. That's for the movies. And it's bullshit. You don't fall in love. You fall in shit. You fall in a hole. You fall and bust your ass. You don't fall in love. It's something you work at. It's something you want to give up on. It's something that's damn hard, and spends at least a quarter of the time being a colossal pain in the ass. It's not something you fall in. It's a two way extra job. I don't know if you oughta stay, and I don't reckon that's anyone's choice but yours. But, like with any job, you gotta decide if the pay is worth the stay." A pause, while I considered this and he grumbled, "Fall in love. What a load..."

Today, while I sit at home, waiting on Stephen to come home, I've considered that conversation quite a bit. He and I are going to the library. Just like we did when we were younger. To sit on the lily pads and read kids books, and sign, and laugh 'cause of how awkwardly we signed something that was so obvious, or how well we signed it, should our hands shake off enough rust.

We've laughed more in the last two months than we have in the last year. We've had more heart-wrenching, tear filled conversations than we have ever. I've had nightmares. He's brought me ice cream and flowers. We've gone to dog parks and real parks and had game nights. And, I've loved him.

And he's loved me, better than he ever has.

And, it's been work.

I've decided Dad was right.

You don't fall in love.

You work at it.

Both of you.

And it's hard.

And you cry.

You laugh.

You yell.

You (get)spanked, or spank. (If you are DD, lol. In which case, it is unwise to yell.)

Either way, you work.

And, when that happens?

It works.