Why Yes, my Dead Father Would Love a Free Trunk Organizer.

An open letter to people and organizations that are still mailing things to my deceased parent.

Why yes, my dead father would love a free trunk organizer. I could put his ashes in it and drive him around in the back seat while I do my shopping. That would be a totally sane thing to do. Oh and I'm sure he would love a pool cleaning robot for the pool that he didn't own too. While were at it, I'm sure he would to resubscribe to your organization in exchange for some free stickers, although I'm not sure about the appropriateness of placing an 'I love the NRA' bumper sticker on his urn.

While we are on the subject I'm sure he would love to support you, politician that won't stop calling and or mailing things. I am sure he would just love to vote for you in the up and coming election, but unfortunately I believe that West Virgina has laws against that sort of thing. Unless the political figure in question is also dead, in which I think that this is okay. I'm not very sure though, you might want to check your local laws on the subject. I just don't keep up with these things seeing as though I am, last time I checked, still living.

Also I think that my father would be very insulted by your offer of a 'free' hover round mobility scooter. Plus, I am fairly sure that he will not be needing to 'talk to his doctor about the increased risk of stroke or heart attack' anytime soon. I am fairly sure that he will, in fact, never need to see a doctor again. Nor will he ever need to get a 'discount MRI'. I am also vaguely appalled by your implied suggestion that he would, if given the chance, use a discount MRI service.

You have yet to mail him anything he could actually use, such as a knitted urn sweater, (for those cold nights) a pedestal, or perhaps some googly urn eyes. So far I am disappointed in your wild presumptions about my beloved father. I can only hope that things will improve from this point out, and we can all get on with our respective lives (or deaths).

Sincerely,

Queen Holly the Magnificent

Dogs.

So my dog Razzle died. She was bit by a snake. It was awful.

We will miss you, little girl.

 So much for going quietly in her sleep.

Well, Holly's coping methods are kinda limited, so I went out and got another dog.

Meet Jack.

The pumpkin king?

I swear if anything happens to this dog I am going to stand outside and pump rounds at the sky to get back at the cold uncaring universe. Asshole random events.*

We basically went back to the same lady we got Razzle from and picked out another dog. She also remembered Razzle and expressed her sympathizes. Which was somehow both touching and also the most sad thing ever.

We decided that we wanted a dog about Razzle's size so that we could use the crate and carrier we already had.

What? I'm being practical people.

So we wandered around the kennels looking at dogs. There was the normal hyper but none to bright dogs, the attention whores and the laziest dog I have ever seen. It was a fat yellow beagle lab mix that went to sleep while we were looking at it. We looked at all the dogs in the size that we wanted.

Jack stood out because she described him as lazy. He liked to get up, run for about a minute, and then he was done. Perfect. Also, he was the just the right size.

When we said we wanted to see him the dog lady went in to get him. He acted extremely confused.

“What? Me? The lead? Go OUTSIDE? What? Really?”

Even the other dog that was with him seemed confused. After pulling him out with her she explained that Jack had been there for two years and that nobody ever asked to see him.

Which pretty much meant I had to adopt him on the spot.

Apparently, he had been adopted by one family briefly but they had returned him because the father had wanted a dog to go jogging with him, and Jack does not jog. He had reported that Jack would get about halfway along the route and then want to go home and lay around on the floor.

Hey I like sitting on my ass too! It's like it was meant to be.

It also turns out that he had been there so long that he was free.

So we filled out the paper work and took him home.

I have to state here that many people have said 'remember your new dog won't be Razzle.” And I can tell you straight up that he is not Razzle. Because he spent the whole car trip back sitting calmly on the seat. (we didn't bring the carrier although we had our doggy seat belt rig in.) He didn't try to get in the front seat, he didn't throw up, he didn't try to shove his nose out the window. If I hadn't been looking back periodically to check on him I never would have known there was a dog there at all.

He also walks on the lead correctly. Hey, I can walk the dog without it trying to pull my arm out of my socket! That's wonderful.

However, unlike Razzle, Jack appears to spending his first weeks with us by being terrified of everything. Scott gave him a bath when we got home, and now he treats Scott like he is a demon from the ancient world that has come to sacrifice him on the terrible alter of “Bath.”

He slinks around the house, trying to fit himself into small safe places. He even crawled under the bed. Hell, the cat had problems getting under the bed.

I'll be sitting in the kitchen and I'll see a head slowly creeping around the corner. I say “Hi jack watcha doin?” Head disappears. Head reappears a moment later. Repeat until I leave the kitchen. I'm still disciplining him, as it appears he has had almost no training whatsoever although it does appear that he is housebroken. If I ask him to sit I get a blank look. If I ask him to lay down I get an even blanker look.

I can almost here the wind sailing between his ears.

He's not Razzle. He's Jack.

But I needed something to plug the terrible gaping dog shaped hole in my life.

So I just plugged another dog in my life.

Seems to be working.**

Aww.

*Being an atheist really limits my ability to blame everything on God/Satan.

** My logic is that I won't see the half full food dish as oh my god Razzle is dead and she is never going to eat that food again *sob* and instead I look at it and go, oh it's Jack's dish, that's okay then.

My Dog Just Died.

My dog died last night. It was traumatic. That is all.

The Guinea Hens? We'll Miss Them.

We are going to eat the guinea hens.

Scott's mom got them for us despite our insistence that we did not want or need any. When I complained they were slowly chipping away at my sanity she said that many people who have them hate them at first but then grow to love them.

Yeah.

So you know when you are dating someone and there is that moment when you catch yourself thinking 'when I leave him/her I am going to take the TV' and then you realize that you have been subconsciously planning to leave them for awhile but haven't got there yet? Like that but with guinea hens.

For one thing they never shut up. I was assured by the Internet that they would in time, but that was before one of them injured its foot. Now Gimpy freaks out because she is unable to keep up and starts -I don't even know how to define this sound- squawking? Screaming? A possessed demon chant from another world? It never stops. Heaven help us all if Gimpy gets stuck on the opposite side of the fence from her friends.

They have only one job on this farm, and that is to alert me when predators are about. One job. Yesterday there was a hawk in the sky. Just chilling. I spot the hawk, and move myself and the dog closer to the chickens and glared at the offending bird. Then I realize something. It was quiet. So quiet. They had not even noticed. Gimpy was with the herd so therefore all was right in the world.

I have to amend that previous paragraph to say the they were excellent at alerting other predictors that we stepping out of the house with the gun and that they should run. Forget trying to sneak up on stray cat or a raccoon, oh no. If a human being stepped outside carrying something it was code fucking blue motherfuckers. They would yell like the sky itself was raining down lava boulders. This applied to anything: tools, shopping bags, the dog, car keys.

They also developed a habit of coming up to out sliding glass door and beating on it with their beaks.

The final straw was when they started attacking the chickens. I know at least one guinea hen was male, and I think he was doing the worst of it, but since males and females look identical, I made the decision to kill them all.

Lets recap. They were not doing their jobs. In fact they were attacking the very things they should have been protecting and hindering out attempts to protect the chickens as well. They were as loud as fuck all.

So we murdered butchered them all.* My aunt has offered to cook them, so we will see how that goes. I was told that they are not good eating, but the Internet told me that they have a good flavor and are often cooked as a lean alternative to chicken.

You know what? You know what I don't hear right now?

Life is good.

* I do not like killing animals, but I do like eating meat. So there you are. It is my firm belief however, that if you do eat meat you should have to murder something and butcher it. Just once 'cause it ain't fun. I wish more people did that. I wish more people had an understanding of what the process is like. I think we would see more respect for dinner time that way.

Well, we didn't die.

However the rear brake went out on the right side. It was all like “HHHRRRRRRGGGGGAAAARRRRRR” and we were all like, “What the? Is that us?” And the break was all like HHHRRRRRRRGGGGGGGRRRGGRRGGRRR.” And then we were all like “Fuck.” 

We made in home, but now we have to take the car apart again, bleed the breaks, and then put it all back together again. Also this is our busiest time of year for work, so there is some careful scheduling going on. 

Also, to throw another wench into the crappy engine that is my life, the dog has fleas. Which means that on my days off I have been thrown into a mess of vacuuming and poisoning. I swear to god that my washing machine is going to explode. It's not a bad infestation, by any means, but I still have to treat and treat and treat again. 

I also had a moment when I read something on the net that said, 'winter does not necessarily kill fleas' and after I picked myself up off the floor from laughing too hard I went to find my husband and tell him the Internet was being an idiot. It easily gets to be - 4 up here and I'll be damned if you can show me a flea egg that can take that. So outside should take care of itself. 

I don't have time to treat all the rooms at once, so I have to take each at a time and hope that works. I'm vacuuming like mad, and also using a spray poison, because I will live in toxic chemicals as long as it means I don't have fleas. 

Death to fleas, I will cut them down before me! I will let no flea live beyond this day! This day we fight, we fight to take back our carpet! We fight for our dogs and cats! We fight for our pillows! 

WHOOSE WITH ME?! 

DEATH!

DEATH! 

DEATH TO ALL FLEAS!