let your weakness become your strength

 Subject: let your weakness become your strength
> 
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2014286/Get-patch-How-tigers-left-tails-legs-scared-protective-mother-bear.html
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> If she hadn't been a "single mother" she wouldn't have charged....
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> While working at the women's prison, an offender asked me what scared me most about finding a new job. I said I was old. She gave me the game show buzzer sound and told me I was experienced. I said I'd been at the same job for so long maybe I couldn't do anything else. Buzzer sound again....she told me I had endurance and loyalty. 
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> The point was, she was a felon  and looking for housing and work would be a major challenge for her. She'd been incredibly young when incarcerated and had no outside work history. But inside the prison, she'd consistently held high status positions (which is very risky because jealous inmates can undermine them and spread false accusations pretty easily.) Having been in prison was going to be her strongest selling point. One of the college professors had just been talking to her about it...the college classes have since been cancelled.."In this economic climate."
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> This isn't a hard thing to do...just ask yourself what is the most scary thing about this problem? For the bear, the risk to her cubs was the one thing she could not allow, and it probably saved her life. When I went to grad school, I was certain my brain had "rusted shut" in the 11 years I'd been working in factories. So I studied more than I did in undergrad and kept my personal life out of drama mode, which had been a big distraction "back in the day." My grades weren't that impressive, but I made it through while keeping my kids housed and fed. Whatever scares you, let that fuel your success. KIM
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> "I refuse to be driven crazy by these events."

A Christmas Poem by Yukon

A Christmas Poem

To pee,
Or not to pee?
That is the question.
Why bring
an evergreen
tree
into the house
if not for ME?
and my investigation...
What's with the bitter apple spray
And Baby-saver screen?
What rates all this attention?
You hang last year's beads
and baubles upon the branch
I'll give it what it needs,
My very own addition.

The End. Yukon

animated story--true

quick story..  ..back in the day, our family lived with my aunt's family  for several months as we were between houses. Us 4 cousins "younger" kids (10 thru 5) were sitting quietly at the dining room table  watching through the door to the kitchen stove  where our mothers were cooking something mysterious.  We voted and my younger brother was elected to "interrupt" and spy on the upcoming meal..  ..he heard my aunt say, "Do you think we should tell them what it is?" and my mom said, "If we do, they won't eat it."  

Now I had eaten beef tongue,  what could be worse than eating a steer's tongue?!?!  

My brother got in trouble for leaving the table,  but he did get a good look in the skillet. "It's long strips," he said. "and they're all curled around like octopus arms."  

We were silent. Sure enough, my aunt brought the skillet to the table  and my brother was right....they were trying to feed us OCTOPUSES!!! We bowed our heads and thanked the Lord,  but we wished for once the prayer had been longer.  However, as we passed our empty plates to my aunt, my little brother burst into tears. "Please don't make us eat octopus," he wailed.  

My aunt was horrified,  "Oh, honey. No. We would never make you eat octopus! This is beef heart. It's good, I promise you."  We were so relieved that it came from a cow  and not an octopus, that we cleaned our plates and asked for more.  (It was a cheap cut of meat that they couldn't have served to their husbands, no matter how lean times had become.)    

past dog visits

When I was a young'un, my little brother and I rode our ponies all over the world. Since there were no cell phones or GPS, our adults never knew exactly where we were. We'd just leave a note on the kitchen table and head out....sometimes things came up and we changed directions and there was basically no way anyone would know (raspberries ripe!?!@? Let's GO!!) There were times when mom would call around the neighborhood and some lady would see us riding by. Either she would yell out the door, or call the next woman on the party line to give us a holler cause our mom wanted us for some reason (prolly in trouble related to the non-accomplishment of one chore or another)

On many of these adventures, a little golden standard Pomeranian would tag along. His name was Sparky, and if he got tired, he would put his paws on my (or my brother's) foot and bum a ride on the pony, with a hike from us and his collar. Then he would scurry around back and stand on the pony's rump with his legs acting like shock absorbers, no matter how fast or rough the horse ran.

Being a farm dog, back in the day was a rough life, full of huge animals, loud machines, poor food and basically no medical attention, but there was a freedom in it that today's pets will never know. That freedom came at a high price and for Sparky, it came with a calamitous but quick end. He was one of many in a long line of hard living dogs that passed beneath our stroking hands, but he was much missed and long remembered.

This week, Sparky's reincarnation arrived at my home in Indianapolis, complete with sex change. We're calling "him" a variety of Sparky derivatives--Spunky, Sprocket, Sparkles, plus Missy and Foxy. Nothing seems to get a response, but she is very affectionate and submissive (although playful) with the other dogs. Took her to the vet's. She's intact and chipless. In some ways, she's also clueless--such as, taking food off my plate as though it belongs to no one...not coming when called, heading straight for Rural St. when she escapes the house. That being said, she's pretty smart....figured out going to the back yard whenever the pack heads out. Has staked out the pillow area of the big bed, so she doesn't get stepped on or rolled over in the snooz-a-thon melee. She also is submissive with the tomcat although Precious still swats her daily for random irritations.

She has glued herself to my side, even though I'm not convinced she should live here. I'm sure she'd have a home the first day on the HSI show room floor. Although Gretchen and she play very nicely and Spark-ette can run circles around her, I still worry. One snap from Gretchen and this small dog would not need a vet. She's a brain oriented dog, not a heart oriented dog. She'd do great at agility if I knew enough to train her. And she's cute as heck. Hubs is all for keeping her, but I feel like she should belong to my younger brother and his kids. Think I'll give him a call.

Over the weekend I went to an Angora Specialty rabbit show in OHio, almost to West Virginia.

But REALLY people, When a man who knows your are going to a bunny show gives you $300 and says have a good time--he should expect you to come back with more bunnies than you had before, should he not? Why act so surprised?

(Rant warning) Blew out a rear tire at 70 mph. Got a tow truck and took me to Wal-Mart. They refused to put an identical tire on my vehicle because of a sticker on the door stated another size tire.....Uhm, these are not original rims. They offered to sell me 4 of the stated size....uhm, these are not original rims. Even called the customer service boss and asked if I could sign some waver--NO YOU CANNOT. So I was towed, possibly over the boarder to West Virginia to a shop that wasn't open, for a really nice guy to come open up and put on a tire for me in the middle of his Saturday morning and only charged me $60 for a used tire that was in better shape than the three on my truck right now...support your local service people...(end of rant)

I got to meet a few people from FaceBook, which was nice. I did buy Lisa's two girl bunnies... they'd already been shown and the one I liked straight away had placed first and the other a fifth, but watching the showing let me know that doesn't mean a hoot, really. (Sorry to the show folks, but you know an 8 week old rabbit will grow into some "perfection standards" and out of others).

I'm thinking of calling them Tabouli and Tahini. I don't know my colors well enough to tell what they are. The paperwork says chocolate aguti for both, but one is a bit tan and the other a bit grey/brown in the under coat. They are little things, under all that fluff, only 8 weeks old. I have them in quarantine in my kitchen pantry. They seem pretty well adapted to rabbit life. What more can you want? They seem about like 8 year-old human girls, sort of giggly and full of questions, all legs and pigtails. Very curious about the world and not afraid of dogs. 

Lisa had never brushed them, to see how mat-prone their wool would be. Tahini had a few more mats, but they were based in veg. matter and pulled apart by finger and comb, no scissors needed. They were starting to shed and the amount of the comb-out was pretty impressive. Since they'd never been brushed, I was very happy with how well they sat still. Even though they weren't happy with being flipped, no blood was drawn.

Hubs is beginning to be resigned to my "new hobby", but really, I think I've shown remarkable restraint....In over a year, I've only gone from 3 rabbits to 6 (now 8), and kept them all on half of the back porch....hasn't he seen my Rabbit Palace floor plan?  He's got to know there's an explosion in the making, right?

splashin safari

about a week ago, Hubs and I scored a LARGE kiddie pool, sort of oblong squarish, with a hole in it. Someone had attempted to patch it by melting some other substance onto the originally punctured plastic and only succeeded in making the hole bigger--about the size of a quarter. We figured we could patch it with silicone and a piece of scrap plastic.

However, before Hubs got around to trying it, (he did find a laundry soap bottle to cut apart for the patch attempt), I found an old stained carpet and a leaky waterbed mattress that a neighbor had thrown out. Finally, today, (since it'll be too doggone hot tomorrow) I raked an area of the dog's yard to get all the sticks, bones, and chewed up pop bottles out of the way, laid down the carpet, dragged in the kiddie pool, and tossed in the water bed mattress.

I found the leak in the mattress and cut an "H" shape on the side with the leak. Then I wrapped the edges of the cut mattress over the pool, using the corners of the mattress where the corners of the pool lined up. After a half hour battle with the garden hose, I started to put water in. Yukon loves to be sprayed with the hose. He fights the water stream and gets absolutely drenched. Sal and Gretchen....well...not so much. Yukon jumped in and lay down without much in the way of prompting....Sal had to be ordered and coerced. She did as ordered, but only endured and slunk away the second my back was turned....(Maybe she thought it was the much dreaded "bath outside" that ETB is always grumping about.)

I bet they enjoy it much more tomorrow when it's 100+ degrees! Loving my pups, KIM

street rescue

Kudos to Max's mom. I called her yesterday after scooping a schnauzer out of traffic near 38th and Post. She was familiar with all the vet clinics on that side of town and directed me to the closest for a chip-check.

I'd forgotten what a pain in the patootie intact male dogs can be....he's constantly air humping everything.....Yukon is generally "above it all" but occasionally gets riled, just a snark, nothing exciting--so far. Mostly Yukon considers this a game since he has to lay like a sphinx to play bitie-face with the little guy. Of course Gretchen is on lock-down with crate, gate, and rotate due to her past dog-aggressive behavior. Sally is playful when there's no resource involved (her person, her food, her bed) then it's snark-city.

I've checked-4-chip (nada) put adds in Craigs List, Indy Lost Pet Alert, Facebook and made posters to put all over the area where I found him. So far, I've gotten 4 calls. One for a poodle/schnauzer mix that's brown....but cut like a schnauzer. (Uhm, NO) One from a sister-in-law of someone who lost a dog, but can't describe the collar. (Have your sister-in-law call me.) And one from 38th and Shadeland....that I actually went to see. (At 10:30 pm, which was stupid.) The dog barked one alert-bark as the woman approached my car--in the dark--with three children and a woman in a wheelchair. The woman said this dog was much bigger than hers. Her child said, "Well, mama, he probably ate since he left." Which made me laugh. They thanked me profusely for driving all that way even though it wasn't their dog. I wished them luck and went home. So, we can scratch "Tiger" and "Scruffy" from the list of potential dog names....

My little head had just touched the pillow, when my phone rang again. I let it go to voice mail and tried to get some sleep. Gretchen was in her crate and the only one cooperating with my plan. Sally was constant snarking at the intruder's every move. He was chasing Precious, a cat who's never backed down from a charging pit bull in her life, and barking like a lunatic whilst doing it. Yukon kept changing sides of the bed, trying to get a break from his sexual tormentor. At 4am, I put Sally, Yukon, and "Axel-Schnitz" in the yard for a pee, then Gretchen. Then I put Yukon out. Gretchen in her crate, Sally in the bedroom, and Axel-Schnitz in Yukonorama's crate....where he yipped for release so constantly that I eventually fell asleep listening to him. At 7:30 he was still yipping at about the same rate. We did another pee-pee rotation and I finally got everyone fed. (Apparently, he's never eaten dry food before. A little water on it made all the difference.)

I actually resisted the temptation to call my late-night caller first thing this morning....not only irked at the late call, but also my poor night's sleep--thanks to Axel-Schnitz.....When I did call back, her voice mail was full....right now? Oh, he's sacked out at my feet, schnauzer-snoozing.

He is a cutie, and a happy-go-lucky little guy, always smiling. He lays froggy-style and even manages to *sit* froggy-style, which doesn't look at all comfy, but Max's mom assures me that it's typical Schnauzerly behavior. Hope his true owner calls soon, or I'm going to take him to HSI.