Mama Dawg vs. Mighty Mouse

It's on...like Donkey Kong. You're going DOWN, Mighty Mouse.

Naw, seriously, you know how I wrote about a mouse and I having a stare down? And that I won because he (or she)* "blinked" first? But how he (or she) really won because he (or she) got away and I didn't catch him(or her)?

Yeah, well...

...caught him (or her)!

I knew for a while that we had a mouse. Mostly because I saw him (or her) running around in the living room. That's usually a pretty good sign that you have a mouse.

That and the mouse droppings all over the place.

Anyway, I bought this humane mouse trap because I couldn't bear to use one of those god-awful contraptions that broke their tiny little neck or back. God help me if I killed this guy's cousin. I'd go to hell for sure.

So, I've had this humane trap in my pots and pans cabinet for over 3 weeks now with no luck. Due to this, I finally broke down and brought out the god-awful neck/back breaking contraption and got all 4 of them set up with cheese and everything...not to stereotype mice or anything.

I went to open up the cabinet to take out the humane trap to clean it out and put it away when I noticed...I CAUGHT HIM (or her)!!!!

Yay! I found a way to catch the rodent without killing it (got tired of writing him or her).

However, since it appeared that the mouse had been in there for a few days (due to all the mouse droppings), it seems that this mouse has a cohort.

Which means that I still need to set out traps.

So, I went ahead and set out the god-awful neck/back breaking contraptions.

I checked all the traps this morning and 2 out of the 4 had the cheese stolen clear out of them.

It appears that I have a mighty opponent.

Reminder to self...look up how to catch a mouse on the Incredibly Clever Internets (hear that Internets, I'm butt kissing, better pony up the good deets).

Oh, and if you're wondering what happened to that cute clever little mouse I caught?

Well, in order to keep it from coming back in the house, it went on a ride with me in my car. About half way to work, I pulled over and let it out in a field.

Where it promptly ran out in the road and got run over.**

I kid, I kid. He ran off towards the woods. I swear I heard a high pitched voice yelling "Free at last, I thank God almighty I'm free at last".

Later,

Mama Dawg

*I have to politically correct or else the Non-Partisan Mouse Advocacy Group (NPMAG) will be on my ass.

**That would have made for a better story, but I fear the Internets would find out the real story and call me out on it and I can't have that. The least I can do is offer the Internets the truth and nothing but the whole truth.

My Weekend

It seems that all I do lately is post about my weekend.

Well, to be honest (I hate that phrase...makes me think that the person who says that is getting ready to lie to me), I'm just lazy.

I had Friday off. It was nice. I slept in for a little bit but then had to take J.D. to the vet once again because his back legs are failing...once again.

We're trying the Prednisone and Baytril one more time. If this doesn't work, he'll have to go on daily heart pills. Pills that he can never go off of until he dies. Costing me $45 a month.

Sigh...why does the world have to rely on money for EVERYTHING? If I knew the vet would accept free sex as payment, I'd do it. Kills two birds with one stone that way...gets the pills and it gets Mama Dawg some lovin'.

But, he's happily married...sigh.

So, on Friday, light of my life got invited to the local gas lady's house to go swimming at her private pool with her grandchildren. By local gas lady, I mean the lady that owns the natural gas place where I purchase gas for my tank for my gas heaters (not the local lady that farts a lot...that would be me). She's nice and is really good friends with my aunt (hence the invite). Light of my life slowly learned to dive while there because her grand daughter (who's 10) is on the swim team and was teaching her how to dive.

She had a blast and came home all full of herself.

I went flower and berry picking in the late afternoon. We have all these black-eyed susans growing wild EVERYWHERE, so I decided to go pick a few and make a small bouquet for the dining room table.

While picking flowers, I noticed that some of the blackberry (no, Jared, not a BlackBerry, but the actual fruit) plants were already producing mature blackberries.

So, I went a pickin'.

Here's what my efforts yielded:



Here's the flowers and the blackberries together. Such a pretty pic. The scissors really set the whole thing off.



Here's a close up of the blackberries. Don't they look yummy?



Here's the flowers. Kinda pretty, huh?

Saturday pretty much was a regular day. Made a Wal-Mart run to exchange some primer and to get a few things for dinner that night.

My grandmother is down in New Orleans with my other aunt for a while, so my other aunt (that my grandmother lives with) was all alone.

So, we invited her for dinner on Saturday night.

Light of my life was in her element. I swear, she's gonna make a good politician's wife someday. She totally stole the whole pre-during-post dinner conversation. It was filled with witty stories about learning how to jump off the diving board, learning how to dive, attending the library's reading program, telling stories that involve various bodily functions (that part was a little gross) and whatnot.

She had a blast with our first official dinner guest.

We had sun dried tomato rubbed turkey breast, brussel sprouts with curry sauce, butter beans and a tomato and avocado salad.

All in all, it was a nice evening.

Sunday was church and swimming. I also had to bathe the cats and then put on Frontline and give them a capstar pill.

Bathing cats is NOT FUN!

Due to J.D.'s bad heart and the stress that comes with getting a bath, I actually had to GET IN THE TUB with him to give him his bath. Poor thing. Once I got in the tub with him though, he stopped struggling. Maybe that's the key. However, I'm not gonna get in the tub with Mike. He'll kill me.

Oh, and I'm watching a DVD that was a mini-series on I think the Sci-Fi channel, called "Tin Man". Has anyone seen this? I'm obsessed. It's soooo good. I LOVE, WORSHIP, ADORE Neal McDonough.

Anyway, that was my weekend. How was yours?

Later,

Mama Dawg

Random

When light of my life was at her awards ceremony on Friday, my aunt was the one who went to take pics and to be her "cheerleader". My aunt lived in this same small town we live in when she was growing up (this is where my mom's family is from). Anyway, she didn't realize that a girl she went to school with was one of the second grade teachers. Light of my life saw my aunt talking to her and asked her later if she knew her. My aunt said, "Yes" and my oh so clever daughter then said "Let me guess, we're kin to her." My aunt laughed out loud.

It seems that almost everyone that my daughter and I meet, we're related to in some way. I told you it's a real small town!

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I really need a voice recorder to keep with me when I come up with blog ideas. It gets really hard to write down my ideas when driving 60 mph on a country road.

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No matter how inconsequential or ridiculous the message, I ALWAYS save light of my life's voice mails on my cell phones.

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DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT pick up a carton of Bright and Early and shake it without pinching shut the carton. For some reason, Bright and Early still has those fold up tops (instead of the new fangled twist tops that OJ comes with now). Don't ask me how I know not to shake it.......it wasn't pretty.

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I really, really, really do not miss living in New Orleans.

Later,

Mama Dawg

Overactive Imagination

You know how I keep telling you people that my inner 4 year old keeps coming out?

I'm not kidding about that and I'll give you another example.

Last night I went over to B & L's to help C with a project for school. While there, light of my life was having a grand old time doing whatever it is 8 and 9 year old girls do. It was close to 7 by the time I got finished and I had to get home to watch Survivor.

(BEST SURVIVOR EPISODE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THOSE GIRLS ARE MY IDOLS!!!!!)

Anyway, I went home and left light of my life over at their house to finish playing. She had already eaten dinner over there and didn't want to come home yet so I said after I ate dinner and watched Survivor, I'd come back to get her.

I went back over a little after 8 and when I got there, B wanted me to download pics from our weekend so she could get them printed. I went back home and got my camera and came back. By the time we got finished, it was close to 10. Light of my life had fallen asleep and was sleeping pretty soundly. Even though it was a school night, B said just to leave her and she'd take me home to get some clothes for her and her backpack. Since we live right across the highway and all three girls go to the same bus stop (at the end of B's drive), it's not a hassle to do this kind of stuff.

We went to my house, got some stuff for light of my life and B took it back. I finished up doing whatever it was I was doing (I think getting a peanut butter cookie and some milk) and I went to bed (after watching 2 episodes of Friday Night Lights season 2...best show ever!).

Around 2 a.m., my phone beeped saying I had a message. The phone never rang which was weird. I don't ever put my phone straight into voice mail. I always just let it ring so I can screen calls. I listened to the voice mail but it was dead air. I checked my missed calls and saw that it said "B home" and the call was at 2:07 a.m.

Here's where my inner child came out.

My first thought, swear to God, was, "A monster is in their house and light of my life is trying to call me to rescue her".

I swear.

And no, not a figurative monster like a serial killer or rapist. An actual literal monster like from a Steven King novel.

It gets worse.

My second thought was that someone from the dead was trying to get in contact with me. (thanks Jared for that one....that was leftover from your post about that dead woman being buried with her cell phone and her husband thinking she was calling him).

I thought that when you became an adult you were supposed to be able to handle things like this in a mature fashion.

Finally, my third thought was "Light of my life must want to come home because she's not sure where she is".

Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, she called back, the phone actually rang and I went and picked her up.

To further add to my humiliating overactive imagination, whenever I'm outside in the dark by myself, I SWEAR things are watching me. Just waiting for that one vulnerable moment when I let my guard down and then they'll pounce.

Sigh......I think I have a Peter Pan complex. Or at least partially. Cause I can hold a job and pay my bills and take care of an 8 year old. Sometimes.

Later,

Mama Dawg

Chasing Frogs

This is how I spent 10 minutes of my time on Monday evening, until I literally stopped, slapped my forehead and said, "What the f*ck am I doing?"

And I wasn't even chasing him/her around the yard. I was just chasing it around and around the well.

I had to clean the litter box on Monday night and when I was walking back towards the back door, I noticed a HUGE ASS frog near the well.

The 4 year old inside of me (that tends to come out more and more since I moved out to the country) thought..."awesome" and I proceeded to chase it around and around the well with the intent on catching it.

Well, not really. I just wanted to bug the hell out of the frog. I could have caught him at any time, but I just wanted to mess with his head.

Take that, you damn stinky frog.

I don't think he was stinky though.

Take that, you damn hoppy frog.

There...that's better.

I swear I was not one of those kids that used to burn ants on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass.

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I just stepped on 'em.

You wanna know the funniest part?

My mom says she did the same thing earlier that day.

Later,

Mama Dawg

City Girl Gets Spooked

I had a weird night last night. We drove back home last night from my wild and crazy New Year’s (see prior post to see just how wild and crazy it was!). Got in about 10:30 or so but because we had gotten so used to staying up all hours of the night, none of us were really sleepy. So, we unpacked the car. Got the sick kitty out of the car (he had to go w/us because of his medications). The other kitty that stayed at home was all pissed off at us and acted accordingly.

It was supposed to be a cold night and we knew we would have to run the water during the night to keep the pipes from freezing. About 45 minutes after we arrived, we decided to turn the water on. Barely anything came out. It hadn’t been cold enough the night before to freeze the pipes and the really, really cold weather hadn’t set in yet. Ended up calling the landlord at 11:30 at night to tell them of the problem. I had to take a shower in the morning and needed the water. What was coming out of the hot water faucet wasn’t even getting warm but the electricity was going, so I wasn’t sure what that problem was.

Anyway, the landlord said they’d be down in the morning to check on it. That sucked for me on the shower part, but it wasn’t really necessary for survival and it was pitch dark outside.

About 10 minutes later, he called back and said he’d go ahead and go check on it for me. A few minutes later, the water started coming out in big gushes and the hot water was actually hot. I thought he had already discovered and taken care of the problem (he lives right up the hill from us) and called to tell his wife that it was fine. She said that that was impossible since he had just literally closed the door to leave. She called him back and that was that.

I guess the water was just running so slow because we hadn’t been home to use it. Go figure.

We live out in the country and we don’t have our own water line. We are connected to my landlord’s water line via a large and long hose. Their connection is in the middle of the woods and is exposed to the elements. Over the weekend he had covered and insulated the connection. Thank goodness. He’s supposed to work on our own water line but it’s expensive to do so it might be a while.

That was weird enough in it’s own right but then it got weirder.

See, we have a hamster. He’s a good hamster. Doesn’t make a lot of noise and is not a biter and is real friendly.

He was awake when we arrived home and we paid the little guy the attention he was due. I checked on his food and water and found both sufficient. I end up going to bed around 1 am or so. Light of my life was in bed with me and had been playing her new Nintendo DS that she got for Christmas. I finally made her turn it off to go to sleep. I always have a cup of hot tea before I go to bed (it actually makes me fall asleep) and read for a little bit. I turned off the light and went to sleep. Around 5 am, my subconscious must of heard a noise because I started to wake up. Before I even opened my eyes, I could hear the hamster “chattering” away. Since he never does this, I was a little concerned. I then heard my non-sick kitty softly meowing at him in the same “voice” he uses to warn the big bad birds outside that if there wasn’t a window and door and walls between him and them, he would be all over them like white on rice. I’m paraphrasing of course, but you get my drift. Anyway, I sat up and got out of bed. I went to check on the cats and found both of them asleep in the living room on their pillow in front of the heater. Now I’m getting kind of freaked out.

I then went over to the hamster’s cage (it’s in my room for now) and he was sitting on top of his little house just staring straight ahead (not at me but towards the bathroom door). He didn’t even turn to look at me when I tapped on his cage bars. About a minute later, he finally looked at me. I got him out of the cage and held him for a while and then put him back.

Little spooky, right? Gets just a smidge more spooky.

Since light of my life is out of school for the holidays, she can sleep in and my mom sleeps in every morning as well. It was trash day today so I had to gather up all the trash and take it to the end of the driveway. I gathered up the trash and put on my robe. I went to the front door and found it unlocked!!!! Both my mom and I had checked on the door last night before bed with my mom being the last one to check it. I have no clue what that was about. We don’t have a deadbolt or a chain because it’s pretty safe where we live, but I may just go ahead and plunk down the few dollars for a chain and install it tonight.

I know that story was anti-climactic and not terribly exciting or frightening, but it was weird nevertheless.

Later,

Mama Dawg

First Entry

Yay!!!! I'm number one!!!! Oh, wait......sorry, that's wrong.

I just hate seeing that on other blogs and websites. Like, how dorky can you be?

Anyway, this is my first post. Duh......

I'm back in the city from which I moved. Hasn't changed. Neither have the a$$hole drivers....my bad if you're offended by that! You may be one of them!

I recently moved from a relatively large city to a VERY small town. Both are located in the southern region of the U.S.

I discovered that I really love living in a small town. We're actually on the outskirts of the actual incorporated city. I'm about 4 miles outside of town.

My household is made up of one daughter (from now on known as light of my life, three fish, 2 cats and a hamster......oh, yeah, and my mother. Yes, you read that right, I live with my mother. More accurately, she lives with me. She retired recently and we both moved up here. She plans to build (what she affectionately calls) her death house. This will be the last house she plans to ever live in. Until it gets built, she's living with me. It's fine for now and seems to work. She cooks us dinner and keeps my house relatively clean. Yes, I know it sounds like a dream come true, but, I hate that she's doing all this at the beginning of her retirement. However, she's not complaining and if she's not, I won't....much.

I had a recent scare with one of my cats......no this is not going to be a blog about me and my cats.....at least not all the time!

See, I have this amazing cat. I got him about 10 years ago and he was blind. A few months after I got him, it was recommended by his vet that I have his eyes removed (that's a long drawn out story for later). I did and he survived and has actually thrived with the loss of his eyes. Since he had never seen before, he wasn't missing much. Anyway, I recently noticed him wobbling when he walked and tripping getting out of the litter box. My mom volunteered to take him to the vet and he had either developed arthritis (which can come on practically overnight with cats) or had an inner ear infection. He's on meds for both and is doing much better. After the meds are done, we'll know better what it is. If the wobbling comes back after the meds are done, it's arthritis. If it doesn't, it was an ear infection. Fingers crossed for an ear infection.

There's much more about me and my life. I can't guarantee it's interesting. I can't guarantee that you'll care, but here it is for all to read.

I have minimal access to a fast computer but I'll try to post as much as possible. I'm tired from shopping all day long and from all those a$$hole drivers I mentioned above.

Later gators....

Mama Dawg