Second Winter

Pixie said Second Winter was coming but it was all the degrees outside and the sun was so shiny that I planted things and pulled the tank heaters out of the fishy pond and the livestock water troughs.
Second Winter showed up just as Pixie said it would, and I've spent the weekend breaking ice for the animals and holding funerals for garden starts and freezing off my nose, toes, and tuckus.
Jeremy Renner would have been smarter than this.
When you raise your child to be intelligent, you should listen to it when it advises you.

Fight Me

I've already either survived or escaped chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, scarlet fever, lice, mice, dog bites, tick bites, Lyme disease, Hanta virus, global cooling, global warming, global climate change, HIV, AIDS, the evils of rock and roll music, West Nile virus, the Hale-Bopp comet, domestic violence, substance abuse, Y2k, mad cow disease, SARS, bird flu, swine flu, MERS, viral pneumonia, chronic infection, ISIS, gaslighting, backstabbing, anxiety, depression, autoimmune disorder, Democratic presidencies, Republican administrations, World War Z, less successful Jeremy Renner movies, adrenal failure, personal failure, personal attacks, and the end of the Mayan calendar.
I made it through Zika too, but I was so busy being alive that I never even heard of it when it was an alleged threat.
I didn't run to the store last week to stock up because I already keep a respectable supply of bath tissue, we routinely use soap, I come from a long line of survivors, and Hunneypunkin knows how to do things.
Didn't your mother teach you to wash your hands?  Mine did.  (Thanks, Mom.)
Coronavirus can fight me.

How Autocorrect Altered an Identity

I don't understand it.  Autocorrect doesn't seem to care about Hunneypunkin's name.  Or The Precious's.  Lefty, Angel Doll, Treasure, Angel Boy, The Prince, Jeremy Renner and me, Chevrolet Mama, we're all Autcorrect approved.
Pixie's name is apparently not common or recognizable, and Autocorrect keeps amending it.  Phone contacts, text messages, social media posts, Autocorrect keeps replacing her name everywhere.  The weirdest part is, it's not even close.  Her name doesn't even get changed to a girl's name.  We've been fighting this for years, and now we're giving up.  You can't win against Autocorrect.
So we're waiting our turn at the courthouse, and in obedience to Autocorrect, changing Pixie's name to Nebuchadnezzar.

Public Shepherd

Lefty is the coolest Public Safety Officer you could ever hope to see, but he's not really feeling it.
Working Campus Security sounds impressive, but apparently the routine escorting of homeless individuals out of the college dumpsters becomes monotonous night after night.  So does the frequent verbal abuse from said offenders, some of whom hang around to spew insults at his handsome face while he calls city police to remove the more persistent transgressors.
The decrease in vehicular break-ins and derelicts sneaking into dorms for showers and whatnot since he joined the force doesn't lift his spirits much.  Nor do his successful foilage of several drug dealers' and at least one prostitute's attempts to defile school grounds in the dark.
Part of his job involves locking and unlocking specific doors, taking criticism for doors being unlocked when one person thinks they should be locked at this specific hour, and being reprimanded for those same doors being locked when someone else dictates they should be unlocked during that same time.  Another aspect of his job description seems to be peoplesitting during youth events.  This is not his favorite thing.
"I'm dot so buch Public Safety as I ab Public Shepherd," poor Lefty told me today on the phone.  "There's doe respect.  Frob adyode.  Add dow I have a cold and I have to work todight and I dod't wadt to."
"Call in sick," I said.
But he won't.  He'll put on the uniform, arm himself with his flashlight and cellphone, carry the keys, and tour the premises through the wee hours.  And if I find out anybody gives him crap tonight, this Mama's gon' go down there.  I'll Jeremy Renner up the place.

The Puppy is Teething

"Let's get a pet from the shelter," I said.
Three months later these items have become dog gnaw:
The leash that was on her when we brought her home from the shelter
Pixie's shoe string
The couch
A deceased bird
One gallon jug of tea
Two cans of tomato sauce
Wild animal tib-fib brought home from her runaway escapade
Her collar
The other dogs' collars
Another dog's harness
All things cardboard
The door mat
A floor rug
Hunneypunkin's leg
The pond heater out of the pond
My goat (Don't worry, she gave as good as she got.)
All her dog toys
All the other dogs' toys
All the other dogs
My pants (Yes, while I was wearing them.)
Two ice cream buckets
The entertainment center
Every extension cord in the county
Most cats (all survived)
My left slipper
The entire stack of firewood
Dirt
Thirty-seven miles of baling twine
One dog food bag
One cat food bag
One potting soil bag
A garden spade
The bill for her getting spayed
The check to pay for her getting spayed
Her dog bed
The other dogs' beds
A queen size bedsheet
The neighboring herd of cattle
Me
Heaven knows what else she's destroyed that I haven't discovered yet.  To date she hasn't gotten her teeth on my life-size Jeremy Renner cardboard cutout.  Lucky dog.

Wedding Shower Mad Lib

This is what happens when a writer gets involved in the bridal shower games.
When Ehhh, John Met Margaret

Gabriel and Danika met on the 426th day of October.  It was a pink, silly day, in the middle of fall; the dogs were running, and the rain was brown and white and happy.  Wet cars were everywhere, jumping in the sliding sunlight, right in the middle of the pasta factory.  Nika was the most bizarre slimy street sweeper in Disneyland, but she was jolly dissatisfied with her boy and was insanely seeking the beach.  Meanwhile, of all the hairdressers in the epic playground, Gabe was the most rabidly serendipitous florist.  He too, however, was graciously looking for a tractor.  But cars can be allegedly spectacular to find, especially in this beautiful, lovely world.  So until this Tuesday, the hero of our story, who often calls himself Crazy Bubba, and our heroine who sometimes goes by Rusty Cutie, did their best to shoot lazily every day, and were quickly, inflammatorily successful even though they both were absolutely searching for a flower (but with a British accent: "flowah").  But now, at 3:00 AM, both feeling angry, ecstatic, and hungry, Danika stood in line in Sri Lanka to buy herself a bouncy pizza, and Gabriel waited his turn at the ocean to get himself a blue macaroon, their sarcastic gaze met across the ugly car and it was sadness at first sight.  Each of them knew they had found the battleship they’d been flatulently searching for.  Brunch was dramatically forgotten because random, glutinous love is all you need.  Gabe pulled an achy ring out of his flip flop and put it on Nika’s toenail.  “Will him marry they?” Gabe asked.  “Eureka!”  Nika said, “Something!”  They gave each other a high pi, traded birthdates, obtained a tax return form, hired a clerk to officiate, booked a Catholic Mass, hired Justin Bieber to perform at their bar mitvah, and the ceremony went off without a hitch.  Actually, there was a hitch!  Jeremy Renner gave an imaginary magical toast, and Gabe "Crazy Bubba" Ehhh-John and Danika "Rusty Cutie" Margaret, newly hitched, lived racially, bashfully, satirically, happily ever after.

Blogging From Jail

Yesterday's halftime show inspired me to change up my wardrobe.  I went out looking all Shakira/JLo and was promptly arrested for indecent exposure.
Things like this never happen to Jeremy Renner.