Abby Lab - On Learning to Trust

 So how was your day Abby?

The Big Toaster Truck with the delivery guy stopped by and he didn't bring me anything from Chewy - THAT tells you how my day is going to be.

No one sends me goodies in the mail

 See - YOU got a box from the Big Toaster Truck

 I was robbed.

Even worse, the delivery guy saw me through the window and said "nice doggie".  Doesn't he understand I have mandibles of death. I'm a ferocious watch dog protecting Mom.

" No" - he says "Labs are NICE doggies - they're always friendly."  SIGH

 So I gave him this face. GROWWWLL  He just laughed and said "isn't she cute"

Just wait until next time delivery guy.  

But on top of the box on the porch he left a little doggie biscuit.  Just for me.

 Color me surprised.

And you were so happy to open the box and find the picture of a black lab, a happy, friendly, black lab that a friend sent you.  Because we ARE happy and friendly, we're not mean or scary and don't want to be.

I feel so bad, I was trying to scare the Big Toaster Truck guy away and he just wanted to be my friend and bring things that make my Mom smile.

You were right Mom and Dad - judge people by how they treat us, not how others have treated us.

Did you get that subliminal message Mom. . . . .Treat??

Angel Barkley Mischief Memories

There have been more than one Labrador Retriever in my life, but Barkley was the most spirited of them all.  He was never destructive, unlike a family black lab before him who ate my ugly pilot's uniform hat, the other pilots accusing me of smearing it peanut butter and leaving it on the floor :-)

No, Barkley was just inquisitive, always wanting to be in the middle of the action which meant, with the bouncy step and sweeping tail, sometimes things got broken.

So for you all, a little fun in the memory of Angel Barkley (be advised only a few pixels were harmed in the making of these photos).

Raiders of the Lost Bark

Goal!

 But I found my toy!

I chased it. I caught it. Then I didn't know what to do with it.

Ask Not. . .

I got a new front door mat. It's a little small so I laid it on top of the bigger mat which is in good condition, I just couldn't resist getting this.

 It made my mailman laugh out loud.

Wabbit Tracks

We have a yard rabbit, Mr. Bun, that lives under a big evergreen bush in our yard.  He's so used to my husband and I coming and going he doesn't run away when we leave the house if he's out munching grass in the side yard or the fenced yard.  Abby is another matter.  She will chase him if he's out when she's let out into the fenced portion of the yard and it's been close a couple of times when he didn't notice Abby approaching.

Mr. B. does seem to understand that in the evening, Abby is on a leash and when my husband and Abby come down the back steps, he just hops a few feet out of reach and continues to munch grass.

But earlier I have to make sure he's not basking in the yard, so I do a 'Rabbit Sweep" and shoo him through the fence into the side yard before "releasing the hound".

Abby is not too happy her hunting has been limited due to the Wabbit Warning System.

Compass Course

Here is chapter two of my 5th book - I'm not going to post each chapter as otherwise there is no incentive to buy a copy but just to give you a sense of what it is about, Chapter Two of "Compass Course" out in early Spring of 2019.  Two of my books were #1 bestsellers at Amazon,   Two were in the top ten at Amazon, and three of them won major literary awards, so I'm pleased that 100% of the writing proceeds can continue to go to animal rescue non-profits and Search Dog Foundation.
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When I was growing up in the 60's Dad got me this toy that was a toy aircraft that could be flown from inside the car with a closed window.  With your control stick, you could make it climb and dive and shoot it's "machine guns".  The little control panel in front of you had airspeed, turn and bank, oil, and fuel information.  To me, it was the closest thing to flying I'd experienced except for one flight on Pan Am when I was six to go to my aunt and uncle's while Mom and Dad when to Hawaii for their 25th anniversary.

We did a long road trip every year to my and uncle's ranch in California (they raised almonds) to visit my two cousins and them. On that long, often hot, two-day drive, that toy was my freedom from "Mom, he's on MY side of the seat" as my older brother tried to pester me.  I'd get my hand on that little control stick and I felt relieved at once of a perceptible weight, well, as much weight as a 7-year-old could bear.

For my mother had cancer, she was diagnosed with it when I was only four and she was still fighting it, the first remission come and gone.  As a child, she and my Dad did their best to protect us from it, but she couldn't hide the ravages of chemo in a small house with one full bathroom.  We simply learned to cope.

In some ways, it was like something I learned later in life.  War.  It's something, whether you are living in the middle of it, or simply have someone you love away fighting in it, you learn to live with it.  Actually, you don't live WITH it, you live underneath it, as if it is a dark sky from which the air is so dark and thick it's hard to draw breath.  It's a tornado siren, it's a tsunami warning, it's imminent death from which there is no shelter, no safe place, and even if you survive it, it will touch you with cold fingers, discharging perhaps the physical fear, but marking you forever as one who had fought and paid a high price for the battle.

So Mom did what she could and even with a limited budget, there was money for a toy for my brother and this wonderous airplane.

I'd swoop and dive and bank it for what seemed like hours, no sound in the vehicle but my Mom's quiet breath and the soft rustle of the scarf that covered her head. The silence in the vehicle, merged with the silence of the sky, becoming one infinite boundlessness control by two small hands.

I found a similar freedom on my bicycle.  I grew up in those years where no one wore helmets, hills were not off limits, and we would take our bikes out as high and far as our legs would carry us.  It was usually up to the top of the hill high above a mint farm where you could get some serious speed going downhill.  A wipeout was going to mean a broken arm, but that didn't stop us, we'd sail down that slope in formation flight, the scenery a blur of green and blue.  One summer I broke my arm twice.  It's no wonder when I came home from high school and said "I want to be a pilot," Dad just put his head down into his hands.

I took a second job on the weekends in addition to the one I had after school, and I started lessons when I was 17.  I soloed in the bright surf of a September sky, stamping the runway like a rubber stamp with my little Cessna 150 on my third and final landing.

I have to admit I was pretty nervous, doing the world's longest engine check, hesitant to release my feet from the brakes.  Then the sky in my windshield as I stared at it coalesced into not just vision, but scent, the smell of the open air, filling that tiny hot cockpit with a whisper that I could only describe as freedom. I announced my intentions on Unicom and took the runway.

Only minutes later, I couldn't get the grin off of my face as sunspots kissed my face as if a radar blip from the heavens as I cleared the runway for the day. From the taxiway, my instructor, a father of 7 boys that had nerves of steel, watched silently. There will be more stories of that time, but in thinking of that toy airplane today, I couldn't help but think of that little Cessna that was the same color as the toy one and just as much fun to play with.

Such simple things, such simple pleasures. Just simply to fly, to be aloft in the air, the very substance by which I live and with its absence, I would cease to breathe.  Years later,  when Mom was long gone, I would sit in the cockpit of a jet at altitude, and just the feel of the yoke in my hand would take me back to those road trips with my little aircraft, wondering what happened to that little toy plane.

But then, of course, something brings me now back to today, a cockpit sound, the movement of a gauge, for an airplane at altitude has a way of bringing the irrational into every emotion, every fear.  I looked down, seeing what airports were near if indeed an engine ever quit, even if I'd flown years without having that experience. It's not being paranoid, it's those long moments of quiet, especially at night or over vast bodies of water where your imagination takes you to places you don't want to be.  The engines know this and will make those weird noises only in such places and times, a bluff, a lie, planned by the gods of maintenance and foiled by the steadfastness of the crew

Power and fuel adjusted, I took the plane off of autopilot, and put my hands on the yoke, a child again, trusting in my craft, and savoring the freedom that it brought.

A First Responder's View of Disaster Recovery

With everything happening with Hurrican Florence a post about being a post-disaster first responder from my third book, First Place winner of the Readers Favorite International Book Award for Fiction - Religious Theme.

A Chapter From Small Town Roads 

We don’t have to speak for our intentions to be read.

Speech seems like a simple thing, a coordination of muscle and bone, nerves and tongue, something within us, just as the ability to control and guide both weapon and machine lay slumbering within the wrists and hands. We can stay silent, but the words are still there.

Man experiences things of great magnitude and cannot speak of them at all. An artist or craftsman creates something that was part of them, honed into art or machine. On completion, they say no words, they call no one, and they simply put down their tool, their brush, and stare at their vision, incarnate.

Veterans come home from battle empty of all words, bound together by only that identical experience which they can never forget and dare not speak of, lest by speaking of darkness, they are wrapped in its chains. First responders and law enforcement officers often relate as they too see so much death that never again, as long as they breathe, will they ever truly go to sleep alone.

Man experiences the mundane, the meaningless, tweeting and texting of it feverishly. It is as if, by doing so, inconsequential acts become more than the passing of time by the imminently bored. The words can uplift but they can also sting like so many insects, their incessant noise, finally dimming to a hum.

We speak in different languages, and even when speaking the same language, we often don’t communicate, and when we do, we often don’t truly mean what we say. Promises can be nothing more than words and oaths empty air, especially when election times near, wherein contests of fierce and empty oratory are somehow, retroactively, supposed to make us believe, any more than they can make us forget.

We speak in the language of the past, chants unchanged in generations hanging in the air as God is placed into a golden cup, there underneath the eyes of angels. We speak in the language of silent prayer, calling upon God and our reserves, saying prayers without words, as we draw near our weapon as we enter what could be hell on earth.

Words can support, they can heal, with gentle utterance after a nightmare in the still of the night, the soothing voice that smoothes the frayed edges of a day with nothing more than the touch of supple prose. Words can injure, cutting like a knife, discharging like a spark of electricity, those words, from someone we love, marking us always with their wounding.

Words, a movement of lips and tongue that can cause laughter or pain; that can divide or conquer. Even in a nation where English is the official language, in parts of our country, there are whole neighborhoods where you won’t hear it spoken.

Sometimes one doesn’t need to speak at all.

On any given day, tragedy and the earth collide, flood, tornado, the plunging of a mighty machine into a peaceful neighborhood. The details differ, but the response is always the same. When disaster strikes, the land itself turns mute and those that remain, stand simply as silent instruments unable to make a sound.

I didn’t fully understand that until the tornado came through our town last night, leveling several homes a mile or so north, leaving others, like mine and most of my neighbors, miraculously standing.  We were lucky, in that there were no deaths, the majority of the homes having basements and a good tornado warning system. But as we came up from our basement, our house untouched but for a tree that took out the front porch, it was as if what I viewed was a completely different town.

Harry, my elderly friend from across the street, was on the sidewalk, Evelyn holding on to him, shaken but unhurt. Ezekiel and Miriam waved from down the block, his shop roof damaged but the structure intact. But just down from Harry’s home, Betty, the widow that lives there stood in front of what remained of her house of 60 years. It was one set further back from the road than the others, the back portion of the house completely missing its roof and some walls, not even a photo of her failed dreams, left where the wind rushed through those rooms. She cried silently, in the faded robe she fled in, as one of the neighbors came over and put her arms around her. Behind all of the homes across the street from us, there were so many trees downed, limbs flung through windows, shattering them as if they were thrown like a lance.

A young woman, her face growing older by the minute, stumbled from the walkout basement of the home that had sold when I moved in, a solitary figure, clutching only a stuffed animal, making a path towards what is known. Her brother, off in military service, was letting her live there to care for the place while she attended a community college in a town not too far east of us. We beckoned her to come over to us, and though I am probably only ten years older than she, like Evelyn does with me, I hold her in a mother’s protective embrace.

The older couple from the corner of the block lost a brand new outbuilding they had painstakingly constructed behind their house. They now could only look at the work of their sweat and tears strewn about for miles by the force of nature, the wind thick and warm, like blood spilled, pooling around what little remains. A lone tree stood among so many that were downed, torn out by the roots, its nervous branches bent down as if hoping not to be noticed.

The first responders arrived, standing for just a moment, still and mute, hands unmoving beneath the invisible stain of what was, always, needless blood. For just a moment they stopped, as if by whispered breath or the movement of disturbed air, what little remains, would crumble.

They gathered, moving in and around, the firefighters, emergency medical personnel, law enforcement officers, wearing blue and black and yellow. Such garments, solemnly worn, exchanged for lives that used to be ordinary, worn as they shape something from chaos, coercing that terrible blood wind to give up a sound, the forlorn echo of someone who might have survived underneath the carnage. I waved at an officer I worked with, seeing the relief in his eyes that I was unhurt, feeling like I should be doing something more to help. I realized that I was still in shock as I held my neighbor to me to comfort as beneath my bathrobe my precious child lay safe.

It’s surprising how much noise there was in the silence, of hope, of grief, of disbelief. It was a sound which one could almost, but not quite, capture, receding like dwindling song until there were only the shadows and the quiet. And then a small voice, “Can anyone help me?” low and faint as the Vespers of sleep. It came from a home that didn’t have a walkout basement, and a tree had gone through the sunroom. I had been there, and that would have blocked the basement stairs. Hopefully, the person is fine and can get out once the tree was moved.

Survivors and saviors, moved without sound, sending a message as loudly to the heavens as if they were one voice. People were helped from the rubble, the injured accessed, the grief-stricken comforted as best as one could, if only by a touch that resonated straight to the heart, bypassing a brain that could not accept its fate. There were no Teleprompters, there were no cue cards, and there were no words for boundless grief and regret. There was no language for this, no word, no sound; it’s defiant and imminent life, holding on.

Wordless Wednesday

A Day Framed in History

In the frame, taken from a box in the closet, was a small photo.  It's a  group of men, two women, all eyes are up front, shirts pressed. I'd pulled it out of a box today, thinking back how long it had been. The men were all in ties, myself, wearing an outfit that, for me, was as comfortable as plywood and about as flattering. Smile! Cheese!

We were graduating from training, we look like we are intent on saving the world. But we are not even close to being who we expected to be seventeen years from then.

Expectations. That of a teen mother, who has read too many ladies magazines and envisioned a picture perfect world of happy baby, a responsible man, and sleep, when in reality all she wants to do is eat potato chips and cry, alone again while her child slumbers peacefully.

A young girl in her twenties at a grave, holding a carefully folded flag. While others were around she maintained her composure, til now, alone, holding all that was left, she wept, a meaningful and sustained sound no woman of 20 years should utter. The sound falls from the sky, like the cry of a solitary goose in the wild darkness of a September afternoon, and then is gone.

A couple in their early thirties, the young woman with a  deliberate smile and a hairdo that hasn't changed since college.  She'll hold that smile on her face for 10 years before she has the strength to walk out the door,  bruises hidden under her sleeves.

A man and a woman, leaving a nice restaurant in a big city after dark, as tall shadows appear behind them in the isolated parking lot.  Anyone else, certainly the police,  are far away.  He has nothing to defend against the utter fear in her eyes because the law in this city doesn't honor the rights he has everywhere else.

Expectations. Of what life owes us, or what life promises. Perhaps it's the age of TV where there is almost always a happy ending, the bad guy gets his due, the good guy gets the girl. Life isn't like that always, though there are moments in there that would put any movie to shame.

And so, from experience, my expectations are someone weathered, as we can't always control what happens around us. Evil does not operate according to logic, and ignoring won't make it go away. But we can exercise our right and duty for free will and decision, in the hard intractable world we find ourselves in. We are not trapped by those fears, hopes, and expectations that man calls his heart, but fixed by them, to endure. To stand guard and protect.

I look at the picture from graduation. I look at the news, shattered buildings and memorials, flags and first responders, those walking symbols of American courage and indomitable commitment. I look at that old picture again, how young I look, and yet I look little different. One thing has not changed, we have a duty, a duty to be alive, to the terrible hurts, the red bitter blood that flows, to the honor we bear in the world's contempt. We endure so others can as well.

Seventeen Years. 2997 innocent victims.

I was wet behind the ears, living back East, not even unpacked from getting home from training on that sunny day in September. As we grabbed our things and planned "what's next", I could not get the picture out of my mind, that of the Pentagon in flames. For you see, my brother, a former Navy submarine, was often there on business. I thought about excusing myself from the team. I had no way to know if he was safe, I was beside myself with worry, but I did not. I geared up and headed out to do what was expected of me, what I was trained to do, what I'd taken an oath to do.

My first days "on the job" were not what I had expected. It's been seventeen years, but sometimes when I wake in the night, sweat on my skin, the ghost of smoke in my hair, time hasn't moved forward at all.

Seventeen years.

I look at the photos, so many photos, so many years. Years for reckless adventures, for daring launches into the blue, for growing old, yet never truly growing up. Time for finding yourself, finding the wild and ephemeral blush of love, that knows no age, innocent, fumbling and breathless. All too soon to be reduced to small, worn squares of color held in a shoebox, of fading faces and edgeless shapes that will someday inhabit the memory and not the flesh.

But still, though, a life lived. Something the victims of 9-11 were denied. A chance to live life fully, to laugh, cry, and leave their mark. The opportunity to die on their own terms, with dignity and surrounded by those they loved.

When my Mom died, I was filled with anger for her leaving us so quickly, but I was also filled with respect. Respect for her ability to chose her final days; to unplug the plugs and unhook the machines and even though in pain, to be with her family, cohesive, intact.

I put the graduation picture back in the box with some papers. Some were no more than scraps of history. Some had more personal memories, that seared into my soul, to return on late introspective nights. There are memories there and many photos. Of dust and disintegration, shattered lives intertwined with broken wreckage, of unseen footprints in the debris of the living, stepping from the ash on their way home, and the seen footprints of those that respond, tending those taken from us.

I'd not be honest if I said it doesn't sometimes follow me, as I knock on a door, tiptoe into a hospital room to ask questions I wish could be left unsaid; seeking answers, seeking closure. Because of it, I know what we once were, and where we all will be. Because of death, I know what I can be, what each moment that is the immortality of all that the flesh could desire and the mind is capable of, truly is. Every breath a gift, each moment, mine with God's grace, but MINE, to live as I choose, and as fully as possible, as only a wild heart can.

As a nation, we moved on, but many of us continue to remember.  Will Durant argued that "civilization is not imperishable. It must be relearned by every generation.' For that is the bleakest truth of all, the one truth we must never forget." That is the truth that sustains us. The truth that plays out in an image of a flame-haired woman holding her head in her hands, trying to keep it together amidst the images of tangled wreckage of metal and lives, an image of a flag, of an empty spot of ground where once stood thousands of dreams. Quiet truth that brings it back so that we never forget.

Seventeen years.

Today there will be only a moment of respect for those souls that were lost.  A moment in which I will look skyward, wishing them peace, as the light vanishes with a soft sigh, driving down for only a moment upon the musty smell of slain flowers, there in a vase. Flowers taken from gardens for so many reasons, for love, for loss, for the dead, now dying themselves.

As I look to an uncaring sky, I grieve for the way they left us, as much as the why.

We graduated that day, in the last days of summer 2001. It was not a life I would have expected but it was the only life I could live. On that day we charged out into the world, passionate, excited and only days later, damned forever of all peace. In what seemed to us like minutes, we stood with regret and anguish, the despair out of which the quietly mourning, enduring bones stand up that can bear anything.

Almost anything.

Cat 4

It may be a bit far, but if our friends Madi or Ranger, or any of you in Blogville that live in the Carolinas need shelter, our home in Chicago is open to you.  It is very small (one bed, one bath, and a futon in my office) but you are welcome here.  We do have a big fenced yard for doggies and Abby likes cats.

Hurricane Florence

Those of you in the path of hurricane Florence will be in our thoughts and prayers this week.  
 - The Johnson Family and Abby Lab

Sunday Black and White

The Fed Ex/UPS Security Alarm, always on guard.

Love Birds

If like me, you came of age in the late 70's to the music of Queen, and love quirky romantic comedies that involve a duck, you will likely love this absolutely delightful New Zealand film I watched last night that I'm going to watch again.

Doug has a small construction type company, 3 coworkers who are also good friends, lives in his late parent's rural house and has no urge to change his life.  Then his girlfriend of two years, whom he loves, dumps him because he "won't' change". (She wants the big city apartment and a BMW).  Doug is left broken-hearted with his 70's record collection and an empty house.

Then a duck is "winged" by a local hunter and crashlands on his roof, unable to fly.  The duck needs veterinary care and Doug needs a reason to risk his heart again. 

Instead of drinking beer and nursing his broken heart, Doug is soon inflating a kiddie pool for his new charge while the local avian specialist/Veterinarian from the Auckland Zoo, a widow with a young son, gives him advice, then friendship, that leads to a change on his view of life and love

Written with warmth and heart, it's a wonderful movie of love, loss, and friendship and Pierre the Duck will capture your heart.  Rhys Darby and Sally Hawkins both give incredibly emotional performances.

If you have an Amazon prime membership it's free to view.

Barkley Memories

Christmas 2013.  Barkley was unimpressed by The Force.

Military Wife and Pug Life

Most of you will remember the blog "Military Wife and Pug Life" which suddenly closed down.  We all miss her writings, but I wanted to let Blogville know we've stayed in contact with S., who wanted to pursue some new activities outside of blogging.  She and her hubby have a new Pug named Tater Tot and life is good.

We miss them, but thankful they are well and happy.

Chili Weather is in the Forecast - a Tuesday Recipe Post

Chili mac is one of those winter comfort foods, but after some recent dental work where I had to eat soft foods while I had a temporary crown on I made a small batch while my husband was away.  It was slightly different than an earlier chili mac recipe because it used Mexican Oregon and Mexican Chili Powder.

Traditional oregano is common Italian cuisine, especially pizza, with its minty undertones from its membership in the mint plant family Lamiaceae.

Mexican oregano, on the other hand, is from a different plant family altogether, Verbenaceae.  You’ll also find Lemon Verbena in this family, so Mexican Oregano has similar citrus-like undertones.  It also might taste more grassy or earthy to you. But I find it works much better in Tex Mex style cooking than traditional oregano and in dried form can be found in many grocers in their Latin section or from Amazon. It’s great in this dish as well as a pinto bean soup recipe I will share in the near future.

Mexican chili powder is more readily available in the US, and though it’s slightly “hotter” than American style chili powder, both types will work in this recipe.

But seriously, use the Mexican Oregano.

Chili Mac - serves 4-5, easily doubles just use a 13 x 9 pan if you are going to bake it

o 1 teaspoon olive oil
o 1 medium onion small diced, about 1 and a half cups
o 1 jalapeno, stemmed and minced (optional)
o 1 and ¼ teaspoons salt or salt substitute (I like Mrs. Dash and Diamond Crystal Brand) plus more for pasta cooking water
o 1 pound extra lean ground beef, turkey or veggie “beef”
o 2 and ½  tablespoons Mexican chili powder
o dash of crushed red pepper
o 1 and ½ teaspoons Mexican oregano
o 1 tablespoons minced garlic
o 1 (14-16  ounce) can whole plum tomatoes, broken with your hands, with juices
o 1 can red beans, drained
o ½ pound gluten-free macaroni (I used Cadia brand brown rice macaroni)
o ¼ cup water
o 1/2 pound cheddar (optional)

Low Fat Sour cream for serving, if desired (I love Oberweis dairy products)

• Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in a 6-quart soup pot. Add onion, jalapeno (if desired), and salt and cook until soft, 2 minutes. Add ground beef, chili powder, oregano, red pepper, and garlic and cook, breaking up any clumps of meat with a spoon, for 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, beans, and 1/4 cup of water, stir, and bring chili to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until thickened to chili consistency, about 20 minutes. Taste and add more teaspoon salt, if needed.

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

• While the chili is simmering, cook macaroni according to package directions in boiling salted water, drain in a colander,

There are two ways to serve this

• (1) add macaroni to prepared chili, heat through and serve with a spoonful of sour cream.  This is what I did today as I prepared this on my short lunch break.

• (2) Preheat oven to 400 F.  Rinse cooked pasta under cool water and set aside.  Grate ½ pound regular or vegan cheddar and set aside. Place an 8 x 8 or other one and a half quart casserole dish on a baking sheet. Once chili has finished cooking, fold in the cooked macaroni and 1/3 of the cheddar cheese. Transfer chili-mac to the baking dish and top with remaining cheese. Bake until heated through and cheese is melted - about 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes before serving.

Lather, Rinse, Don't Repeat

Monday.  It might be an actual Monday - or it can be any day of the week that you start back into work or a big house project.

This particular story began with a long week.  I can't say I was a walking biohazard, but I definitely needed a shower after being out in the field and my water was turned off while I had some plumbing work done at my old house.

I'd stopped to pick up Barkley at a male work partners house where he was staying during the plumbing work (this was before I had met my husband and I didn't know a lot of people in the area). Barkley loved playing with his dog, and there was a fenced yard and doggie door so the two of them had a grand time when I needed a short notice dog sitter on the weekends and I made sure there were treats for EVERYONE when I returned.

On this particular day though, I was hot and tired, and it looked like water was not going to be in my future until the next day.  So I asked my friend if I could pop into his guest bath and get a shower.

I've been in the man's bathroom before, not as girlfriend material, but as his back up at work for many years. We were colleagues but we were also friends, helping each other out over the years through dogs, kids, bad dates and house repairs, so I didn't mind asking.  I can find what I need. I think. OK - shampoo. Everyone has shampoo, right?

O

Oh, there it is, in the shower stall.  It's utilitarian. It's efficient. The stuff you can soap, shower and clean an engine block with.  It smells like someone just cut down a tree - with nothing but testosterone, a pocket knife and some muscles. Unfortunately, it's the kind of shampoo made for guys that work really hard and have a military haircut. My hair is long, down my back and it's fine. There's a ton of it, but it's fine as frog's hair and shampoo like that will have it a snarled mess. Hmmm.

Maybe there's something else under the sink, left by a girlfriend or something. Ah AH. There under the sink. A big girly looking white bottle that said "extra conditioning shampoo". It smells all tropical. Yes! So I ignored the "Lava Soap For Your Head" shampoo in the shower stall, grabbed it and showered up. It smelled wonderful, and my hair was really soft after. I even used the blow drier to get all the curls out and make it all smooth.

I'm all dressed and my partner walks down the hall as I exit the bath, laughing as he looks into the bathroom.  "So", he says. Why did you use the dog shampoo???

Well - my hair looked great, but I had a sudden urge to go chase a squirrel.

Lights - Camera - Action!

Our house is only 1200 square feet (not including the partially finished basement) so floor space is at a premium.  It seems that wherever I want to take a path to get to the next room, Abby Lab is always lying right in the way.

She once said she should star in her own action show.

May I present.