Do Not Disturb

Grace made this sign to hang on her door.

You'll see she corrected her spelling with her special editing marks. She X'd out the wrong letter and added a caret to insert the correct letter instead of just starting over. I would have had to start over.  I guess she felt the point was still conveyed.

She told me when the sign was out, that she wanted privacy. Hmmmm, don't we all. I told her when my bathroom door is closed, even part way, that means I want privacy. Maybe I need a sign because I still can't manage to go to the bathroom without being interrupted.

Of course a sign still wouldn't keep the dog out.

Now that she likes to close her door, I understand a little more what a magnet a closed door is. What is she DOING in there? For one thing, she's listening to Justin Bieber and dancing. I know this because I disturbed her and caught her in the act. It was pretty funny.

She's just lucky she doesn't have an irritating little brother. My brother Mike is three and a half years younger than me, and he used to drive me nuts. I would close my door and lock it. He'd get the ice pick out of the kitchen and pop my lock open. Then he'd just sit Indian style outside the door on the floor and stare at me. He just wanted to see what I was doing.

I wasn't doing anything. But I wanted to do it ALONE. I started barring the door by shoving my chair up under the doorknob. In the bathroom, I'd open the cabinet drawer in front of the door so he couldn't open it. Sometimes he'd shove his hands under my door just to irritate me. I stomped on them so then he'd run and tell on me. That cycle was pretty much on repeat at our house.

Today Grace actually spent some of her time in her room cleaning up because Bryon made a chore deal with her. She has to clean her bathroom sink, clean her desk, pick up her clothes, vacuum the floors & scoop the dog poop out of the kennel daily. If she does all of that each week she gets $5.

She has to do it by bedtime Sunday night. This was the first week. I predict it will be completed minutes before bedtime nearly every Sunday night.

Now that is disturbing.

Ay, There's The Rub

I didn't get my first massage until I was thirty. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Massages are wonderful. I'd get one a week if I could afford it. When I win the lottery one day, and I will, that's the first thing I'm signing up for.

What I would really like is for the therapist to come to my home. Sure, they tell you to lie there and relax for a while after it's all over. Really, though, they want you up and out asap. If you dozed off and tried to take a two hour nap like you really wanedt to, they'd rip those tiny but toasty blankets off your naked body in a heart beat.

I have one girlfriend who refuses to have a massage because she has nakedness issues. I do not have nakedness issues. I figure they have seen lots fatter, cellulitier and hairier bodies than mine. If not, well, they are getting paid.

I like everything about the experience of having a massage. I like the smells of eucalyptus and tea tree oils. I like the soft clean feel of the sheets on the massage table and the comforting weight of the massage blankets. I like the dim light and the new agey music that you never can find anywhere else. If someone would put a massage table in the middle of a book store, that would just about be Nirvana.

After having dozens of massages myself, I finally talked Bryon into having one several years ago. We had them at the same time but in different rooms. There was a guy therapist and a girl therapist. He was torn as to which to choose. Ultimately, he chose the dude. He enjoyed it, but I think it sort of creeped him out a bit. Not me. I swing both ways when it comes to massage therapists. I'm unbiased, unbigoted and rearing to go.

Having a massage from a trained therapist is just so wonderful. First of all, you can rub and rub your own hands and feet and it will NEVER feel that good. When my girl hits this one spot near the pad of my thumb, it almost brings me to tears of ecstasy. TMI? Probably, but you get the idea.

Another massage mystery is exactly why when you touch your own extremely ticklish and sensitive feet, it doesn't tickle at all. When the therapist lays hands on those puppies, I have to resist the urge to pull them back and kick her in the face. I certainly wouldn't be welcomed back if that ever happened despite my generous tipping.

I used to get one hour massages but the entire time I was lying there getting scrubbed and rubbed, I'd be thinking, "It's almost over. It's almost over. It's almost over." Now I get hour and a half massages. I don't worry about when it's going to be over. I'm fortunate to have a very reasonable massage therapist within a twenty minute drive of my house. In fact, she had a special before Christmas, and I bought four one and a half our massages for $50 each. Those same massages would have been around $90-$120 in Springfield or (shudder) Eureka Springs.

One thing about massage therapists is they can sense a knot before you even know you have one. They are like dogs and fear. Let them know they've hit tender spot, and they'll bore a hole through that sucker.  The trick is to go all floppy and let them think you like it when they try to separate your muscles from the bone. Of course the second they are on to the next spot, your body immediately regrets any grousing your weak mind was doing and begs for her to go back to that spot. Meanwhile, the other side is jealous of what's going on, and you can't wait for her to make the circuit.

Another trick to procuring the absolute best massage is to speak up. If the pressure is too light or too hard, you have a voice. Use it. They don't read minds.

You could pick out the freshly massaged from a lineup no problem. They are the ones with the fluffed out, slightly shiny hair and that sleepy eyed, smirk on their faces. There are only a few things that are that relaxing and satisfying.

I'd suggest only actually paying for one of them.

Join The Club

It's always a nice feeling to fit in. It's good when you can find a group of people that are like you. It's good when you can find your tribe and say, "These are my people". Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs before that happens.

For instance, let's just say you are an odd sort of fellow. And you are walking around and thinking, this is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife. Where is my tribe? Suddenly as you are pondering this predicament, you run into another fellow who is also seeming a bit off. A bit odd even. Realization slaps you in the forehead, and you invite him to the pub for a pint.

As you are getting to know each other over pints, you notice another fellow is listening to your conversation. He's getting to know you both as well through his eaves dropping. You figure, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em and invite him on over because, well, he seems a bit odd as also. The more the merrier. The next thing you know you three are meeting several times a week at this same little pub for pints and chats. You odd three.

One of you suggests you should start a club. Well, you practically already are a club. Why not make it official! Ah, but what to name this new club, filled with odd fellows. One bold chap finally suggests the obvious and blurts out, "What about the Odd Fellows?"

The other two stare at you as if you've suddenly spurted a new and totally additional head directly to the left of your current head. They are silent. They blink. Their pints grows warm. Then, as if they have been hit with a cosmic epiphany, they both clap you on the back and congratulate you for your ingenious insight. Of course you should call the club the Odd Fellows Club. After all, you are a group of odd fellows.

You settle on the Independent Order of Odd Fellows because you are beholden to no one.

Later, you decide this little club of yours would be a lot better with one thing ... girls. You call the girls Rebekahs. It's easier that way, because really, who can remember their names anyway. They have breasts. That's all that really matters.

And that my friend is how the IOOF came to be. The end.

Okay, so that is totally not what the brochure said I found online. But it seems pretty likely considering the name. I've driven by one sign in Salem dozens of times and did stop to take a picture. The sign above was in Columbia and actually had NEON. Much cooler. I finally took the time to look them up.

Their mission is this: "Visit the sick, relieve the distress, bury the dead and educate the orphans."


Maybe they weren't just a bunch of 17th century nerds looking to get lucky.


Then again...

Sit Ubu, Sit! Good Dog.

Tonight began week three of obedience training with Belle. The first week was just for the humans. We did not get treats. It was a little disappointing. Last week was the first week with Belle. It was a crazy week, and I wasn't feeling especially patient after having to drive home midweek during a stressful four days of blood drives in Rolla. We muddled through.

My first obstacle was how I was going to keep Belle from pinging around the inside of my car like a furry pinball. I stopped by the pet store and found a seat belt harness for her. Of course I bought the wrong size. It was way too big. The next day, I went back and bought the medium but kept the large because she's just going to keep growing.

Just getting the harness on her was a lesson in perseverance. She hated it and tried to chew the thing off. I finally got her into the car and buckled in, and we were off with my fanny pack full of tiny cut up hot dog bits. I made it to Marshfield, and she was out of the harness and free to roam about the cabin.

I pulled over in the funeral home parking lot under the big lights and proceeded to restrain her again. That's when I realized I had missed buckling a vital piece of the harness across her back. Snapped in, but neither of us all that happy, we were off again. I spent the rest of the car ride to and from praying she didn't chew a hole in my leather seats.

The next stressful thing was the meet and greet with all of the other dogs. I don't know how much Belle weighs right now, but she's big. You can see how she's laid out across my back seat. She takes up most of the couch now, and we have to raise her head up and scoot her over to sit down ourselves. I can hold her on the leash but barely. If she's motivated, it's a struggle.

She was very motivated to meet and greet.

The first night was a whole lot of wanting to sniff other dogs. Mercifully, she didn't pee or growl or snap at anyone or any other dogs so all and all it was at least a social success. Neither of us got banned. The instructors showed us the behaviors we were to work on by demonstrating their already trained dogs. One dog was a real pro. The other dog was supposedly just recently trained.

The instructor was demonstrating down (lay down) and suggested we all try it. I suggested there was no way Belle would do it. She took the challenge and called Belle up to the front of the class. She huffed and puffed and struggled with Belle for ten minutes trying to get her to go down. Every other dog in the class did it. Not Belle.

It was both a little satisfying that even she couldn't achieve it with Belle and also supremely frustrating. She suggested perhaps Belle just needed a calmer setting. Uh, sure, that will work.

I left not feeling too confident in ever getting her do the down. Honestly, I just want her to quit jumping and chewing on me aggressively, and I want her to come when I call her. Every time. I'm not expecting her to start bringing me beverages from the fridge or vacuuming the house. I don't think I'm asking too much.

Belle is pretty solid on the sit and does come to the whistle now almost every time. But she's still got some really bad behaviors we need to overcome. It's difficult not to compare her to Briar (our old black lab who lived to twelve) and Daisy (our yellow lab who also lived to twelve). Briar was the most stubborn dog I have ever known. He would not come to me outside if I called for him, and he didn't want to. Bryon had whistle trained him from a very young age though and that was my saving grace with him. He was bomb proof on the whistle because he didn't know who was blowing it. You could see the disappointment on his face when he rounded the corner and saw he'd been tricked by me into coming.

Daisy was a saint. She was just about the perfect dog. She was bomb proof. Together they made great pets and got along so well. It was really difficult when they passed, even though they passed three years apart. I can't tell you how many times I think that Belle is just Briar reincarnated as a bitch. Be careful what you wish for.

I didn't get to work with Belle too much this week but Sunday I found a good spot between the chair and the wall and worked on the down command with her. By golly, she finally got it. Now she'll do it every time ... as long as I have a hotdog. No hotdog and forget about it. Still, it felt good to show off her awesome trick tonight at the training class. She was a rock star.

This week we are working on doing the tricks without treats.

Neither of us is going to like that.

Conversation Hearts

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I think I have candy on the brain. Today, I was thinking about those little conversation hearts. In elementary school, conversation hearts were the Magic 8 Ball of candy, dispensing secretly coded messages of love or disdain.

Remember getting those little valentines stuffed into your homemade boxes, with a little conversation heart tucked inside. You had to give one to every kid even though you really only wanted to give them to your friends. So when it came time to choose from the various messages, it got downright overwhelming.

The truth was, yes I really DID want to give the Kiss Me heart to Rick Lowry, but if I did THAT then he might show it to someone and make fun of me. Better give him the Be Good heart instead. The So Fine should definitely go to Alex Rios, but if I give Alex that one, then who should I give the Love Me? I have THREE of the Love Me hearts. It never hurts to hedge your bets by playing all three hearts. That way it might not look so obvious that I suffered in my decision making.

Be Kind, Do Good and Chill Out are all safe bets for those kids you don't really like, but couldn't leave out. Or you can give those to the girls. Sweet Talk, For You and Yes Dear are also nicely ambiguous for either sex. Marry Me definitely sends the wrong message unless you are at least twenty five and cheesy enough to use the old candy heart proposal cliche' on Valentine's Day.

The Blanks were Necco's way of allowing you to include candy for the stinky kid without sending a mixed message. I'll bet all of his hearts were blank. That's sort of sad really. He was probably reading his tarot candy messages equally as closely as the rest of us. Blank just says, I didn't think enough of you to even bother sending a message.

I don't know if anyone else was really analyzing the meaning behind every valentine that was received along with the enclosed candy heart, but I sure was. I remember getting a Be Mine from Greg Goetzinger and pondering it for days later, looking for signs that he wanted to be my boyfriend in the fourth grade.

I didn't end up procuring any lasting relationships from those candies despite the massive amount of forethought and consideration I put into each and every one. I'm just glad we don't have to give our coworkers Valentine's Day treats. If we did, we'd have to come up with a whole new set of sayings to relay our passive aggressive feelings.

In case you are wondering, I do have a few in mind...

You're Lame
Stop Talking
Kick Me
Bite Me
You Stink
Go Home
Weird Hair
Bossy
Nosy

Any wise elementary school kid would think carefully before sending the wrong message. I suppose coworkers should too and that is why none of these are in my box of conversation hearts this year.

Valentine's Day Candy Box

First off Russell Stover, I just want to say "You suck". The way you tempt us chocolate lovers with those tiny box hearts of chocolate pieces each Valentine's Day is a worst than misleading ... it's a lie. Here is the problem, those little boxes are totally comprised of your leftovers. Don't try to deny it.

I won the box above as a prize Saturday night. I would never have actually paid for that box, because I've been fooled before ... a few times. The worst pieces are the coconut ones. I'm sorry but no amount of chocolate is going to make a glob of coconut goo taste better to me. I can usually sniff those out through their chocolate casing and avoid them.

Saturday night in the car on the way home, I busted into the box. I fumbled around in the dark trying to discern the tastiest piece by feel. I finally fished out a piece and sniffed it. Confident it was coconut free, I munched it in half. You guessed it, coconut. I all but spewed it over my dashboard. I rolled down the window and tossed the chewed and unchewed bits out.

You can see in the box above, I didn't take a chance on the other pieces. I smooshed them all to reveal their gooey innards. Really, RS, I only need the raspberry and the mint. And that creamy white goo that looks like mint, but isn't ... just leave that out. Same with the fake chocolate goo covered in good chocolate. That's the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. Just don't.

You can occasionally throw in an orange. I don't hate the orange. And those knock off Butterfinger bits are tolerable. The caramels are basically the dental industry's secret plot to cheat insurance companies by making sure your last few metal fillings get pulled out and replaced as soon into the new insurance year as possible. Leave those out too.

In fact, just don't make ANY boxes with chocolates in them if you are going to be too cheap to include a map. Without a map, it's like negotiating a field of chocolate landmines.

No one likes landmines.

If You Were Confused ...

by the partial Valentine's Day Candy Box post, well, so was I. Somehow Blogger ate all but that first line. I'll try to recreate that particular piece of literary genius and re-post for tomorrow. Sorry about that! See what I get for working ahead!

Stay tuned.

Reading & Talking About Writing

Saturday was a great day for writing even though I actually wrote very little. I got to spend the entire day with writers at the Ozarks Romance Author's meeting who were talking about writing. Then later in the evening, I got to party with Sleuth's Inc. writers to celebrate our combined successes for JANO.

JANO was the local version of NANO (basically write a novel of 50,000 words in a month). There were several "winners". Winners were those who achieved the 50,000 word goal. One winner was a twelve year old boy. I think that is awesome. I hope Grace gets interested in participating at some point.

The meetings are very inspiring, and give me just enough of a push to keep me motivated. I haven't done any work on my novel this past few weeks since finishing it on MLK day. I have been letting it percolate. Today is the day. I am finally sitting down to start working on the editing. It's a pretty daunting job, but not as daunting as starting from scatch. At least I HAVE something to edit. You can't ever publish a blank page.

I've had my sights set on Harlequin Nocturne and still do but ORA has a conference in Springfield this June. Two agents will be there. They both buy paranormal romance and represent some very reputable authors in the genre. One agency even represents several Harlequin authors. That means, I have until June to get my shit together, polished and smelling like a rose.

I can do this.

Let the editing commence.

Here There Be Slow Dragons

If you have ever wondered where the internet ends, it's three and a half miles outside of Niangua.

Our house is in the Niangua suburbs, and we are exactly three and a half miles from two switch stations. Apparently, three and a half miles is the absolute limit of speedy internet.

When you live in the country, 'speedy' is a loosely defined term. We haven't lived within range of pizza delivery or fast internet in twenty two years. Of course twenty two years ago, Al Gore hadn't even invented the internet yet. It was still a crazy regulated pipe dream, not the indispensable tool of work and entertainment it is now.

My first computer was purchased in 1990, and it was a Magnavox with 1 mg of ram. It would only run Windows in safe mode. To upgrade my ram to the next level would have cost $400. I made do with my glorified word processor.

At the school where I taught, I had a Mac SE. It was already a discontinued model by time I got it. Again, a glorified word processor and dial-up wasn't even on my radar yet. I can only imagine how much easier teaching would be with the easy and immediate access to information of all kinds. Still doesn't raise it up the list of things I want to do again.

After I quit teaching, we moved to Highlandville and joined the online world with smoking fast internet speeds hovering around 28k. We paid for 56k. It was painful, but thankfully I didn't really know much better yet. Next came Niangua, still the edge of the technological universe. We didn't have even have access to dial-up without paying for unlimited long distance first because everything in the world, EXCEPT Niangua, was long distance.

We settled on satellite internet which cost $500 to install and $89 a month for the privilege of 1.5 mbps. We never saw a speed faster than 350k despite lots of dish jiggling by so called professionals.

When DSL finally made it to our little corner, we happily cancelled the satellite for the promise of 1.5 mbps once again. Alas it is not meant to be. We are lucky to ever see 700 kbps and usually more like 350-500 kbps. You can't stream a YouTube video or Netflix on that my friend.

There are lots and lots of great benefits to living in the country but speedy internet is not one of them.

Here there be slow internet.

Primary Voting

Next week is the primary vote for Missouri. Honestly, I don't think I'll bother. Apparently, it doesn't even really count, and I don't feel passionate about any of the candidates including our current President. In President Obama's defense, he, like most new presidents, inherited the leftovers of the previous administration.

You know what it's like to step into the shoes of the guy who got fired. His files are a mess; his office is a mess. He left lots of loose ends and twisted paperclips and weird pills in the desk drawer that you hope are antacids. That and you are expected to work miracles. You're either the hero or the zero.

In 2008, I was probably the most interested I've ever been in politics. I listened to hours of Fox News Radio and tried hard to be a Republican. Until then, I had voted for a democrat in every election.For Clinton twice. Granted, I had no real horse in any of those races or even much knowledge of politics. My vote was really based on personality. I suppose folks have voted for people for worse reasons.

I always thought the Republican Party was for old people - like our parents - who cared about things like taxes. I also thought the Democratic Party was for the underdog, the little guy. I liked that.
Now I know there is a lot more to consider. Now I'm a parent too. Now I care about taxes. I guess that is part of the reason I felt compelled to vote Republican. It seemed like the grown up thing to do.

I even  went to a Sarah Palin rally. Boy, am I glad that she didn't get elected. She drives me crazy now. She seems to have become a caricature, and she has some really annoying habits - like speaking to reporters.

This year I can't get excited about Newt or Romney or any of them. So I'm thinking about sitting out and not voting at all. If I don't vote, it will be the first time since I was eligible to vote that I don't take advantage of it. I just don't see the point in placing a vote for someone I don't believe in. I don't even dislike any of them enough to vote against them.

As for political affiliations, I think I'll just stick to being an independent. That way I can vote for the best man. Or maybe someday, the best woman. Grace asked me recently why there wasn't ever a girl president. Good question. Maybe she'll finally get to vote for one someday.