I swear to GOD that if my dogs don't drive me batshit crazy it's a fucking Christmas miracle.
Hey- around here you stay in bed until dusk, waiting for the other person to get up first because whoever gets up first is greeted by all the damn dog poop in whichever room the dogs have decided to use as their personal toilet. Don't we all just want to clean up dog shit as our first act on a Sunday morning? And oh yes, piss too.
Don't we? Don't we all just wish with all our hearts that we could get up and brush our teeth and pull on our overalls and cashmere of the day and then go clean up dog shit? And piss?
It's like a fucking dream come true. The scent of poop, Fabuloso and white vinegar.
Then they want out. Then they want in. Then they want out. Then they want in.
Then they bark. And want out.
Okay. That's enough of that.
Yeah, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. Mr. Moon put the tree up yesterday and draped it with two vastly mismatching strings of lights. It's done as far as I'm concerned. It smells real nice. It's in the Glen Den so there are deer heads peeking around it. I find that very seasonal. Don't you?
Just lovely. Just like the winter woods. Just like...oh hell, you know. A fucking Christmas card.
Which I have not written one of yet. Not one. Nope. No cards, no presents for anyone but the family, no baking. And of course the dogs ate the cookies and treats one of my friends in the play brought for us on Thursday night. Those calories will not be settling around MY hips! And does chocolate kill dogs?
I wish!
It didn't even give them diarrhea, and for that, my friends, I am eternally grateful.
Sorbitol, it would appear, does give certain sensitive individuals gastric problems though. I am not going to name any names but Mr. Moon will never again buy No-Sugar-Added orange sherbet. He had a terrible night.
I wouldn't touch that stuff. I mean, I like sherbet fine but No-Sugar-Added? No way.
Bless his heart.
So it's Sunday morning and all I'm doing here is talking about poop and Sorbitol and deer heads and okay, here's something else:
No. That is not lichen or moss. It is a tiny frog. I think he came in on the Christmas tree. He's probably some sort of frog from Wisconsin or somewhere. I hope it's not a pregnant female who will introduce thousands of tiny non-native frogs to North Florida which will result in some sort of environmental catastrophe because after we took his picture, we set him free outside. Probably should have squished the poor little thing but we did not.Ah, something ate him anyway, I'll bet.
I was talking on the phone to Kathleen this morning and I heard a huge fuss involving chickens. I sent Mr. Moon out to check and the next thing I know I see a hawk the size of a Volkswagen taking off from the ground, screaming his displeasure at being interrupted in his hunt for the perfect Christmas Chicken dinner. His mate was screaming up in the sky so I assume she was pissed off too. She probably already had the pot boiling.
Kathleen, in case you haven't heard, fought off a possum the size of a Cadillac a few mornings ago who had one of her chickens in its jaws!
She is a brave woman. The chicken lived and laid an egg in her bathtub. After she made the chicken slow-cooked steel-cut oats with grapes in them. Now THAT is a woman! I real chicken-tendin' woman! My hat is off to her.
But yes, it's a life fraught with danger around here for chickens. I suppose it is everywhere. Everything alive likes to eat chickens from wolves to foxes to coyotes to dogs to owls to hawks to bob cats to possums to raccoons to baby humans who love to gnaw on their yummy fried legs.
So what else do I have to report on this lovely, gloomy, poop-filled Sunday morning before Christmas?
Not much. To continue on with our shit-theme, I need to clean out the chicken house of the poopy straw and replace it with clean. Chickens actually poop a great deal. For some reason though, chicken poop does not offend me very much. It's a nicer poop than dog poop. At least in the relatively small amount in my hen house. I mean, if I had a chicken house the size of a Stretch Limo (I'm just carrying through with my themes here, people), it would be a different matter.
So. Okay. Sunday. I've made the breakfast and washed the dishes. The kitchen is tidy.
No obvious poop but believe me- the mice have been having a party so it's there. You just can't see it. And for those of you who gag at the thought of rodents in the house, let me say this- YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO! I need either a pet snake, a bunch of cats or a hundred or so traps.I can't put down poison and even traps are iffy with the baby and the dogs, although poisoning the dogs might just be a solution to my problem.
And the dogs would eat the cats and a snake would scare me to death every time I opened a cabinet. Which is worse? Mice in the drawers or a snake coiled up on top of the stove?
Mmmmm....
I'll have to ponder that.
Meanwhile, Merry Christmas. Happy Sunday.
Nature is a beautiful thing and I celebrate it. Yes, I do.
Just not when it comes out the back end of my dogs or rodents and not when it involves birds of prey preying on my beloved hens.
God, I wish Rick's Oyster Bar was still open. Well. It's not. And neither is Posey's, the best, most down-home, tilted-floors, redneck, biker-bar, great, over-the-water oyster bar ever in creation in the Universe.
It's a wonder I ever get through a Sunday any more at all without Rick's or Posey's.
Life goes on.
Shit happens.
Clean it up.
Chase the hawks.
Clean the chicken coop.
Learn your lines.
Stay in bed as long as possible whenever possible.
And if want to smile and if you want to see Bruce and The E-Street band back when they were all stringy muscle and snaky hips and glorious, goofy grins and fine, fine New Jersey noses, (well, except for Clarance who was a mountain of a man even then with biceps the size of Hummers) AND get a seasonal feeling right where it counts (in the groin, of course), check this out.
Who loves ya, baby?
I do.
Ms. Moon, Proprietress of the Church of the Batshit Crazy
At Your Service, Now and Forever.
