Drag Queen

When people find out I was a preschool teacher, I become the go-to babysitter for all kinds of things.

"Will you watch my house?" 

"Of course."  I guess chasing ten little imps around for three hours a day makes me trustworthy.  It is great fun to see other people's decorating taste.  I have only one question-Why a deer head in the dining room?  I don't want a head watching me devour the rest of his body.

Then there's the, "Can you watch my dog?"

This is a little more up my alley.  Dogs.  Kids.  They are basically the same.  Give orders.  Feed on a regular basis.  Clean up poop.  No problem.

I watched my cousin's dog for a weekend.  He ran off on walks.  Ran around the property without supervision.  Slept outside in his kennel.  He was like having a teenager.

My Uncle's dog stayed with me for two months.  (My 95 year old uncle, who lives alone, was recovering from a broken leg.  He is now fine and back out on the farm.)  She could make pitiful eyes like my preschoolers.  Her ears needed scratching every day.  We walked every day. (  Yes, even when it was 3 below zero.  I froze my nose off.  Don't know why it couldn't have been some of my butt.)  The dog demanded people food with those eyes.  Doug had to share his spaghetti.  He hasn't forgiven me yet. 

In San Diego I had an exceptional student, Julia.  We have known her family for about twenty years.  She was the apple of my eye.  (I once asked her if she knew how to blow her nose. As I was grabbing a tissue for her, she replied "Yea."  Snot was snorted in a three foot radius.) 

I understood why her father, J.R., asked me to babysit his new baby.  (Sorry, Julia, you are no longer your Daddy's baby.  But I will still claim you.)  I am responsible, quiet, and trustworthy.  He left me with his candy red '68 convertible Camaro.  It must be exercised every week.  Gotta blow all the junk out of the carburetor you know.  It can go from zero to seventy in 3.2 seconds.  This baby beats all the sports cars in the neighboring towns.

The Camaro will only be with me for two more years.  I should be able to claim the unofficial drag racing queen trophy by then.  Thanks J.R. for making me famous.

Hide and Seek

Mother nature has a sick sense of humor.  I'm not sure I appreciate it.

I awoke early on April 1st.  April Fools Day is my favorite day of the year.  It's the only day I can trick anyone and everyone and not get back lash from it.  I yanked open the dining room blinds and was promptly blinded.  Stark white snow covered every inch of the ground. My butt hit the chair as my mouth dropped open.  I know Mother Nature was watching and laughing hysterically.

Now I love winter and snow.  But this has been a long cold winter for this southern girl.  I took a few deep breaths and thought, "Mother Nature I can roll with this."  I pulled on my snow pants and parka and headed outside to snap some pictures. 

Signs of spring were appearing everywhere.  The plump robins had returned to search for worms.   Tulips were starting to push their green leaves through the frozen winter soil.  I could hunker down and survive a couple more days of winter.  After all I had an extended vacation planned  in sunny southern California.

The flannel sheets were striped off the bed to be replaced with cool silky summer sheets.  Snow pants and parkas were laundered and folded away in the trunk.  Light weight jackets and wind breakers were hung in the closet with care.  Tea bags were replaced with instant tea.  I dumped the stale ice that had been lounging in the ice maker since September.  By the time I got home from California the ice would be fresh for sun tea and warm weather would flood every crevice of my life.

Seventeen days later I returned home to warmer weather.  We hauled Doug's precious lawn mower in for the annual exam.  I scaled the ladder and spent a week pruning our six apple trees.  Doug began the laborious task of deweeding some of the flower and vegetable beds.  (He has to get in there before me to desnake it too!)

Then it happened.

May first, forty two days after the first official day of spring, it snowed!  It snowed five inches!  Being the neat and orderly people that we are, we had put the snow shovels in hibernation in the potting shed.  The snow kindly drifted on the potting shed door so we couldn't open it.  This was not a light, fluffy worthless snow.  It was wet and heavy and good for making snowmen snow.  But it was spring.  Not time for making snowmen.  

My tulips had bloomed and were snow covered.  The asparagus and rhubarb that were popping back to life had to have a blanket.  We bailed our mower out of the lawn mower doctor store, but we couldn't help all the other mowers sitting outside in the snow waiting for a home. 

"Alle alle achts und frei!"  Mother Nature please bring spring out of hiding!