Have I told you how Briscoe hates skateboarders? It might be one of the funnier things I’ve seen in a while. I think it is the noise that scares her. The dog needs a haircut like whoa. She’s going to get her hair did tomorrow, and I expect to have a little lamb by tomorrow night instead of the bear that is currently sleeping in my kitchen.  For some reason she has developed this ridiculous habit of spilling her food all over the floor.  It is like she picks up her bowl with her teeth and dumps it out, although I’m not sure that is actually possible.  But once the food it on the ground, she won’t eat it.  For a while, when I would come home to her spilled food, I would pick all the pieces up and put them back in the bowl.  Then I realized, wait, she’s a dog, if she wants to spill her food on the floor, she should eat the food off the flood.  So, I stopped cleaning it up, other than to turn the bowl back upright.  Sure enough, after leaving the food on the ground until late into the night, the dog finally decided she would eat it off the floor.  So, she’s started cleaning up the mess herself, but she’s still spilling the food. 

Something about summertime makes me want to lose myself in a story, preferably a long drawn out saga. Happily, HBO has provided that for me with The Game of Thrones, and even more happily, I am able to read the novels instead of waiting to see what happens in HBO time (which is painfully slow in my opinion). I enjoy the story, the show (and the novels for that matter) are quite gruesome and violent. I find reading about violent and gruesome things is easier than watching them play out on my unnecessarily large television. But I’m totally engrossed in the novels, each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view, and the author has mastered the ability to speak in each character’s voice in a way that is seemless but also adds a depth to the writing and storyline that is not immediately apparent. I would not recommend the books or the television series to everyone, there is a base element to it that not all will find endearing, crass talk of sexual encounters and horrible things happen to almost all of the characters. But even the villainous characters have redeeming qualities (well, some of them do) and the heros have flaws, and there is nothing I love more than a good story with round characters.

I spent the last two weeks of May in Washington, D.C., training for work. Let me tell you, two weeks is a LONG TIME to be in a hotel. I learned a lot, got to spend time with some old friends (sadly, the Bizzy was out of town the entire time I was there), and enjoyed some fabulous food and beautiful sights, but I was very happy to come home to my apartment and my dog. I did meet some super cool new friends though. My mom and my aunt Jan came to visit me in Charleston this past weekend, and boy did we have a good time. I wish I could tell you we did lots of productive things, but really more than anything, we simply enjoyed Charleston and each other. We wandered, we enjoyed drinks on the rooftop under the shade with a breeze, we ate phenomenal food, (as a side note, a merinague will always add to a dessert), we peered through hedges, gates and walls into the fabulous gardens and side yards of people we didn’t know but wish we did, we sweated, we watched little children play in fountains, and Kate and Jan rearranged the furniture in my apartment. We did not shop at all, other than a short trip to the grocery, and we spent most of our time outside. It was great.

Oh! So I want y’all to check out my cousin Heather’s blog - she has MS, and has an amazingly honest and refreshing perspective, including my favorite – Wheelchair Etiquette.

This morning her eye was much more matted, and upon closer inspection, swollen. So I called the vet to make sure they were open and to expect the fluffy puff shortly.

When I picked up her leash, Briscoe looked at me like a kid on Christmas morning and bolted for the door. She was so pumped. Once we got in the car she stuck her head out the window and soaked up the crisp autumn air. When we pulled up to the vet’s office, she started crying.

I took her inside, and stood at the counter. The girl behind the desk looked at me and said, ‘Just a minute,’ and looked behind me at a woman standing behind me.

The woman said, ‘I’m here to get Lucky.’

For some reason at 9 am this morning, the fact that this adult woman stated that she was at the vet to get Lucky struck me as absolutely hysterical. I almost lost it.

Then the girl handed her a box. Lucky was her deceased dog, who had been cremated and she was here to pick up his ashes. I was immediately not amused anymore.

Then I looked on the desk, and there was an identical box, but where the other said Lucky, this one said Justice. My mind heard, ‘I’m here for Justice!’

My heart heard that there is no Justice and nothing Lucky about the fact that our dogs won’t live as long as we do.

When they took Briscoe back and I had to leave she tried to leave with me and didn’t understand why I was abandoning her at such a scary place.

I’m trying to make it up to her. She doesn’t seem much worse for the wear.

Briscoe is asleep next to me, dreaming of something, because her legs twitch every few moments, like she is running in her sleep.  She and I went on a walk today and she has been very full of herself ever since. 

Sometimes, when I’m browsing facebook, and I notice that someone has something really uncool on their profile, like a guy who lists the notebook as one of his favorite movies or lists hootie and the blowfish as one of his favorite bands (you know, those guilty pleasure books, movies, bands that most people secretly like but pretend like they don’t) I immediately wonder – Is this person really cool and confident in themselves and really doesn’t give a damn that they still listen to the first Hanson album and loves the indigo girls? Or, is this person just dweebie enough to have no idea?  Does this make me a judgmental bitch?  Really, I know people in both categories.  Either is a distinct possibility. 

Oh, I was going to post about Serena Williams and Kanye.  But I’m too tired now and I can pretty much sum it up with three letters.  Boo.  Wait, here is a longer word – Unacceptable.  Childish, immature, and sort of scary.  I feel bad for Venus, she seems much less of a diva and much cooler of a person.  I can’t believe that Serena said that she didn’t understand why the line judge felt threatened.  Really?  Serena is what, like 6’3?  She’s a really large, imposing figure.  But you know who isn’t?  Kanye.  Taylor Swift towered over him.  Do you think that is why he took the mic away from her?  Because she’s 5’11 and had on heels and he’s 5’7? 

Honestly, I’m just always disappointed when super stars misbehave and try to intimidate those around them.  I don’t like it when you pick on the little line judge or the 17 year old county music singer when you are the most imposing female tennis player ever and one of the biggest icons in the music industry.  It seems, tacky.  But I do like the way Beyonce handled it.  She is classy.  

On a happier, lighter note, fall is here.  The mornings have become consistently cool and the fall smells are here.  The warm afternoon intensifies the tea olives and the late jasmine, gardenias and hydragas.  The damp humid, cooler mornings smell of oak bark, fallen leaves and wet grass.  I’ve been drinking a lot of starbucks.  Coffee is so much more enjoyable when it doesn’t make you sweat. 

Sweet dreams children, Briscoe has now rolled over on her back and is snoring with all four feet in the air.  I think I will join her.  It is much easier to count sheep when you have a live one laying at your feet.

I went to sleep early on Monday night, and Briscoe was upstairs with me.  Bo and Bella were downstairs in the kitchen.  All the sudden I hear a CRASH!  It sounded like the baby gate we use to keep the dogs in the kitchen had fallen down.  This happens on occassion and isn’t a big deal, since the dogs are deathy afraid of the gate and won’t climb over it.  The concerning part, was that there continued to be crashing and noise from downstairs.  Not in the kitchen.  When meant, something other than the two dogs I’d left downstairs was presently enjoying the classic decor of the living room. 

I called Travers, he said he’d be right there.  I called Matt, cause he was in the cottage, and he came over to help.  Briscoe was freaking out.  She ran into the living room and I watched in horror as she chased a squirrel up the plaster wall and onto the window scounce. 

Can you see his arm and leg?

Matt got close to the window, and the damn thing fell, bounced on his back on the table, leapt onto the piano, almost knocked over every breakable object in the house before hiding behind the china cabinet.  Smart animal.  Too heavy to move, too fragile to try. 

The dogs were so traumatized.  I had to physically carry Bella into the house and drag her into the kitchen.  She knew the squirrel was still there.  She knew.  Well, two days later, after chewing through a couple of electrical and cable cords, setting the alarm off and otherwise terrorizing the dogs, I came downstairs yesterday morning to find a dead squirrel on the rug in the living room.  Sweet.  Dead things.  Well, we all know I can’t pick up the squirrel or go near it, since the last time I tried to pick up a dead squirrel he wasn’t dead and bit me. 

The dogs had had enough of me forcing them to hang out inside with a squirrel, and flat refused to come inside yesterday morning, so I left them outside.  I put water under the house and made sure they couldn’t get out anywhere.  And I found the biggest spider I’ve ever seen.  I freaked out, got in touch with Josh (Josh is a professor and has his phd in forestry bugs – I saw his dissertation, the man knows his bugs), and anxiously awaited his instructions.  Josh said she won’t hurt me, that it’s what they call a banana spider, they are quite common and spin really pretty webs which they use to catch beetles (read – roaches) and mosquitoes.  He further recommended that I grab a few beetles and throw them in her nest, because she will attack them and spin them into a cocoon before she eats them and that it is “neat” to watch (his words, not mine).  Sweet.  It really made me miss him.  I told Josh I appreciated his expert opinion but that I would not be throwing any beetles anywhere.  I am really pumped that she eats mosquitoes and roaches, so I’ve decided to keep her as a pet.  I’ve named her Hermione and she has been watching the dogs for me while I’ve been at work.  She is the size of my fist and I swear I can lean on her web without it breaking.  It’s like fishing line. 

My life is so national geographic.   

Other happening of note, we had a successful last minute cook out last night, with lots of tomatoes, cheese, beer, hamburgers, chicken, and french fries.  It was a victory of effortless entertaining, low stress, high enjoyment, everyone left happy and full.   Thanks to Kate and Trav for going out of town. 

I have woken up the past few mornings to a chill in the air, which has made my coffee taste better and my over all personal happiness level improve.  My imagination immediately transports me to a morning where I am getting ready to get into a car to drive to Athens for a football game, instead of driving to the office.  Of course in that scenario I would be drinking a cold beer instead of hot coffee. 

But you know what today is don’t you?  GAME DAY!  I want everyone to be watching football tonight.  I hope that everyone has been watching the HBO series Hard Knocks, which is a reality show about the Cincinnati Bengal’s training camp.  I get really sad when anyone gets cut, it’s so depressing for the players to be woken up at 5 am and sent home.  But I really really really love Chad Ocho Cinco.  Love.  Child Please.  I could say it all day long.  Child.  Please.  child.  PLEASE.  child…please.  CHILD please. 

And I know I’m never suppose to say such a thing, but I’m going to say this once and only once.  This is for Ike and Peter and Matt and Claire and Darius (I love your music Darius).  Ahem.  Um.  Give me a second.  Deep Breathes.  DEEP.  Okay.  Here goes.  go cocks!

Well, regardless, I’m not around children a lot, and the children I am around are babies.  Now, when you get children that are a little older, you know the ones who are mobile and talk, part of me has a hard time not associating them with puppies, mostly because a lot of people talk to their kids like I talk to my dog.  Sit.  No.  Stop.  Come here. COME HERE RIGHT NOW!  I’m going to put you in time out.  STOP.  RIGHT NOW! 

When I can get over the fact that they aren’t puppies, I immediately revert to being a child myself and I want to tell them things I shouldn’t.  Like smart come backs to every day comments people make.  (That’s not funny.  It’s hilarious!)  I also have no idea what I’m not suppose to do around them.  I’m the person that gave you kid nine sugar cookies at the luncheon the other day.  Oh, he’s not suppose to have nine cookies?  He already had seven?  Oh, I didn’t know that, he left that part out.  He asked me for them so politely.  He’s not allowed to have Dr. Pepper either?  But he asked for it!  (this goes back to dogs, I don’t like it when people feed my dog people food, and I guess I should be more aware that people probably feel that way about their children, but I think of them as little people).  Part of this is that I want the kids to like me, and I don’t want to be the authority. 

The only way I know how to make kids act right is to play upon their need for acceptance and tell them that what they are doing isn’t cool and that cool people have more friends.  Like, it’s totally not cool to throw sand in your cousin’s eye.  I would think you were cooler if you didn’t do mean things like throw sand in people’s faces.  I’m sure there are much better techniques for getting children to act right.  I haven’t learned them yet. 

I like kids.  I really do.  And for the most part, kids tend to like me.  I think.

Last week I mentioned to Justin that I needed to borrow his lawnmower to cut my grass.  Brice let me borrow his lawnmower last time, but the Wright family was out of town and my lawn was really starting to thrive.  When I came home from work on Thursday, sweet Justin was at my house and had just finished mowing the lawn and edging and was about to roundup the walkway.  It was super, super nice of him. 

The rest of this story is pretty funny, so try to stay with me.  Libby was in town, so we went to the Thirsty Thursday baseball game and ended up coming back and sitting on the front porch for a little while before going to sleep.  Libby slept in the guest room downstairs, and was driving her dad’s car.  Libby would have normally stayed at her parents house, but she wanted to wake up and do P90X with Sara and Kirby on Friday morning at the crack of dawn (because they are XTREME) and Bryan’s flight got into the airport at like 8. 

Natalie was out on a narcotics raid in Harrisburg (I know that sounds hilarious, but she’s an ADA, and anyway, apparently it’s really fun to go on narcotic raids), so she didn’t get home until after we went to sleep.  I guess I had neglected to tell her that Libby might spend the night.  So I wake up in the morning and I have a text from natalie from 1 am that says, THERE IS SOMEONE IN OUR HOUSE.  And then by the time Natalie woke up on friday, Libby was already gone.  I felt really bad that I might have scared Natalie, but she swears she wasn’t freaked out, and once she saw libby’s toothbrush in the bathroom she figured it was okay. 

Ultimately the weirdest thing that has happened this week is that it has been cool outside.  Last night we went to dinner after tennis, and we left dinner, we were all cold.  Granted, we all had on our ridiculous looking tennis outfits, but still.  In Augusta, in July, you should be able to be in a bathing suit at any hour of the night and day and not be cold.  A wet bathing suit at that.  Normally it’s 90 degrees at midnight.  Recently, it hasn’t reached 90 degrees at 3 pm. 

Speaking of tennis, I’ve decided one of my favorite things about tennis is the fact that you get to wear ridiculous outfits that would be inappropriate anywhere else but are totally appropriate on the tennis court.  It is amazing how much I enjoy wearing tennis skirts.  My tennis shoes are a little clunky, but what can you do. 

The biggest problem of my life right now is that I can’t get up in the morning.  I would happily go to sleep at 9:30 at night if it meant I could wake up refreshed at 6:30.  But I can’t go to sleep at 9:30.  My body won’t let me.  And forget getting up at 6:30, I can barely drag myself out of bed at 7:30.  I  don’t lack will power in any other part of my life, I have a good bit of self control, and I work hard at life.  But I CAN NOT GET OUT OF BED.  It is a real problem.  My body wants to sleep from 2 am to 10 am, and not from 11 to 7.  Sigh.  Oh well.  I think I’ve been working out too late at night. 

Briscoe got her hair all shaved off last week, and she looks like a little lamb.  She also looks kind of fat.  It’s impossible to tell when she has long hair, but when she gets her hair all cut off, she seems to become a little self conscious of her figure.  Natalie made up a new song for Briscoe’s hair cut.  It goes something like this -

Bobby had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, Bobby had a little lamb who’s puffy, fluffy and white!

I can deal with a whole lot of things, and flying roaches are not on that list.  They make me die a little inside every time one gets close to me.  Which is unfortunate, since I come in close contact with them on a regular basis these days.  I have the Orkin man on speed dial and he told me today that it was a battle we were going to have to fight together.  They live outside, these are not the sort of roaches that inhabit the inside of your walls.  These are the kind of roaches who might fly off with your dog if you leave her in the backyard for too long. 

Although, I do have to say that these roaches have nothing on this sucker that lives in maggie’s parents pond.  I swear to the heat of the South Georgia summer that thing in the water is a giant catfish.  Who Maggie swears wants to eat her dog. 

This train of thought is going to spin off in two different directions – one – animals around here that want to eat your dog - over in Aiken they have collected 7 monster pythons – man-eating pythons as they are called – and placed them in a big pit to see how they survive.  Sweet.  This sounds like a HORRIBLE experiment.  Apparently a bunch of pet shops carried these man eating pythons in Florida back in the ’90s and a lot of the snakes escaped in the destruction of Hurricane Andrew.   (side note – Florida is like another country.  When you enter Florida on I-95 the big trucks have to go through a customs like check point.  How weird is that?)

A direct quote from the article -

While pythons don’t make a habit of attacking people and most aren’t large enough to eat a person, Gibbons called the possibility a “nightmare.”

“What about the first kitty cat they eat? Or the first little poodle? They’d love poodles, I imagine,” he said.

Mike Dorcas, a professor at Davidson College in North Carolina, has sliced open pythons in Florida to find the remains of white-tailed deer, bobcats and large birds.

Then this last part - 

Pythons are masters of disguise — slippery and quick — and all but one of the serpents was invisible within minutes of being deposited into the pit.

So counting pythons in the wild is a daunting task. Scientists don’t have an accurate estimate of how many pythons are in Florida.

“It’s certainly in the thousands, or tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands,” said Gibbons. 

The other train of thought is the safety of the fish you catch in the Central Savannah River Area.  I thought it was interesting that the parts of the river that do have advisories say – one meal per week.  Is that one fish per week?  Because, my meal is not the same as some other people’s meal.  Some people could eat four fish. 

So, we do a lot of quiet title actions around here, which is how you clear title to a piece of property that has been sold at a sheriff’s sale when the property taxes haven’t been paid.  Although quiet title actions do not normally involve any particularly complicated legal principles, the difficulty lies in finding all the people who have ever had a claim of title to the property and serving them, which often time includes adjacent land owners or the heirs of an estate.  Which means I spend a lot of time trying to find people and figuring out how to serve them in Jamaica, New York, or Erie, Indiana, or, as the case was today – Denver, Colorado. 

The process server I found in Denver is a fleet of bike couriers.  How cool is that?  This time my petition to quiet title is going to be delivered by bike!  This really made my day.  And the guy I talked to on the phone was so nice and friendly and it made me really wish I was in Colorado.  I got really Colorado Home Sick.  Or maybe I’m just, IT IS REALLY HOT HERE SICK. 

Last night at tennis clinic I got to play singles with Jane.  AGGHH.  I LOVE singles.  I love singles so much more than doubles.  In doubles I feel like I’m in the way, or the wrong place, or I should have made that shot because I’m letting my partner down.  In singles, I know where I’m suppose to be the whole time.  Maybe I’m not always there, but the knowing is much more instinctive.  It’s been so much fun getting back into a sport.  I haven’t played a game in a really long time and I didn’t even know how much I missed it. 

Briscoe has been sleeping in the new big bed with me recently and every morning I wake up I feel the need to grab her toe and sing to her about catching a tiger by the toe.  She fails to see the humor and normally either tries to bite me or kick me.

But anyway, May is suppose to mean HOT.  And I can’t talk about being in Colorado all summer because having a real job makes that sort of thing a lot more difficult. 

I was so productive on Sunday, got my life together for the week, laundry, grocery, cooked some food, cleaned my house, went to the movies.  Natalie and Bucket moved in!  Hooray!

Then Monday night I discovered that the large bottle of Palmolive under my sink had been turned over and spilled.  I pulled everything from under the sink and cleaned it all up.  Soap is surprisingly difficult to clean up.  Well, I didn’t get all the soap out from under my finger nails, and I put my finger in my eye, and I got soap ALL IN MY EYE.  AGGGHHHH.  It freaking hurt like the devil.  I flushed my eye with water for what seemed like forever.  Still didn’t get it all.  I HATE flushing my eye out with water.  It hurt almost as much as the soap.  I’m a MORON.  A moron.  Just when I was starting to feel like I had my life together. 

Last night Travers stole some wood from Kate and Trav and we had a little fire in my little fire pit in the back yard.  It was nice, although the wind was gusting (I love the word GUST) and every once in a while you would feel like the fire just might get you.  When Briscoe and I were about to go to sleep last night I kissed her on the nose and realized that all her fur smelled like smoke.  So hilarious.  Bucket’s fur also smelled like smoke.  I’m going to start calling them Smokey and the Bandit.  Their current alter egos are Biscuit and Bobby, to which they are starting to respond. 

I had a magistrate court trial yesterday, and although I think I got my point across well, I laid in bed last night and thought of all the small procedural mistakes I made.  The defendant was pro se, and I almost felt like how when you play a sport against someone who sucks – like tennis – you play like crap, but if you play against someone better than you – you play up to their level.  I feel like I played down to this guy’s level.  Hopefully I’m learning. 

I was driving my car at lunch and I was for some reason dumb struck by how cool driving a car is.  You’ve got this wheel, and you can spin it around, and when you spin it around, the ENTIRE SUPER HEAVY car moves.  At the flick of your wrist.  How cool is that?  It’s amazing how I drive a car every day and never think about how awesome driving can be. 

I made Kate (the runner) cupcakes last night because it is her birthday.  And I BURNED them.  I’m so embarrassed and horrified.  I really never burn things.  Ever.  Not baked goods at least.  I guess I haven’t ever baked in my new gas oven before.  It was really hard.  I’m concerned.  Not only did they burn, it was just the bottom of them.  Ugh.  I’m going to have to practice practice practice and get better before Christmas rolls around.  Britt’s mom has promised to teach me how to make cinnamon buns this Christmas, btw.    

It has been such a pretty day.  I hope it doesn’t cloud up before I can go home!  I want to go play outside.

I was in a huge rush, and the dogs were being absolutely ridiculous in the backyard, so I threw them both a rawhide, put their water outside, and left them in the fog. 

Work was a little hectic, and I was busy, so I didn’t really think much about what was going on outside, other than to observe that it was still foggy.  Around 11:45 I checked the weather again, and it said – Light Rain.  And I got a little concerned. 

I looked out the window, and realized that although the rain was very light, it had been falling for a long time.  Which meant the dogs had been playing in the rain for hours.  Um.  I’m an idiot. 

I rushed home, to find two very wet, very muddy, VERY happy puppies.  Briscoe was a dark brown color and the white parts of Grayson were no longer visible.  And they were SOAKING.  I changed out of my work clothes, dragged them both through the house to my bathroom as quickly as possible, and gave them both a bath.  They both have winter haircuts, which basically means they have four to five times more hair now than they do in the summer.  It is amazing how much water their coats can hold.  And every bit of it was sopping with dirt.  It was a river of mud in the bathtub, and they were both ticked that I cut short their fun play time to give them the dreaded bath. 

After the baths, I had to wash the seventeen towels that were necessary in this task, and scrub muddy puppy paw prints off the floor of the kitchen and the rest of the house.  If you don’t wash dogs, you might not know this, but leaning over to wash two dogs does something painful to my hamstrings, and causes them to tremble, for hours.   I threw my work clothes back and rushed back to work.  Needless to say my hair left something to be desired on a professional standard yesterday afternoon. 

Since this was not the relaxing lunch I had been looking forward to, the rest of my afternoon was a blur.  I guess you could say a Foggy blur.  Cause, it’s still foggy, even today. 

But I did go to the trouble to go to the grocery so I could make soup last night.  Soup is awesome, cause you cook everything in the same pot and then put that pot in the fridge, and there is nothing to wash!  I can’t tell you how happy I was to sit on the couch last night with a glass of red wine  and two clean puppies, while my soup simmered and I watched all the television my DVR had saved for me.  It almost made me appreciate the almost disastrous day.  As I scratched Grayson’s ear, I realized he was still wet from his bath, but I let him stay on the couch anyway. 

Sigh.  And now it’s Tuesday.