I'm just sayin' ...

Okay, so my previous post was unfounded. It did make for a funny story though, so I left it posted with follow-up note explaining the situation.

As most of you know, I have trodden a well-worn path to the snopes.com site. I live in fear of spreading false rumours by invading every inbox I have access to with a story that is simply just not true. It's just a thing with me. I don't know if this fear can be attributed to my honest God-fearing character who wants to stand up for truth and justice or if I simply hate being wrong.

Somehow, we've come to accept "saying" things in cyberspace that we wouldn't possibly dream of voicing in words and actions. Imagine the following scenes:

Would you meet me at Save-On Foods if I phoned you up one day to give you a special once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get wealthy. If I told you that Jimmy Pattison (I don't even know if he still owns SaveOn so don't get excited) was standing in the parking lot and every time someone returned their cart to the shopping cart parking garage, not only would you get your quarter back, Jimmy Pattison would give you a dollar for every shopping cart in the garage. Imagine if you could get everyone you know to participate- that's a lot of dollars being passed around for free. It can't hurt anything, let's meet in the parking lot and take a cart back, just in case. This scene is about as likely to happen as Bill Gates giving you 10 cents for every person you spam an email to.

Imagine if I went and knocked on the door my neighbour asking for help finding my grandson, who lives 6 doors down from me because he climbed out his bedroom window in the night and most certainly must be wandering the streets in his bare feet and packing his kitten. Do you think perhaps they'd question the validity of a 13-month-old climbing out a window and "wandering" anywhere before they began pounding on doors getting everyone they know involved in an unfounded search?

How serious would you take a pastor announcing that each member of the church has to distribute a flyer expressing love and hope to every person they know within the following seven days, because if they don't take the time to do it, then God surely won't take the time to hear their prayers from this day forward. AND 27 bad things will happen to you in the following week.

I don't know exactly what God meant when He said in Prov 12:22-23 The Lord detests lying lips, but He delights in men who are truthful; A prudent man keeps his knowledge to himself but the heart of fools blurts out folly.

In his scripture he included 1Tim 5:13 They get in the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to.

Frankly, I don't think God really knew about the internet and email back then, so surely it is exempt.

Now don't take this personally. I'm just sayin'...

I caught me a leprechaun.

This is a true story.

And while I do not personally know the characters and I heard the story third or fourth hand, it's far too hilarious not to share. I mighta made up the guy's name too, but the story is true.

Jimmy has Down's Syndrome. He's a large young adult who, though unable to hold a job, is capable of staying home during the day while his mother teaches at a local school. He knows the rules: do not phone mom at work unless there is an emergency.

One day last week, just after St Patrick's Day, mom's cellphone rang in her class.

"Mom!" she heard when she answered, "You have to come home. I caught me a leprechaun!"

Mom did her best to settle Jimmy down and explain that all would be fine until she got home after school.

But after the third or fourth call in a very short time exclaiming that she really did have to come home cuz, "I caught me a leprechaun!" mom decided she'd better abandon her class and make the quick trip home to settle Jimmy down.

Jimmy met his mother at the door. "Come quick to my room, Mom. I caught me a leprechaun!"

Once inside the bedroom, Mom quickly realized Jimmy had obviously captured his leprechaun in the closet, as he had it all barricaded off with his dresser and anything else heavy he could find.

Jimmy could barely contain his excitement as he danced up and down while Mom set to moving the dresser and other items away from the closet door.

Mom opened the door and there, hunkered in the corner of the closet, was a dwarf who will from this day forward, think twice about going door-to-door selling his religion or anything else for that matter.



******UPDATE******
Within minutes of writing this post the hits on my blog tripled - many visits coming directly from Google with people searching for various forms of "leprechaun, downs syndrome, closet". Naturally this raised my suspicions as to whether the story was indeed factual. I did a Snopes research and alas there is no proof it's true. However it's still funny, so I won't remove it.

Whining about the wine.

Our anniversary was a few weeks ago. My husband and I are coming to that time in life where we need nothing, and anything we want is far too ridiculously expensive to justify as an anniversary or birthday present. And so rather than accumulate more stuff, gifts are best when they are consumables.

And so, for our 28th anniversary my husband received from me 3 bottles of wine. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm always on the lookout for wine with interesting names or labels. The only requirements: It must be red. It must be less than 20 bucks.

Occasionally, even though we don't usually drink white, I splurge and get one if it has a real cool name or label like Cat's Pee on a Gooseberry Bush (thanks to Kore for that recommendation)

Here's what Alb got for our anniversary:

The note attached read "You are still my first love (primo amore) even though somehow your virgin has turned into a bitch."

Well, this was all fine and funny until he put the bottles away in the cabinet and returned looking rather strange. I'm not sure if it was relief or fear I saw. But I had some explaining to do when he discovered the bottle of white I had also added to the cabinet that day:

I hereby do solemnly swear...

Here I am.

It amazes me still that I get an average 30 or so readers at my blog each day. Especially so, since I've really dropped the ball in recent months. But I plan to make a comeback.

Here's the story: my computer is located in the geographical center of my home. I find it difficult to write or stay focused if there is anything going on at home. I love a nice quiet evening where I hear nothing but the tapping of my keyboard and the clicking of the ultra-loud-$5.99-clock from Walmart that hangs on the wall behind me. These times have been rare indeed in the past year. But all that changed about a week ago.

A week?? You exclaim. A week of quiet evenings has gone by and I've yet to blog??

Well yeah. The other requirement for writing is that I have to feel a little bit humorous as well. I don't want to come across as simply complaining as I broadcast the events of my life across the vast expanse of cyber space. I strive to be entertaining and complaining. And this past week I have been really quite sick and not at all entertaining.

But alas here's my new resolve: I do hereby solemnly swear to blog at least 7 times a month.

C'mon quite your whining. Seven is enough. I don't think I've blogged 7 times yet this year. And 7 times a month is every 4 or 5 days - something we both can live with.

I want my own exoskeleton.

Can a person be allergic to their own sweat?

This question has come in to the forefront of my mind in recent weeks. I'm having hot flashes and night sweats, but I can deal with them. However, when they are followed up by insane itching I simply want to create an exoskeleton by crawling out of my own skin like a snake or a crab.

A few weeks ago I had the thought maybe I was having a reaction to all the medications I'm taking. I'd run out of my blood pressure meds so I quit taking all my pills cold turkey. Smart? No. Successful? No.

Last night I flicked on the TV in the midst of a Menopause seminar on PBS just as a woman was talking about itchy and "crawly" skin. Huh? How can I have been researching Menopause and hysterectomies for a year and not have known this side effect? Perhaps I read about it and didn't take it seriously because it sounds insignificant compared to talk of hot flashes, sex drive, osteoporosis and depression. Insignificant it is not.

I barely took time to start the coffee pot before I was Googling this morning. Sure enough, there's lots of info on it. Who knew. (Possibly my doctor, but I avoid him when I can.)

My blood pressure is up again and I really need to resume my Tamoxifen regime so I phoned to make an appointment with my dreaded replacement doctor. I really don't like him but there are no options at this point. The few doctors who are taking patients certainly won't take one who already has a family physician.

"The doctor is away until tomorrow, and consequently he's really booked until next week. Do you have more than a week's pills left?" the nurse asks me.

"Uh, no but..." I start to explain that waiting another week will probably be fine since I haven't taken them for at least 6 to 8 weeks now.

She cut me off in mid sentence, "Well then I'll get you squeezed in. How about Friday?"

"Yeah, Friday will be good." I'll try not to die before then and blame it on my overbooked doctor if I do.

There was none other quite like her.

I am not an animal lover. Truth be told, I'm really quite afraid of dogs - even ones I know.

In the early nineties we decided once Ryder, our golden retriever, was gone that we would remain dogless and put up with the cat only because she was a very good cat who required little maintenance, and she was much more lovable than the mice that are inevitable when you live on acreage.

Then came Jed.

Our special needs son has always had items of obsession. Over the years the objects of his obsession will change and vary, and have included things like flashlights, calendars, uniforms of any sort, West Jet, paper (flyers, newspaper, catalogs) bears and the Colorado Avalanche.

From birth to teen years his list of favourite items always included dogs and policemen. When he was 8 years old we decided maybe having the responsibility of caring for his own dog (a real one, not just his collection of 327 stuffies that all had names, family groupings and he slept with and all smelled like pee) he would somehow mature and become grown up.

And so began the quest for a new dog for the Ziemer household to become Jed's ninth birthday present. He knew exactly what he wanted: a male German Shepard police dog. He'd name him Sergeant.

I knew exactly what he was getting: a female, small house dog mutt (interpret that 'cheap or free')

Shortly before Jed's birthday I saw an ad for puppies for 50 bucks. They had 3 males and 1 female. I bought the female sight unseen and met the woman at Tim Hortons the next afternoon. As did 3 other prospective owners. One of the other new owners begged me to trade her so she could have the all black female I held tightly in my arms. "Nope," said I.

Jed loved his puppy dearly and named her Sergeant just as planned. He never did understand why his dog didn't grow into a large police dog that lifted its leg to piss on everything. But he loved her just the same. And so did all who met her.

Right from the beginning she was a naturally docile, well behaved and easily trained dog. However she wasn't much of a nurturing mother and after 2 batches of puppies we quit playing that game and had her spayed.

On Tuesday, March 2, 2010, a couple of months short of her 15th birthday, Sergeant, who's shiny black coat had turned to a dull gray, went to puppy heaven after breathing, walking and bladder control just became too much for her to handle. We loved her and she will be missed.

Part of Jed's dealing with the stress of having his dog put down had him visit the SPCA that day. As he quietly sauntered home, our Portuguese next door neighbour stopped him to ask how he was doing.

"Not so good," was Jed's reply. "I had to get my dog euthanized today."

"Oh, but that's a good thing!" was the enthusiastic response of the neighbour.

The next day the neighbour called to apologize to Albert after his sister explained to him that "euthanizing" is significantly different than "neutering."




Goodbye Old Girl, thank you for all the love you brought to our family.