Emails To Opie

In case anyone is wondering how my day's going...and why Opie considers himself the luckiest man in the world, here's a copy of the email I sent him this morning after calling AAA to jump start my Miata.

The car has been started.

"Wow," you might be saying to yourself, "that took a lot longer than usual."

You're right, it did....it has been one of the most frustrating days of my life.

Here's what happened:

The guy got here 20 mins or so after I called. I went out, got in the car, and only then realized I had the wrong key.

"Half a second!" I yelled and dashed back in the house.

And then spent a frantic ten minutes running around the house, trying to remember every curse word I've ever heard, as I threw things around in a desperate search for the correct key.

A desperate yet futile search.

I will not give you the full details of the tantrum that accompanied this key catastrophe but it's possible that Bubba will be spending the rest of the day under the bed.

So, the guy had to leave for his next appointment, I had to take Sassy to the groomers...and lo and behold, when I got home, the key was right on the coffee table.

We might need a security system because I think it's fairly obvious that someone broke in, hid the key, waited for me to leave, and then put the key back in order to mess with me

So I called AAA back, explained the situation and they agreed to send the guy back. I asked them how many times I could call with the same problem in the same day before they flagged my account but the operator didn't think I was funny AT ALL.

"We're always happy to help," she said in all seriousness.

In any case, please note that I  am only sharing this story to prevent the epic meltdown that would occur should you happen to ask "How did it go with AAA?" tonight.

Please also note that you might be feeling inspired to say something like "this is why I always tell you to put your keys in a specific place" or "There might be a lesson in this."

This would be an unwise choice of conversation starters.

EXTREMELY UNWISE!!!!

These situations are not remedied with advice, no matter how well-meaning. These are situations best remedied with vodka and Girl Scout cookies.

Heading out to get a new battery in a few minutes. However, if anything else goes wrong with the battery or car or ANYTHING, it's entirely possible that the next time you see me, it will be on the 6:00 news underneath the tag line "Local woman goes on murderous rampage."

Love you!

Some of you might think "Well, at least your day couldn't get any worse." You, however, would be wrong.  This was only ROUND ONE of the car drama and the first email of the day....stay tuned!


**UPDATE** To read Round Two of the most frustrating day ever, click here.

Wordless Wednesday

Fences, Fur-Babies and Future Felonies

If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you may remember a little incident Opie likes to call Turtle Gate 2013.  If you're new to this blog, no worries, you can read about it here or I can sum up it up in a couple of sentences:

The neighbor kids found a turtle. I freaked out.

In any case, I think poor Opie is longing for the carefree days of Turtle Gate because this week things with the neighbors took an epic turn for the worse.

Tuesday night the neighbors got a dog.

Which probably doesn't seem that dramatic to most of you. I mean lots of people get dogs. Opie and I have two dogs. And considering this is Oklahoma some of you might think I should be relieved that it’s just a dog and not a tiger.

It is interesting to note that my previous comment is not an exaggeration. Friends of ours who live a little further out in the country have a neighbor who has a lion.

A LION!

But I digress...

The point here is, our neighbors got a dog.

There are many reasons this is a problem.

First, these are people who can't be trusted to keep a turtle alive.

Second, I have no idea where they're going to stuff a dog into their house. It's the same size as ours (two or three bedrooms) and it's already occupied by at least eight people:

The woman who owns the house,  her daughter, the daughter's new boyfriend, four of the daughter's five children, and upon occasion, the oldest child's little boy.

Seriously, it's a little crowded over there.

Now don't get me wrong, I think it’s great for kids to have pets. 

But I also love dogs…so much so, in fact, that Opie is probably the only thing keeping me from being the subject of a really horrifying Animal Hoarders episode.

And these are people who are not good with dogs. The kids and their friends tease our dogs through the chain link fence to the point that before I let Bubba and Sassy out in our yard, I go out on the porch and do a quick reconnaissance to make sure the neighbor kids are inside.

And I know some of you are thinking “Well, now that they have a dog of their own, they’ll learn how to act around dogs.”

This is a great theory but completely unsupported by history. You see, the neighbors have already had three other dogs in the last ten years, all of which they have had to get rid of because the dogs started exhibiting behavior problems and couldn't be controlled anymore.  The last one attacked one of the girls and bit her in the face.

So, I don’t think this poor 4th dog is going to fare any better.  Especially since, in light of their history of animal control, they made the questionable decision to get a Bullmastiff.

(This isn't their actual dog, this is what it will look like when it's fully grown.
 And I'm not violating copyright, it was labeled for free use on Wikicommons)

A fact poor Opie became aware of when I stormed in the house screaming “Bullmastiff!” at the top of my lungs.

And then I spent a really entertaining hour looking up Bullmastiffs on the internet and yelling out interesting tidbits at random intervals.

“130 pounds! That dog’s going to weigh more than I do!” and “Needs a firm master who is consistent with the rules!  The only thing that's consist over there is the police presence!”

Not an exaggeration, by the way. The police have been frequent visitors next door. The last time they came, there were not one, not two, not even three, four or five, but SIX police cars on the scene.

“Aggressive toward other animals if not properly socialized!”

“Any dog can be aggressive,” Opie pointed out. “It’s all about the owners.”

“That,” I agreed “is the whole problem: the owners.”

Because I have nothing against Bullmastiffs; they are beautiful dogs and from what I've read, incredibly loyal and usually very sweet. And I'm not against people owning big dogs.   Our Bubba is half Rottweiler and he’s a sweetheart (unless you're the Tru-Green guy). One of our neighbors has a Pit Bull and another has a Doberman. Those dogs are huge yet I still have no problem with them because they’re clearly WELL-TRAINED.

In any case, you might still think this is none of my business, but here's why you're wrong. This, my friends, is the neighbors' fence:

They have since stuffed a pink Halloween pumpkin in between the missing boards but that fallen over wagon wouldn’t even keep my six-pound Maltese in the yard.

"We're getting a new fence!" I screamed at Opie. "We need to replace our chain-link fence with a huge privacy fence that their untrained monster of a dog won't be able to get over!"

Opie calls this kind of announcement "over-reacting" (although usually not out loud) so he sighed and said, “They get a dog and we need a new fence? Why don't we wait to see if there's a problem before you get all worked up?"

“I'm already worked up!" I told him. “And we need a new fence because you don't want to be here the day their dog breaks through their piece of shit excuse for a fence and hurts one of my dogs! You don't want to be here that day because that's the day I'll be going to PRISON!"

And he allowed as how he thought that, in a physical fight with the mob next door, I was much more likely to end up in the hospital.

Which just goes to show you that he has no appreciation for my Ninja skills and cat-like quickness.

“Besides,” I continued. “We don't need to get a privacy fence around the whole yard, just that side.”

We can't only do the one side,” he said in genuine horror. “It’ll look like we're just trying to block them.”

“We are just trying to block them. I've wanted to block them since the day I moved in.”

“It's obnoxious.”

“THEY'RE obnoxious.”

We continued in this vein for awhile but the long and the short of it is, Toby the Handyman came over yesterday, took some measurements and is going to give us a bid for a fence—actually he’s giving us two bids: one for a fence between us and the one side and one for the whole yard because I suspect that Opie is going to put his foot down on this one.

And as soon as it’s finished, I can stop worrying about my dogs and go back to worrying about the neighbor kids themselves and worrying about the welfare of this poor little puppy who is absolutely adorable and deserves a good home.

“Brace yourself,” I told Opie “and start planning because if they start mistreating that dog we might have to, you know, rescue and re-home it.”

“We are NOT stealing the neighbors’ dog,” he said.

“Not if they take care of it,” I agreed.

But I'm not going to lie, I'd kind of like to know how much they paid for the dog so I know if I'll be looking at a misdemeanor or a felony. 

No One Said The Road To National Geographic Was Going To Be Easy

You know what's NOT relaxing?

When you're hiking along, honing your photojournalism skills, your trusty assistant at your side, carrying all the things he insisted you didn't really need to bring...

Yes, that is my camera case, binoculars, and jacket.
And no, I couldn't carry them myself because I had
to walk around with my camera at the ready.

...taking pictures of beautiful butterflies...

Ok, that's a moth but butterfly sounds prettier.

...and birds...

Does anyone know what kind of bird this is?
I'm a photographer not an ornithologist so
 I have no clue, I just thought it looked cool.

when you see a huge bird diving...

...and another one swooping...

and you run after them wildly, sure that you have come across a bevy of eagles, ignoring your trusty assistant's assurances that eagles don't nest in this area.

And you realize that they aren't eagles at all.

They're VULTURES.

Which means that, in light of all the swooping and diving and the sheer number of the creatures in the trees, you're pretty close to something DEAD.

That, my friends, is NOT relaxing at all.

Photos, Frost and Flowers

I think Opie’s favorite part of our recent hikes is the way I seamlessly blend culture and nature, thus adding education and intellectual enlightenment to his days.

This is especially true when we are hiking early Saturday morning after a lengthy celebration at our favorite pub, George’s.

Like last Saturday when we hiked Turkey Mountain. We got up early (one of us under duress and protesting weakly) and headed over to this urban wilderness area in South Tulsa.

“Which way do you think we should go?” He asked. 

“I, I take the road less travelled by,”  I  said. And when he just stared at me, I assured him “It’ll make all the difference.”

Oddly, he doesn’t seem to find this illuminating at all.

It also didn’t seem to be helpful when I said “I’m sorry we can’t take them both, I’ll just look down this one as far as I can, to where it bends in the undergrowth.”

“What are you talking about?” He asked.

“You know you read these Robert Frost poems in school!” I shouted.

“I was a computer major.” He said.

“High school, you should have read them in high school!”

“I didn’t,” he assured me.

But I was pretty sure he had and just didn’t remember…probably he only needed a few more notable lines thrown his way to jog his memory and open his mind.

“And make us happing in the darting bird, that suddenly above the bees is heard.”

“I can’t hear you,” he said then but I’m pretty sure this was a lie. So I tried again. “Nature’s first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold.  Her early leaf a flower but only so an hour.” And that didn’t seem to ring any bells either.

 “Oh my Ponyboy Curtis!” I said. “I know you read The Outsiders!”

“I saw the movie,” he said and that’s when I knew he was messing with me because we have the same strong feelings about reading books before watching movies based on them.

“Should we start back?” He asked.

And I tried to explain that we still had miles to go before we sleep, miles to go before we sleep…

…but I guess I was wrong.

The Great Yogurt Battle of 2015

I thought today was going to be a pretty normal, low-key day. I got up early, let the dogs out, guzzled coffee with reckless abandon, and then began making Opie’s lunch.

(It is interesting to note that a lot of people have found that last bit horrifying, as if I have single-handedly set the feminist movement back 50 years by packing my husband’s lunch. Here’s the thing: It’s not like he forces me to do this; if it were up to him, he’d cheerfully buy a hotdog or something equally horrifying every day. I like making his lunch. But I digress…)

Anyway I got out a yogurt, like I always do, and this is what I saw:

 

Please note the expiration date in the upper left corner--MARCH 11th!!.

Today, in case anyone isn’t aware, is March 12^th.

To be honest, Opie probably wouldn’t have noticed or cared.  He maintains that the expiration date is more of a suggestion than a rule and that things are fine a few days beyond.

Which is, of course, crazy talk.

But the real problem was that I bought that yogurt yesterday.

I bought the yogurt that expired on March 11^th ON March 11^th. Or, to be more precise, the grocery store tricked me into buying their leftover, hovering-on-the-edge-of-spoilage yogurt by pushing it to the front of the case and rightly assuming I wouldn’t check.

The miscreants!

Some people can let these little things go, throw the yogurt away, and continue with their day. I’ve often wondered what it’s like to be one of those people...

I immediately checked all of the yogurt I bought yesterday, loudly cursing at each new March 11^th expiration date. “Robbed!” I muttered to myself, storming around the kitchen and waving my hands in the air. “I’ve been robbed and cheated and I’m not going to stand for it!”

At moments like these I can actually hear my friend, Martha, in my head saying “Kimberly, the yogurt was what? $4.00? Get over it!”

“There’s a principle involved here!” I assured the invisible Martha. “I’m not going to sit back while, once again, corporate America rips hard-earned money out of the hands of a working family! I’ll get over it when I see justice done.”

And it was on fire with this righteous indignation that I packed up the yogurt, found my receipt and stormed back to the grocery store like a woman on a mission.

As I approached the customer service counter and the teenage boy behind it, though, I heard Opie’s voice in my head urging courtesy and calm, reminding me that getting banned from the only grocery store in town would be a disaster of epic proportions.

So, I calmly put my yogurt and my receipt on the counter and explained my dilemma. “I bought these yesterday,” I said. “And they all expired yesterday.”

He stared at me like I had a grown a second head.

 “I don’t want my money back,” I assured him.  “I just want to exchange this for some yogurt that isn’t expired.”

And this clearly is a situation not covered by the grocery store customer service training manual because he just kept staring at me…and I began to wonder if I had somehow gone all Tower of Babel on him and started speaking in a strange language.

“I’d like to exchange the yogurt.”  I said again in the clearest English I could manage.

Which is when he called this other young whippersnapper of a girl over for help.

I explained the situation to her and she raised her eyebrows skeptically. “Do you have the receipt?”

I pointed it out to her and she began examining it and the yogurt in question like she was reviewing government documents for the CIA.

After a few minutes of this, I said “I don’t mean to be obnoxious,” (which is usually a pretty good indication that I am, in fact, about to be obnoxious) “But I don’t understand what you think is really going on here. I mean, I can assure you that I’m not the head of some underground black market yogurt-scam ring. I’m not trolling grocery store after grocery store trying to con my way to millions, 4 yogurts at a time.  I just want some yogurt that won’t kill me.”

“I don’t think it’s going to kill you,” she said.

And I kind of wanted to punch her in the face. Instead I smiled coolly and said “You never know. I have a really high intolerance for spoiled dairy products.”

At which point the manager came over to see what the heck was going on. I explained for the third time and he stared at the two employees like they were crazy.

I’m not going to lie, I felt vindicated.

“Of course you can exchange it,” he told me. “It shouldn’t even have been on the shelf.”

And I was going to stick my tongue out at the two young whippersnappers who’d been treating me like a freak show but then I remembered that I’m a Christian and an adult and ostensibly a role model.

Besides, they’d already turned away.

So, the short version is, justice was done.  I got my yogurt (although they were out of Caramel Macchiato and I had to settle for Café Late…but that’s ok, I’m breezy, I let these kind of things go) and all is right with the world.

But now I have to know—am I the only person in the world who would take the yogurt back? Would other people have eaten the yogurt? Would you just have thrown it out? Please will someone assure me that I’m not alone on the battleground for yogurt justice?

Wordless Wednesday -- Winter