Let me just go back a bit so my situation is completely understood before judgment is passed. I was home alone one night. Well...home alone with a very large, drooling dog...and a loaded .22....and....a loaded .44...and....well, just don't surprise me in the dark, okay?
One night about two months ago, some weirdo shows up on my front porch and asks me if he can "come in and use the phone". Well, suffice to say that I was not born yesterday and I do know better than to open the door for strangers. My Momma raised me right!
He ended up getting persistent...and quite creepy. I called 9-1-1 on this idiot...and then I proceeded to go get my .44 and went back to the kitchen to finish making chili. God bless Texas!
One of the things that bothered me days later, however, was that I caught him looking at me through the long narrow window next to our front door. There is a sheer white curtain that hangs in that window and I guess I never realized that anyone could just see right through it. Too bad he wasn't peeking in when Kevin was walking around the house in his favorite outfit: socks. Needless to say, I high-tailed my butt on down to Target that weekend and bought a new curtain panel for the window.
Stores never have anything in stock for oddly sized windows like that, so I just bought one that I knew was wide enough and figured I'd make some adjustments to it. I have a sewing machine and an iron...I was a Girl Scout. I can figure this out.
Well, it turns out that I conveniently forgot about the fact that I have a pretty busy life. And also that I procrastinate even the act of procrastination. When it comes to putting off mundane household tasks, I am the shizz, baby.
I hung the panel right away and it looks great with our decor. Awesome! Fabulous!! Inspired!!! I should have a job on HGTV. However...the curtain kept billowing out and away from the glass because it was too long for the window and had no pocket for the bottom rod to go through. This is the part that I'd been planning to fix. It was getting late on a Sunday and I had neither the patience nor the energy to make any adjustments to it. So I started hunting for something to use as a temporary fix to the problem.
I found my salvation in a one pound bag of dry kidney beans that's been sitting in my pantry for about a year and a half. (Ever since I decided that a big jar of assorted dry beans would look very "country cute" on top of our kitchen cabinets...and it does!) HGTV, is that you calling?
I tucked the end of the panel up onto the little window sill at the base and slapped that bag of kidney beans right on top of it. Ta da!!! Problem solved. Kev, spark up the DVR and let's catch up on the 12 episodes of "HOUSE" we've been too unorganized to watch!
For two months, I have conveniently had other things to do than to stop for a half hour and fix that damn curtain. But that bag of kidney beans has been doing a fabulous job on that little window sill. It has protected me and kept me safe from creepy people on my porch, neighbors walking their dogs, and the bunny that comes out of the greenbelt that eats our grass every morning. (I know he's watching me.) That bag of beans has been a damn good friend.
Now we're caught up. Except for the last couple of days it has been raining like crazy here in Texas. The dog park is closed "until further notice". It's not a dog park right now...it's more like a mud farm. Yesterday I mentioned that Petsmart is Kirby's third place in the whole world. Well, the dog park is her second favorite place.
Kirby is quite possibly the most lovable dog I've ever known. She's incredibly sweet. However, Miss Kirby does not take kindly to the idea of being ignored...or left alone for long periods of time. She knows our family routine. So tonight when I stayed late at work to finish a project and Kevin was not home, she got bored.
Things have been super busy at work lately, so I was really looking forward to getting home. I was so happy when I pulled into my driveway. Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened my front door and found a kidney bean murder scene.
That little bag of beans was no match for my 80 pound puppy. Let me just explain that when Kirby gets excited and starts playing with force, she shakes her head back and forth with the fury of a wolf killing its prey. There were kidney beans EVERYWHERE. Everywhere I looked...little kidney bean corpses. And right in the middle...a very ripped up, drool covered plastic bag. Oh, Kirby...
There were beans strewn all across the floor...on the chair...all across the sofa...in the built in bookcase...in the freak'in FIREPLACE!!! Everywhere. Beans everywhere. And there's Kirby in the middle of it all, wagging her tail enthusiastically in that demented helicopter pattern that makes Kevin and me laugh so hard. She looked as surprised as I did.
As I picked up the ten thousand dead beans and put them in their final resting place in my trash can, I used the appropriate scolding "mommy voice" as I explained to her how naughty it was to be throwing beans around the house. I doubt she heard me, however, since she was already stretched out on our couch...snoring. Loudly. All was right in her world. Mommy was home.
And as I finish this latest blog entry, I'm not certain of any real purpose (other than my confession) that I have in telling this story other than my noble effort to caution any of you from making the same mistake as me. This could have happened to anyone, right? Right. So...the next time you think about using a one pound bag of beans to keep a curtain in place so creepy burglar types can't molest you with their eyes, ask yourself this one question: do I have an 80 pound, drooling bean killer nearby?
Save yourself the guilt. Save the beans.
Diane,
ReplyDeleteYour wonderful blog has inspired me to share our experience when we first brought home our Miss Anna Belle Louise. In 2001, shortly after our beloved family pet passed away, I began searching the internet for a dog we could rescue and give a forever home. All my life I had wanted a St. Bernard but my parents always told me it would be a sin to own one in Texas due to the heat. However, I quickly learned that there was a tremendous amount of abandoned Saints in Texas, partly due to the popularity of the Beethoven movies. So, we made arrangements to drive to Centerville, TX and pick up our new 3 year old, 110 pound, Gentle Giant.
Our first mistake was choosing Woody's Smokehouse as our place to rendezvous with Anna Belle's foster parent. Our second mistake was to think she would lie quietly in the back of our mini-van for 2-1/2 hours while smells of the smoked ham, beef jerkey and smoked cheeses that we had purchased permeated throughout during the ride home. HER state of excitement caused by the delicious smells was only exceeded by OUR state of repulsion caused the horrendous smell of a dirty dog who had been living in a kennel environment with 10 other Saints for the last three months. We just assumed that the foster parent would give her a bath before she brought her to us - oh well, mistake number three.
After loading her into the van, she immediately gobbled up the sandwich that my daughter was eating and then promptly began to drink the tea out of my glass that was in the cup holder. It was my daughter's duty to hold her back and keep her from trying to get up in the front but we had not brought a leash (mistake number four) and even if we had, my daughter was no match for a hungry Saint that needed some big lessons in table manners. We kept driving towards home and my husband and I kept looking at each other with forced smiles on our face but the sheer terror in our eyes said, "Oh my God, what have we done".
We finally arrived home and let Anna Belle loose in our back yard. She was so excited to be able to run around on our one acre property that she promptly ran straight into the swimming pool. No problem, she needed a bath in the worse way.
After she had time to explore and dry off a little, we let her into the house so I could get dinner started. This was my first experience in the kitchen with a Shetland Pony underfoot and finally my Mommy instincts kicked in and I yelled "Enough! Out, Out, Out of my kitchen!". I was no longer going to let this purveyor of slobber bombs intimidate me.
Once I realized that her sole purpose for living was to try and please, it was very easy to begin teaching her doggie manners. We were blessed to be owned and operated by Miss Anna Belle Louise for another 6 years but sadly lost her to bone cancer in 2007.
She gave us love, happiness, grand chuckles, slobber bombs, sore toes and a collapsed couch. She was also the inspiration of our home business selling Saint Bernard Rescue Kegs with Custom Personalized Leather Collars.
I'm so pleased to be a part of Diane's blog and to be able to keep up with the trials and tribulations of Kirby the Whirling Derby. Let's get together soon so I can get my Slobber Dog Kisses Fix.
Stay tuned for my next blog - "Mystery of the Missing Pizza" or "How Mad Can a Hungry Husband Get When the Saint Bernard Eats an Entire Pizza in Three Minutes".
Here is a website that I created to share with family and friends on the day that we brought Anna Belle to her forever home:
http://users.waymark.net/robin/alexis/alexis
Drool is Cool and Slime Flies When You're Having Fun!!
OMG, Robin!!! LOL I absolutely adore that story. I can't wait till Kevin comes home and he can read it. I was chuckling all through it, with Kirby by my side of course!!
ReplyDeleteKirby LOVES her rescue keg and we're hoping to get some "big girl pictures" this weekend to share with you. LOL. Thank you so much for the chuckles!!!
My dd and I almost wet our pants laughing at this story. I can just imagine the scene.
ReplyDeleteWe had a black lab puppy for a short time. We live in a duplex with a very small backyard. Don't know what I was thinking when I got the puppy for my dh.
Mandy the lab pulled out my doorbell 3 times. She took the siding from the bottom of the house completely off. And she loved my underwear.
She is now with a family on a huge farm and is loving it.
What I want to know is...did you fix the window?
ReplyDeleteLOL @ Sme
ReplyDelete--Jaliel