INSOMNIACS place to talk in the wee hours

Reading to date - done. Processing. What would we do without one another? I call this "Sister Trees Dancing."

Joanne, thank you so much for sharing Rachel's poem. The struggle of our flesh. Rachel described it perfectly. I am comforted that she has arrived at the Oasis.

Also, thank you for the bonus pictures. She wanted to meet , but we didn't get a chance. I am happy that Susie and you had the privilege to visit with her.

Blue, love your short stories as usual. The next time I see a fake ladybug, I know not to play with it Prior to reading the story, I didn't know about the Asian beetle. Like the name you gave to the trees. Even trees need loving and support.

Mommy, thanks your SIL for me.

Lori! So good to see you drop in. You will feel so much better with the expanders out....the light at the end of the tunnel.

Ms. Sas, I don't know what I did with your address. I have an idea.

ShepK,

Hey Feline.

Wonder how Forward is doing.

JunieB, how was your appointment? Meant to text you, but it has not been an easy week. Went to work on Monday and was told my boss died unexpectedly. I feel bad for his family. We all had to step out of our comfort zone and take on responsibilities to keep the place going. A lot of the administrative duties we have no clues.

Kath, hope the winter storm was not too rough for you. Can't imagine using the bathroom without the heater.

Talk about rest room, this is what one of my brothers gave me:

I think he is trying to tell me something.

Ms. Sas, uh oh.

Kirby 💕

I love the rain. Oh the joy of dancing in the rain. I used to get in trouble with Mom for playing in the rain. I wish Mom knew how liberating it was. I wish I had the courage to tell her...

Junie, love Kirby sleeping with his toy. He has changed so much. What a cutie!

Lover, the music is so relaxing to listen to. Had to laugh at the write up for the Poo Pourri. Talk about creative writing!

Oh no Sas, what are you going to do!? I was just thinking about getting that testing done but wasn’t sure if the medicines I’m concerned about fall into what they look at. Does that make sense? Hopefully you know what I mean.

Finally got the nerve up to see an eye surgeon about my cataracts. Ugh! Decisions to make as to the type of lens and surgery. I’m wanting to chicken out because I have mild retinopathy that my specialist wants to treat first. The chicken feathers are starting to come out. Cluck, cluck, cluck.

Losing power so I’ll say nite, nite

Love these two guys.

Sas: I'm so sorry! I wasn't meaning to blow off your question about laptops. I got a "System Model HP ProBook 450 G4"--the business model with the hard case as I'm hard on my toys. It's got 8 GB of RAM and here's the specs for the processor(s): Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7500U CPU @ 2.70GHz, 2904 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s). The backlit keyboard is a bit distracting (I've been able to touchtype for years) but it handles streaming media like a dream.

What else do you need to know?

Lover - I get where your Mom was coming from as I imagine the dirty clothes she was going to have to wash.

AND I get where you were/are coming from - the joy and beauty of the moment.

The joy and beauty of the moment is hard to surrender to when you feel a weight of responsibility.

I find it hard as a Mom now to see past the dirty clothes.

I loathe the current social media mania for making slime. DD forever watching a YouTube and taking the glue, washing up liquid, fabric conditioner whatever she thinks she needs, and me opening a cupboard or lifting a cushion to find a pot of her "satisfying" slime tipping out, and all the glue or whatever gone.

But your love of dancing in the rain reminded me so much of snow.

Snow. It is rare here. Most winters we do not see any. But very occasionally we get a heavy one. Such a thrill. I still feel that way, thrilled and awed at the sight of it.

My mother hates snow. Whenever, as a child, I said something about the snow she said "people die in the snow".

She is right, of course, they do.

But I still loved snow, and additionally gained from my Mum a sneaking feeling that I must be a bad person for doing so. (BTW my Mum is the greatest...she just happened to hate snow).

A few years ago we had two successive winters with big snows.

On one of these occasions I was walked from my house into a nearby lane that has about 10 houses. Snow was about welly boot deep and it was still snowing.

As I waded into the lane I realised I was the first person out.

There were no prints, no one out yet. There was no wind and it was snowing all around me.

I had no camera and thought briefly about going back to get one, but decided it was better to stay there and just experience.

I stood still, surrounded by the softly fallen snow, like I was the only person in the world. It is one of a handful of supremely beautiful moments I have experienced.

After that I realised that the snow is like the sea. It is beautiful, and dangerous. The two things are not mutually exclusive. It must be respected. It is perilous. That doesn't take away from its beauty.

I realised that I had started to pass my Mum's fear of snow on to the kids, every time they had said it was beautiful I was saying "people die in the snow" but this first association was my Mum's, not mine. My first thought about snow is the same as my childrens - that it is beautiful.

I get that different life experiences bring different views, maybe if you work on a trawler you might always see the ocean as danger to be respected before the beauty.

and as for slime I am never going to get the beauty of the moment on that.

When my great aunt was young, her family was sitting around the table eating dinner (lunch) with the window open because it was hot. Lightning came thru the window, hit her brother's fork, transformed into a ball of fire which went all around the room and back out the window. She never touched metal in a storm again. What do you do about innerspring mattresses?

On a lighter note, I wrote my first blog story in a long long time. New story. Happened last night.

DAMNED BIRDSEED

The title of this post is Damn Dog #3 or #14. He is just attempting to deflect blame onto the birdseed.

The Damn Dog is named Danny Boy. He is a Newfoundland, black in colour with a white strip in his chest and tummy fur. And four white polka-spotted feet. He has a recessive Irish-spotted colouration. And he weights around one hundred and sixty pounds.

Quite cute. Until last evening.

I was watching television and playing scrabble with friends. Hubby was entranced in watching television and just being Hubby. The damn dog was in the living room but his head was in the kitchen. I suppose he was watching for the new mouse resident that keeps trying to get into his sealed metal can of dog food.

Point being - damn dog did not ask to go outside. He was allegedly oblivious to what was about to happen.

By the way. Danny Boy speaks with an Irish brogue.

"Too early for the mouse. Gonna take another nap," he said as he stood up, walking past my chair heading toward the hallway.

He stopped and sniffed the carpet. I sniffed the air. He sniffed the air. He turned around and gingerly walked to the front of my footstool and looked down, sniffing. "Oh duck-a-doodle-dooo," he crooned."Did I do that?"

I looked at the carpet by my chair and said, "What the hell IS that?!"

Damn dog said,"Duck! More just hit the carpet, I don't feel a thing."

"Hell, it looks like a pile of leaves or something here on the floor. What IS that mess?" I took off my reading glasses for a better look.

"And there's more of it here," the damned dog said, tiptoeing to the other side of the footstool. "Is this what birdseed does to you?"

"It's BIRDSEED," I howled loud enough for Hubby to hear me. "He pooped out BIRDSEED!"

"Legitimately, no," the dog said, "It just fell out of me. See, no poop in any pile. I didn't even squat."

"Damn dog!" I said.

"True, still, I smell only the faintest hint of poop and I'm the dog with the nose."

"God damned dog!" Hubby said.

"Oh glory, here we go. I'll be in my corner of the hall."

"No! Danny Boy," I told him, "Outside."

"Best idea yet." He tiptoed toward the deck door. "You don't want me to keep walking through it like this, do you?"

Hubby had now taken in the extent of the damage to the carpet and my beautiful winter blanket trailing on the floor from the footstool. "God damn dog. He was eating birdseed again."

"In my defense," the dog said as his collar was attached to the lead on the deck with the fervour of a noose, "I didn't know it could just fall out of your a*#, undigested."

"OUT" Hubby said. "And don't eat any more birdseed."

"It's all on the carpet now."

"No eating snow either!"

"Birds must have a turbo digestive system if I can't even digest it."

If Hubby had not just cleaned the poop yard and all was fine, then I would have been worried.

Dog went outside. Hubby got the garage broom and dustpan. I turned on the ceiling fan and covered my nose. But there really wasn't much aroma since this birdseed had cleared his intestines without poop or slime coming along.

I waited for Hubby, poor Hubby, to clean it up and be in a little better mood before I asked the real questions here.

"So, how did he get to so much birdseed on the deck?"

"He scarfed it off the table. I put birdseed on the table for birds that don't want to use the feeder or baskets."

The table in question has sawed off legs. "Birdseed at his chin level?"

"I tell him not to eat snow and not to eat birdseed. He still does."

Imagine that.

I ask, as a wife of thirty-eight years now, how many times and ways can a woman say do not leave the dog outside unattended when snow or birdseed are present. Or blue racer snakes or wild skunks, both of which are another story. And do not leave birdseed in great amounts at the dog's chin level. How many times and ways? Don't torture yourself with that one. It is one hundred and thirty-two-ish.

So the birdseed that fell out of my damn dog's arse by two cupsful was all swept up. Carpet was sprayed with a disinfectant essential oil. Dog was allowed back into the house but had to stay where we could see him. I barely slept, just waiting for more birdseed to fall out of you know where.

http://www.womens-fiction.com/humor/damn-birdseed/