Stood It

            We stood it.

And we stood it.

And we stood it for as long as we could it.

Okay! Okay! Not grammatically correct. I’m pretty sure that’s going to make my editor’s left eye twitch. But I wrote it and I’m gonna let it stood.

“What did you ‘stood’?” you ask.

Raini.

She was supposed to be kept quiet, no running, no jumping, and walks on leash only for ten days. We lasted a week before I let her out of doggie jail.

Bondi and Raini played Tug O’ War through the wire of the kennel. With Raini being on wheels, Bondi pulled her around the house until one or the other let go. That was amusing.

Raini was doing well being in the kennel, at least as well as you might expect a high-energy pup to do. She’d get on crying jags that were getting worse as the days went by. And when I was taking her out, she’d make some jumps even though she was on a leash. So what use was that? It wasn’t stopping her and I couldn’t stop her because I didn’t know when she was gonna jump.

“What was she jumping at?” you wanna know.

Raini loves to jump! She looks for things to jump at. Butterflies, bees, flies, or falling leaves. Cats on counters and cats on stumps. Sometimes she’d jump at my hand because she thought I was keeping something from her.

Worse than the crying during the day. Worse than me having to stop whatever I was doing to take her out, give her food, get her a drink, or just yell at her to, “RAINI STOP!” because I couldn’t figure out what she wanted and she couldn’t be out and I couldn’t take the crying anymore. Worse than all of that was nighttime. Raini still needs to go out in the night. She’d cry ‘long about one or two in the morning and I’d have to leave my warm cozy bed, put a jacket and slippers on, hook her up to a leash, and take her out. And who wants to be walking around in the dark, grass dew-covered, slippers getting wet, using a flashlight to make sure you don’t step in anything, while Raini looks for a place to do her business? Not fun, that’s for sure, Then the whole thing would often be repeated around five-ish.

I didn’t know that Raini was going out in the middle of the night. If Mike happened to be up watching TV then sometimes he knew.

Life is so much easier when she can just take herself out when she needs to.

Raini tickled me when she sat outside the kitchen door and scratched for me to let her in.

I was confused as to why I was being summoned to open the door. I got up and when I glanced at the pet door, I could make out the shape of a cat. Blackie had taken possession of the space between the flaps and wasn’t letting Raini in — although I don’t understand how Blackie was keeping her out. Raini could just plow her way through if she really wanted to.

Raini is getting big. She doesn’t fit in the bed under my desk anymore even though she still likes to lay there.

“I think she needs a bigger bed,” Mike observed.

“I’ve got one,” I said and got up to get it. Actually, this is just the pad from a big dog bed that I picked up someplace or another for a quarter. I pushed the little one to the side and replaced it with the bigger pad.

I’ve never seen Bondi get in the small bed under my desk but with this bigger pad I’ve seen her and Raini on it together.

Raini and Bondi are both so happy to be able to play together again but a word of warning — DON’T GET IN THEIR WAY!

“Why do you say that, Peg?” you wanna know.

I made cheesecake Thursday. It has to sit in a low oven for hours, then spend a night in the fridge.

Friday, I cut the cheesecake. “Would you take some down to Rosie and Lamar?” I asked Mike. I was busy and didn’t want to take the time to go myself.

“Call Rosie,” Mike said putting the footrest down and getting up out of the recliner.

I handed Mike the container, he headed for the door, I headed for the kitchen and my phone. There wasn’t any answer at the Kipps’ house, so I left a message. I called Mike’s number next to tell him the Kipps weren’t home and the phone rang in the living room. Sigh. I went out to the front patio in time to see Mike headed out the driveway on the golf cart. I yelled. He didn’t hear me. Coming back through the living Raini plowed into the side of my leg at a hundred miles an hour. I think Bondi was chasing her. It hurt! It really hurt! She probably broke my leg! I thought and limped my way back to the kitchen table where I was working on signs.

This little guy didn’t take me long to make. A special order for a sweet little lady at my church.

“I tried to call you,” I told Mike when he got back. “But you left your phone here. Did you leave the cheesecake?”

“Yep. It’s under the cushion on the rocker on the front porch.”

Miss Rosie called me when she got home. I gave her H-E – double hockey sticks! “You didn’t tell me you were going anyplace!”

“Lamar took me out to lunch,” Miss Rosie said.

“How nice!” I exclaimed.

“Well, no. Not really. Lamar needed some new ceiling tiles so we went to Arey’s in Wysox. They were having an open house to celebrate sixty years in business and we got a hot dog,” Miss Rosie said with a laugh.

“How about cheesecake for dessert? It’s on the rocker, under the cushion on your front porch.”

I could almost hear her smile. The Kipps love the cheesecake recipe I make. “Thank you!”

Speaking of the Kipps…

I made a Christmas porch sign for Miss Rosie. I was having trouble because I was modifying a premade stencil. I sent a picture to my cute little redhaired sister, who is a very talented artist in her own right and asked for help.

“Can you fix his nose for me? And he’s supposed to have glasses but I don’t know how to put them on.”

Diane fixed his nose by turning my blob into a cute round red nose. She fixed his eyes and made the glasses all askew. Then sent my picture back to me. It was perfect! Even if in my rendition I made the glasses a little small and you really have to look to see them. And since I had to ‘erase’ the ugly face, I fixed his color, too.

Mike and I took it down to show Miss Rosie even though she wouldn’t be getting it for a while yet.

“Why not?” you ask.

Because I plan on putting Thanksgiving on the other side. I just haven’t found a Thanksgiving pattern I want to do yet.

I called. “Can you come out on the porch?” I asked Miss Rosie when she answered.

“No.”

“Why not?” I wanted to know.

“Because it’s cold out there.”

"Oh, come on out for a minute. I have something to show you.”

We pulled up and Miss Rosie came out.

“Okay, Miss Rosie, this one’s for you so close your eyes.”

She’s a good sport. I got set up with the camera and said, “Okay!”

The look on her face wasn’t what I expected at all.

Maybe she doesn’t like cute, I thought. Then I looked down and saw Tux was in front of the sign and all she could see was the top half. Then he moved and Miss Rosie laughed.

“Oh! He’s so cute!”

“Do you see the string of lights wrapped around Santa?” I asked Miss Rosie.

“Yeah?”

“I took them apart and that’s how I made the string of lights that winds around Christmas.” I’m sure Miss Rosie doesn’t understand how I can do that on the computer but she was sufficiently impressed with my editing skills.

“I can hardly wait for Christmas now so I can put my sign up,” Miss Rosie told me the next day on my morning love call.

Mike doesn’t say too much about the things I make. At least not in words. “Let’s take your signs out and show them to Vernon,” he said. His actions speak volumes.

His buddy was fishing when we got there and pulled one from the pond.

“See there!” he said holding his catch aloft. “You’re good luck for me!” He unhooked the crappie and tossed it back.

          Vernon thought my porch signs were cute and we visited for a while. Mike mentioned I made a cheesecake.

          “I’ll give you a piece,” I volunteered.

          “Lou’s supposed to be here, too,” Vernon said.

          Vernon’s pond is just beautiful since he got rid of all the cattails, and the colors are really starting to pop.

Later, Mike took a couple of pieces of cheesecake out to Vernon. When he came home, he had the empty container. I was surprised. I sent two pieces because Vernon mentioned his friend Lou would be coming in and I didn’t want him to feel left out.

“What happened to the cheesecake?” I asked wondering if Vernon transferred it into another container so he could send mine home.

“He ate it.”

“Both pieces!?”

“Yep. Except the crust. He said no offence to you but he doesn’t eat crust. He threw it away.”

I was indignant! “Well! I’m not giving him anymore then!”

I’m kinda throwing my week at you all mixed up because I get sidetracked.

So, it was Friday afternoon when Raini slammed into the side of my leg nearly knocking me over like a bowling pin. I already had the cat sign done. I already had the Christmas sign done. I already had the cheesecake done. But I was still working on a sign. Another commission. The pastor’s wife likes white pumpkins and asked if I could do that.

“Sure. I can try. If we don’t like ‘em, I can sand ‘em off and paint ‘em orange,” I told her.

I Googled pictures of white pumpkins and white pumpkins aren’t all white. That would be boring. They’re varying shades of greens and blues, browns and yellows. I didn’t make mine as obvious as some I saw, keeping it more muted. And this is what I came up with. I think if I were to paint them again, I’d make the greens and blues, browns and yellows a little more stand-out-ish.

By that evening my foot was a little numb and my toes were cramping. It took me a few minutes to remember that Raini plowed into me a few hours before and that was likely the cause. When I got up, I could hardly walk. I grabbed a couple of ice packs and limped my way to the recliner. Before we went to bed I put liniment on it, took some pain pills, wrapped it in the heating pad and went to bed. It was much improved the next morning.

We made a couple of trips out this week. Can you say, “Road pictures!”

Just leaving our garage we see a bunch of turkey vultures circling over the pond.

“Uh-oh,” Mike said. “Something’s dead.”

Leaving the driveway, we see the reason.

Poor guy. Some people put quill pigs in the same hated class as whistle pigs. I don’t hate either one.

Vines swallowing up the trees.

 Lunch.

I picked up some toys from the thrift store for the girls.

Raini carried this lizard around with her all day!

I have to watch because the first thing she does is chew the eyes out. After that it’s only a matter of time until he’s disemboweled and the stuffing is all over the floor.

The next time we went out was to go to a church sale. I love church sales.

Mike took the back way and we saw a whole herd of turkeys!

At the sale, I found a tub to keep my silicone molds in. I outgrew my old one. The lid wouldn’t fit on anymore because it was so full and I had other homemade molds in another smaller tub, too.

My new tub has a shallow purple tray that lifts out, the perfect place to keep my tools or pictures I print to help me paint stuff. The tub was clean, almost new looking, and I was happy to give the gal two dollars for it.

Mike found his treasure, too. He got a set of four ladder racks for a dollar so he was happy.

Coming across the Veterans Bridge from Towanda into Wysox, off to the right, down on the now exposed sand bar in the middle of the Susquehanna, sits this.

“Is that someone out there fishing?” Mike asked the first time we saw it.

Then we saw it again and realized the likelihood of a fisherman being in the same place at the same time we were crossing the bridge on different days wasn’t very likely at all.

“I think it’s a stump,” I said and took a picture. I get it home and look at it on my computer and see it’s a stack of rocks.

“How do they stay stacked up like that?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know. Silicone?”

Something else we see around here a lot is this.

“They’re going to see Jody,” Mike always says. Jody does work at the kill plant, but she works in the office.

I make sure I look the other way when we’re passing. I hate looking at all those doe eyes peering out at me.

 Look what I got in the mail! A personalized card made by a full-blooded Kiowa American Indian. Now I have two original and very frameable works of art!

I think Rue is incredibly talented and if I can help him sell a few pieces, I’m gonna try.

 Let’s call this one done!