Dreams Finally Replace Reality

It's the middle of June and the sky is still gray. Temperatures hover around 41 degrees. It rains every day still. So uh...last night I had a dream...

It went something like this:

Huck's Tail

Why our home decor is altered just a bit...by Brad Anderson
http://www.comics.com/comics/marmaduke/archive/marmaduke-20080313.html

One more step closer

An update on my nursing job:

I had to give the hospital a, uh...specimen... for a drug test. That was an interesting experience to say the least. I guess people do cheat once in a while, so the clinician was paranoid that I brought a cup in my purse to swap samples or something. I had to take off my coat so that I had nothing bulky on. I was not even allowed to take my purse into the bathroom. That was kind of nerve-wracking to just leave it there on my chair in the waiting room. Being stubborn, I at least grabbed my wallet. (If I was going to discover something missing, it could NOT be my driver's license, for goodness sake!) The clinician told me NOT to wash my hands on the way out. Huh? I double checked to make sure I heard him right. He said, "Yes, you will wash your hands in THIS sink, not THAT sink." ok...Wow. When I was finished, he was standing right outside the bathroom door listening to make sure I wasn't trying to dilute my sample with tap water. (I know. First impression is, "What a creep!") I guess drug tests can be stressful and people do things to mess up true results, so it was a really tightly controlled process by now. Boy! I'm glad that's over.

Good thing we didn't eat poppy seed muffins for breakfast or it would have created a false positive for opium! hee hee.

Next is a physical at the end of the month and then assuming all goes well, we will negotiate a start date.

What's Happening? Miracle-Gro?

Last week Huckleberry was being really clingy to me. One afternoon he was suddenly drooling thin, watery saliva. Drip. Drip. Oh...noooo! Lucky for us, the only time he drools when he is either scared, sick, or hurt. When he's scared, he runs to Dad (a.k.a. Jaime); when he's hurt or sick, he comes to his mom (me). Since he was clinging to me, I knew he was probably not feeling well. Naturally I was concerned and confused.

I kid you not, exactly between 3 pm and 5 pm on Friday afternoon, I glanced up at Huck and then did a double take! I peered at him a little closer. (Gasp!) He was noticeably bigger! Thinking my eyes were deceiving me, I stood up and petted him like usual. It felt different. Running to the coat closet, I pulled out the tape measure. 35 1/2 inches tall up to his shoulder. That was a good inch and a half more than the last measurement! Later Jaime came home and looked at him twice. "Yes, he had a growth spurt today." Friends of ours echoed the same confirmation when they saw him, "Something's different! What happened?" It's true.

When he was little, he used to drool and cling to me when he was growing. I dismissed that possibility at this time because Huck is three. Information from different sources say most Danes are full grown by age two. He must not have been quite finished?

Before any of you charge me of exaggerating, let me explain that Great Danes DO have dramatic growth spurts. Up until about four months old, Huck would sleep underneath our bed. He crawled under there and went to sleep one night. At about 4:30 in the morning, Jaime and I felt the bed going "Whump! Whump! Whump!" Huh? Jaime stirred and looked at me, thinking I was kicking the bed trying to wake him up. I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders to tell him, "I don't know either. It's not me." We slowly peered down to check on Huck. This giant puppy was trying to get out from under the bed. Problem was he had a growth spurt during the night and now his skull was too big to fit between the floor and the bed frame. He was banging his forehead on the bed frame trying to figure out why this space was giving him a hard time all of a sudden. Jaime had to heave the bed up a few inches. Huck scrambled out and was never again able to get back in there.

Grocery Shopping Needs Help

Jaime: "Honey, we've got absolutely nothing left to eat in this house. Do you want to come to the store with me?"

Ann: [sigh] "No...I know I should make a list first so we don't just grab all the ready-made food and waste money."

Jaime: "Ok. Well, what do you want to do about tonight? I'm sort of getting hungry."

Ann: [Fidgets.] "Can't you catch some squirrels in our backyard?"

Jaime: "Annie, I think you have a serious problem with grocery shopping. We need to figure out how make this work for us."

I've tried rewarding myself with a movie every time I do go shopping. I've tried making a schedule (every Thursday no matter what). I've tried different stores to see if any are easier to navigate. I've even tried pairing up with a shopping buddy for a "time out" instead of "a chore." None of the above works. All I can say is I'm not a shopper.

If anyone has the same issues and has formed a "grocery-shopping-aversion disorder" group, please invite me! If there are any ideas discussed in this GSAD group to help alleviate the pain, let me know, too!

The ironic thing is I love to cook! What would be a dream come true is a touch pad in my kitchen where I order my ingredients and they magically get deposited right here in my kitchen by invisible conveyor belts all the way from the store to here. Now wouldn't that be nice?

Apple pie!

Jaime and I drove our moving truck from Miami to Destin, FL. We arrived at Dad's house after a long trip and the smell of freshly baked apple pie wafted through the house! Dad and Mary were waiting up for us. Ahh! Miami was an adventure; yet to come home to family and apple pie was a very American feel. Jaime and I suddenly got this overwhelming feeling of being far away for way too long. We got a teeny bit choked up for a second there when we were eating that pie.

Making Someone's Day

Huck and I went for a morning walk in Miami. We got to a street intersection and pushed the crossing button so we could cross the busy road. A woman walked up to us. She looked like she was living on the streets because she was very, very dirty and was wearing mismatched, ragged clothes and men's shoes that didn't fit her. She was looking at Huck and then said to me, "Your dog is so sweet." I thanked her politely, still waiting for the light to change. She asked a second question: "What does he think of me?" This question caught me completely off guard and I was so sure I misunderstood her.

"What was that?" I asked.

Her chin started to quiver and she asked again, "What does he think about me?" Uh...um..I had never been asked that before, so I stammered something like, "He loves people, so he pretty much likes everybody." By now, Huck was sniffing this woman's face (he didn't have to reach very far up to be level eye to eye).

She blurted out to Huck, "Oh, thank you! I love you!" She kissed Huck on the forehead. He wagged his tail, making her cry even harder. I wasn't expecting this at all! (As if on cue, the light finally changed at this moment.) I said, "Have a good day!" and we walked on.