Damn this living in Canada business....

I'm ever so excited for Friday to come. For what seems like weeks now, SuperNan, The Berry Queen, SuperDad and I have been planning a shopping trip.

New shoes were apparently in the plans, as was lunch at one of our favorite restaurants.

Nothing in this world makes me feel better than new shoes and food.

And you know what this country is doing to us?

It's planning on ice raining.

Do you know what happens back at the Ranch when it ice rains?

Nothing, because the plow people don't come out until three days later.

Not that I'm complaining. The neighbors are all really nice in the country, and when they see a young girl like myself and her trusty Cavalier stuck in snowbanks and on sheets of ice, they generally stop for a smoke before they push me out. Then they laugh at me for buying a Cavalier.

Hmph.

Stupid ice rain.

Toonses

Pretty Blue Wool

Learning to crochet can be pretty frustrating by times. I've officially mastered two stitches: The single stitch and the double stitch.

I initially bought this pretty blue wool for my Grandad. I was going to make him a blanket because when he was in the nursing home, he always seemed to want to have something in his hands to fiddle with. I'm not sure if it was a nervous thing, or if it was him remembering doing something from his past. Once when I was visiting him he started to tell me a story about one of his Air Force friends polishing his boots. So I think sometimes that he was polishing his boots with the things he kept in his hands.

I guess I started the blanket too late, or I lost my Grandad too early. I suspect it's a strong case of both. At any rate, I've been looking at this wool for several months now, wondering what I should do with it. I bought it specifically with my Grandad in mind: I wanted to make him something special to bring him comfort because Alzheimer's is not only a scary disease for those around the ill person -- It's really scary for the ill person as well.

My brother has been laboring for months now getting the second house on my parents' property fixed up for himself and his Precious Boy. He's made himself a lovely home, with his own blood, sweat and tears put into this sweet little house: He's made it his own kingdom, and I'm incredibly jealous, because all everyone really wants is something to call their own.

I decided to take out my crocheting the other day and work a little more on it.

When the Precious Boy was a baby, I made him his own white and blue blanket for his crib. He slept with it right until he outgrew his crib, and every night that my Dad put him to bed, he would tell the Precious Boy: "Your Auntie made you this blanket." I think that is ever so sweet.

And so now, I'm working away on this blanket, hoping that it will be big enough to go over a big boy bed in the Precious Boy's new home.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love blankets. I firmly believe that you can't have enough blankets in a house. You need them to play Peek-A-Boo with little babies; to wrap up in for reading; to cuddle in; to hold you when you're sick, and to comfort you when you've gotten your sorry butt dumped yet again.

My nephew seems to have the same love and appreciation for blankets that I do, which I find ever so adorable. When he was a toddler he would carry around blankets in the living room, make himself a little bed on the floor, and watch a movie with my cat.

And so, I've decided that this wool should not go to waste. I can make it into a blanket for the Precious Boy: it will be big enough for his brand new bunk bed. Perhaps it will take him all the way through his teen years. I wonder if some day he will cuddle into it with a big, stupid grin on his face over the girl he danced with at the Halloween Dance. I wonder if perhaps he will cry when the girl from the Christmas dance breaks up with him. I wonder if he will wind it around his fingers, contemplating fifth grade math. I wonder if some day, if I ever get it finished, it will be love-worn and shabby, like so many of the blankets I've had in my life. Or perhaps it will stay, folded in the closet, for overnight guests, and he'll see it every year at spring cleaning, and think "My Auntie Made that for me". Either way, you can't have too many blankets in a house. A blanket never goes to waste.

Toonses

Pics of my underpants....

It is in this post that I will show the world my attempt to boycott any and all clothing that is remotely fashionable, and foray into my new wardrobe of men's boxer shorts, jogging pants, and hoodies.

I crave comfy clothes. As a result, I went shopping today with one of my favorite shopping buddies.

The result?

Jogging pants and hoodies! And boxers! Really, I'm so thrilled with my purchases that I may not actually remove them from my body until June, and that's only because the Berry Queen would refuse to have me work on her farm dressed in such a way. I actually bought three pants, three boxers, and two hoodies, but I'm wearing one set as I type and I must say, I feel great. I'm cozy, and warm. They are not clinging to my backfat, or constricting me in any way.

They are perfect.

And so, the world keeps spinning and I am warm and cozy in my new clothes. I have a social gathering of sorts to go to on Saturday, and I'm wondering: Can you wear this to a house party?

I really don't see any reason why not!

Toonses

The stuff that dreams are made of...

I've been daydreaming all day.

Dreaming and planning and planning and dreaming.

I can't stop.

You know what I'm dreaming about?

My truck.

All day, I've been planning how I'm going to save up my down payment, where I'm going to buy it from, whether I'm going to get a tunnel cover or one of those roof thingies over the bed.

I already know that it's a red six cylinder manual transmission Dodge Dakota.

It's just paying for the damn thing that worries me.

So, don't tell me I have no goals. My truck will be mine, dammit. I may never get married, never have children, and live with my parents for the rest of my life: but at the very least, Coperni-Kitty and I will travel in style.

Toonses

I want to be a cowboy, Dammit....

Do you ever listen to George Strait?

You should start.

Right now.

Go to limewire, and download Amarillo By Morning. And listen to it. Fifteen times consecutively.

Now.

And when the sun gets high in that Texas sky, you'll want to be buckin' at the county fair as well.

In other news: the Christmas tree is up! Less than a month till Christmas, only a few days until exams, and I haven't begun to study yet.

Well, I did start today at seven. And now, at seven thirteen, I'm surfing the web and blogging.

After these finals?

My last semester.

Very scary indeed.

Toonses

The Sally Dog....

The Sally Dog was once known as just plain Sally. But then the Berry Queen, who was not yet the Berry Queen, came into our lives with her beautiful and wondrous Berry Baby the First.

Berry Baby the First was an amazing baby from the beginning. She was beautiful, and clever, and most of all, she allowed me to hold her and tote her around for hours on end.

When Berry Baby the First learned how to talk, she was confused, because The Sally Dog didn't like her. And she was told relentlessly to not touch the dog. Alternately, she was told to not touch Sally.

And so, Berry Baby the first dubbed Sally: The Sally Dog.

The Sally Dog was a wonderful Dog. She was there when SuperNan took her biggest fall: A fall right from the hay mow in our barn, onto a concrete floor, and ended up spending three months in a full body cast. We were all worried to get SuperNan from the hospital because The Sally Dog jumped on everyone. She jumped, sniffed, wiggled, and carried on over anyone who came through the front door. And how on Earth would we get SuperNan in without having the dog trample her to death?

But The Sally Dog didn't jump on the back-broken SuperNan. Sally sniffed her in the car and knew immediately that something wasn't right. And so, The Sally Dog became SuperNan's protector. She stood by SuperNan's side throughout her recovery, making sure that no one would hurt her. She eased ever so gently -- that crazy, woud-up, hyper German Short-Haired-Pointer -- on to the couch to be by SuperNan's side. When the doctor recommended that SuperNan walk to build up the muscles in her back again, there was the Sally Dog, walking ever so gently by her side.

The Sally Dog was my protector. Night after night, during my teen years, The Sally Dog would sleep on the bottom of my bunk bed while I clung, plagued by anxiety, to my pillows. I was terrified of the dark until I was seventeen.

One night, I heard a sound. It was a bone-chilling, terrifying sound. And I knew that I had Sally to Protect me. The sound continued for what seemed like hours, Sally patiently sitting on the bottom bunk. Eventually, the sound got so loud, and so horrifying, that I hid under my pillows.

I hid under my pillows and down duvet for what seemed like hours in the hot July night. I was sweating and then eventually crying, because I was so sure that this sound would come to kill me. And then Sally started. First with soft whimpers, saying "This isn't Ok with me." Then, she started growling. My protector.

Then she started full-on snarling, growling, barking, carrying on. It was at this point that I could take it no more. I started screaming bloody murder. Howling, crying, screaming.

My mom, SuperNan, came into the room in a hurry.

SuperDad slept on.

I clung to my mother, screamin, crying, drenched with sweat, hollering:
"Can you HEAR that?! Can you hear it!! What is it?!?!"

Sally continued letting us know how she felt about the random sound. She was not pleased.

And SuperNan said: "How can anyone hear anything amidst this hysteria!?!?!"

We went outside to investigate the sound: Me with my aluminum baseball bat and Sally by my side. My protector.

She took one look at the massive owl outside the door, tucked her tail, and yeeped her way back inside. My protector?

Sally started having some health issues when I was sixteen, right when Big Brother the First and Big Brother the Second left home. Big Brother the Second was away at Basic training at the time.

We decided to keep The Sally Dog, our Sally Dog, alive on pain killers and a myriad of other treatments until Big Brother the Second could get home from Basic.

But she just couldn't last.

I remember the day that I came home from school, and there was a hole dug under the flag pole. And I knew.

And I knew even more when I came home, and The Sally Dog just looked at me and whimpered when I came in, rather than jumping on me insanely when I came in. Even in her later years, in all her wisdom, she never lost that joi de vivre that puppies have.

She looked at me, and I looked at my parents, and they said she had had a stroke, and she couldn't walk any more. She just sat there, looking at me, My Sally Dog.

The vet came, and we wept. The vet also wept, as she injected The Sally Dog with the solution that would end her life.

SuperDad had dug a hole under the flag pole, where the equally infamous Dooley had been buried years before.

He dug a wonderful hole, very deep, that was layered. He picked up our Sally Dog, myself and his wife weeping quietly by his side, and laid her ever so gently in her grave. He tucked her legs up under her, and she looked the same way she did sleeping on our couch for all those years. SuperNan and I had to go inside, have a Coke and a smoke while SuperDad filled in her grave. We couldn't be there to see our dog covered in ground, gone from us forever.

Sally was the dog. You know how in wedding stories on TV, they talk about THE ONE? Yeah, well Sally was that dog. She was our protector. She dragged me down the laneway hitched to a sled when I was little. She came to each individual bed in our house each night to sniff us out and make sure we were ok before she could go to bed. She snarled and growled and put on a good show for any scary characters that showed up at our door, but everyone who knew her loved Sally.

She was there from when I was about five to when I was sixteen.

And I still think about her. I still love her. I still plant flowers for her under the flag pole every year.

We love you, Sally Dog....

Toonses

COnversations with my mother...

You know, there are a lot of things in this life that makes coming from a farm come in handy. While a lot of my city counterparts may laugh at me because I'm such a redneck, you learn a lot of handy things on the farm.

Like where babies come from. When we were little, the breeder man came and bred cows for us. (He used Artificial Insemination). But then, handily enough, a few months later a baby cow came out, and there you had it. Simple as pie. That must be where babies come from.

How to milk a cow by hand. If I ever get lost in the back woods of Germany? I'll be able to milk cows that we come across in the valleys.

How to deliver a calf. I figure that the next time a Berry Baby is getting born, Berry Queen won't even have to go to the hospital. She can just call me, I'll grab my pitchfork and my baler twine, and she'll be saved all the time and hassle of going to a hospital. (Not that there are any more Berry Babies in the near future, but I remain hopeful. Just because I love babies).

Having grown up on a farm is also handy because, despite the physical differences humans have from cows (Like the whole four legs/four stomachs thing), we still have a lot of similarities with cows. I like that, because I can sometimes call my mom with a health question and she'll know the answer because it's something that occurs in cows and humans.

The following, for example:

The Scene: Walking down the streets of the big city towards work, frantically dialing my parents....

Phone: Ring! Ring!

SuperDad (In CowTown): Hello! How are you! What's new and exciting!

Me: Work! School! More work! I need to talk to my Mooooother!!!

SuperDad: *Rolls Eyes*: SuperNan? She's looking for you again.

Me: MOM!! What on earth is Drug X that the doctor just gave me? Is she trying to kill me? I need answers, dammit! I don't trust this crazy city doctor, and now she's prescribed Drug X and I've heard that hollered out on ER one too many times in this lifetime! So, have you heard of Drug X?

SuperNan: Oh, yes, Dear. We used to tranquilize cattle with it all the time in the eighties. Why?

Exeunt

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Toonses

All cultured out...

So, my culture project is done and done.

I was really worried about it for a number of reasons. For one, I've had a lot of people say to me "Redneck Culture? That's an interesting choice". They all say it rather non-chalantly and I'm never sure if they're actually thinking it's interesting, or actually thinking it's the most ridiculous topic they've ever heard of.

I think the thing is that a lot of people don't really think of the cultures they have right under their noses, and that's a main thing that this culture project has taught me. I had an Anthropology project earlier in the year, and I had to observe the cultural practices I saw in my own neighborhood. Since I am a country mouse and a city mouse, I chose the city as my neighborhood for that project.

And I decided to observe the drunken fools who meander about my streets late on Friday nights. Because that is part of the culture that we belong to here in the big city.

It always surprises me because after I gave that presentation, one person in the class raised his hand and had all kinds of problems with the presentation. This same FuckWhit is in my Culture class, and I'm scared that when the time comes for me to speak about being a redneck, he'll say something equally stupid. I can't do confrontations at the best of times: i doubt very much I can be confronted about something that means as much to me as life back at the Ranch in front of fifty strangers.

So, with all my fears about the possiblity of the stupidity of doing a project on North American Redneck Culture, I went to my professor.

I had a nice sit-down with him and explained that everything we do in the country is so much different from how we do things in the city. Take pants, for example. In the city, you always see these Coolio Ganzales types walking the streets with their many pocketed ass-hanging cargo pants in camo. In the country you see the same thing. The difference is in utility, because country cargo pants and city cargo pants have different meanings (and, they're typically worn high enough to cover, at the bare minimum, a large portion of one's ass). In the country, it's about duck-hunting and having enough pockets to put your hunting gear in, and in the city, it's some kind of status symbol.

I also explained to him how very, very much all of this means to me, and at the end of our chat, the Prof's eyes lit up and he said, "Very Well done. Very observant, it sounds like your project is just fine".

So, hopefully my mark reflects this just fine-ness and I can walk away from at least one class this semester with an A.

Wouldn't it be nice?

Toonses

Pppppfffffftttt

That's the sound of the balloon that was my NaBloPoMo popping.

I have failed.

Today, I spent from eleven a.m. until three a.m sitting in front of my computer. It was all set up nicely at the kitchen table. SuperNan had cleaned and put out fresh smelling candles around me while I labored.

And in all those hours?

I was online.

And in all those hours?

Coming to blog completely left my mind.

And now I'm out of the challenge. Sigh.

You'll be happy to know, however, that my Culture project is coming along nicely. I have the academic part of it completed, with Works Cited and all. Tomorrow Davey is going to help me make a cultural representation of what rednecks stand for.

And a grand time shall be had by all.

Toonses

Poor little Coperni-Kitty....

What I love about Copernicus, dsepite all of her never-ending foulness, is the fact that she loves her kennel. Every time I get it out to go home, she runs over, hops in, and lays down. Sometimes she makes a cute little chirp-y noise as she gets in. I always imagine it's her way of saying "Take me home now!" in her finest kitty manners.

The sad thing about it is that after she's been so happy to get in, she has the worst ride of her life. She usually sits in the car while we have supper, and occasionally do some shopping. Then she's forced to endure the long, windy, smoky ride back to the Ranch strapped into the back seat.

You'd think that once we got here she'd be incredibly pleased, as this is like her real home. But no. As soon as she gets here, three obnoxious dogs and occasionally any number of small children have their hands and snouts all over her. She is then forced to puff up her tail like a peacock and hide for the rest of the weekend under the dining room table.

And to make matters worse, the cat food here sucks. (By Copernicus standards, at least.)

And yet, every time I get out the kennel, she acts like its some big treat to get in it and go for a ride. And every single time, she is sorely disappointed.

I guess that goes to show that having long term memory is a handy thing after all.

Toonses

Here I am....

Sitting here with Maggie. *Sob*

Yes.

The Maggie.

As in, the former Phinnaeus' sister.

You have no idea how cute she is.

And her brother is no longer with me.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and cry into my pillows.

Love,

Toonses

Help me, dear readers....

I'm doing a project on culture for... get this... my Culture class! Amazing!

Sorry.

At any rate, I'm doing this project on Redneck Culture. And since a few rednecks, and I'm sure a few city folks read here....

What is meaningful to you about your culture? What do you like about being Urban, Rural, or Suburban? What makes your culture a culture that you belong to? I need to get my creative stuff creating for this project, which is worth fifty percent and due on Monday.

Yes, Monday.

I totally thought that I had a family psych paper due Monday, so this week I've been studiously working away on my Family Psych paper. (Topic? Mom, you'll love this.... Boomerang Children! They just keep coming back!!)

I've been having a tough time hauling my sorry butt out of bed lately. Some days I think I'm on the mend, but some days... it's pretty rough to get up and go. I figured that this time would be the best time to chill out and stare at four walls for hours on end from the un-comfort of my hundred and five year old bed, seeing as how it's after midterms and before finals. I thought all my projects were due after the next weekend.

It's amazing how you lose track of time.

At any rate, wish me luck. For the first ever time in my life as a student in the Big City, I went to the library and got some books and now, I have an incredible amount of skimming -- er, intense reading during which I will absorb and understand every word I come across to do.

Toonses

Scared and Alone....

It's dark and scary as I write this, and there is a hideous crashing and banging noise on the balcony.

So I consulted Davey, who suggested that I dub Coperni-Kitty my Battle Cat, and investigate the noise with her at my side.

The question I had left is, how on Earth do I make Coperni-Kitty into a Battle cat? And Davey, as usual, had all the answers:

All you have to do is say, "Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic thongs, and said, by the power of underpants, I HAVE THE POWERRRR!!!! And I became Amanda-ra, the most powerful woman in the universe; and Coperni-Kitty became the mighty Battle Cat! And together we protect the apartment!"

Problem?

I only have lucky thongs. I've never had a magic pair.

Sigh. Foiled again, and scared I will remain.

Toonses

Breaking up is hard to do....

The lovely Berry Queen and her very fine eldest son came to the Big City today to pick up Phinnaeus/Fighter. Whatever his name is.

On his last night, I didn't really cuddle him much. I was trying to get used to the idea of him not being here any more.

And now I have a problem. The Berry Queen flatly refused to bring Phinn's things with her to BerryLand. I suppose this is understandable seeing as she has a house filled with five children and now four cats and all of their belongings and she probably doesn't want any more belongings but what on Earth am I to do with a little red litter box and food dish? And Kitten Chow? Coperni-Kitty is not a kitten any more and doesn't need kitten chow!

And then I was thinking, what better thing to do with kitten chow and kitten supplies than to find a kitten to make good use of them?

But, that would be costly. Coming into possession of a cat by accident and through true love is one thing, but purposefully seeking one out? When you do things like that, you end up with cats like Coperni-Kitty: and while I do truly love her and wouldn't trade her unique personality for the world? Well, she's a dud as far as pets go.

Seriously. When the people came to get their kittens last Wednesday night? Their first question was "These aren't related to Copernicus, are they? Because the cats that come from her family are Psycho." That's right. People are desperate to not have cats like mine. Sigh.

The Berry Queen suggested that I clean the red litter box out and use it to store my socks. Not a bad suggestion, on the whole. I suppose a sane person would just throw it in the trash.

Since when have I ever claimed to be sane?

Toonses

I am soooo out of the loop!

One of my friends pointed this out to me at the SubShack party the other night, and I was dumbfounded. At first, I was convinced that the two beers I'd consumed must have hit me harder than I thought, because no way in Hell could this actually happen in real life. It is possible, as well, that those two beers could have affected me in an entirely different manner than I would expect them to due to the new-fangled fancy schmancy CrazyMeds the lovely doctor on campus gave me.

It seems that altering the quantity and type of medication I take can cause me to see double when drinking. Which is hilarious for the people around me, but not so fun for me. At any rate, I was sure that this had to be some wacky side effect of my new meds, but no: it's a true and real thing that happened in real life.

And I didn't hear about it until now.

Some genius pulled this off in the Ikea catalogue and I think it's hilarious. We happen to have a copy of this catalogue right here in our very home, and it was the biggest hit of the party Friday night.

It turns out that this catalogue caused a world wide scandal when it came out, because there are people in the world who are much more observant than I.

Now, I don't know who did it or why. But someone thought it would be funny to put a human schlong (As my pastor calls it) on a dog in the catalog. Yes. The Ikea catalogue has a picture of a ... Yes. That.

While I find this incredibly tasteless and extremely icky to have to look at: Kudos to you, Buddy. If there ever was a way to get back at a company you hate, this is it.

Toonses

Farewell, Phinnaeus.....

Dear Berry Baby the Third,

Your mom called me today to ask me a favor. It seems that you miss your kitten. I assure you that he has received only the best of care here, he has eaten the finest no-name kitten chow money can buy, he has endured his first party.

But you still miss him.

I've had a feeling in the pit of my stomach for a few days now. Knowing that I love this little kitty, but at the same time knowing that having an extra cat is kinda pricey.

I also know that you miss him.

And so, dear Berry Baby, of course you can have your kitten back. I would do anything for any of you members of the Berry Family, and this is a small price to pay for everything you have done for me in my life.

Have your kitten, Berry Baby. Please take him, love him, hold him, pet him, squeeze him, kiss him....

In twenty four short hours, he will be yours once more.

All my love,

Toonses

SubShack Social....

To see some pics of some supercool SubShack employees gettin' their groove on, click here

A rockin' good time was had by all, excepting, of course, the people who live around us.

Do you know who the guy in the orange shirt is?

We're not just sandwich artists: We're like local celebrities!

In which I beg my father for a kitty....

Dear SuperDad,

I have to say that I am aware that I'm probably the most troublesome child you have. I needed those pesky braces on my teeth as a pre-teen, I get all kinds of sicknesses that require you and SuperNan to spend money on prescriptions, and you and your lovely wife are paying my phone bill (Among other things).

As one of your children, I am also the most confounding to you. I think the boys are probably much easier to deal with because they generally try to act like sane, rational people whereas I am the type who is prone to scream, cry, throw things, and have nervous breakdowns. If I had a quarter for every time you've asked me to please calm down, or to stop crying, or to not let something get to me, you probably wouldn't have to pay my phone bill any more.

Along with my fits of hysteria, I am prone to making fairly irrational decisions. For example, last week the Berry Queen came by to give some kittens to my friends.

And, as your luck would have it, one of my friends thought that perhaps now is not the best time to get a kitten.

And, at the same time, I happened to fall in love with him.

And I may have bought him a litter box and some kitten chow. Oh, and while I was buying that, I decided to name him Phinnaeus.

The problem is, Dear SuperDad, that I need to move back in with you fairly soon and as a result, my little kitty will be coming with me when I get there. He is really no trouble at all. Except for the whole curtains/houseplant fiasco of last week, but I think he's outgrown that already. And, you don't have any houseplants.

Another think about me is that I am prone to having fits of giddiness and cackling. Sometimes you swear expletives at my cackling fits and beg for me to please stop making noise. Sometimes you look at me with a little smirk on your face and a twinkle in your eye that says "Geesh, this kid is wierd." But your look also says "But she's mine and I love her."

So, think about how wonderful I am, how happy this little kitty has made me in the last weeks, how having another little kitty in the house will really not affect you at all, how your Grandson will love it when the kitty and I visit....

Think about the hours of cuddling good times, the enjoyment I'll get out of watching him climb my flimsy purple curtains, the warmth he'll bring me in the cold winter months.... Think about spelling his name out every time you say it in front of a new person, because Phinnaeus is kind of a strange name for a kitten.

Oh, and while you're thinking, think about saying yes?

Much love,

Toonses & Phinnaeus

Oh, Bother....

Well, you knew I had to blog about it eventually.

Britney is asking for a divorce. Sigh.

I really did have hope. I really wanted them to work through their issues, for him to take a shower and for her to wash her hair, and live a happy life together. I suppose that since they are a Hollywood couple, the chances of that happening are slim, seeing as how even Reese Whitherspoon and Ryan Phillipe have broken up. It also looks like Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman are having some issues as well, seeing as how he has gone to rehab.

You know, I don't understand this fascination I have with Britney Spears. I love her. I check out her various websites every day. I read people with 'wild abandon' on a daily basis.

And I've been sitting here in this big city, clenching my fists, saying "Go marriage! Stay commited! Yay Britney!" for two years now.

Unfortunately, like many people in this world, she married a fuckshit. You'll notice how I am being totally one-sided here? How I'm not putting any blame on her at all? Yep. You're right. I blame the man.

At any rate, I hope that she can find her peace, I hope that her babies can grow to be successful people, I hope that he can still be involved in his children's lives, and most of all?

I hope it keeps on happening on the internet, right before my eyes.

Toonses

A Tale of Woe...

The other day, I was talking to the Berry Queen on the phone. It was Tuesday, second day of deer hunt 2006. She mentioned that SuperNan hadn't been answering the phone. Berry Queen sighed and said that SuperNan was probably still upset about the dog.

This got my Spidey Senses tingling. What could be wrong with the dog? Initially I assumed that my brother's dog, who my parents are babysitting, had eaten something of value.

But I had to ask "Which dog?"

And Berry Queen stopped. Because clearly she shouldn't have said anything and clearly I did not know anything about any dog at that time.

My Dixe had gone hunting that morning and never came home. I sat feeling stunned, because I love Dixie. She is the best deer hound there is, and the best housepet there is. My precious nephew also tends to think that Dixie is his dog, and he loves her to death.

And she was gone.

I laid on my bed and cried. I curled up into my hundred and five year old frame, and cried until I felt I would throw up; until my throat hurt and my eyes were swolen and bright red.

I couldn't imagine anything worse than Dixie, alone in the rain and the forest. No kibble, no jacket, no family around her to keep her safe. Just her cute little self all alone, wet and afraid and with no warm bed to sleep in.

Dixie is a hilarious dog. We actually refer to her as Uncle Dixie. She is a wonderful deer hound. What makes her great? The fact that she comes when she's called.

Dixie turned six this summer. She is not a rookie deer hound any more, and there is really no reason for her to not come home.

Unless someone stole her.

The thought of someone else having my precious puppy turns my stomach. They will not love her the way I do. They will not ever say "Muppy Muppy Muppy" many times consecutively to make her whine and squeal with delight.

I could sit for hours thinking about the horrible things that could happen to a sweet little beagle like Dixie and it makes me want to be sick.

Fortunately, my parents got a phone call yesterday. All my tears were wasted because Dixie did not have to spend the night all alone in a big, scary forest. She was not stolen by big, mean, angry hunters who would not feed her table scraps and who would not let her sleep in a real bed.

Dixie decided to kidnap herself right into the nearest hunt camp she could find after spending a rather long amount of time running a deer the otehr day. I can just see her Beagle-y little slef waltzing in like she owned the place, sitting down beside someone's truck, and begging the nearest hunter for a piece of his sandwich.

The gentleman who found my Dixie was a very kindly man, indeed. He fed her, let her sleep on his couch over night, and called in the morning to say that he had her, safe and sound.

So, Dixie is back. After a long night of crying, worrying, despairing... my little puppy is safe.

Toonses

For the Berry Babies...

Apparently, Berry Baby the Third requested a picture of his kitten on the internet. I went one better and made his cat an entire photo album on my other site

Click on the clickable word to get to a full photo album of the kittens.

Toonses

An open letter to the Berry Babies....

To my Dearest Berry Babies (and you KNOW who you are!)

I have to write this letter with a little bit of sadness and a little bit of happiness. I am sad because I know that you, dear Berry Babies, are sad that your kittens are no longer in your house. And I know how sad it can be to watch kittens go.

However, I am happy because your lovely Mom spent the day with me and bought me all this:

I know that to you it looks like a bunch of groceries, but to me it looks like a bunch of supper. When you've been in school as long as I have, you really do begin to appreciate the meaning of that word. Mmmmm, supper. I digress.

You know, Berry Babies, when I was younger my mom used to let me take one day off school every six weeks while I got my braces tightened. I used to get to go out to lunch, see Berry Baby the Eldest and Berry Baby the Second, and of course, get my braces fixed. Don't worry, Berry Babies, I'm working on your mom to fix you up with the same deal. I think it would be lovely to have a day every six weeks where all of us can go to lunch and catch up. Because every berry season is not nearly enough.

I am happy, though. You Berry Babies have done something wonderful: You have shared your kittens with three girls who will love them very much. Your kitties will have excellent homes with very nice college students, all of whom work at the SubShack with me. My cat, however, is not very impressed with me right now:
Well, perhaps she is unhappy because of these kitties taking over her apartment. And make no mistake, it is the cat's apartment and not mine and not my roommate's.

I really think that your kittens will have fun at College. The same fun that you will have one day. They will experience the joys of eating no name cat food, much like you will experience the joy of eating no name Kraft Dinner.



Your kittens will also learn what it is like to live in a cool apartment with crazy purple curtains and a view of the city. Indeed, after only a single afternoon here, they've learned that they can be studious, they can be Tarzan, they can fling kitty litter about the house, and they can pretty much do whatever their little hearts desire.


Your kitties can also nap here, as much as they want, on a couch that was once upon a time a cow. And what could be better for a kitten to nap on than a leather couch?

So I have to say, Dear Berry Babies, that I think you should cheer up. I would never let someone have your kittens if I didn't know in the bottom of my very heart that these girls will take excellent care of them. Your kittens will grow, and prosper, and turn into big, fat, lazy city cats. And because you have given my friends the joy of a pet, I have to say a great, big thank you to you!

Love,

Toonses

Kittens!!

The lovely Berry Queen is delivering her kittens tomorrow morning. I had to give her directions to my house in the Big City.

Vive Le Quebec.

The first hting I have to say is that my street has a ridiculous name. And saying it on the phone to someone with a plethora of children (and, as it happens, kittens) in the room is quit tiring.

I also don't actually live on a street.

I live on a Rue.

Vive Le Quebec.

Furthermore, I don't actually know how to get to my house from BerryLand. So, I gave her the wrong directions to get here.

Fortunately, I called my mom to confirm the directions and found out that they were wrong.

I called the Berry Queen and told her my mistake. She was aghast that someone would send a woman with a car filled with kittens and a newborn baby on a wild goose chase around a city with ridiculous street names that are not actually streets: They are Rues.

Vive Le Quebec. Encore.

So, it turns out that the Berry Queen will not be heading Sud on the main street in our fine city, she will be heading Nord, before she turns on to the Rue that will lead her to her very own Berry Princess.

You'd think that being born in this country and having survived its public school system would make for me having fewer issues with the whole language barrier thing.

Apparently not.

At any rate, Kittens! Here! Tomorrow!

Pictures to come!

Toonses

Deer season continues....

So, while I get to head back to the big city, deer season continues. My whole family will be out in the bush, tracking deer, and I'll be sitting in Anthropology and then heading over to the SubShack.

I'd love to come to my blog tonight and tell you about the great eight point buck that came through the clearing in the woods. How I saw him and ever so silently, ever so carefully, turned off the safety and raised the gun to my shoulder. How he looked directly and for one millisecond, there was perfect silence in the universe. How he looked at me and bang, with one clean shot-- one perfect, clean, beautifully placed shot-- he fell to the ground. How I was heroically recieved back at the vehicles for my wonderful skills and hunting prowess. I'd love to tell the tale about how the taxidermist was so impressed with me that he offered to mount the rack for free, but I'd have to pay for a full head mount. I'd love to tell you about the praise and wonderment in my father's eyes when he looked unto his daughter, the Great White Hunter.

But that would be bragging.

And lying. So I won't tell that story.

The real story is that I never even saw a single deer excepting the one that I helped Big Brother haul out of the bush. SuperNan and I had a great time sitting in the early morn, and a wonderful time stalking deer through the bush. I never got to fire a single shot from Big Brother's shotgun; although, I was tempted to shoot the squirrel that was harping at me and, in all likelihood, was scaring away all the deer with his endless chatter.

I decided against shooting him because his head wouldn't be nearly as impressive mounted on a wall.

Sigh.

At any rate, a grand time was had by all. I'm really looking forward to next deer season when both Big Brothers will be here and hopefully our gang will be a little bigger.

Until then, the SubShack it is.

Toonses

Blaze orange suits me well...

My first deer season is off with a ... well, not a bang, exactly. It would have been off with a bang had the owner of my shotgun not left for Afghanistan with the key for the trigger lock in his pocket.

The weather for deer hunting is generally pretty chilly. I'm the type of person whose summer wardrobe doesn't really differ from her winter wardrobe; as a result, I've been kind of stressed about the chill factor. Fortunately, Davey came over to save my butt once again with an entire sack of nice, warm clothes for deer hunting that belonged to his late father. If anything, I'm sure that Mr. B would be thrilled to know that a new generation of hunters is making good use of his clothing.

I offered up the hooves of my first deer to my co-workers while leaving the SubShack on Friday. I thought it would be nice to see if any of them wanted to make a decorative ashtray out of them. Oddly , no one took me up on it, but my Grandma asked if she could have the tail for a lucky deer's tail. Then she confided that she would much rather see me take a picture of the deer with the camera my Grandad's money bought. However, SuperNan and I are going hunting together so we thought that perhaps one of us could photgraph the deer and the other could shoot it.

In all honesty, I'm not sure how I feel about killing something. I really don't want to. But at the same time, I want to be a marksman. I want a rack of antlers to hang on my wall. I want the other guys to look at me and think: "Hey, that little girl can shoot."

Field dressing is another issue, but I think I'll be fine with that. I love watching my father and brothers clean ducks and geese. It's like a lesson in biology, really, and when I was given the opportunity to dissect a pig in biology class in high school, I thought it was great. The fact that each of us has all these little things within us, working separately and together to keep us going, is wildly fascinating to me and I love checking out all the parts.

In all, I think deer season should be nice. If nothing else, I hope to get some great sunrise shots with my new digicam.

SuperNan and I took a sip from Big Brother's lucky shotglass as well. This is one of the few times he won't be here for deer season. Big Brother, we're thinking of you and all our soldiers, here at The Ranch and we love you.

Toonses

Blog Challenges are great....

Not only am I in the NaBloPoMo challenge, I have my bi-weekly NOTI challenge to keep up with. This week's challenge is to list two famous people you would want to befriend and why.

So, first off, Toby Keith. Because I love him. And I want to marry him. And I find him sexy in an incredibly odd kind of way. And I really do think that Toby should have been a cowboy, and that his sidekick with a funny name could have been me. We could have been runnin' wild through the hills chasin' Jesse James. We could have ended up on the brink of danger, ridin' shot gun for the Texas Ranger....

But seriously, I think Toby and I could sit and chat over beers. I think we could make up lyrics together, and talk about regular things because although he's a bit of a jackass, he's also just a regular type of guy. Red Blooded American and all that.

But really? The reason I would befriend Toby Kieth? I would simply use him.

I've always said that the first thing I would do if I ever got famous would be to go overseas and sing for the troops. I would love to be on stage in front of a thousand men in uniform. I would love to let these guys forget that they are a million miles from their wives, babies, and children; their mothers fathers, sisters and brothers; their dogs, cats, hamsters, and goldfish; their houses and their cars and their hobbies. They are a million miles from everything that they love and everyone who loves them. And I would love nothing more than to perhaps make all those things disappear for a few minutes and sing my heart out on a stage in front of them.

And Toby loves to sing for our troops.

Next on the list? I have to say it's a tie for Merle and Willie. Because Lord only knows that I have a newfound love for old school Honky Tonk and I would love to sit down with them and belt out a rendition of Pancho and Lefty or Branded Man. I would love to crack open a few beers and play into the dawn. I'd love to sit and watch them play the solo out of the original Pancho and Lefty. I'd love to swap guitars and see how they like my Gibby, and feel what it's like to hold the instruments of two musical geniuses in my arms.

And in an ideal world? All three of us: Willie, Toby, and Merle would go on tour. I'd open for them, and then they would get out and have a rockin' good time on stage. I really can't imagine a better concert than that. And at the end of the night, we'd get in our tour bus, sleep the wee hours away, smoke some cigarettes and stare out the windows of the bus at the scenery that passes us by, and we'd think: Day-um. This is what it's all about. Singing your heart out. Living your dreams. Making music history. And drinkin' a few cold beers.

And we'd think, Dude. Life is good.

Toonses

The Quest for Kittens continues....

Dear Berry Queen,

I realize that you have living with you a trampy, harlot teenage cat mother. We are all much surprised that she has managed to see her litter of babies to kittenhood. I suppose that you, of all people, are the most surprised to be living in a house with five Berry Babies and four Berry Kittens.

You have bestowed on me the task of ridding you of your kittens in the best way possible: Appealing to the hearts of college students who can barely afford their beer nights, let alone a mouth to feed. Let alone the costs of raising a kitten to adulthood. Let alone the cost of keeping their furniture intact, and their house free of generations of Berry Kittens to come.

I have come through. You have four kittens. I have appealed to the hearts of four of my friends.

Now, my dearest Berry Queen, comes the time for you to fulfill your part of the deal. You must drive to the depths of the Big City and you must feed me. You must regail me with tales of what is happening in BerryLand. You must give me all the newest details in the development of your lovely children's lives. You must transport -- with you in your BerryVan -- these four creatures who are as sure to bring joy and sorrow to the hearts of their newfound owners as my Coperni-Kitty has brought to me.

Are you in, Berry Queen? Can you handle it?

Time will tell.

Love,

Toonses

The utility of a cat....

My brother hates cats. He says they are useless, they really serve no purpose, and they aggravate him.

I, as you know, own a cat.

Unfortunately, I tend to agree with him. My cat really serves me no purpose. She is an expense. She is aggravating. She doesn't hunt anything.

But that's not to say she doesn't serve a purpose.

The first year of her life was a wonderful year in blogging simply because she caused me so much strife. I blogged about her extensively because she was insane She cribbed (Those of you in the horsing world understand what this means). She howled. She kept me up at night. She got sick.

Because I'm so cool, I even left a few parties last year to stay home and crochet her some toys. She still plays with them and the joy I feel in my heart when I see her playing with the toy I made her.

She carries it about the house like a Blankie

She brings it to her favorite chair...

She acts like she's the Queen of her Throne

And so, you see, there is some use in having a cat. If nothing else, seeing her play with the toy that I made her brings joy to my heart.

Having something to chase my feet at night is cool.

And having someone to post on my blog about: Come one now. That's priceless.

Toonses

NaBloPoMo

Here it is! Your first post for the month of November. We'll have to see how well my stamina keeps up.

Let's recount the events of my Halloween, shall we?

Eight p.m: Called Aunt to have a sleepover

Nine p.m: Arrived at Aunt's house

Ten p.m: Watch SVU! Hurrah!

Eleven p.m: Went to bed my in cousin's brand new bed that is not a undred and five years old. It was bound to be a good night.

Twelve a.m: the phone started ringing.

One a.m: Slumber feels near

Tw0 a.m: Phone starts ringing again

Three a.m: Slumber feels near

Three Thirty a.m: Cousin comes in from work

Four a.m: Slumber feels near

Four Thirty a.m: Other cousin comes in

Four Thirty-Two a.m: The smell of booze wafts into the room as she stumbles by the bedroom door.

Can you see where this is going? I decided to join my aunt for five-thirty a.m. tea until she so generously dropped me off at my class.

In a stumbly-feeling fog, I managed to make it through class and a couple bonus hours I scored at the SubShack.

I plan to be in bed at six p.m this evening.

Toonses