Just for the smelluvit

We noticed that when Ray takes off his shoes, Bandit Cat goes berserk... twisting & wiggling until he gets his head as far as possible into the deep (and smelly) recesses of said shoe. He is not a small cat so you can see he is not able to get all of him in there. Evidently, whatever he finds in there causes him great pleasure, as you can see by the look on his face in the picture above.
Those two kitty boys tried my patience severely a couple of nights ago. I was trying to get them to come in for the night (into the garage) and Bandit ran into the sunroom with a large mole dangling from his mouth. Of course, Smokey tried his best to share in the prize & they were both running around the room with me screaming & trying to drive them into the garage. Finally, Smokey (in a snit) ran out the back door into the dark & I got Bandit (and his mole) into the garage. I kept checking every 20 minutes or so, calling "kitty, kitty" out the back door but no Smokey. Meanwhile, Bandit was still in the garage and after a while he started having a fit to get into the sunroom. By then the mole had disappeared... I probably don't want to know where. So I opened the back door again, walked away and when I turned around... there was Smokey rolling around on the floor and playing with his very own (dead) mole...looking for all the world like he was telling Bandit "see... you're not so smart". More screaming & chasing and they finally settled down out in the garage... and next day... there was not hide nor hair of either mole. Sometimes I wonder... but, like I said... I don't really want to know.

Sometimes I wonder...

Like today... I wonder why a temperature of 34 degrees feels so much colder on April 15 than it did on January 15? Additionally... WHY are we having temps in the 30's in APRIL for heaven's sake??? But I guess I can't really complain after the beautiful, sunny Easter Sunday we just had.

And I wonder why every now and then this thought flashes through my mind: Omigosh! The cleaning lady is coming tomorrow and this place is a mess! So I wonder why I spend a whole day getting ready so the CL can spend half a day getting rid of our dust collection and vacuuming in places I can't reach. And then I spend a few more days looking for the things I hurriedly stashed away so the CL wouldn't have to deal with the clutter. Just wondering...

Like yesterday as I was sitting through the process of being "permed" I began to wonder... what possesses us ladies to submit ourselves to this modern day torture? After the B.O. (beauty operator) shampoos & creme rinses us, he partitions our locks into small sections and rolls each one of those sections onto a small plastic rod after first wrapping those hairs with a cigarette paper (anyway, it sure looks like a cigarette paper). That takes a while and is a little bit painful as the rods have to be rubber-banded tight to your head. Then he squirts some awful smelling liquid all over the rods & puts a plastic shower cap on your head, and you wait. Not too long, or else the permanent wave you went in for will be a permanent frizz for the next few months. The next step is a rinse with warm water, then the rods are squirted with another liquid, the 'neutralizer' (sounds a little ominous doesn't it) and then a final warm water rinse. You now have little ringlets all over your wet head. But... the B.O., using a hand held hair dryer and a brush, will attempt to pull those little ringlets into a straight line... so that he can then, using a hot curling iron, put some curl back into your hair... only not little ringlets, something larger and softer and more to your liking. Finally, you are combed out, fluffed up, sprayed down and sent on your merry way. Sometimes I wonder...

That's allotta bull...

This story is about a bull, but first a little history. My dad (born 1902) had an eighth grade education but was one of the smartest (self-educated) men I've ever known. He devised an irrigation system for his farm in Oklahoma in 1953 when no one else around was irrigating. Long story short... the irrigation well consisted of a six-sided hole in the ground, twenty feet deep and maybe 10 to 12 feet in diameter. There was a pump in the bottom of that hole which drew water from six sandpoints which had been driven another 20 feet into the ground to reach the water. Please don't ask me what is a sandpoint or much of anything about that well cause I was a teenager then and had more interesting things to think about.
Well... eventually the irrigation system was no longer used and somewhere in the sixties the well was abandoned and covered with a wooden lid. One day in 1968 or '69, Dad's big ol' black bull came up missing. By then I was living in Texas so obviously, I was no help but the folks still living there looked and looked for that bugger. Finally in desperation, my little brother walked out into the field where that irrigation well was; wel-l-l-l... there was a big hole in the lid of that well and... there was that big ol' black bull standing at the bottom of the well... unhurt, but mad as hell!
So... how do you get a big ol' bull out of a 20 foot deep hole? And still be alive after you do? Not to worry... little brother went to the neighbor & got him and his dozer to come over and they began to push dirt into that hole... a little bit at a time. When there was a pile of dirt built up they would throw dirt clods at BOBB (big ol' black bull) until he climbed up on the dirt and then do it all over again. Eventually the dirt built up to the point that BOBB could climb on out of that hole... by then the clod throwers were hiding out and giving him plenty of room.
When my little brother told this story at the recent Texas reunion I told him to be sure and write it down but I figured he never would so I just did it myself (with his permission) and am giving him full credit for the whole thing. Thank you, Vern.
Oh yes... after hearing that story one of my nieces said "up until then those machines had been called dirt dozers... but ever since have been known as bulldozers."