When your cell phone's to your ear - Your driving brain is out of gear

Whenever I see a Groundhog, it makes me sad.

Sad is a strange reaction to seeing a large rodent.

When I saw one, I thought of food. Food for desperate times. Days when any kind of meat would do. Our family could not be picky and survive for long.

Killing one was only the beginning. FYI, Groundhogs require lots of time and attention just to get them to a point of acceptance as victuals.  If one was not prepared properly, the meat would not be chewed and savored.  Oh No! It would be bitten off in small bits and promptly swallowed.  Soaking the meat in milk may have helped the taste but who could afford milk?

I know…Groundhog’s Day is a quaint custom. Knowing what I know about Groundhogs; no self-respecting Groundhog would be caught dead outside its burrow and cozy, underground den in early February, especially not in Pennsylvania.  That’s even farther north than this area. Groundhogs are herbivores. They mostly eat plants and Groundhogs WILL wake up hungry.  They do have a territory to graze but it’s not large. So plants need to be actively growing when they emerge from their dens. That’s probably the best time to kill and eat one. Most of the offending, rancid, stored up fat has been utilized by the Groundhog’s body to sustain it while in its stupor state.

We might have stood vigil at its den opening with great expectation but it certainly wouldn’t be to observe it and take note of whether it saw its shadow or not. Anyway, if whether the sun was shinning on Candlemas Day was a harbinger of six more weeks of winter before Spring made an appearance, any object that was capable of casting a shadow would have sufficed, even the observer’s body.

Crocus are more dependable than a Groundhog’s shadow. I’ve seen them poking their heads up through a layer of snow and ice before Spring came around.

Groundhog’s and sunlight are not compatible in my opinion. Bright light causes them to rub their sleep-filled eyes before they can see a predator and to show up better in a rifle scope. No wonder they are afraid of it and run back down into their den for a longer nap. They appear more intelligent than your average Pilgrim on the hunt for desperation food. 

Love is a subject so varied, and yet, so specific, depending on what area of life one makes reference to; it would be impossible to form a general opinion concerning it.

Love is an emotional adhesive, bonding people to people, people to things, people to places. There is love of money, love of country, love of God, Brotherly love, marital love, parental love, self love, Christian love, love of life, etc. The list is endless.

One thing is for sure; "Love Binds" when it is genuine. To separate one from a thing which is loved, another person which is loved, or a place which is loved, temporarily or permanently, is not a simple act of separation, putting some distance between the two, leaving each one whole and complete. It is a traumatic event, emotionally violent, tearing away some portion of the one which loves, leaving behind a person less than whole, who will experience some degree of emotional pain.

Love is an unstable element of life. It gives pleasure when binding two objects together, but mutates into a source of emotional torture during or after separation. If love is directed toward another person, and it is not returned by that person; love can transform into the bitterest kind of hatred.

Love is seldom passive or uncommitted. It is either precisely focused or dormant, waiting for some stimuli to spur it into action. It seems to come from an inexhaustible source deep within an individual.

Love can be like a wild fire, all consuming, ravenous in its appetite. It leaves ashes behind when it goes, it doesn’t take all evidence of its presence with it, like rain that has been dried up by the sun.

I don’t believe in love at first sight. I believe in attraction and lust. Love does not exist without reason. Love is not blind, but it can be stupid, illogical and irrational. It sees but it excuses, accepts, covers up and pushes aside without prejudice.

Love can exist where one would least likely expect to find it and yet, it can be noticeably absent where one might expect it without exception. Love is an enigma, a conundrum; a force that defies understanding and comprehension. It cannot be pigeon-holed.

Because Maureen goes outside so often to smoke, she has many more opportunities to observe more of the goings on in our neighborhood.  I do wish she was as considerate of herself as she is of myself and Gail. So far, it has been a very cold January here in Kentucky. I can only imagine how difficult it is for her to continue to spare us and the house, but Maureen has always been thoughtful like that. The story which follows only serves to reiterate the accuracy of the fact.

Several times over the past week, Maureen has come back into the house and commented how she had been seeing this strange, white dog wandering our area. She couldn’t tell the breed from a distance but she stated that it looked a lot like an American Eskimo dog. She classified it as “strange” only because she could not recall seeing it before.  There are several dogs that do wander about freely and often but somehow they continue to elude the Dog Wardens that patrol this area from time to time and sometimes more frequently, as in when someone calls them and complains. I will confess, I’ve been guilty of it in the past.

American Eskimo dogs are of special interest to us since Jenny had one parent that was of the breed.

Today, around three this afternoon, Maureen called from work and said she was ready to be picked up. I turned of the TV and got ready to leave. Jenny was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She knows what it means when the phone rings that time of day and Mom hadn’t been around all morning.  She simply loves to go get Mommy from work.  Today though, both Jenny and Gail were waiting for me to come down. Gail was dressed and ready to go. She had to pick up some prescriptions from the CVS drug store. It was in the same little shopping mall where Maureen works and not out of the way at all.

Once there, I dropped Gail off and continued down to where Maureen usually waits for Jenny and I. I circled the lot and parked out front to wait for Gail.

Back at home, we got our cups of fresh coffee and went to the living room to chat and sip for a time. Maureen took her cup and stepped out onto the patio. When she returned, she once more commented on seeing that white dog. It was then that Gail recalled seeing a poster on the wall outside the drug store asking if anyone had seen this dog. There was a picture included and Gail said she remembered because the picture looked something like Jenny. As these kind of situations often will play out, Maureen looked out the living room window and there was the very dog she had been seeing off and on. Gail, Jenny and I all saw it too. Jenny was the most vocal about it. She was at the window, barking for all she was worth. Suddenly, the dog was joined by one of the Boxers that seems always to be running the streets around here. 

Maureen wondered out loud…”Do you suppose there is any chance that this dog could be that very dog?”  She suggested that perhaps she should call Annie at CVS and ask her to get the phone number from that poster so she could call the one looking for their dog. It’s funny how events like this one go down at times. Most of the time, it’s unproductive and a waste of time and effort but something was nagging Maureen on the inside. Might we call it “intuition” or some other equally mysterious, female trait? I for one am a believer in such manifestations. I’ve had many of my own and Maureen’s have proven to be more accurate most of the time.

Annie has always struck me as a very caring person. She proved once more that my impressions of people are usually correct. She took time out of her busy work day to get that number for Maureen.

Maureen called the number right away and as the universe would have it, the person was at home and very excited to hear that someone might have spotted their lost dog. She told Maureen that she was headed right over to search for the dog. Maureen told her that she would get dressed and walk around a while to see if she could spot the dog again. The woman on the phone told Maureen that her dog’s name was “Kilo” but she would be surprised to find out that he came to any stranger trying to call him. That woman doesn’t know Mrs. Dr. Dolittle. That’s what we often call Maureen. She is an animal Whisperer. They all seem to love her right away.

Maureen was dressed and out the door. Later Gail says she saw this dark colored car passing up and down our street. She assumed that could be the dog’s owner. She assumed correctly we were to find out when Maureen returned. I told Gail I saw Maureen walk back past the house, heading toward Delphi Ave and I thought I heard her call out “KILO!” as she did.

At some point, Maureen and that lady met up and talked a while. Maureen says she suggested that the woman go over to Bright Leaf Bypass and into the subdivision since the dog seemed to be headed that way. Maureen returned home because she was getting very cold after being out for so long.

Some more hot coffee and Maureen was recovering body heat while she filled us in on what she had learned. Seems Kilo ran off with another one of the family dogs. That other dog returned home later but there was no sign of Kilo. That was on the 22nd of December. This is January 5th. That’s about two weeks of running wild for Kilo. We wondered where Kilo was getting food and water. Water might come from the local creek down by the main road. Personally I don’t know how the dog made because it has been so cold of late. I guess it’s good that Kilo is an American Eskimo.

I for one could sense that something good was about to happen. I don’t know how to explain it, but everything was falling into place. Everyone was so excited and cooperative. Maureen must have been feeling that way too. I could hear it in her voice as we discussed everything relative to the event.

Soon, the phone rang and it was the good news we were all hoping to hear. The woman had followed Maureen’s suggestion and sure enough, there she spotted Kilo, sitting on the sidewalk, just inside the subdivision entrance. She called to Kilo and Kilo ignored her. She got out of the car and took a step or two toward Kilo and Kilo charged her and all but jumped up into her waiting arms.

Maureen said she could hear the sounds of family members rejoicing in the background as the woman thanked her endlessly for her involvement in Kilo’s return home. The lady told Maureen her oldest daughter broke into tears a few times Christmas Eve and Christmas Day because she missed Kilo so much and was so worried about him.

It was some time before Maureen could stop listening to the family celebrating and shouting “Thank You!” loud enough for Maureen to hear. Maureen was wearing this extra wide smile when she hung up the phone. Then, this little family did some celebrating of our own.

It was so great to have that happen. Now, as for me…I’m going to call it Destiny.

Maybe it’s no big deal to some of you but we know how we’d feel if Jenny got out and ran off for two weeks. I know; it’s just a dog to some, but to this family and many others I’m sure, it’s like having a lost family member come home after being lost. 

Maureen and I were watching Fox and Friends, Sunday edition this morning.  They went to the topic of the young man who tried to detonate his underwear bomb as it approached Detroit.

Maureen hates Obama for breathing. I voted for the man and I’m sorry to say, he has become a huge disappointment to me.

She says “I guess Obama and his crew will turn him over to our legal system, get him a free lawyer and waste thousands of taxpayer dollars guaranteeing him his civil rights.”  Both of us declared in unison…”What civil rights.  He’s not a U.S. citizen.”

I suggested…”If there were any justice in this world, he would be placed before an assembly of news cameras, have an explosive device of some kind affixed to his body and at some counted down point in time, detonate it where all could witness it.”  Film at eleven!

He wanted to sacrifice himself for some Jihad purpose.  He should get his desire and the justice he deserves.  I for one would be sated.

Obama – The PEACE President my eye.

Do you think our enemy would hesitate to make an example of one of our captured soldiers and video tape themselves cutting off his head and showing it on TV?

I’m sick of our government trying to suck up to our enemies.

If Obama hopes to be reelected in 2012, he’d better start doing a better job of defending our country.

Lets not overlook the fact that if said terrorist had been successful he would have killed all the people and crew on that plane, not to mention some untold number of others on the ground as the pieces of that plane fell to earth.  We KNOW he is guilty.  Why does he deserve a trial?

 I cannot recall the last time I spoke these words, but today I can honestly say,

"We had so much FUN this year at the family's annual Christmas Eve gift exchange dinner."

I can also state that Maureen and I have never put so much time and energy into the gifts we were presenting to our sibling, family members.  I know, Christmas is said "to be for children" but not this year; not in this family.  If I'm remembering accurately, there was only two children under the age of ten years present at this gathering.  The children's time would come either later in the evening back at their homes or Christmas morning when they would gather around their family's Christmas tree.

It was a few years ago when all the grown-ups got their heads together and seriously discussed the concerns of several heads of families about whether we could afford to continue to buy and give gifts to all the children in our huge extended group, what with the average family income being what it was and how there was little hope for much improvement in the near future.  We decided that no one would continue to do so.  Let's face it, our family was growing at a never before known rate when it came to the number of children there was to buy gift for.  It was time for everyone to tighten their respective belts.

Even Santa was feeling the financial pinch!