A dog's diary:

7 am - Oh boy! A walk! My favorite!
8 am - Oh boy! Dog food! My favorite!
9 am - Oh boy! The kids! My favorite!
Noon - Oh boy! The yard! My favorite!
2 pm - Oh boy! A car ride! My favorite!
3 pm - Oh boy! The kids! My favorite!
4 pm - Oh boy! Playing ball! My favorite!
6 pm - Oh boy! Welcome home Mom! My favorite!
7 pm - Oh boy! Welcome home Dad! My favorite!
8 pm - Oh boy! Dog food! My favorite!
9 pm - Oh boy! Tummy rubs on the couch! My favorite!
11 pm - Oh boy! Sleeping in my people's bed! My favorite!

A cat's diary:

Day 183 of my captivity. My captors continued to taunt me with bizarre
little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced
to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape,
and the mild satisfaction I get from clawing the furniture.

Tomorrow I may eat another house plant. Today my attempt to kill my captors
by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded - must
try this at the top of the stairs.

In an attempt to disgust and repulse these vile oppressors, I once again
induced myself to vomit on their favorite chair - must try this on their
bed.

Decapitated a mouse and brought them the headless body in an attempt to make
them aware of what I am capable of, and to try to strike fear in their
hearts. They only cooed and condescended about what a good little cat I was.
Hmmm, not working according to plan.

There was some sort of gathering of their accomplices. I was placed in
solitary throughout the event. However, I could hear the noise and smell the
food. More important, I overheard that my confinement was due to my powers
of inducing "allergies." Must learn what this is and how to use it to my
advantage.

I am convinced the other captives are flunkies and maybe snitches. The dog
is routinely released and seems more than happy to return. He is obviously a
half-wit. The bird, on the other hand, has got to be an informant and speaks
with them regularly. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his
current placement in the metal room, his safety is assured. But I can wait;
it is only a matter of time.

Life lesson number 1,567,895 Just because you can kick ass with a caulking gun (and caulk) does not, I repeat, DOES NOT mean this talent will automatically transfer to the art of grouting tile.

Mistake #1 Decided (while taking a shower) that some of the grout in the shower that has been flaking away recently needed attention. IMMEDIATELY

Got dressed and mixed the mud up (luckily I already own the tools to make this happen otherwise it would have been a baking pan to mix mud and a spatula to spread it). Shower contents got strewn all over the bathroom......big ole mess to clean up (including the grout that I am not very graceful with) 

Mistake #2 - which is actually an extension of mistake #1

Put zero thought or preparation into the grout process. Rob had to take a whore bath this morning - gave him a 2 quart bucket to dump water over his body while he sat (or squatted; I wasn't there) in the tub. I suppose a more tactical plan would have been doing this on a Friday afternoon

Mistake #3 Do not try to compensate your shortcomings with something you are good at. Immediately after grouting I pulled out the caulking gun and found plenty of stuff that needed a good caulk. The dogs went running shortly after that -

But the bathroom looks nice today

 I have to throw in a pic of our sink. A good friend in Colorado made this for us.

 

And the last (but not least important thing to remember) the Dalai Lama has to say:

"There are various positive side effects of enhancing one's feeling of compassion. One of them is that the greater the force of your compassion the greater your resilience in confronting hardships and your ability to transform them into more positive conditions"


"the way our attitude works is such that it is often troubled by outside factors, so one of the issue is to eliminate the existence of trouble around you. However, even more important is the other side of the issue, which one's own mental attitude"

 

My words: while Johnny Depp may look good, this here is a beautiful man!

 

Or is that whirrled peas?

 

Regardless, let the turds fall where they may and recycle as often as they deem necessary.

 

 

I am gonna' be right here doing what I do best - being a smart ass and eating cheese whiz.

 

Or is that jeez whiz?

Shit - over the last couple of years we talked with Butch about buying his house, paying his back taxes and giving him an opportunity to start over (with $ in his pocket). His asking price was never reasonable at $300,000.

I did a valuation and due diligence to come up with my offering price. In that valuation I found out that a house can be leveled and hauled off at a cost of $7,000 to $10,000 - depending on the amount of "extra" crap that would need to be removed on the lot. There was a lot of extra crap so I went with the higher number.

What I never realized was how damn fast it happens!

Just last week it looked like this!



Biggie and I snuck in last Sunday - here is the living room



Biggie had to slum it for a minute!



3 days later it was reduced to this


I come home to find this yesterday


We did get a couple of trees out of the yard before it came down.

I am not sure why I feel the need to post this....something is tugging at me to get this out. This is not intended to demand debate nor am I looking for further argument about what Squash did or did not. Just putting out my thoughts and why I felt I had to deactivate. I was very disturbed

It was sad:
Sad that he molested

Sad that he played two roles (and I still do not have both sides of the story and did not read the blogs everyone was heated about)

Sad that he was invited to join in and I can only imagine a guilty and lonely mind that may be finally accepted – how and when do you let that kind of skeleton out of the closet?

Sad that so many people here have been victims and this affected them on a personal level

Sad that some got close enough to him that they felt betrayed

It has been said on more than one occasion that people should be cautious of who they befriend here. The internet is the ideal venue for anyone to manipulate and deceive. We have all seen this on the news about predators (and not just children) that lurk on the internet. While I have a hard time making the pixels on my screen into a friend as quickly as others – I am not judging anyone who does. I just don’t quite understand this side of it.

In the words to follow I will make some analogies and quotes that most of you may not like. I just don’t seem to see any other way to get this across of why the situation bothered me. I have been called a supporter of Squash’s, his friend, condoner of pedophilia, judgmental of others and because I am not a mother it has been implied that I could not possibly understand. That is so off base. The things I am going to say are not to attack anyone nor imply that anyone is something they are not, but the comments played out on a level that I do not feel comfortable being around.

I was not angry. I was saddened and disturbed by things that were said like (I won’t place in quotations): a good public lynching is sometimes necessary or fuck his sympathizers - they are not welcome here. But the point of “this is sad on so many levels” was there were only 2 kinds allowed in those comments – supporters on one side or the other. It seemed the venue continued to turn the path of passionate hate without regard to stepping back and taking stock of what was really going on.

The anger that was channeled through such passion is a toxic cocktail. Terrorists have such a misquided passion that they terrorize and kill. The guy in Lancaster, PA had a passion of hate that lead him to kill those children. Pedophiles and molesters have such misguided passion they hurt others. Since these groups tend to be on the "less than" side of society, I will step back a few years and mention the history of our country.

The white man has had such misguided passions that minorities and their supporters were denied basic rights, treated as animals and killed. The KKK is not compiled of a bunch of nut jobs (okay, I would call them nut jobs) – they are/were community leaders with education and power. They managed to fire a passion of hate in people to further their fucked up cause. In the case of the American Indians- well, you get my point. I did not want this to be political; so for the sake of making a point I used two examples all of us at least know something about - I used this to show what happens when anger is taken to a passion on such a level that it did last weekend.

That disturbed me. I am not saying anyone on Blogstream is any of the above examples – they are just that, examples, of what can happen when a group of people allow such anger to passionately flow, breed and grow.

I know there were apologies made for things said – I am not discrediting that. I am not blaming or judging anyone. That was a lot of bloggers that quickly rallied up and that is what has me disturbed.

I have been asked to return by some. From others’ comments publicly posted, I am sure you care less. Those that have asked me to return it is on the basis of why I came here….to post my smart ass humour and a few pictures. Will I return? I don’t know. I suppose we shall see if this post gets me lynched.

Or maybe just one person will understand that I am not and was not a supporter of Squash’s, his friend, condoner of pedophilia, judgmental of others and I am not a mother because of the dangerous people that lurk around corners, the hate humans can inflict upon each other, our current state of government, pollution, food preservatives and all of those little pieces that could potentially choke a small child…. So yes, I DO understand. I choose not have children because this kind of shit